Rummaging through the house again we found
scraps of Lux soap, a toothbrush, an old broom,
a leaking bucket, tin box, and lidless bottles,
thread and needle, specs (broken), clips and pins!
Taking down the nameplate on the door,
we placed it face down in the departing lorry.
We looked around again one last time at where
those first ten years of married life went by:
our son, a boon so long desired, was born;
from where we took him to the fire’s last embrace.
Suddenly from some corner camp, a voice:
‘Ba-Bapu, you’ve left nothing here but me.’
Our eyes were full of pricking grains of grass;
our leaden feet tied down with iron weights.
Translated from the Gujarati by Suguna Ramanathan and Rita Kothari