Somewhere between arrival and departure, I’ve learned to speak in two voices and carry two selves. This is about what happens when neither feels entirely mine.
A Switch | സ്വിച്ച്
This plane window is a signaller.
Ready to help me
choose myself
before we fall to the earth.
I am sinking and floating at once, but
I look out the window anyway
to see
which personality to wear after landing.
Grey bypasses, skyscrapers, concrete
squares:
all holding their breath.
The switch flips to
America.
A quilt of coconut palms,
low white buildings,
the switch flips to
India.
My head wobbles before the plane
touches down.
Later, I learned there’s a word for this.
I protested: I don’t do this.
Not me.
And the man I spoke to replied,
“Oh, but I think you do.”
In India,
I’m more reserved,
yet I speak more.
Slowly. Enunciating.
I use words like:
lift – boot – lorry – brinjal – petrol.
I say Ruh-vi, not Raaah-vi.
I roll my Rs and
move na – nja – nna
through my tongue and lips.
I clench my fists in frustration
when the word is right there,
drifting, italicized, in my mind,
tucked under my tongue
when I try to speak.
And then in America,
when I’m with people
who knew me once,
but not quite.
When nostalgia rolls in
as thick as the fleece blanket
that keeps me warm in
stark Pennsylvania winds,
I’m more open,
but speak less.
I speak quickly, slurring my words:
“Didja eat yet?”
I smile hellos and how are yous to
perfect strangers, but
never pushing beneath:
“Friend, how is your heart?” or
“Is your father doing okay?”
“You kinda have an accent now,”
so I flatten my As again.
My voice shifts north
into my nose
and the words roll out:
elevator – trunk – truck – eggplant – gas.
I don’t have to worry
about chechis and chettans.
Americans like first names,
giving us a pretend closeness,
like a handshake without eye contact.
Here’s the thing:
neither one feels quite right.
In India,
I wear a mask.
I smile when I don’t want to;
swallow questions and
bite back criticisms
because my face marks me a visitor
even though I’ve rooted my hands
deep in the soil.
In America,
I wear a wool sweater
two sizes too small.
I tug at the sleeves,
sweating, itchy, chafed
but never take it off.
So, who am I?
Am I the words spoken to others,
what they see:
a woman in love,
a fool,
a brave soul?
Or am I
something deeper?
Or am I none of these?
Am I just a middle-aged woman
afraid she will always be brushing the edges,
never quite let inside?
Am I just afraid
that someday I’ll be a stranger
in a strange land
where I borrowed books
from the library
and licked ice cream
as I walked to the park?
Now, the only home
is my daughter’s voice
when she tells me
the song she and her friends made up;
when my husband and I walk
into the hovering emerald canopies.
If my skin were peeled away
and my chest cracked open:
The hush of the monsoon rain
washing through the ghats,
the whisper of the snow
covering the evergreens—
Would you recognize
the language of my pulse,
the accent
of my blood,
forever stuttering
switching tracks
until I break the lever.
An American in Kerala 