Cerebration

motherless andhadi: RAAMESH GOWRI RAGHAVAN

Raamesh Gowri Raghavan works as a copywriter in Mumbai, India and is also a widely published poet and writer. This poem is written in an ‘andhadi’ format,which is an Indian poetic form where the last line of a stanza becomes the first line of the next stanza. Raghavan is influenced by e e cummings style of using no punctuation in this poem. This ‘andhadi’ reflects the practical loss when mother is not there, through a breathless listing of futile chores that the speaker never had to perform when she was around; the practical loss is also a metaphor for emotional loss— the idea of her being on vacation is a euphemism for her being no more.

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mother is on vacation
in a foreign country
away from son and husband
leaving me to do the dishes

do the dishes - mind the spoons
don't land at the bottom
the tamarind doesn't clog the sink
the vessels don't clatter and clang
and bring on angry neighbours
while the clothes are washing

the clothes are washing
coloured one in first batch
towels and undies to go in the next
and then to be hung out

to be hung out
the outer clothes on the balcony
with a ladder and a stick
and the inner ones dripping
in the rear balcony

in the rear balcony the broom and mop
stand there grumbling silently
about the dusty stain bedecked floor

the dusty stain bedecked floor
piled over with books and gadgets
screaming loudly to be re-placed
on their respective shelves
which gloat and induce guilt
about the undone dusting

and unfolded clothes and unbought groceries
and unpaid bills and undisposed garbage
how did she manage them all
i need to know but
mother is on vacation

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