"Bittu Mama Thinks He's the Same Kind of Brahmin as the Pandit" / "Naina Is Coming Back" by Mollika Singh

Bittu Mama Thinks He’s the Same Kind of Brahmin as the Pandit

— golden shovel after verses from the Garuda Purana

Bittu Mama seems to abstain during the
eleven days of mourning. He is a drinker
daily, but now he stays in sight of
the rest of us. I think any intoxicants
in his luggage go untouched. One
apart, he sits by the door with
the shoes, his white kurta slowly discolored
by the myths he hears as lies from the pandit’s teeth.

The day after mourning is over, a
seat opens up next to the drinker
in Lucky Mama’s living room. Out of
Bittu Mama’s pocket come other intoxicants,
while I drink chai. Before the mixture enters
his mouth, it is rubbed with a finger into the
fold in the palm of his hand. Wombs
are folds. What comes out of
this palm can cause painful death, a
warning on the packet says. A wolf
may attack the den of a
different kind of dog,
a coyote or fox. Bittu Mama and
I both see the image under the warning: a
mouth cancer, a rotting jackal.

Naina Is Coming Back

— golden shovel after verses from the Garuda Purana

Mama is shaken when the men find Naina’s atmaram, owing
to Naina’s wish to come back as a boy to
this earth. This bone, found in my
grandmother’s ashes, is usually not a bad
omen, as its survival through fire indicates good deeds
and a good life and a good soul, maybe moksha worthy. In
a second, Mama recovers her former
solace. Naina wasn’t done with her lives
here, and because she wants to come back, I
listen, Mama believes she will. I got
the facts straight. To achieve moksha, a
woman has to want it. Naina doesn’t want a woman's
life. She doesn’t want release from the body,
like others do. She says Sanju will be her mother, which
is to say her hired full-time caretaker is
the one she most wants to mother her as a boy in a
perfect life, one where she isn’t just the source
of half her family’s wages, not just the favorite of
her kids — no, something more. A great
soul can live in a woman, but the men know less misery.

mollika singh

Mollika Jai Singh is a poet from San Diego and MoCo and an MFA candidate in Bloomington, Indiana. They write with an impulse to commit to a few words and write between the lines. Mollika studies the (self-)representation of people of color in popular culture, gendered and racial performance, carework, and love and desire across differences. Find her on Twitter @mollikajaisingh.

Headshot: Mollika Singh

Photo Credit: Mollika Singh