A Poem / thoughts

जेव्हा मी मोठा होईन आणि माझी मुलगी मला विचारेल- '' पप्पा, तुमचं पहिलं प्रेम कोण होतं हो....??'' तेव्हा मला गुपचूप उठून कपाटातला एखादा जुना अल्बम काढून दाखवायचा नाहीये...तर हात वर करून अभिमानाने बोट दाखवून बोलायचंय की- '' ती जी किचन मध्ये उभी आहे ना तेच माझं पहिलं आणि शेवटचं प्रेम आहे...''

-Gaurav Gaikwad

Can aspirations be as simple as just being simple? Can one be different by being just like everyone else? Can one glorify the everyday like everyday? I felt the above text did that.

जेव्हा मी मोठा होईन

when i grow up

आणि माझी मुलगी

and my daughter

मला विचारेल

asks me

'' पप्पा, तुमचं पहिलं प्रेम कोण होतं हो....??'

"daddy, who was your first love...??"

तेव्हा मला गुपचूप उठून

then, quietly getting up

कपाटातला एखादा जुना अल्बम काढून दाखवायचा नाहीये

i dont want to bring out from the cupboard - an old album

तर हात वर करून

but, i'll raise my hand

अभिमानाने बोट दाखवून बोलायचंय की

and proudly point out and say that

'' ती जी किचन मध्ये उभी आहे ना

"she who's standing at the kitchen platform

तेच माझं पहिलं आणि शेवटचं प्रेम आहे...''

...is my first and last love..."

(English translation mine)

Marriages are extremely political affairs in our social space. With marriage is the marriage of two families, thoughts, work patterns, lifestyles, bodies of two groups of people. These groups may be from the same caste or different. When they are same, its called "arranged marriage" while the second is "love marriage". The poem for me gives an allegoric account of one hidden below the other.

Does it really mean what it means? Why this contemplation that one will get married when one grows up (here, grow up implies an age beyond the normal)? And the dream of a girl child (a subtle unlikely choice - I refer to the political social space) asking the father - "who was your first love?" - and why would a daughter pose her father such a question? How old is she? Did she just ask him after he encountered a fight at home, or he's feeling low, or she read something or her mother told her some old incident....?

Procrastinating the answer, the author/father chooses not to go to the cupboard and bring out an album, but simply assumes to point at the lady in the kitchen. Why? What does the album hold? What emotion does the gesture hold? Of regret of the past? Was there someone? Who was she? Why it did not work out? Why the compromise? On the other hand, what is the 'pride' for? Why would he proudly point out? Things that put me in thought.

And families live like that. In our society, love marriages are still so hard to be convinced, especially if the boy and girl are of different castes.

More than that, this is the picture that the poem frames for me:

The daughter sitting on the father's lap - who is waiting for the dinner to be served. He's wearing a white loose pyjama and a brief staring out of the window. The kitchen is a room made by the curtained separation. The cupboard lies in the other half. Bare minimum requirements. Yet, the daughter (you seems to be very young) maintains the innocently serious tone. The father reacts like every other father - a father who is like the closed cupboard - reticent, rather someone, who would not open the cupboard and discuss that album, which might have hidden stories. Instead, he would foucs on the present - the reality of life, the reason of his own existence - the lady across the kitchen.

Don't we live in this domesticity?
But on the other hand, it may also mean completely the opposite.  Isn't that beautiful?

(I do not know the poet)