And a person, when murdered becomes people

I am the eldest child of the family, which meant every room found a way inside me.

My mother stored her unfinished life in the hollow behind my ribs. My father folded his fears into my school uniform pockets. My aunt tucked her regrets into the rice drum. As my uncle fed me sweets dense as wet cement, while I swallowed generations whole.

The house had a place for every burden.

The old mattresses grew mould in my loft. The steel trunk stored the wedding silks. The glass jars held mango pickle.

And me? I was to hold everything else.


Until I could no longer separate
my life from their luggage.

As grammar goes, you cannot make everything plural by adding an ‘s’. Man becomes men. Tooth becomes teeth. And a person, when murdered becomes people.

So when they ask me where the girl they knew has gone, I tell them she was divided carefully, like prasad after prayer. By the time everyone was fed, there was nothing left of her.