{"id":75053,"date":"2016-06-13T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=75053"},"modified":"2016-06-12T18:36:27","modified_gmt":"2016-06-12T17:36:27","slug":"in-search-of-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/06\/in-search-of-work\/","title":{"rendered":"In Search of Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sumeet<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She came dressed in a mustard suit
\nwith daffodils printed in turquoise
\nand magenta; her long scarf woven
\nin her plait so she doesn’t forget it in the
\nfatigue of dragging a steel trunk on
\nconnecting trains from Bhopal to Old Delhi.<\/p>\n

From the stampede conditioned railway station
\nshe travelled to our home taking lifts
\nfrom unsafe lorry drivers who chew tobacco
\nand spit red saliva on the passing roads.<\/p>\n

Wearing plastic red bangles dotted golden;
\nmaking feeble noise; wearing no anklets but
\nsteel earrings; wearing no red sandals but
\nstained rubber slippers; she came and knocked
\nour main door, the door she once entered freely.<\/p>\n

Aunt Soraya came in search of work,
\nbut we had to refuse her away.
\nWe had two maids already: one for cleaning
\ndishes and the other for laundry.
\nShe came escaping her husband, and we
\ncouldn’t trust she wouldn’t escape us,
\nso we had to refuse her away.<\/p>\n

She also left her sons, and dismissed
\nher own servants who obeyed her:
\nAunt Soraya came, and we couldn’t trust
\nshe wouldn’t leave us,
\nso we had to refuse her away.
\n___________________________________________<\/p>\n

From the book <\/em>House Arrest & Disobedience, ISBN 978-0-9930315-1-9.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sumeet Grover is the founder of <\/em>Global Poetry<\/a>, dedicated to creativity, human dignity, dialogue and global citizenship. He is a winner of the Portico Brotherton Open Poetry Prize 2014 and was shortlisted for the Jane Martin Poetry Prize in 2014 & 2015. He has authored two books of poetry:<\/em> House Arrest & Disobedience (2015<\/em>) and<\/em> Change (2011<\/em>). Grover is a member of the<\/em> TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a> and of the<\/em> TRANSCEND Art & Peace Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She came dressed in a mustard suit
\nwith daffodils printed in turquoise
\nand magenta; her long scarf woven
\nin her plait so she doesn’t forget it in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-format"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}