Poem
My numb body lies comatose on a cold, crumpled bed
And it's Shiv Kumar Batalvi's soft, sad, melodic voice
Drifting in from the unplugged speakers in the attic
Of a snowed in duplex, six thousand five hundred fourteen kilometers from home,
That frees the tears from my glassy eyes,
Turns the pinched straight line into a bittersweet smile
And starts melting the black ice that has frozen my heart
Into what seemed to be an interminable emotional hibernation.
Ki puchde ho haal fakiran da
Is accompanied by the trickle of a tear down my pale cheeks
And as the warm droplets seep into my barren heart,
Sadness blooms inside,
And my face lights up with a thousand smiles.
In a snowed-in attic six thousand kilometres from home, it is not happiness that breaks the hibernation - it is a sad Punjabi ghazal, and the permission to feel again.
