Mansi Dahal’s Women in Marigold is a beautiful debut. Her lyrical poems move between Nepal and New York, speaking of “girls who make sausages for their lovers; angry women who love peonies but do not buy them; and aunties who come to America to oil their grandsons but have forgotten who they used to be.” They speak of the longing for a home, the buried pain, hurt, and grief under your “breastbone,” belonging to “two places at once,” and the memories of the gullies and mohallas of what you call home. They are about the smell of your mother’s mutton curry, of “mustard oils and ghyu,” of “garlic smashed in the silauto,” and of the crispy memories of “chiura, bhuja and gundruk.” In the poems, women bond and rage with their mothers; they cry on their mothers’ shoulders and notice their “cracked heels and loosened skin.” They weep their mothers’ pains and mother their mothers too. They see their mothers as mothers and as humans, too.
Here’s one that would speak to so many of us:
ON SATURDAYS, AAMA STARTS HER SURYA NAMASKAR
In the tiny storeroom lies Hajurama’s old harmonium. Half-ripened
bananas are hung in a rope. There are yellow boxes filled with chiura,
bhuja, and gundruk. There are gallons of mustard oils. Aama connects
her phone to the small bluetooth speaker we had bought at Miniso.
She spreads her tiny carpet amongst that chaos and starts her Surya
Namaskar. There is a calmness that is tucked in her folded legs. And
that calmness moves throughout her body as she stretches. Sometimes,
when she is lost in her world, I peep through the door. When I am
more impatient, I come close to her and ask, “Where are my blue
shoes?” But Aama doesn’t open her eyes. So, I come closer and yell at
her ears. She still doesn’t listen. Her posture is still erect. I leave
the room grumpy, as if Aama just denied that I come from inside her.
Here’s a powerful one that speaks of the tenderness, empathy, rage, and wisdom that South Asian women carry within themselves:
JACKSON HEIGHTS, ROOSEVELT AVENUE
Here is where you will find dried meat hung in plastics.
Tea’s skin that happens to look like the map of Bangladesh.
Jasmine gajras hanging in silver threads. The fathers
who complain about their sons marrying
outside their castes. Girls who will buy an ounce of blood
to make sausages for their lovers. They will clean the intestines
and stretch them like chewing gum. Cut a plastic bottle in half
to funnel the blood in. Tying the limp ends of the intestines
with knots of thread, then boiling them in water.
They will poke the semi-cooked sausages with wooden toothpicks
to release the pressure and watch the blood ooze out.
They will tell you how they have cleaned
intestines since they were eight years old. They will tell you
about the mosquitoes that bit them in the Tibetan refugee camp
in Nepal. The ash trays that lie next to their dusty mattresses.
The married men who invite them for one night stands.
The restaurants where they serve mango lassis in plastic cups
full of food coloring. Lips turned orange.
Angry women who love red peonies
but will never buy them. Late night drizzles that smell
like rotten fish. Aunties who have forgotten
everything they used to be. Aunties came to America
just to oil their grandsons. Aunties carry churpis
in the knots of their shawls. Aunties tell you
there is no man on this earth who is worth getting hurt for.
You can pre-order Women in Marigold here.
