By Annalisa Mansukhani
i remember my mother
with a fierceness that refuses to relinquish her
to time and its nuclei
i swallow her whole each night—
her morning self a renewed regurgitation
that carries with it
me and my deepest anxieties of loss;
the stench of a partial grieving is unmistakeable
my mother has aged much like her silks—
a soft dullening that is not abrasive
a gradual shedding of wounds,
words, whorls and worlds;
winter knows but to rouse them gently
approaching through the trees and resting
for a moment ever so slightly
on bent balconies in the Delhi sun.
i remember my mother
as she lives alongside my collected memories of herself
and these selves merge—
they are formless in the sunlight
stitching them back into singularity
for consumption
and there is a pause as her name
is spelt across my skin,
an etching of forevers against time
and the metonym of erasure
several years ago and daily ever since,
my mother whispered her faith in me into my ears,
a potion for survival
and i listened quietly,
consuming her wounds,
words, whorls and worlds,
bloodstream aching with the weight of belief
and i carry her with me,
solemn vows uttered to the winds and her,
solemn and serious and sore
my mother is only a fingertip away,
a mention of white lilies and mellow jaggery,
glasses of tea that fly off of armrests
nothing is allowed to accumulate—
sorrow, impunity, complacency, and most of all, dust
and nothing is allowed to wither
she tends to her gardens both present and past;
she is heat seeping through the insides of all she touches,
a sustaining of breath and bread
my mother and furnaces have that in common.
Annalisa Mansukhani is a writer, researcher and curator studying the possibilities of the photographic in inter-media practices. As the Programmes Manager for the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) in Delhi, she establishes frameworks and resources around art and research, spaces of exhibition, critical writing, editorial and public programming. Her work can be viewed at annalisamansukhani.com
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