DEATH OF SHAHREZAD

I was just five years old

when grandma died.

She had kept company for me

in thousand and one nights.

My own Shahrezad,

who prepared for me

that magic carpet,

who took me in my dreams

to my prince's palace

along the starlit, skiey streets

of seven-colored rain bows,

who kept treasures in store

for me in secret chambers

guarded by geniis,

who found my place on

jewel-bedecked thrones

before mermaids dancing

under night's sapphire blue lights

in lands of deep seas,

who teased them not to envy

her little princess.

My son was of the same age

when my ma died,

she had already given him

Aladin and Zindbad as companions.

'Don't you caste your evil eyes

on my Badarul Muneer' ; she forbade

those maids in the magic castle

with a spell-knot.

Now, as I lay smelling

fresh earth of my eternal roof

not angels, but grandma questions me:

my child, all those tales I gave you

have been wasted!

In my ears I hear

sobs of my son's unborn kids:

Ummumma, you didn't give us those tales!
 xxxxxxx

(Embedded in the poem is the Islamic myth that newly buried would, immediately after the ritual burial is complete, be questioned by two angels about his/ her firmness in faith and the way he/ she answers would determine the nature of after-life.  Badarul Muneer is the stunningly handsome protagonist in an epic poem written by the great poet Moyin Kutty Vaidyar (1852-1892), in a tradition which greatly shares the Persian and Arabian sagas. 'Ummumma' is the endearing way of the younger generation to refer to 'grand mother'.)