The Story of Milk

Late again for prayers today.
The cause for delay?
We’ll get to it by and by.

In the west, night and day
are lost in a purple sky.
Were it not for the stink,
I’d think it was my milky eye
Playing a trick.

China burnt a pot again last night.
(Is it so hard to boil milk?)
That bride of yours can’t do anything right
since you went away.
As if a new pot can be plucked from the trees!

(And, what a name she’s
got! In my day, girls could cook
and were named from the Holy Book,
not after countries.)

Yes, I’ve told her many a time how one boils milk.
But all I get is an arched brow!
(No one ever bothered to tell me how.)

I stand at the stove and stir.
She sits in the corner and twists her hair.
(What violated Draupadi is she
letting her hair run so free?
Can a wife of two days dare
fret more than a Mother?)
I stir and stir.

My feet have scarred the kitchen floor
as the heat has scarred my hands.
My once milk-smooth hands
never lifted a ladle until I walked through the door
of this house, followed by a menagerie.
(Did she even bring a transistor
radio as dowry? Not her.)
I headed for the kitchen.
(Oh, how bright my eyes were then!)
But enough of this reverie.
Look! I almost burnt the milk!

. . .

Frogs have begun to sing in
the pale light that sits in her corner.
I only sent her to fetch water.
I wait and wait.
She is late
again. First, the muezzin
and now her.
She’s never been this late.
Neither has he, for that matter.
Is this how wars begin?

I better go look for her.