Platform Kramaank Chaar: Reflections on Independence

The morning rises like my friend’s anxiety as she fumbled into
a bottomless black of pens, ID cards and burqa before that
board exam, before that policewoman searching for heaven
at the bottom of Shabnam’s canvas bag, at the far end of
Churchgate station. The limp, shapeless sack that had freedom
scrawled near the zip (in florescent pink) smells like my
please and Shabnam’s pleas and Kim bursting into our-father
who-art-in-heaven. The policewoman’s irritation as she finally let
Shabnam go is twenty minutes too late, twenty years in weight. As my
phone pings India’s medal tally at the Paris Olympics, our country
is everywhere on Shabnam’s feed, who types: So excited, can’t sleep. Awake?

About The Author

Pervin Saket

Pervin Saket is Poetry Editor of The Bombay Literary Magazine. She was awarded the Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize 2021, and she is the curator of Literature at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Mumbai. Most recently she has authored a series of ten biographies-in-verse for children, on neglected Indian women in science and sports

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