‘War happens, and light becomes the enemy’: These ‘visual poems’ confront a universe in disarray

War Happens

That night, war enters Achan and Amma’s home through a Philips
eight-band valve radio that is Achan’s polished pride and joy.
A walnut-brown wooden sound box, with a rounded middle.
With sides of Bakelite.
Five pushbuttons.
Two giant knobs. Smooth, golden ones.

War enters through an All India Radio news bulletin.
Yeh Akashvani hai …
This is the voice from the sky, it says.
Then the voice of a prime minster.
Jai hind, main aapse ek khatre ke samay bol rahi hoon …
The country is at war, she says.

War enters and everything else stops.
Lights. Music. Laughter. Chatter.
This is inherited memory. I am not there, have not even been
conceived, but the stories fill my head.
That is how often they have been told.
Memories in full technicolour, though it was an age
of mostly black-and-white, sometimes sepia.

War enters, and within the hour, they must all scatter.
They have an hour to pack, and part.
Achan and his battle brothers to different fronts.
Amma, and the other women, on a night train to almost-safety.

War happens, and Amma can only pack memories, a single
suitcase full of memories. She carries her teenage self, baby
brother in her arms, and the shadow of a tree
on their cheeks: the teenager she was when Achan first met her.
She carries Achan’s grandmother, gazing at the world, spine an arrow
to the...

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