The Balcony in Ballygunge

Wrought iron bars curve
sensuously
embroidering the ghoonghat
of middle class comfort.

Kolkata is a city of swerving
intersections, traffic circles
named for the British,
Indians who wrote anti-colonialism
in novel form.
72 degrees Farenheit,
a summer anywhere else,
is a winter here

Stone balcony floors —
where wide American eyes
once searched for the Birla Mandir
bleached and carved in the myths of old Hinduism
but instead found the rising white apartments
growing tall and wide by the years as we do
and read timelessness etched on the
curved backs of maids who hoped
by the rhythms of palm frond brooms —
are cool, smooth
the way Nanu and Uncle sipped the duty-free whiskey
Mom bought in Singapore
to find home in our layovers.

On “cold” jetlagged mornings,
Tagore’s modernism
in millions of cultural revolutions
snoozes; the village is
frozen over with silence
and the preemptive buzz of
cracking promise.
Stillness makes me antsy in the States
but is a precious commodity for
megacities.

The sun paces the rooftops,
our too-punctual neighbor
who lives just past the snowdrift developments.
It makes chai every morning,
alternating ginger and cardamom
in that way where only one is necessary,
and thaws us awake
with plates of every biscuit-
spicy warmth is a chorus of
concerned aunts asking me
if I need a shawl
even though I always choose to sit here.