Cool, Hot

In Delhi's cold I recall my mother, the first warmth that had enveloped me. I could not take mother to Kasi, not even her lullaby. That remorse keeps a compartment in every train that shuttles between Delhi and Benares. Standing on the banks of the Ganga with my companion I thought: I could have brought mother's ashes for Ganga. There was no shortage of ashes, nor of dead bodies there; but mother had lived and died in Malayalam. ‘Ram nam sach hei' would have turned her an alien. Yet the Lord knew her with her coolness. Didn't she hide in that unoiled matted hair?* Here, she flows in front of me Let me wash my feet in her It may not expiate my sins But it is cool like affection, soiled. Reaching home in Delhi I open the tap: Here comes Ganga, purified. How did mother manage to pass through this pipe? "O, I took a magic potion: Death. Now I can take any shape, can go anywhere." I scooped her up in my hands: And was cooled, In Delhi's heat. *Remember Siva hiding Ganga in his tangled hair.