Patel--Poem of an Immigrant

                Your last name is the badge

                For every brown face around

                For umpteen pages in the yellowbooks

                Between pages of docile names

                Of  New Jersey Amreekans who can't tell where you're from

                And those who can tell

                They call you curryfaced Hindu dothead

                Patel.

               

                You came here from Gujarat to live a cliche

                To open a corner store and sweat all day

                Pinching pennies and making profits off

                Groceries of Indian food and other stuff

                Knowing you'd have to make your name

                Earning hard money was all in your game

                Enduring smiles of  your fellow NRI desis

                And the hate-crusted grimace of xenophobe crazies.

                Your  kem chos mesh with hey-yos

                On the concrete-hedged streets

                On low-down graffiti'd subway stops

                Where you and your silk sari'd wife

                Get stares from inevitable bystanders

                Reminding you that you're still

                Just that shadowy foreigner named

                Patel.

               

                Your business lifts itself up all of the way

                To clothe you in success and shine for display

                The merits of hard work that can pay off

                In your struggle through the grime and the rough

                But when you find a window shattered by rocks

                A scribbled-up hate-note in the mailbox

                You feel you're a victim of some cruel game

                That lunges on your brown skin and your odd name

                You get letters from your family back home

                Asking about your new-found fortunes

                Asking about your success that

                Has left you so quickly

                And they don't know of your downfall

                Which you can't bear to tell

                Was the result of being an Indian, of being a

                Patel.

Non-Resident Indian

Memories of home displace your present

Situation of life. Hardly any time is lent for you

To adjust to the absence of food from

Your mother’s hands.

Aalu gobi replaced with salads,

Daal and roti replaced with cheap, plastic pizza.

Your flat sings with the smuggled joy of Kishore Kumar

While outside rock ‘n roll screeches its presence, unwilling

To be ignored. Your mind fumbles with new-found English, syllables

Awkwardly clanging on your tongue, unlike the umbilical familiarity

Of Hindi. America was different to you as a bachcha.

But you are here now, brown, desi man from Delhi,

With childhood still slightly here, and only one question

Remains written over your thoughts:

Kya karna?

What to do?

Though there are more smiles and frowns here

(Not like home at all, you think), the

Clattering traffic reminds you of Chandni Chowk.

All your needs met in a roadside dhaba,

And an after-meal paan from a paanwallah,

The rattlings of thick traffic mixing with

The mélange of mutters of Panjabi and Hindi.

But now the only sounds you here are the

The results of your mistake in this foreign land:

Green light.

The heckle at your hesitance from behind:

“Bastard Dothead, just GO!”

Your moment of nostalgia is wadded, shredded

By a raised middle finger and snarling eyes.

You cannot say anything; the languages

Rattle in your mind:

English- a lazy guitar strum

Hindi- a throbbing tabla thrum

And you wonder when you will go back.

Memories of America displace your present

Situation of life. Hardly any time is lent for you

To adjust to the absence of food from

That old Greek restaurant.

Salads replaced with aalu gobi,

Five-dollar pizza replaced with daal and roti.

Your parents’ flat sings with Radio Ceylon,

While outside filmi pop music booms its presence, unwilling

To be ignored. Your mind fumbles with old-found Hindi, syllables

Awkwardly slipping on your tongue, unlike the acquired familiarity

Of English. India was different to you as a bachcha.

But now you are here, brown, desi man from Chicago

With childhood still slightly here, and as you feast on forgotten foods,

Only one question remains written over your thoughts:

What to do?

Kya karna?