Chicken Livers
on Sheila Ash (India), 25/Nov/2018 03:34, 34 days ago
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In thenagar, stall holders banter with passers-bywords filling the air like a chorus of crickets after the rains.Hadija’s smile greets my Sunday morning approachHer hair, jet black, plait thick as rope, hangs nonchalantly over her shoulderher saree’s colour steals from beneath her apron wrapbangles glisten and jangle as merrily as her chatter.Comfortable in our Otherness we Namaste and Namaskar,ask after each other’s wellbeing, as she reaches for a birdfresh for her regular customer.Two poles and a remnant wall hold proud the side-less stall’s rattan roofplastic tarpaulin shading the polished metal sheet of her counteras its rests on cinder blocks and straddles the caged birds below.To one side a ubiquitous large blue plastic basin sits hatted by a food umbrella.To the other her butcher’s block, worn down by repeated cleaver blows -a tree stump, stained red in blood.She skilfully breaks the bird’s neck, removes the skin,buckets castoff feet for the poor, discards unwanted innards,until pointing a tentativemulagibibahut achigets it added to my parcel of meat chopped up Indian style.A bemused smile teaches meKalija, my only Telugu word.© Sheila Ash, 2018ashramblings