| DALJIT TAKES ESCHA ON A CRASH COURSE | |
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We waited for Eastenders to end before the wife returned from the kitchen a red box of ladoos and placed them on the glass panel of our round, map of the world table. Look, that's where Granny comes from. We sat on the sofa, passing glances on how to wet Escha's appetite: she was hosting a Wendy House party at six this evening (or so we were informed) for Barbie. "Come on darling," I said, "You've got to try some. Please. For my mother's sake." "She'll be back from India soon" said my despairing wife. Stopping her frantic search for a pot of honey for Poo, Escha cupped her hands over Barbie's ears and told us to ssshhh! Then rounded on us: Didn't we know it was her birthday party? How could we be so insensitive? Tonight of all nights! Just then the room went back as we watched the gold lined lid being raised and an oily, saffron globe veneered in its bobbies and off-ball roundness, its smell of hot sugar; inner crumble and the whirr of early summer flies when the wife broke it in her palm secret beads were unbundled that made Barbie sickly. No wonder she eat two fried Asda thighs. She must have smelled cardomans in the air so I put the ladoos bottom shelf in the fridge for my moaning mother's return. How I can hear her now trying the boli with Escha at Terminal Two only to give up already. Squash her side pose over the wife and say: "This koori is completely boli!" Just two days ago we had secretly dug out a sari from our trunk of Asian items and tied the wife in it though she struggled to hold the creased layers in place. I DJ'd with my "Bhabi Nach Le" wedding hits CD and as she came down, modelling step by swaying step Escha had burst into dangerous sobs at the foot of the stairs: I had to drape the wife in a Kit Kat apron before Esha would resume negotiations between Dipsy and Daffy Duck who were always falling out these days. Predictably enough when we had to put up some Hawelli pictures by courtesy of an Uncle's holiday snaps Barbie had blushed and reminded us after my mother had returned to India to put them in the loft especially the one with four old men who looked like Bosnians behind barbed wire in their beard and turban in their white cotton shirt bark-rough around the cheek with the handle of a crusted water pump oxidising under a wall. What made us all laugh to get in the sepia shot they were engulfed by an orange tree by the cow pats at its feet; staring out with odd, expressive eyes, crammed along the wooden frame of a charpoy. | |
| Glossary: Ladoo - a sweetmeat Koori - girl Hawelli - courtyard Boli - language; deaf. | |
| Khan Singh Kumar is the pen-name of Daljit Nagra. He lives in Norwood Green, Middlesex, UK. He was born in England, although his parents come from Nogaja, Punjab, India. His poems have appeared in over 20 magazines. His collection Oh My Rub! was a winner in The Poetry Business Book & Pamphlet Competition 2002. |
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Poem © Khan Singh Kumar, 1999 Web design by Gerald England This page last updated: 23rd February 2005. |