Brown Until Proven Useful

By Tridip Borah

Brahmaputra wind on my face,

tea-steam curling from the cup,

the colour they told me to change

is the colour of my mother’s hands

pulling me close.

They laughed once,

said une brosse en fer-blanc could scrape me fair.

I carried that line like a pebble in my shoe for years.

My mother held my cheeks, warm and sure,

said I was the most beautiful on earth.

Her words were a small room with sunlight.

In classrooms and lanes,

my skin arrived before I did.

I learned to enter by explaining why I belonged,

to leave by saying thank you.

Oceans later,

this shade became a story for other people to tell

a rare flower,

admired in one breath,

doubted in the next.

Doors opened with a flourish,

paused at my passport.

Smiles bloomed, then measured my vowels.

They said education made the difference,

as if degrees were soap,

as if accents were towels.

Fetish and fear are cousins.

I met them both at the same table.

One asked to taste my colour.

The other asked me to justify it.

Now I pour water and call it pani (water in Assamese),

fold a leaf and call it paat (leaf in Assamese),

so the day will remember me.

This skin is not a petition.

I return your papers unsigned.

By Tridip Borah