Hindi

Pooja Nansi

On the whalesongs of Bollywood, sentiment, and the lyric familiar

Chhoti Bahen, Hindi Film, 1959

"Listening to Mukesh"

Pooja Nansi

Driving to your block,
I slide in my father's cassette
of old Hindi songs and
I am humming in twilight
to the legendary
playback singer's baritone
releasing those sounds in that
language that makes me feel like I am
home. In the back of my throat,
I can taste my grandmother's
translucent thin chappatis
that as children we would
hold up
to the light,
the dough so evenly rolled out
by her hands that not
one lump would show.

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