Tejashree Murugan
Gilded Glamour
We speedwalk through the park and she’s
actually jogging but I pretend not to notice.
The people in front of us are temporary
monuments we pass, our well-oiled
plaits swinging down our necks like
rows of glittering beetles creeping into
jasmine garlands. With every step we take
we kill. Centipedes and ants crush to death
under my mother’s Bata shoes but murder
is not new to us, we who waterboard
cockroaches in the bathroom every
other day, who stick forks into bowls
of இடியாப்பம் writhing like tangled necks
of white peacocks, who scrape roadkill
into steel dustbins with black tutus and
pretend the cracked car glass is a fairy
wing zoomed in. As we turn another corner,
a street vendor hawks reverse experiences.
For 2000 rupees, a burnt car becomes
whole again, the smoke pouring back down
from the heavens. Double that, and a body
rises up from a pool, millions of bubbles
ascending to the surface. Multiply it by a
100 and this elephant-skin path will take us
back to the decade figures like ours graced
magazine covers, where we’d not have to kill
off our cells like we do now constantly, where
our bodies would be more than a sculpture,
a canvas,
a right.
Note
“Gilded Glamour” is titled after and inspired by the theme of the 2022 Met Gala. இடியாப்பம் is a Tamil word referring to a noodle dish made of rice flour.