Poem: The bandh

The bandh
Ram Munshi Bagh, Wazir Bagh, 2007
By Lynn Aarti Chandhok

I see now that the plum trees are all gone
and where we strayed to gather fruit, a wall
rises to keep the bandh further away.
The neighbours – can I call them that? – can't trespass
and I can't sneak away for those long walks
along the Jhelum, into the deepening shadows.

Wazir Bagh house is gone as well – not gone
exactly but some soldiers live there now.
We stand, today, in front of the high wall,
my father pointing to the terraces,
to where he'd sneak from room to room along
a ledge, to where my bara papaji
slept with his sickly wife (I'm not allowed
to say such things, but, there, I've said it – also
I shouldn't talk about the uncle who
abandoned this dark house so that the soldiers
could occupy it, so that it was lost
forever, even if, some day, winds change.)