East Of London Poem by Shikhandin Shikhandin

She would cycle down everyday
and bother us till we
did her summer vacation homework for her.
She would try to dazzle us with
second hand stories of London
as reward.

Small Anglo Indian girl in
a large Brahmin family, but
she didn't stick out. Our den was plastered
with posters and collages of pop groups and movie stars.
All British or American, and nobody
minded. The elders of the household
were glad we listened to "English Pop"
regardless of the continent they came from. But
my mother banned her during
our exams.

She showed us a paper dress
her mother had received from their London aunt and washed
delicately- "Look it's still there! "
She wore PVC pants another day,
a hand-me-down
from her London cousin. Scented
erasers, smooth plastic pens and other
bright bric-a-brac she would
sometimes be generous with. Before
she finally left for London, with
her whole family, she told us, well
within my mother's earshot: "We will never
go anywhere near Southall, that's where all the Indians live! "

Thirty years later, never having been to
England or the United Kingdom or
whatchamacallit, my mother still had no idea
where she went or where she didn't go.

(First Published in The Nth Position, UK)