“My Dodda in a Day”

Kashvi Ramani, Virginia, USA

Creators of Justice Award 2022 | First Prize: Youth

Kashvi Ramani is from Northern Virginia, currently at a private school in Massachusetts. She was a part of the DC Youth Slam Poetry team with Split this Rock from 2020-2021 and is the current Arlington Youth Poet Laureate. She has won numerous awards for her work, including receiving a YoungArts National Merit Award for Poetry, Gold Keys in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the Blackberry Peach Poetry Prize, and awards from Collaborative Solutions for Communities, Poetry Society of Virginia, and Know Your Power. In addition, her work has been published in Rattle and Brown Girl Magazine, been featured on NBC and in articles such as AmericanKahani, LoudounNow, Loudoun County Magazine, Words Beats & Life, and AsAm News.

 My Dodda in a Day

Note: Dodda means grandmother in Tulu, an Indian language

When the clouds part, my grandmother is on the move. Her locks

flap in the wind, she hides the flaps on her skin. She always finds

a way to burrow inside herself, to position her limbs

in the shadows of the sun. She runs faster each time reality catches up.

India rises from its trout-lipped slumber and her basket

is already filled with buds. Jasmine sugarcoats her

already-strained smile (she’ll have to fix that by noon) and prepares

to string itself on garlands. Dodda works its milky color to a lather

and scrubs until a bumpy rash of rose envelops

her brown. Not cream; she will try again tomorrow.

At 11, she bustles down flights of stairs, kneading dough

until the salt that drips from her face is enough

seasoning, until the blood that washes over her hands

hides the henna, flavors dough with sindoor. So she sweeps

a mark across her forehead and prays. Clasps her

hands, asks for a new face.

The clock finally chimes 12 and she dons four tiffins of lunch

and a crimson sari to wash out the weakness. Her feet are

quick. Her husband’s are quicker. When he’s through,

her wavering teeth—more ocean than stronghold—attack

her own hands over and over and recrudesce

in waves over and over and-

3 PM and she practices teetering spoons on her palms

to prepare for the weight of the world on her shoulders. Her

daughter-in-law is growing grayer and frailer (men like

a little meat on the bones—more cooking for Dodda). Her

niece, who once painted the solar sy       

stem on her eyelids, let her

planets get lost on earth (the ones who aren’t pretty need

to be smart —Dodda can’t marry them off right away). And her

daughter who runs at the same time as she does every morning

to connect with the life she once had (she shuffles through

a gated neighborhood in neon Adidas while Dodda turns around

to watch for hungry eyes in sandals that peel at the heels).

The nightjar sings in tune with her landline. Quiet, subliminal

darkness unfolds the cloak of nighttime. 13,000 miles

away we are greeting the sun. We prattle about carnivals

and tank tops, about new friends and opportunities, about

technology, about goals. “Dodda, when will you come

to see us?” “Soon, bungaru, soon.” Then she tucks her-

self in with a blanket that steams like rice and dreams

her wishes into our

realities.