08.03.2019

Check post breaks reverie
of a lulling, serpentine journey
entwined with tea hills.
An armed guard’s voice
asks for identification—
I freeze. I do not have any.

I have naively believed
that all tension
has been dissolved
like kithul jaggery in milk.
No ghosts swim in hot tea.
Peace is lotuses
set afloat on seafoam
always at risk
of drowning
in scattered uncertainty.

We are a motley crew:
aunty, uncle, and two young women.
The vermillion marks on our foreheads
dispel assumptions about our ancestry,
I draw stares as we stand next to aunty.
Head cocooned in a cream sari
she insists on taking us to the Sita temple
although she and uncle cannot enter.
When we return, she is eager to know
how the temple moves
to the sound of the river.
Uncle stares quietly
out of the car window.

At the post,
the guard’s eyes bore into aunty’s ID.
Her piece of paper absorbs
suspicion gracefully.
When he walks over to me,
Not Sri Lankan, aunty explains.
I fumble and hold up
an expired university card,
the only plastic explanation
of my existence here.
Silence fuses with the afternoon.

The check post finally opens
its bladed lips, we pass.
Maybe we look like terrorists,
aunty says with a soft laugh.
Her words settle on swirls of mist
I try to catch between my fingertips—
my only souvenir from our trip.

Nobody sleeps for the rest of the journey.