Home is not just a place, it’s definitely more than that. It’s the people who surround us. Also, the memories that we choose to store in boxes – the ones that get covered in spider webs and dust. Home can be a person, a comfort food or even a toy that someone gifted. But, it’s more than ‘just’ a place.
She talks about the untimely demise of her parents and how she’s coping with the grief and their absence. However, her incredibly personal piece becomes part of a public experience when she talks about how she wasn’t the only one grieving over a loved one’s loss.
I was left with endless grief, anxiety, trauma and anger. But here’s the thing, I didn’t know who to be angry at. My pain was so personal yet so shared.
-Mallika Dua
The poetry is an ode to her parents’ love story and the lives that they led. Mallika smiles and shares that her parents lived their ‘happily ever after’, ever since they eloped and married – 15 days into knowing each other. It was the old-school love that we see in movies. But to know that some of it existed, leaves us with a smile and a lot of hope. She talks about missing them, but in ways of cherishing their memories – the good ones.
In talking about home, she reminisces the parts of themselves that her parents left, even the literal ones. From her mother’s gunpowder and aachar to her father’s hand written scripts and pens – it’s the things that they made with their own hands that they’ve left behind – as tokens of their lives. In doing so, the ‘largely empty home’ doesn’t feel so empty after all.
That’s the thing about memories and things, they have a story attached to them – a flashbulb moment that stays even after the people leave. Because, grief can never be about letting someone go or moving on in a way that we stop thinking about them. It’s about learning how to live, knowing that they were here. And, ‘it shall not always pass’. But, that’s okay because we learn to grow with it, so much so, that we become bigger than it.
In this poetry, Mallika also recites how her parents left her empowered, to be able to deal with whatever comes in the way. She talks about how she remembered what her father had to say, when she was worried about her future. And, it’s exactly what any of would want to listen – about not giving up and waiting for a better time. As for her mother, Mallika mentions about how she could heal her, of every problem that existed. Her tribute is also what healing feels like.
Mere har dard ka ilaaj, meri mumma ke haathon mein tha. Chaahe wo dawai ho, ya thappad.
-Mallika Dua
Watch the complete video here:
Because – “home is where the heart is.”
