ORCHIDS (2nd position)

When I was twelve amma said

Orchids don’t just grow in appa’s

garden, they grow between her legs

and someday I’ll find an orchid between mine.

She clutched my hand in her palms and

I let heat travel through my bare feet as amma

and I marched up the Nilachal Hill.

This march was special, she whispered, for

a country where women wrapped sanitary

napkins in newspaper and still less even

felt the soft of the pad on themselves,

building a temple for the goddess of

fertility, was like ditching the black

polythene. But unlike in the markets, no

heads turned here.

I saw the red spots on the dome and wrinkled my

nose at them. Amma said, that red flew through all

ladies and it was pure like the red on her forehead.

This red is what I have come from and this is the

red that will give another me. Down in the dome,

amma pointed a rock fissure. She said it was

Kamakhya’s vagina. She said it aloud. Amma said I

shouldn’t bow my eyes for it’s a part of me. This is

grit and grace and just as saintly.

On the way back, my stomach

twisted and I rushed to the dingy

washroom. “Amma, I think an

Orchid bloomed.”

“Nurture that, it’s a blessing.”