I pick pebbles
from riverbeds and distant shores
mark them with names: places they were picked
and arrange them on my desk,
windowsills. Indelible bookmarks of a day in the sun, family
fun. Holidays far from home.
Kashmir, Chicago, Cyprus.
Holidays. Homes. Hiraeth run parallel. They never intersect.
We dismiss one to seek the other and yet,
it’s always home sweet home.
Nomads seeking oases, unable to dismiss that deep primal urge
to label, to tether stones,
humans, skins, accents
to “But where do you really come from?”
When you pushed me to get ahead
and shouted “Robbie’ at the Robbie Williams concert,
you turned me into a dry riverbed
stone, alone—
no arms to protest or mouth to shout: STOP! Back off!
You pushed me off like I was nothing.
Just brown.
Ahimsa taught me to always step back.
And I instinctively did.
“Do you even know the lyrics!” you scorned
from your great height of privilege built on so many wrongs—
your colonial conditioning distorted to suit your narrative
to disguise racism in convoluted logic.
“Does it matter?” I responded above the din.
You didn’t respond. How could you?
It was the call of an ancient river that plunged me into action.
The mountains in me, my Himalayan pedigree
avalanched me free.
Curses to Gandhi’s other cheek.
When stones on riverbeds move, they change
courses, they move mountains to oceans, rocks to sand.
Shocked, you asked, “Why did you push me?”
“Because you pushed me first.”
I uttered matter-of-factly.
It felt so good to reverse my flow and glow,
grow back into my fullness,
my humanity, into my fierce Kali and Shakti
into my voice, my history, my identity.
You couldn’t push any further so you hollered ‘Robbie’ from your spot.
The next morning, I scrubbed all the pebbles clean,
even the ones marked with permanent ink.