Dr. Veena Mani is a storyteller and works as an Assistant Professor of English at Stella Maris College (Autonomous), Chennai. She has published journal articles and book chapters in the area of gender and cultural studies. She completed her PhD from Indian Institute of Technology Madras and masters degree in English from The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. She was awarded Fulbright Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship in 2016 and spent her fellowship period of nine months with South Asia Institute, University of Texas at Austin. She writes in both English and Malayalam and her works are published in several online platforms . Contact: veenavimalamani@gmail.com
Special Collection: Creativity in the Time of the Pandemic 2020>>
A Late Freedom
Are you alright child?
Thanks much for calling,
not everyone checks on me, you know,
after your uncle is sadly gone.
Two months passed good only
I slept well over the clean sheets.
I cooked vattipulusu
after twenty two bleak years.
They closed the liquor outlets you know?
Bars too, I saw in the television.
Hare Ram! How uncle would have stayed
home with me and no drinking?
You young girls have hotline
numbers that listen to you if beaten.
Golden times, avvuna?
May his soul rest in peace.
A street scene
On top of a four storied,
forty year old building,
under the clear blue skies
and wrapped in crisp thin air,
I saw a sight of a lungi-clad man,
a worker, walking down my street.
A cane basket in hand
and a cigarette on his wearied lips.
He carefully picked the plastics
deposited by the on-duty maids
in the dumpsters across
the French-windowed apartments.
I sipped my Ceylon tea,
looking at the watch,
readying my steel plates
for the call of the nation.
Ordinary Mornings
A spoonful of tea leaves
into the boiling milk,
A tiny piece of cinnamon,
makes my ordinary morning.
Sipping the tea, I read
the unedited poems,
handed down to me,
from a generation bygone.
My body, not consulting
with me, let a long,
calming, deep sigh.
I am getting used to
this kind of morning
that is ordinary, retrieved,
and is unburdened by nights
so perilous at an alien home.
Published on April 14, 2020. © Author.