Amarjit Chandan has a pretty wild biography, but his poetry is often focused on place and memory – with his hometown of Nakodar appearing repeatedly. His poem “Uncle Mohan Singh” recounts, with a sort of dreaminess, a memory of the titular uncle playing the accompaniment to a silent film. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that recounts a memory of a beloved relative, and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today.
Happy writing!
Khem Chacha
My first memory of Chacha is sweet and fluffy
like freshly bought pineapple pastry,
One for Seema.
One for me.
We were five and four and Chacha, twenty.
In his Chacha voice—as clear as a math
subtraction
2 – 2 = 0
he said, I could afford only two.
Eat them in your room.
There was a power cut that night. No one in
our joint-family
noticed our creamy moustaches
as we sat down for dinner,
on my grandmother’s kitchen floor.
Chacha loved us like his own.
Even after he graduated college,
got married and was blessed
with two daughters
of his own.
Home, after our mother died
was Chacha’s corner shop.
Hardboiled candies and 2- minute Maggi
noodles--sustenance enough to manoeuvre
our step mother.
In November 2024,
Chacha said on a Zoom call—
Now that I’ve seen you,
I’ll live a hundred years.
I woke up the next day,
with a strange taste of
my cousin’s WhatsApp words
that would reach me later.
I knew before
my phone pinged.
Soon after the zoom call,
he asked the priest to place him on the floor.
My cousin’s words stayed sprinkled
like icing sugar
undisturbed
on a slice of cake, one saves for later
for many days.
When death is imminent, Hindus place the person on a clean mat on the floor as it is believed that it helps the spirit to reconnect with the earth's energy for a smooth transition to the next life.
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