Memory in One

In the middle of the cornfields lived AnarkaliHidden in a cupboard behind the televisionWhen my mother would tell meAbout PilaniAnd I would say “tell me about Pilani”(BITS, Mr. Birla)We were in a house a maroon sectional sofa all soft edgesTelevision heavy set and square playing Love Boat,Fantasy Island, tennis matches for my fatherWho wins trophiesTennis. Bowling. Trophies on a 70s mantlepieceAgainst recovered Chicago brickAs a boy, he wore a uniformWhite pants white shirtHe didn’t like wearing his tieSo he took it off and hid it in his pocketHindu High School Look it up on the internet but it isn’t thereIt’s here in this room a fitted carpet overhead light on a dimmer(The new place, not the old built house)Houses being built all around us, ranch houses or notAn American cul-de-sacDirt piled high as basements were dugWe children ran all over theLittle mountains, paths worn away by running feetI could say something about the new world and the old worldBut I don’t think that I want to do that right nowNostalgia is not the right emotionFor the passing of time, for feeling you are not so young, for watching Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga film: rain and moors and youth.) Something called the present which feels like the past. It’s hot in Pilani, it’s a desert. It sounds like water. Pila, Pila, Pila. You were so young then, Mom, and beautiful.____Madhu Dahiya is a physician who has trained in or practiced medicine from one American coast to the other, with stops in the middle. Other than an entry in It all Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure, this is a first publication.