Congratulations, You Have Been Processed

I went to the Department of Human Affairs

to return a few things.

The guard asked if I had an appointment.

I said I'd been alive for several decades.

"Then you've had ample time to book one."

He handed me a token.

The display showed 12.

"What does 12 mean?"

"Successful exits."

"How many people are ahead of me?"

"Everyone who hasn't left."

"How long will it take?"

"Depends on your life expectancy."

At the first counter,

I was asked to declare my baggage.

Childhood trauma.

An unresolved relationship.

Three abandoned ambitions.

A fear of disappointing my father.

Guilt about things I hadn't done.

The officer weighed the list.

"You're over the limit."

"What's the excess charge?"

"Your remaining peace of mind."

"I don't have any."

He checked my file.

"Then we'll recover it from your future."

He stamped the form.

EXCESS BAGGAGE: CARRIED FORWARD.

Next, I had to separate

personal liabilities from inherited ones.

I mentioned a few family issues.

"Original owners?"

"Some are dead."

"Then we need their signatures."

"They're dead."

"Yes, sir. We have established that."

"Will a death certificate do?"

"Proof of death. Not proof of closure."

He stamped another form.

LIABILITY TRANSFER: DECLINED BY ORIGINAL OWNER.

At counter three,

I tried to surrender my abandoned ambitions.

The officer asked for a No Objection Certificate from my younger self.

"I haven't seen him in years."

"Then the application cannot proceed."

"Can I contact him online?"

"Digital verification."

"He doesn't have a phone."

"Neither did you when you made these commitments. We have a paper trail."

"He's me."

"That simplifies the family settlement."

"What family settlement?"

He handed me a form.

DISPUTE BETWEEN PRESENT AND FORMER SELF.

At counter four,

I tried to return a personality trait.

I'd become excessively accommodating.

The officer asked for the original packaging.

"I've been using it for years."

"Returns are accepted only in unused condition."

"Can I exchange it?"

"For what?"

"Something with boundaries."

He checked the catalogue.

"Out of stock."

"Can I place an order?"

"Certainly. Delivery expected after your next relationship."

I asked about my unresolved relationship.

He wanted a No Dues Certificate from the other party.

"They've blocked me."

He examined my phone.

"Excellent. Proof of delivery."

"They haven't received anything."

"Sir, you've been delivered.

The response is not our responsibility."

He stamped the form.

CLOSURE: DELIVERED. NOT ACKNOWLEDGED.

I asked for a supervisor.

He examined my file.

"I see the problem," he said. "You're trying to close an active account."

"Nothing is active. I'm exhausted."

"Exhaustion is a sign of ongoing processing."

"Can you cancel it?"

"Your grief is currently subsidizing two other departments."

"Which ones?"

"Resilience and Empathy. If we waive your baggage, your personality collapses."

He stamped the file.

PAIN: RECLASSIFIED AS FOUNDATION.

"So I have to keep it?"

"Only until structural integrity is no longer required."

"When is that?"

"Upon exit."

I asked to leave a review.

He opened his computer.

Five stars.

"I didn't rate the service."

"Continued participation is positive feedback."

I asked to see the contract.

He printed my birth certificate.

"Where are the terms and conditions?"

"Online. Under ACCEPTANCE OF NATURAL CONSEQUENCES."

"How do I withdraw my acceptance?"

He looked at the screen.

"You're still here."

I asked for the complaints department.

"You're already here."

I asked for the exit.

He pointed to a door.

I went through it.

Another counter.

The officer asked if I was leaving voluntarily.

"Yes."

"Proof?"

"I'm standing at the exit."

"That establishes your location, not your intention."

"What establishes my intention?"

"An application."

He handed me a feedback sheet.

ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH YOUR EXPERIENCE?

I ticked no.

"That isn't an available response."

"Then why is it printed?"

"Statistical purposes."

I ticked yes.

He stamped the form.

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: CONFIRMED.

I asked to dispute the result.

"Take a token."

He looked at mine.

"847?"

"Yes."

"That's your original application.

This is a separate grievance."

He printed another.

The display still showed 12.

"What do the twelve mean again?"

"Successful exits."

"Where have they gone?"

"Department of Afterlife Affairs."

"Different building?"

"Same building. Different floor."

"Can I go there?"

"Not without clearance."

I looked at my token.

The display changed.

I stood up.

"Not you, sir. The next applicant."

"How can there be another 847?"

"Your case has been referred."

"To whom?"

"Another department."

"Which department?"

"That's classified until you reach it."

He handed me a receipt.

I looked it over.

"Does this mean I agreed to all of this?"

He held up my token.

"You accepted a number."

"You gave it to me."

"And you took it."

He stamped the receipt.

CONSENT: ESTABLISHED BY ACCEPTANCE OF TOKEN.

At the bottom:

YOUR COOPERATION IS DEEMED VOLUNTARY.

My Ancestor, The Alleged

My grandfather's grandfather

was a doctor in Rangoon.

A legendary one,

according to the family.

Apparently,

a road was named after him.

I have never seen that road.

I don't know where it is,

what traffic passes over it,

or whether it still carries his name.

I don't know what his voice sounded like.

Whether he was kind to his patients.

Whether he was gentle with his children.

Whether he was difficult to live with.

The family remembers the doctor

better than the man.

I know what he was.

I have no idea who he was.

Still, I have used the story.

At gatherings,

when someone asks where we come from,

when the past is expected

to produce something impressive.

A doctor.

Rangoon.

A road named after him.

I have let the story speak for me.

I have never been asked to prove it.

The people who told me the story

believed it.

The people I tell it to

have no reason not to.

Somewhere between

their certainty and mine,

a man I never met

has become part of my credentials.

I sometimes wonder

what would happen

if the road were found

and it carried another name.

Would I correct the story?

Would I defend it?

Would I feel that something

had been stolen from me?

The next time someone asks

where we come from,

I will probably tell them

about my grandfather's grandfather.

I will tell them

he was a legendary doctor in Rangoon.

I will tell them

a road was named after him.

And I might forget

to say apparently.

The Possession Of Pronouns

In Bengali, 

"shey"

can mean he.

It can mean she.

Can mean

everything in between, 

and yet nothing.

The word doesn't care.

A man can enter a sentence

without being made masculine.

A woman can leave one

without carrying her gender like a passport.

The pronoun makes room and moves on.

We grow up without having to choose.

Then we cross a linguistic border.

Sometimes, not even a state, or a city.

A neighbouring tongue has other arrangements.

The noun has a gender.

The adjective must agree.

The verb has been informed.

A sentence cannot proceed

without knowing who is being spoken of.

The same person can cross a street

and acquire a different grammar.

The country calls this unity in diversity.

We are an industrious species.

Give us a river.

We'll name both its banks

and ask the water its nationality.

Give us a mountain.

We'll teach it which way to face.

Give us a child.

Before its first word,

we'll have selected

the language of its prayers,

the dimensions of its obedience,

the people it must never love.

We call this inheritance.

A thing must have a name.

A name must have a place.

A place must have an owner.

Even a spoon cannot be left alone.

Poor god-damned spoon.

It has been summoned to answer for itself.

A committee is convened.

The question is put:

He or she?

The spoon says nothing.

The court enters silence as evidence.

The spoon has been patient.

It has fed kings

and those who paid for the crowns.

It has entered the mouths

of executioners

and the children of the executed.

Carried soup into bodies

that would sooner have shared a grave than a country.

Never asked the broth which side it came from.

Never inspected the mouth.

Never demanded a passport from hunger.

The spoon was once ore.

Before that, earth.

Before that, something buried

with no appointment with the future.

We dug it out.

Melted it.

Hammered it into submission.

Gave it a shape.

Gave the shape a name.

Gave the name a drawer.

Then mistook arithmetic for an understanding of the thing.

We do this with people, too.

A daughter:

a liability with excellent examination results.

A son:

an investment with occasional defects in obedience.

Marriage, a merger.

Dowry, goodwill.

Love, in certain households, a hostile takeover.

The contract predates the bride.

A child picks up the spoon.

"What is it?"

"A spoon."

"Why?"

The mother looks at the child.

On the spoon, a small rectangle of light.

She thinks of the world waiting to name him.

The world that already has its verdict ready.

Somewhere, a man is murdered

for failing to be the right kind of man.

A woman is punished

for the same offence against womanhood.

A river crosses a border.

The water does not change.

Both banks claim it.

Neither claims the drowning.

In a drawer, the spoon keeps its silence.

It has never mistaken the hand for the owner.

The court has classified the universe,

weighed the living like grocery,

given the dead their proper places.

The spoon is still in the drawer.

Outside, the street fills with voices.

Somewhere, someone says "shey".

Gender, for once, crosses without papers.

The Family Photograph

My mother arranged us by height.

Then moved him half a step away

from where I stood.

The photographer asked us to close the gaps.

Nobody moved.

He had driven three hours

for my father's birthday.

Knew which tablets my aunt took after dinner,

how my uncle liked his tea,

which cupboard held the good plates.

He could find the fuse box in the dark.

My father trusted him with the house keys.

My mother introduced him as my friend.

She said it softly,

as though lowering her voice

could make the word less untrue.

I let her.

He did too.

The photograph came back a week later.

My mother turned it over

and wrote our names in blue ink.

Mine.

My brother's.

My cousins'.

The pen hovered over the remaining space.

Its tip touched the paper.

A blue dot.

Then she turned the photograph face up.

Years later, I found it in an album

whose cover said FAMILY.

I remembered the dinner,

the candles guttering in the fan's current,

his knee touching mine beneath the table.

When my father looked up,

I moved first.

The hand withdrawn before it is caught.

The word swallowed before it reaches the mouth.

The distance two people learn

to maintain without being asked.

My mother still asks how he is.

She remembers his birthday.

Sometimes she says we should invite him over.

She has never asked why he stopped coming.

I have never told her.

The photograph remains in the album,

six faces arranged beneath a date.

On its reverse, the blue dot has faded,

but the indentation of the pen remains.

I run my thumb over it sometimes.

The paper remembers

how much pressure it took

not to write his name.

My Mother Tongue Has No Proof Of Address

My great-grandfather owned a house in Dhaka.

I inherited its address.

Blood, apparently, has a better postal service than furniture.

In 1947, my grandfather and his brothers

left for Calcutta.

They ran for their lives.

The house was left behind.

A family can survive a country

and still lose its place in it.

The address survived the border.

The house did not arrive with it.

My parents were born in Calcutta.

So was I.

Three generations in one city,

and still, I was asked where I came from.

At school, refugee was a word

children stapled to my surname.

I had never crossed the border.

Never lived in the country

that had apparently followed me here.

My grandfather fled for his life.

I grew up being asked to account for his escape.

Bengali was supposed to be my mother tongue.

My father spoke it.

My mother spoke it too.

It passed between them.

I was close enough to hear it,

not close enough to catch it.

I should have known it better.

There.

The sentence I keep dressing up

as historical consequence.

English was where I learnt

to name things.

By the time I learnt to speak

of what my family had lost,

I was already speaking English.

I learnt where Dhaka was.

I learnt which side of the border

my grandfather had escaped from.

I can account for the journey

in a language that never made it.

Bengali came down through the family.

English was where I learnt what had come down.

Hindi entered through the business of living.

Maithili came by association,

in fragments borrowed from other people's mouths.

Kannada gathered at the edges,

a few words at a time.

I am a multilingual porridge.

No original recipe.

No identifiable cuisine.

I have written entire histories

of why I cannot speak Bengali.

In English.

With considerable fluency.

Fifteen years away from Calcutta.

I begin a sentence in Bengali.

The first word gets out.

The next will not form.

By the time I can reach for it,

English is already finishing the sentence.

I don't know whether this is grief

or an elaborate form of vanity:

the belief that a language

should have waited for me,

that inheritance should have survived

my failure to meet it halfway.

My grandfather left Dhaka.

What crossed the border

did not cross intact.

His grandson found himself

in a language he had not brought with him.

I can give you its history.

I can give you its address.

I am not fluent enough to inherit it.

Not foreign enough to mourn it cleanly.

A House Called Elsewhere

For three generations,

the house woke up

after they did.

Before the monsoon,

they found the leaks.

Before the guests arrived,

they made the floors shine.

They carried its furniture upstairs,

its dead downstairs,

and whatever could not be said

into the next generation.

They knew which window

would not close in the rain,

which tap needed two turns,

which stair announced a visitor.

They knew which rooms

required knocking,

even when the doors were open.

The owners knew

where to find them.

They could have drawn

the house from memory.

The deed had no reason

to remember them.

The children grew up watching this.

They learnt to recognise

the owner's footsteps

before they learnt

to recognise their own.

To lower their voices

near certain doors.

To make themselves smaller

when guests arrived.

To leave their slippers outside

even when nobody was watching.

They learnt that a room

could be entered

carrying a cleaning cloth,

but not carrying a question.

They learnt to wait

outside rooms

they had been sent to clean.

When the house was eventually sold,

the family moved into a smaller one

at the edge of the city.

They carried their tools,

their utensils,

their photographs.

One child asked

if they could keep

the old brass key.

His father said

it would be of no use.

Years later,

the child built a house of his own.

He chose the doors.

Fitted the locks.

Kept every key.

And still,

when he entered his own house,

he left his slippers outside.

The Subterranean Womb

Earthworms call the soil home.

For generations,

they have gestated in the dark,

turning its rot into fertility,

its decay into nourishment,

feeding a future

that will orphan them.

They pay their taxes in nutrients.

Ask for no monuments,

leave no signatures,

expect no harvest of their own.

Their labour feeds the grass,

the trees,

the crops,

the lives that will never know

what made their living possible.

And then someone comes with a shovel.

The earth is cut open.

Colonies are pulled apart,

villages emptied,

unregistered lives displaced.

What took generations to build

takes an afternoon to undo.

The soil closes over the wound.

No census of the missing.

No memorial for the dead.

No accounting of the bodies

that made it fertile.

The grass returns.

The trees keep growing.

The ground carries on

as though nothing

has been taken from it.

Next time you feel particularly patriotic,

think of the earthworms buried beneath your house.

The country has not lost its people.

It has learnt to grow over them.