Before you read, here are a few words you might want to know…
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Bandar- Hindi for monkey
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Chapati- a flat, thin and round bread eaten at almost every Maharashtrian meal
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Knäckebröd- a hard buiscuit-like bread, most often shaped as rectangles
Ode to Knäckebröd
A Long Distance Life
Is one of knäckebröd
knäckebröd is for Swedes, for those who don’t know,
what chapati is for Maharashtrians
My mother rolls it out on the counter
Salty and crispy,
Spread to infinite thinness,
And it is there
where the magic lays
So little dough can become so much bread
In the oven it hardens, fooling you into thinking it can withstand anything
But the moment you take a bite,
It falls into unsolvable puzzle pieces in your hands
In October my Dad calls
“Maybe you’ve spread yourself out too thin Celia?”
Knäckebröd, I think. Is this what I have been reduced to?
New location, new population
No matter where I am I will find someone who can hold a piece of me
North-South
East-West
Thus I spread in every direction
But when I leave, I leave the piece with them
The problem isn’t giving
The problem is leaving
I’m homesick wherever I go
Because home has come plural
Just as my roots get a proper grip in the foreign soil
I am washed away with the monsoon rain
I feel richer for each person who enters my life,
But poor once their presence has been replaced by their Instagram profile
Being one-click away is not enough
I am still in the oven, I still appear strong
But
It is not only the goodbyes
It is the buds that didn’t blossom
the cups of chai never shared
the crushes left a secret
In the bed not yet shaped after the weight of my body
Lately, I’ve been feeling the cracking
I have been scared to give a piece of me away, seeing the deadline of my next round of farewells running towards me
But I have always lived the Long Distance Life
It is the title of my every journal and the name of my memoir
The only true constant
Maybe the turbulence, with its’ the bumps and swirls
Is a symptom of adolescents
Maybe
Maybe time will give me the butter and cheese of my life
the two ingredients which can hold this fragile knäckebröd together
Even if only temporarily
Maybe I could be more like chapati
Spread in all directions, but flexible and resilient
I want to be a wise nomad,
Not a miserable teen who writes cliché free verse
Mamma, jag älskar ditt knäckebröd
I love your knäckebröd
I always will
A part of me will continue to be knäckebröd
There will be cracks and faded friendships,
potential everythings,
And unfulfilled other things
But just like the bandars of Varanasi,
I don’t want to stop jumping from rooftop to rooftop
I have always lived the Long Distance Life
One day,
in a year or in a decade
Inshallah
Hopefully
Eventually
Chapati will teach me its’ ways
