The Bandh Lynn Aarti Chandhok (bio) The Jhelum River snaked past our back yard, Beyond the corn, the rows of ripe tomatoes— Where mornings we filled baskets, or our skirts, Ran home and begged the cook to make us soup— Past brimming orchards of sweet apples, thick Groves of gnarled plum trees dangling black-skinned fruit. The Bandh protected us from springtime floods But blocked our view—built up so high the land Seemed like a shallow basin, till the day We tucked ourselves between the barbed-wire lines And clambered up the dusty zigzag path, Up to the Bandh's high crest. For the first time, I saw what stretched out on the other side: A scattering of huts and smoldering fires, Smoke rising without the scent of prayer or food, The river ambling, quiet, almost looming, Its current strong enough to wash away The women who unwound themselves from yards Of saffron sarees, pounding out the silt, Then stretching crimson rivulets of silk To dry, billowing on the shore—or else The green-eyed children who would point and laugh, Their quick, white smiles grabbing the evening light— Even the goats and cows that claimed the path And, edging us aside, clanged home at dusk. That summer I learned bandh meant closed. I turned The grammar over in my head. From here, The view was clear. The setting sun laid pinks Across the river and the vale. Immense Chinar trees draped their boughs in silhouette. Then we were silhouette against dim light, Our shadows thin as shadows cast beneath A gauze of silk or smoke—and no less true. The Closed, I thought, and turned back from the view. Lynn Aarti Chandhok Lynn Chandhok has worked as a writer and teacher since she graduated from Swarthmore College in 1985. Her poems have appeared in Tin House, Sewanee Theological Review, the Journal and the Dark Horse and are forthcoming in the Antioch Review. Phul Chunaan, a chapbook, is forthcoming from Aralia Press. Lynn lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and two daughters. Copyright © 2005 The Curators of the University of Missouri