School of Life

The only time she opened a
book to study
was just before an exam,
from 4:30,
when she’d try to cram
a year’s worth of pages
into three hours of
concentrated memory,
after gramps woke her
with biscuits and coffee.

then, on bed, sponging up
two inch thick book on
Indian history:
thousands of years of
invasions and wars
agriculture, colonial rule, industry
temples, stupas, golden eras...

interrupted by the
clack clack clack of gramps
whipping two organic raw eggs
in a glass
and gulping it down,
glug glug glug
before morning ablutions, and
walk to mass.

creamy brush
forming foam cushions
on gaunt cheeks, chin, neck, and
protruding Adam’s apple;
tongue poking under cheek,
stretching skin for
cutthroat razor.
scrape scrape scrape,
jiggle blade in warm water;
lather, scrape, rinse,
sharpen, repeat.
having watched wide-eyed as
a child of seven,
she now pictures the motions
from depths of historical feats.

not much had changed with gramps.
he still did the mile walk to church
every morning at 5:30
wearing suit, tie, black socks,
his shoes shined;
but his gait was getting
unsteady at eighty
and his right shoulder
sloped slightly
lower than his left.
still cutthroat sharp though,
was his mind.

her teenaged self remembers her
child self watching
flower beds tended and mended.
for cracked bricks when
she helped him mix
water, cement and sand
with a mumti and
learnt to scoop it up
with a spade,
fling it at breaks
so it hit, penetrated, and stuck,
soft and ready to be
smoothed over by her
spaded hand.

absorbing as he grafted a
white rose bush
onto a red rose bush,
taking a wedged cutting from one,
splicing it into a gash in the other and
binding them together with
cling wrap;
tending the plant daily
for the ombré result.

formative years of
strict discipline and
broad learning,
all the more powerful
for being unforced and
unintentional.

wishing her own child
had such exposure
instead of being an
educational YouTuber