material culture

Poem by Trishita Khanderia Doshi

Translation: Morbi – Karachi – Mumbai

I apply oil on my skin to make it glisten. I make pickles.

In February, I begged my mother to teach me how to make Ba’s red chilli pickle. 
We only had a week to source everything – one week when you get the freshest of chillies – the rest ; dried, processed, withered.

You see, it’s a special pickle.
Pungent, rich, robust – red chillies, mustard, black pepper.
It’s the perfect accompaniment to a Sunday lunch: bhinda nu shak, arhad ni Dal, hot rotli*, and a generous dollop of this pickle. 

I haven’t been craving it just to remember the endless days of summer, oh no. 

I’ve been craving it because I still remember how Ba’s skin felt to the touch as she passed from this world. Soft, smooth (thanks to that morning’s Parachute Coconut Oil), her arthritis-aged legs trembling, yet serene as we gathered around her.

Trembling yet serene. 

That switch (quiet, tectonic, cataclysmic) between being present and then – not really – always struck me as being too mechanical.

What about her stories, her language, her habits, her courage?
Her battles, her journeys, her hands endlessly moving, endlessly crafting?

Years later, I don’t think my grief at her loss has truly abided – just shifted within me to make room for her.

I apply oil on my skin to make it glisten.
I make pickles.



Translation: Morbi – Karachi – Mumbai

* spiced okra, split black gram, and hot chapatis

Tags

Related Pieces

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.