Four Clover Life- By Namrata Shailendra Singh

Students, If you come to me for advice on a college visit, I will choose the road not taken. If you have some cool bucks stashed in your piggy bank or your parent's bank account, for sure, visit as many colleges as you want(an urban college, a large public university, or a small liberal arts campus). And why only visit colleges? Explore the ambient trees, parks, city life, nightlife, restaurants, etc. However, while you do, remember that college life needs immersion, and a visitation may not be sufficient.  If you are visiting a college to gauge if you belong there based on how it looks and feels, well, unless the college has an abysmal infrastructure and abysmal reputation, in which case it doesn't require any consideration, they all look and feel pretty much the way colleges do(unless you are particular about spending your days in  Greek Revival or  Collegiate Gothic style architecture). Regarding your feelings, I suggest you be wary of your impulsive delight ...

I keep my "i" small— allowing it to sit on the rustic fence of life, inhaling the dalliance of the zephyr, the daisies, and the daffodils, knowing well, any time it can teeter and fall by words and worry, anger and anxiety. That our hearts—with their entangled crimson arteries— have an even more entangled life— mysterious and mischievous. We can never be too sure, too certain of its beats. One time black metal, and the other time lullabies. I keep my "i" small— the path on which I walk wasn't carved out only for me. The medallion sun did not single me out for bees' bounties. Millions have walked on the stony ballast, winning and losing their valuable something along. Millions will continue to traverse long after I have ended my song. The small "i" in me makes room for mistakes. I know I am capable of, and I am sure I did commit— indisputably so— that while I can present, I can also paralyze; while I can dream, I can also destroy; while I can conc...

 

  "I have a lot of dead people in my family now. They inhabited the stories my father regaled us( my sister and I) with as we went about not minding our own business. Stories of uncles and aunts far and near, stories of childhood squabbles and village life, stories of growing up, marriage, and becoming distant, stories of give and take, property disputes, and stories of gold jewelry and silk sarees during nieces’ weddings. Then many of them died, and I let them die in my thoughts too. But, you won’t find him here. Imagine a 12-inch pizza, a Neapolitan crust with your favorite toppings ( you could choose jalapenos, basil, olives, or bell pepper)  divided into eight slices, four sides loaded with fresh mozzarella, hot, and lip-smacking. For me, he represented the four slices: the richest, the creamiest, and umami.  The day he died, I made love to my husband, the newlywed groom. Frightened by his death, though I knew it was coming any time, I found solace on a beige-colore...

                            Yes, that is what your son called me the day he lit your pyre- you’re an infidel. You stay and enjoy the United States. Try not to call. My stomach churned, and my thighs wobbled as I pulled strands of hair from the crown of my head,  pulled them so hard, it bled, and now a tiny bald patch is visible. The pandemic created travel rules I couldn’t break, a distance I couldn’t traverse, and circumstances so new to everyone around us, we stopped being people we knew. With your double mastectomy, you were the most vulnerable person to being spotted by the virus. The citadels erected around you proved permeable as the virus wormed and hoisted itself into your body. I was incapacitated, but your son stood right beside you; he did all he could, and so did your daughter-in-law, your husband, your brother, and even your sister-in-law. I was the only one missing because, years back, I chose to pl...

  Before I forget to tell you, I have decided not to participate in the Ganpati celebrations this year nor host Thanksgiving dinner. I need time to grieve. I thought we all needed it, or time to ponder, and reflect, and absorb what the pandemic made us experience. It was nothing short of a massacre last year. Everywhere you move, there are inescapable reminders that the pandemic is not yet over, and even if it was, it has scarred us in ways that would take years to heal, if not forget. Do we inspire so little emotion in each other as a community that we have ceased to care about loss? If it’s not mine, then have I lost anything? Society’s debauchery and superfluousness appal me. Our memories are short-lived. We get over too soon. We are desperate to celebrate; without the razzle-dazzle, is there anything to live, I wonder. The show must go on; the show must go with pizazz.  Since I cannot afford the panache, I will hermit myself close to you. The world will not stop by to no...

  My therapist feels uncomfortable about my obsessive-compulsive routine of cleaning . A month back, I survived a squeaky clean bathroom slip all because I wanted to get the last strand of cobweb out from the right-most corner of the ten feet high ceiling. My elbow suffered a hairline fracture, and I am currently on anti-inflammatory pills. It alleviates the pain; however, something in my heart continues to ache. I have found a home remedy for it- ripe mango with soaked flattened rice- aam chura - just the way you fed me from an old steel bowl for morning breakfast during summer vacation at granny’s place in the village. The first morsel is enough to palliate the suffering; however, it’s when I peel the whole mango and bite into it with juices trickling down my fingers to arms and dripping off the elbows, forming small mango juice puddle on the kitchen floor, that I finally see you. Once I even licked you off from the vinyl floor. You tasted sweet- mango sweet. Later, the demon in ...

There are two people you want dead right now-except one is already dead, but you want her to die again. A more painful one- like being pushed off the cliff and down she goes into the deep blue waters of the Pacific. She doesn't know how to swim, and that makes the climax more interesting to you. And for him, you want a cook's knife and his skin. You don't have a mental disorder; you are not on Prozac or Alprazolam, and you definitely don't hallucinate- except when you find the scorpions crawling over your body. Their tiny legs like needles, more like arrows, poking at your crows' feet, your armpits, your collar bones, and then a sharp poke, like some pesky jumping cholla on your breast, stinging your nipples. You frantically seek the scorpion, only to find him in a faraway land in the Chinatown storytelling center or the Bloedel Conservatory, raising two girls now entering puberty. You wish(don't lie, it's more like a curse) the girl's scorpions who pi...

                           It’s a busy morning, the kind where you stuff your mouth with french toast, dark golden, more burnt than cooked, leaving a smoky flavor, or that is what I say to you- it’s a kimchi grilled cheese sandwich, baby, just enjoy. You smile at me before gulping the coffee in one long swallow. Before you dash to the door, you make sure to leave some smokiness on my lips and inside my mouth too.  I blush, my heart spends most waking moments marinating in your thoughts and sleeping moments caramelized after our soft, tender lovemaking, the kind where the skin starts to melt and turn gooey like mozzarella enveloped in sweet brioche. We are in love, I am certain. That day we make a baby in the tiny galaxy of my womb.  It’s a busy afternoon, and we both are at work. We are both poring over our screens in our respective cubicles and then a ping on our friends' group chat- somebody has sent a lov...

                  You won't be pleased to hear this, but I am trying hard to forget you. A relationship is not some random data stored on a smartphone. When it starts taking space, you tap and delete, maybe empty the trash too. A relationship is more sticky, clingy, and slimy. And ours came tied by a milk-white cord, smeared in bright maroon blood and the deepest purple of the placenta.  I never told you this, but I have stopped eating chicken and goat meat. Over here, people eat all things alive—cigadas that emerge after 17 years of hibernation, sea urchins, and ostriches. The planet is burning; the news of a never-experienced-before cataclysm has now become commonplace. One step more, and we fall from the precipitous conditions we have manufactured for ourselves to our own end. I can see, feel, and hence I am trying to make reparations, seize the moment, and pivot to something better, more sensitive, more gentle, more humane. However, ...