Chhana

It’s taken me time to find

a true account

of who we are.

The provenance of the world

passed me by

till recently.

Three years ago I realized

that chhana

was not timeless.

It was

brought in by the Portuguese.

Since then I’m wondering who

the Portuguese are, and why

they are now all but forgotten.

Is chhana

a gift of consciousness;

was existence bestowed on it

by our awareness of

this curd-like mass

or was it always extraneous,

journeying

from a source?

Exactly that

question pertains

to the Portuguese—

that, not knowing them, can we

assign to them veracity?

These conundrums did not throw

me out of gear four years ago.