By: Nandini Sahu

Medusa

I am Medusa, I merge with you, my myriad-minded-molten-man,
my melic-moon-man. See the sunny side of our youth and middle age
and let us amalgamate with our hearts beating each to each.

The melancholic sides of this mountain, these time-teethed melodies,
the knowledge of the somber moments make me amok-layered,
mist-mouthed. The mercurial mirror of my mind is in love’s melodious conch.

I am the Midas of the Muse. I germinate into a misty lunation.
You moan, “can you give me only one boon, my moony-moon?
Tell me in extenso. Will you be my blowtorch?”

Well, you know, I will never reduce the illumination of my sparkling eyes.
Because you claim, my eyes have been your solitary gain
in the midst of life’s never-ending pain. Thus you make me some fitch.

In some birth, I was Medusa of the three Gorgons, daughter
of Phorcys and Ceto, sister of Graeae, Echidna, and Ladon —
the alarming and awe-inspiring beasts. They predominantly did butch.

The gorgeous mortal, Medusa was the exemption in the family,
until she incurred the wrath of Athena, due to her conceit or
because of an ill-starred love affair with Poseidon–that was her nocturnal notch.

This life, being Medusa, I dance with the oceanic waves, move with the sea.
The rhythm of water has set my soul free. I get into my past
surreptitiously like getting into a cave. See my ‘laugh of the Medusa’ epoch!

I become two people in there, one says ‘yes’ and one, ‘no’ to history.
Apparently, my beauty has surrounded you, encircled you, and
made you gasping. Though you relish my serenity even in that facade.

Just that, like a bad parent, you planted a seed and walked away.
You did most definitely so, making me Medusa. Now I have the courage
to let go of what I cannot change; now I am life’s firmest, wildest catch.

Medusa is non-judgmental, audacious, beautiful, flexible yet unyielding.
Medusa is some myth and yet she is the ultimate truth.
Medusa is many lives in one life, she can be like that veiled botch.

The flag and emblem of Sicily features on her head.
Two species of snakes contain her name: the venomous
pit viper Bothriops is Medusa and the nonvenomous sea serpent

Atractus is also Medusa. She epitomizes philosophy, beauty and art.
She challenges the long tranquilized social slumber.
I clearly remember, there is something beyond the fence of the past.

She is my chosen image of myself to show myself to the opaque world.
The range of her emotions are limitless. I am Medusa-myth,
I am the doleful exclamation of the metal-faced dioch.

A very tentative person I have become, believing
in a benign God, the Ardhanarishwar. Singing like a free-swimming
carnal method of a coelenterate, like a jellyfish is my free-thinking vouch.

I have an umbrella-shaped body with cutting-edge tentacles on my couch.
Medusa is this phase of my life cycle which substitutes with a monogamous phase.
I know, I should either write with my body or choose to stay ensnared.

My ‘écriture féminine’ takes encounters with conformist patriarchal schemes.
I address this by the edifice of our robust self-narratives and letterings.
You, my delectable, are with me in this scheme, in my Medusa epoch.

God knows when your mild woman went wild, now that
the margin of your love has been rising from stretch to stretch.
You are the song of my ululating tongue. Now life has become such.

Sisterhood

“Women instinctually know how to nourish each other,
and just being with each other is restorative.” – Tanja Taaljard

Thus, I talk a lot about solidarity and sisterhood.
My sisters and archetypal sisters may hear me out!
I have been accessible yet peripheral,
non-judgmental, non-indulgent
beyond all glamour, glory and the social scanners
getting into reckless and pointless things yet.

I fancy my sisters to appreciate, in spirit,
that I live alone in the company of others living alone,
each one fortified by a lone ache of the heart.

The fact that I was born in July,
the volatile time of the year—
they need not categorize any much of my temperament.

Now there are mornings when I wake up but
I don’t like to get up. Lying on the bed,
I regret my squandered years that I have been that type
who fits in anywhere. Ahh, why I have been just so perfect!

Full of campaign and stratagem, I still believe that
it’s possible to change the world, this planet.
My sculpted sisters often look at me and sigh,
‘I want to be a woman like you, bold and independent.’

My sisters, I am that imperfectly-perfect-woman,
take me as I am, maybe with a pinch of salt?

I wish they saw some tiresome apprehension in there.
Some enduring experiences utmost.
Why only sisters? Even my mother’s isolation
is getting into my nerves. It’s a detrimental amalgam.
Some kind of panic of an avoidable panic, some fright.

Yet, the gulf between me and my ‘sisters’ has told me,
seclusion has its own goodies to offer –I cheer up myself,
which some of them make-believe not to make out.
Seclusion has become my only discipline,
my skill, my dexterity and my mental state.

These days I live in a new home, a newly
constructed house, that is, where no one lived in the past,
no one made love, no one died
nor none got exhausted. Just that,
the highlighted nature of the house makes it look
paradoxically alive and animate.
I call it, ‘the power of white!’

Here, in fact yet elsewhere, I sleep poorly,
for forever I am sleep disoriented.
I boast I swank that I take its advantage, to become
so prominent and, well, such distinguished!

I heard that the female combatant
knows how to fight with the world even without a fight.
She discerns when not to raise her sword,
but as a substitute she holds up her heart.

A sister’s safeguard is not a resistance
to counter others, but a sanctuary for a wretched heart.
If recuperative of each other is the case with sisterhood,
someone please refurbish, revamp me, be my
special kind of mind-and-body-double,
no matter where and what.

The Akshyapatra in Jagannath Puri

In a kitchen where the flames ignite,
a symphony of manna-like taste takes flight.
The pots and pans of the Daitapati, the chef’s delight
create a world of pure epicurean gourmet.

With earthen pots donned and wooden ladles in hand
a culinary dance of the temple-chef like the Chaiti-Ghoda, intrepid and grand.
Ingredients blend, a nicely-choreographed band
creating dishes from a far-off indigenous land.

From ecofriendly spices and turmeric that stimulate the dormant senses
to herbs that lend their fragrant tenses
here cooking is a gift, like Draupadi’s, like Sita’s, without pretences
a journey through life’s varied lenses.

A surge of love, a smidgin of conservation of the Mahaprasad
in every meal, a story of food and livestock to share.
From earthen hearths to the puja mandap
a journey rare, never-ending food’s alchemy, beyond compare.

Sautéing, simmering and boiling green, organic food
with techniques old and techniques newfangled.
In every recipe, a folktale to tell, an archive, a lost-world to view
a voyage of flavours, consecration, like a dream come true.

The magic Mahaprasada brings, in every nook and cranny
the love among the devotees beyond margins
a canvas of a borderless society, a masterpiece uncanny
in a kitchen where traditions, cultures melt, thrive and pulse.

Where ancient wisdoms, Indian knowledge systems stir in every dish
indigenous recipes, a gift of the old-world, a textile of intertextual dreams
from North to South, from East to Western shores
Zara Sabara’s tribe and their culinary treasures.

Here, secret recipes are passed down, the oral voices speak
beneath the moon of the Puri sea-beach, in the gentle light and dark.
The aroma of cedar and sage in planks and earthen pots so right
a salmon coral story in cedar wraps does proliferate.

A taste of history, Sabara tribes’ journey to Puri badadanda,
Odia Monarch Indradyumna and tribal king Vishvavasu—their legend.
The mythopoetic and the mythopoeia of the creation of
the Jagannath temple, the story of the cosmological time-set.

Lord Jagannath, the Lord of the Universe, His pitch-black skin
His half-built limbs, His solidarity with the ‘Black’ and the differently-abled;
the morphological features and countenance of an unfinished,
premature, aboriginal, ‘savage’, exotic look of the three deities.

Three siblings’ kitchen garden that Goddess Laxmi embellishes,
corn, beans, squash unite companions in the soil. Spirits entwine
in harmony, they cultivate hope, their colours optimistic.
Food is the theme, food is the symbol of the land, of life’s musical design.

Food is the sacred art in Lord Jagannath’s Rasoi-Ghara,
here ethos and faith work as the fuel, ancestral secrets whispered.
Inherited moods guide the cook’s deft hand
in ghee, zero-oil, steamed-vegetables, honey and beans, histories unfold.

From ancient rituals, tastes nostalgic, poignant.
A journey back through time, to that sacred home of the Lord.
From Pacific Ocean and islands to the desert’s heat,
aboriginal recipes, a tradition to complete, in every bite, there’s antiquity.

No one goes famished, starving from Jagannath Puri.
Here, food is the language that transcends all borders.
A taste of Odia culture, food is the world of divine orders.
In every bite, a feeling hoards memories, emotions and life’s rewards.

***

Prof. Nandini Sahu, Amazon’s best-selling author 2022, Professor of English and Former Director, School of Foreign Languages, IGNOU, New Delhi, India, is an established Indian English poet, creative writer and folklorist. She is the author/editor of twenty-one books. Apart from being a double gold-medalist during her Graduation and Post-Graduation, she is the recipient of the Literary Award/Gold Medal from the hon’ble Vice President of India for her contribution to English Studies. She is the recipient of the prestigious Michael Madhusudan Academy Award, 2024 and Lifetime Achievement Award, 2024. Her areas of research interest cover New Literatures, Critical Theory, Folklore and Culture Studies, Hindu Studies, Indian Knowledge Systems, Comparative Literature, Children’s Literature and American Literature.