Memory is… images of a prepubescent boy cycling home,

Parag milk packets in one of his arms,

feeding biscuits to a stray gaggle of brown dogs, wagging their shins.

Large half-moon eyes, kind salivating tongue,

his smile showed no cookie-crescent as he fed them all;

he was my first love.

More than the girls, the calves and canines knew his way home,

this small-towner of a bygone Bhaarat who found humans in animals,

he grew hunger in me.

Now in this morphing, super-quick India, his animals are holographic.

His love fades cookie-slim into the sun of many states, tastes, time zones.

He has not one trail from work to home, but ten homes.

He, the colour of chocolate, almond-abdomened,

he found love in many cities,

technology-girls,

animals in liberated women,

who fed off his glucose, milk, sugar, marmalade;

they never grew thin.

Over the trail of his virgin-white honey, the scent of shudh desi,

Old world in new crackling wrapping,

always with a 30% improved marking.

Bearing the saccharine of my bites and goosebumps,

he now breaks under my neurotic granular breath.

chai mein dubha hua – tea-dunked, wafer-thin, milk crux-ed.

My Pickwick, Marie, Parle G, Tiger,

Oreo, Bourbon, mall-shelved Belgian,

online baked-and-ordered

same old-same new,

premium cream-crunched love.

First published in Four Degrees of Separation (2016).