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from The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
From the dining-room window where she stood, with the wind in her hair, Rahel could see the rain drum down on the rusted tin roof of what used to be their grandmother’s pickle factory.
Paradise Pickles & Preserves.
It lay between the house and the river.
They used to make pickles, squashes, jams, curry powders and canned pineapples. And banana jam (illegally) after the FPO (Food Products Organisation) banned it because according to their specifications it was neither jam nor jelly. Too thin for jelly and too thick for jam. An ambiguous, unclassifiable consistency, they said.
As per their books.
Looking back now, to Rahel it seemed as though this difficulty that their family has with classification ran much deeper than the jam-jelly question.
Perhaps, Ammu, Estha and she were the worst transgressors. But it wasn’t just them. It was the others too. They all broke the rules. They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much. The laws that make grandmothers grandmothers, uncles uncles, mothers mothers, cousins cousins, jam jam, and jelly jelly.
It was a time when uncles became fathers, mothers lovers, and couisns died and had funerals.
It was a time when the unthinkable became thinkable and the impossible really happened.
the door slams in summer
when the heat climbs in
-stealing the freshness.
i had opened the window.
please be kind -
i could not breathe.
a girl sat before two pairs of legs.
confusion in her eyes,
she gave way to her predicament.
she could not choose.
there were five toes to each two feet,
one foot for each ankle.
four calves, knees, and thighs.
two rumps in pear shape.
perplexed: the obligation of decision,
she sat as a torso for a time -
sans the desire to choose.
enjoying the company of both.
curiosities, similarities, and differences,
feeding and repelling the other.
what a shame to choose.
could she have four legs?
admiringly they looked up at her,
neither fit to decide,
naively unaware of competition.
she chose one pair.
able to walk, skip, run, and jump
she was happy, in part.
longing returned her to the other.
able to dance, swim, kick, and stretch
new found was this happiness
alive with movement she concurred:
each pair would have a turn!
harmonious, the machinery operation
of sharing two sets!
better than sitting before a decision:
sitting with two pairs of legs.
This poem was inspired by a postcard that’s been hanging on my wall since it was cold and crisp outside:
strangersouvenez