Mapping the Self: Three Points Around Which I Walked to Understand Myself Better

1. Graffiti, Zamrudpur (picture above)

Do you know what a quarter is? 

Currency, ek chauthai, part of a grapefruit 

-Mausumbi- 

Haan malum hai. 

Papa ke paan ke dokaan ke bagal mein raat mein bolte Hain 

'Quarter, quarter' 

Sniggers from four corners

This is a joke created out of the spaces 

Of why they would always sit opposite me, 

Not next to me. 

An eight year old learnt fractions with alcohol quantities

An eighteen year old spelled out

In the retreat of the evening

How he thought it was 

what he thought I was 

When I didn't know what they were talking about 

when they said knowingly,

Papa ke paan ke dokaan ke bagal mein raat mein bolte Hain 

'Quarter, quarter'. 

*

2. The Waxing Lady's Tale, GK1

She's seen her legs the way you wouldn't imagine them.

If you've crossed LSR in February there are flowers that fade 

Come April 

After the flower has been seen.

She is the gardener. 

Pull, tug, tear down, border off, landscape 

Limit wilderness to where you might find it beautiful enough to award it a token of appreciation:

A cup, for example. 

Drink her in slow, 

Because she spent three hours on achieving that glow 

That you're going to give a cursory glance to. 

She's doing it for a filter less selfie 

That she's going to drown in filter anyway 

(Even the golden honey instafair instaremoval nohairdontcare can says 

Valencia)

But just so you know 

She touched her there and there and went down south 

To strip down the Amazon basin

Before you even found your Brazil. 

The difference is, she stopped to question 

Why the basin had rivulets in red 

And knows enough about blades To say 

'Ma'am, aage se mat kariyega.

Yeh toh bada dark ho gaya.' 

*

3. Cosmetic Surgery, Amar Colony 

I bought Whisper 

She decided to stay free 

By choosing an alternative for (a) good foundation-

What you must skip on a menu card

But pause and consider in a cosmetics shop-

Soufflé. 

Each poster said natural, natural, natural 

I remember the ice cream company 

and vanilla and chocolate and 

Placing my arm on my friend's and 

Making chocolate and vanilla ice cream, naturally. 

Woman, subtle woman, smart woman, cool woman, 

saleswoman,

Considerate enough to stop and look from friend to me 

To consider skin colour before 

Choosing what was an appropriate foundation. 

Naturally. 

Vanilla soufflé on skin, 

mixing so perfectly that you

wouldn't even know it was there.

But it was. 

The foundation was always there. 

When asked what was better: 

a fair or a natural foundation, 

She said, 

'Natural, naturally. 

You have to make the foundation look natural.'