Granny's pea-hens

A poem for my Nani who was married 9 and died at 31. Also for my mother who lived to tell me many tales till paralysis struck her at the age of 80 and then she went into the good night inch by inch at the age of 86. My daughter too who is only 22.

It is not necessary
for a mother’s voice to be musical
when it comes to
singing lullabies
Perhaps some magic
makes the voice
musical when it
reaches the tiny ears

So I dare to sing
lullabies to you,
My little girl
Sometimes I sing of
Butter, bread and sugar
Sometimes of the
old man with a whisker
Or sometimes I tell
the tale of the naughty horse
When you grow up
you will know
there are many tales
within a tale
just like the Russian
wooden doll

Lullabies too hide
many deep sorrows
in happy words
And dream of
the impossible
Singing me lullabies
My mother would want
me to be a barrister
booming in the courts
Or she would want
me to married to
Some raja of Dilli
And live in palace
that would have
a staircase of silver
and doors of gold


Now I sometimes wonder
What case did my mother
Want me to represent
in the courts?
What did she think
of gold, silver and rajas
Perhaps she had not
read history or
she would not have
sought for me a match
with a Dilli Raja

When you grow up
you will try to find
meaning to the
childhood lullaby
and song, you may
find me all wrong
Right now you love to hear
the song in which
black thieves steal
Granny’s pea-hens
And laugh at mention of the
fat policeman and
The stingy granny
But you will find
grannies are never
miserly, they drench the
deserts of the world
with streams of their milk
and in thirsty homes
they fill the wells
with their blood

A time will come
when you will look
for a peacock to
take you away
and then you will know
that all thieves
are not black
and all police men not fat


These days you
enjoy the birthday song
in which little girls
become fairies in the sky
memsahib’s shadow dances
and bade sahib’s
hat flies very high

You may blame me
one day for singing
funny songs of
peacocks, thieves and sahibs
Grow up girl and I hope
You will sing songs that your
your mother and granny
could not sing or
did not even know of…