Antiman
Page 27
Tying my veil,
I will meet my beloved.
You tell me,
Ke ekgo din pinjare se
hamar pran urdijai,
One day my breath
will fly from this cage
a sparrow released
to the wild.
V.
That night you die
I dream you as a shadow,
open palm pressed to my chest.
One year after—
at dawn a sparrow’s shell
on the fire escape
withering flight feathers
laced as fingers,
as praying hands.
Reincarnate
A book, dusty pages or pages in slow burn to dust: From dust you come
When water evaporates: salt
of the earth: It falls back in English
How many monsoons has it been since I’ve returned
I once moved to India to find a trace of my jaw in an Uttar Pradesh village but found only a random hand job on the train to Kanpur
I did not come back unburned by the fields of mustard or the parched winter smell of scorched rubbish to keep hands warm
The Hindi word baras, year, sounds like barish, rain
How I looked for home in a man’s chest but found only dust, but that’s a story I tuck under river silt
How many years has it been since the river dried up
When rain falls, what becomes of this body, this dust?
Open the Door Reprise
I SAT AT her feet on the tiles. “One more, na?” I begged. Aji’s eyes were shielded by her cataract glasses, thick as bulletproof Plexiglas. Heavy on her nose’s bridge, the indentations were perfect reservoirs for her tears. She had been singing all day and night. There was a Bhojpuri song for birth, one for grinding grain, one for looking left before you cross the street, and one for looking right. There were Bhojpuri songs for being plucked out of your village in Guyana and placed in a Scarborough tenement.
She sang a song of never being able to go back to where she was born after the last of her children left for Canada to forget their brown. It was my brother’s wedding and we sat in the Florida room. For her language that was dying—a language that she sang her children into. For Aji, this was a time when she missed the greens and reds of the wedding festivities in Guyana. The green-green bamboo that makes the marro—or the mandap where the dulha and dulhin sit before a pandit. The red vermillion that the dulha streaks in the part of the dulhin’s hair.
She must have thought back to her own marriage—how everything changed for her when she entered a man’s house. No more was she allowed to freely walk down the dirt road past the cows and donkeys. All this slipping away to be written in someone else’s work of fiction. Some of it for the better. Some of it causing her to languish in silence. What did her grandchildren know of this life that unfolded its lotus petals far, far away in back home?
How far she was from this scene—where women gathered to sing and cook and teach the dulhin the ways of marriage, around a karahi with frying rice to puff for the fire sacrifices and the frying puri in the next fireside. And now, this: she lived in a place where the idea of a fireside—a chulha made up of mud with a section at the bottom to feed wood into the flames and an opening at the top to place the pot or karahi—was considered foreign or illegal, a fire hazard. So many customs that she brought with her were deemed hazardous to white bodies.
The acoustics were better in the Florida room than the living room—they carried Aji’s verses into the place where lamentations float like dandelion seeds and plant themselves into fields of memory. These songs were the food that we ate. These songs forged our bodies from their longing.
“Me cyan’t sing mo’,” she said, her voice faltering. It was okay. I had recorded about three hours of her stories and songs. “But me go talk one story now.”
ultan sultan howe dono bhai ho
ultan sultan tare ho
pajire se kara kara bhaile dupahariya
kholo bahini baja rakhe ho
tohare dolar bahanoi janghiya par sowe ho
kaise ke kholo bhaiya, baja rakhe ho
lewo bahini lewo more sir ke pagri ho
kholo bahini baja rakhe ho
pajire se kara kara bhaile dupahariya
kholo bahini baja rakhe ho
kaise ke kholo bhaiya hamare lugariya
gaile dhobi ghatwa paas ho
lewo bahini lewo mor kandha ke kanawar
kholo bahini baja rakhe ho
kaise ke kholo bhaiya baja rakhewariya
gorwa mein lagal mehendi ho
pajire se kara kara bhaile dupahariya
kholo bahini baja rakhe ho
tohare bhaujiya toke pahur petaile ho
kholo bahini baja rakhe ho
kaise ke kholo bhaiya baja rakhewariya ho
bhaujiya hamar orahan petai ho
pajire se kara kara bhaile dupahariya
kholo bahini baja rakhe ho
ultan sultan howe dono bhai ho
ultan sultan tare ho
’E seh, “How me mus’ hopem de door, me foot got mehendi? How me go hopem a door.”
’E buddy tell ’am seh, “Hopem de door. F’om mahning me stan’ up, you bhauji sen’ pahur—some chawr—fe you. Hopem a door an’ tek ’am.”
You know, longtime India people been a too much kine people. So ’e seh, “‘e sen’ some rice fe you.”
“Me cyan’t git up fe opem de door, me husban’ sleep pan me lap.”
“Tek me head ke pagri an’ put ’am pan you husban’ head an’ hopem de door.”
“Me cyan’t hopem de door. How me can hopem de door, how me can put ’e head pan da t’ing? Me bhauji go sen’ complain’ an’ tell me zat, ‘O, you been love you bruddah like you husban’ everyt’ing you bruddah seh you do ’am.’ So me na go do da. ’E go sen’ orahan, ’e go insult me.”
“Hopem de door an’ tek de pahur. From mahning me stan’ up til twelve now at night an’ you na hopem your door.”
“Me cyan’t hopem de door because me clothes na deh, de gan a dhobi ghat, ’e gan a laundry. Me deh naked. When ’e go come how me go hopem de door? Me cyan’t hopem de door an’ me a naked an’ me buddy go come in. Me cyan’t do da.
’E tek out ’e kanhawar, de t’ing ’e get pan ’e shouldah an’ seh, “Tek dis an’ wrap youself an’ hopem de door.”
“Me cyan’t do da. If I do da me bhauji go beat meh an’ orahan ’e go sen’.”
“Arright, if you na hopem de door abi go deh right yah an’ drop doung dead an’ you go see. You na go see abi.
An’ so seh so ’e done. Sistah na hopem de door atall an’ ’e stan’ up-stan’ up hungry, cole, an’ rain a fall pan dem, you know? An’ dem two buddy fall doung an’ dead.
Me lahn dis song when me mumma dem does plant rice an’ ’e does sing da song. So me been know da song good-good, man; right t’rough me been know ’am but right now me a fo’get, beta, too much t’ing. Me baice done now, mirt lok mein chala gayal.
Gaye jawani phir na ayehai
chahe mor mar mar ja
gaye samaya phir na ayehai
chahe dudh ham ek liter kha
Da day gone na ca’e wha’ you do da day na go come back no mo’. Young days cyan’t come. You strengt’ gan—you cyan’t get no mo’.
I turned off the tape recorder, opened up my journal, and transcribed the song to translate later.
Upturned, a brother and sister’s bond.
Go and see who is at the door, sister.
Early morning, midday, the sky blackens.
Open the door, sister.
Your spoiled brother-in-law sleeps on my lap,
how can I come open the door?
Take this, sister, take this turban from my head.
Open the door, sister.
Early morning, midday, the sky blackens.
Open the door, sister.
How can I open the door when my clothes
&n
bsp; have all gone to the washer’s by the river?
Take this, sister, take this my shoulder cloth.
Open the door, sister.
How can I open the door wide, brother,
fresh mehndi dries on my feet?
Take these, sister, take these, my sandals.
Open the door, sister.
Early morning, midday, the sky blackens.
Open the door, sister.
Your sister-in-law has sent rice and daal.
Open the door, sister.
How can I open wide the door, brother,
my sister-in-law will send a complaint.
Early morning, midday, the sky blackens.
Open the door, sister.
A brother and sister’s bond is backward,
even the stars are broken.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was written on Kanaka maoli land in the occupied nation of Hawai‘i Nei, where The People fight to protect their sacred land from the United States’ genocidal machine, especially Mauna a Wakea, where the University of Hawai‘i and the local government are forcing the installation of the Thirty Meter Telescope. The protectors of the mountain are winning, galvanizing, and preventing this desecration.
Parts were also written on stolen Mvskoke and Hitachi lands in Opelika, Alabama where the People were forced to march to reservations at the end of the Trail of Tears, displacing more than 60,000 Tsalagi, Mvskoke, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Chahta people.
Still more sections of this memoir were written and edited on land belonging to Wabanaki Confederacy, the Piguaket (Pawtucket) on the border of Revere and Malden on the banks of the Rumney Marsh Reservation, outside of Boston, Massachusetts. This land is called Wabanahkik, which means “Dawnland.”
Hamar purakh logan ke aapan anant dhanyavaad.
Pranam Bhagwati Gangadai, Sewdass, Mahabir, Lachchiman, Phulkumari, Janghbahadur, Anupiya, Lakpat Singh, Tukrayan, Jakti Singh, Nandrani ke; Hari Prashad, Emma Louisa Vera, Sant Ram Mahraj, Etwariya, Arthur Vera, Maude (Janaki?) Watson ke; Kisnasamy ke; aur baki logan ke jekar nam ham na jani.
Jahaji logan, tu logan hamar pran ke adhar hai saat samandar par kare khatir anant dhanyavad.
Thank you to Terry Hong, Héctor Tobar, and Ilan Stavans for selecting this manuscript for the Prize for New Immigrant Writing and to the folks at Restless Books and especially to Nathan Rostron for believing in this strange project and for helping me with making it the strongest that it could be.
Special magical shukriya to Anjoli Roy (Dr. Roy), who showed me that nonfiction was transformative and how to transform into a cat, who believed in this project and me even before I did myself, who read and gave me so many helpful comments, and who still gives me strength to endure. Thanks also to Devi Laskar, who broke open my thoughts on genre and who read versions of this memoir and gave me such insightful guidance. Still more thanks to Joseph Han for his prose devotion, the countless hours of listening to me, the thoughtful conversations, his reading this work, and for all his time and thoughts on genre, creative nonfiction, and the best ramen to be had in Honolulu. Thanks also to Shawna Yang Ryan, whose comments on “Antiman” moved me into narrative thinking. Thank you all for your eyes on my work and for your guidance during the stages of this book. Thanks also to Rigoberto González, who told me some stories are too big for poems. Thank you also to Shikha Saklani Malaviya for your poems and for the madad with the Hindi.
Thank you to my family, including Anjani Prashad, Emile Mohabir, Emily and Kalem Jones, Taylor, Devin, Lily, Nathan (Rajiv) Mohabir, and Silas Saiya-Baba Jones. To Jodi Miles, Sarah and Justin McIver, to Will, Rosie.
Thank you to Dr. Corinne Hyde—who I have known since I was eleven, who saved my life countless times but appears nowhere in this book.
To Robindra Deb, Suzanne Wulach, Jessica “Jegga” Bartolini, Mae and Atin Mehra, Gollu Mehra, Ryan Artes, Nicole Cooley, Kimiko Hahn, Roger Sedarat, Craig Santos Perez, Allison Hedge Coke, Akta Kaushal, Lyz Soto, Amalia Bueno, Sarah Stetson, Katie Williams, Andil Gosine, Rushi Vyas, Will Depoo, Kazim Ali, Mohamed Q. Amin, Caitlin Rae Taylor, No‘u Revilla, Will Nu’utupu Giles, Lee Kava, Caribbean Equality Project, Zaman Amin, Blue Flower Arts, and to everyone else who has been in my writing life.
Thank you my colleagues and students at Emerson College and to Kundiman for the community of writers that I have found here.
Thank you, Jordan Andrew Miles, for supporting me as I wrote through in these dark stories. Thank you, Enkidu and Kajal, for bringing me the joy you do.
And to you, dear Reader, thank you.
Jug jug jiye.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RAJIV MOHABIR is the author of Cutlish (2021, Four Way Books), The Cowherd’s Son (2017, winner of the 2015 Kundiman Prize) and The Taxidermist’s Cut (2016, winner of the Four Way Books Intro to Poetry Prize and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry in 2017), and translator of I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara (1916) (2019), which received a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant Award and the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. His essays can be found in places like the Asian American Writers Workshop’s The Margins, Bamboo Ridge Journal, Moko Magazine, Cherry Tree, Kweli, and others, and he has a “Notable Essay” in Best American Essays 2018. Currently he is an assistant professor of poetry in the MFA program at Emerson College.
RESTLESS BOOKS is an independent, nonprofit publisher devoted to championing essential voices from around the world whose stories speak to us across linguistic and cultural borders. We seek extraordinary international literature for adults and young readers that feeds our restlessness: our hunger for new perspectives, passion for other cultures and languages, and eagerness to explore beyond the confines of the familiar.
Through cultural programming, we aim to celebrate immigrant writing and bring literature to underserved communities. We believe that immigrant stories are a vital component of our cultural consciousness; they help to ensure awareness of our communities, build empathy for our neighbors, and strengthen our democracy.
Visit us at restlessbooks.org