Chrome
I tiny glossary of Urdu and Hindi words:
Mali - gardener
Sahib - Sir
Chota - little
Chota Sahib - Little Sir
Khansama - cook
Chrome
When I was just a child in India…
How many times has that prefaced a tale?
Our Mali fashioned for me with two sticks and net, a toy.
A net for butterflies. And I went out and gathered
Scooped the air and brought within our bungalow
Plucked from out the ether, tiny souls;
Chrome yellow butterflies, no bigger than a spot of light
They’d fluttered in the morning air, bright drops of light.
We found a box, a compact wooden box, of wood and glass.
To hold my hostages, my minute captives.
And placed the box so that I could see it as I ate.
And gazed at them with awe; bright jewelled drops of light
Sunlight I had brought within our room.
They fluttered back and forth, and filled my little box
With movement… unrelenting movement … continual.
Beat tiny wings against the glass,
The wooden walls arrested frantic flight…
Yet within the confines of that little box
Their luminescence somehow paled.
I’d fed them sugar water in a tiny shallow cup
Or meant to feed, for never did they seem to stop to rest or sup
And, thinking now, perhaps they fluttered all the night.
Till on the third day, in the morning,
Krishna came and took my hand.
“Sahib! Chota Sahib, It is not kind.
Sahib, Chota Sahib, please let them go”.
Took me with him to the verandah, my little hand in his;
His most loved hand … and in his other, the little box.
He held the box so I could see my little butterflies, and then
Released them in the sparkling air,
And yet, released they did not fly, as formerly;
They still described the confines of their earlier cage.
Fluttered round as if they measured still their confined space
Five wooden sides; and one of glass.
In tight knit group, they fluttered round;
Suspended in the morning air above me
Half beneath the sky. Half above the ground.
And then as if to punish me, their former gaoler,
But I had thought, their former host,
Each, one by one, fell away;
Broke away from their formation,
Fluttered limply to the dust… their chrome now gone…
The underside of upturned wings a less dramatic cream
They lay there. Fluttered. Then were still.
I had detained them for three long days…
And doing so, curtailed their tiny lives…
Their tiny lifespan by a half or even more.
Silently I walked back to the bungalow.
Krishna held my hand
This is a hub relating to me and where I come from; both geographically and emotionally. If you liked it, perhaps you would like the others here included.
- Jeanette MacDonald goes to Broadstairs
My parents met in about 1937, when my mother was a nanny to a rather rich Polish family living in Ivor, Buckinghamshire. As part of her duties, she would travel to a local private school to collect the little girl in her charge, Anne Zinzinanix I'm - Does Anyone Know What I Am
This is an attempt to explain why I have no loyalty to any particular country or geographical area over any other, as I come from, or lived in, and loved, many. So when I read any nationalistic, or emotionally heart-warming poetry to do with Homeland - Krishna in the Morning
I had woken when Krishna came into the room and had brought me out of light sleep as his dry feet moved over the dry floor. Krishna always walked so quietly, so as not to wake the Chota Sahib. He walked so quietly, but when he saw that I was awake he - Good Bye - A Poem Concerning departure
"Good Bye" by "Anonymous" This Poem was printed in: The Indian Army Ordnance Corps Gazette Vol. 25 December 1947 No. 12 The Author ("Anonymous") expresses her sorrow at leaving India and the wonderful India People; the country and people whom she had
- Going to Poona - Part One: Shivaji Nagar
India, 1946. Independence looms. Day in the life of a Chota Sahib. But this young boy doesn’t realise that he is the baby who will be thrown out with the bathwater. He’s Indian, but the wrong colour. - Going to Poona - Part Two: Poona Railway Station and the Big Shop
India, 1946. Independence looms. Day in the life of a Chota Sahib. But this young boy doesn’t realise that he is the baby who will be thrown out with the bathwater. He’s Indian, but the wrong colour. - Going to Poona - Part Three: Returning to Dehu Road after Dark
India, 1946. Independence looms. Day in the life of a Chota Sahib. But this young boy doesn’t realise that he is the baby who will be thrown out with the bathwater. He’s Indian, but the wrong colour.
