Shikha Malaviya
Excerpt from ‘Lingua Franca’
Dadi speaks to us in Hindi so that
we will learn, simple things like
come here—yahaanaao
go there—wahaanjao
eat food—khaanakhao
bring that book—pustaklao
and we do
The Devnagari script
enclosed
with a straight roof
and a wall to support the sides
each alphabet leaning in
turning
phonetic tricks
uh-aa, e-ee, oo-ooo
ka, kha, ga, gha, na
our tongues performing
calisthenics
all of us partaking
in this linguistic
Olympics
going for the gold
from Geography of Tongues (The (Great) Indian Poetry Project, 2014)














