After Gowri and before Guddi,
there is a number in my phone
It reads "Graveyard".
The phone was a gift from my dad.
Why did he have the number?
Why did he give it to me?
Did he know I would need it, that I
would die alive, and myself would have to
call the graveyard?
Did he think I might have
to dig my own grave
with my own bare hands?
Like my brothers and sisters
in blood and in honour, who have passed before me
to the graveyard?
For where I come from,
that is the norm, and we learn it
from the breeze and the wind.
We tie shrouds on our heads
every morning, and make our way
to the graveyard.
We stand over unnamed graves,
and look at anonymous tombstones,
praying Jinazah for ourselves.
And fathers gift their children,
with love, loss and longing,
the number to the graveyard.
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