By Anushka Jain
My dad was never not homesick.
When USSR broke he was selling apples.
Two layers of foreign tongue zipped up
to his throat, Madhuri Dixit’s poster pinned up
on the wall, the one he left hanging
like love notes
hidden
in paperbacks.
When he finally came back, carried my name inside a Russian doll
because it smelled of Hindi (translated: home).
My name is rooted
in Sanskrit and Persian and Russian,
exchanged for raisins and vodka,
the fogs of Russia translating
to the smoke of incense sticks near Ganga until every other girl
had this red of beetroots and Mehandi for her name, funny
how when you ask me what it means
I am supposed to give an English translation, when
I find that
homesickness is a better translator, the solution stuck
somewhere in a hole in
some wall covered up with a pretty poster.
First published at Young Poets Network, here: