ghosts of things

Photo Essay by Rhea Gupte

Grew up on stories
Of steamboats and saris
Which travelled from
India to Aden and back.

Suitcases packed,
Passports stamped,
A mother, a father, a child
Migrating to a new land.

One worked at the post office
The second in a bank
The third learnt Arabic
In Fatima’s lap.

Flipping through lives
In white and black
Albums became musical boxes
Singing songs of my pack.

Things become ghosts
Inhabiting memories, grazing hands
Teleporting tales they’ve been
To the shores of present lands.

Real or make believe?
These stories painted in peace.
Like any other colonised country
Life remained on an unfair lease.

The last time across the seas
Three beating hearts would journey,
Leaving behind a life
To fit the required weight category.

Seashores are lines,
Between hope and regret
Where one may live and breed,
Another perishes in death.

Losing home is a loss
No matter a space, a person, a town
No matter if it birthed you,
No matter if it turned you down.

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editor's note

Volume 09

clay | chlorophyll | crimson

Grass is green where you water it. LC’s words float along over Misch’s guitar. It’s a phrase that feels so obvious, and I’m sure those who tend to gardens know this more than most, but it seems to land more than before. The impact noticeable, memorable, echoing through my being. Perhaps we’re ingrained to think it’s greener elsewhere. This patch is the problem and not whether we’re watering it. The key is in the watering. How we go about this practice is what defines our patch of grass. No matter where we go, our patch is, perhaps, the same. Some attributes and characteristics have been changed but the essence is the same: Us.

Stepping into Volume 09 of imprint, marks our third year. I am learning that this patch of green that we have been tending to for the last several years will mould, shift, and sculpt. This depends on how we water it and allow it to take its own shape. It has already happened in wonderfully unexpected ways. There is only so much structure or shape we can predetermine. Beyond that, it will absorb what it needs and reject all that is unnecessary. And perhaps, in this practice, we are changed. Our grass is watered as we water that of our writing, our image making, our practice, our magazine.

From light to dark, rigid to supple, new to old, there is so much in between that is bright and vibrant and unexpected. The practice of our magazine has focused on being open to what we receive; being open to deeply listening to what is shared; being open to work taking us to new journeys. This volume, and this year, will be no different. We will continue tending to it as we have done, learning along the way, from past seasons and present ones.

And yet, I know it will be entirely different.
But still.
It will be watered.