Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 9, Number 1. May 2026. ISSN: 2581-7094
The Cat and the Hearth
--- Achingliu Kamei
The ashes in the fireplace were poked to uncover the
embers buried there to start the day’s
fire. Upon digging, no live ember was found. The
frustrated woman looked around her
frantically. It would be to her embarrassment and
utter shame if it were found that the embers
of the burnt charcoal she had embedded in the ashes
for the next day had turned to cold ashes.
She could not make a new fire. That was in the domain
of the males. Women weren’t allowed
to take part in the new fire-making. Their job was to
keep the fire going, which was much
more difficult, like working for peace after a battle
had wrecked everything.
The cat mewed in the still, dark room. She was
thankful it was not yet dawn. The ‘fire maker’
was still snoring. The woman quietly went to the cat,
who usually warmed its face, listening
to the tales the woman told in the private space she
had near the hearth. She told the cat, “Go
over to the woman next door and bring me some embers,
so I can make my fire.”
The cat bounded away to the neighbour’s house. The
woman in the house said, “Look who is
here.” The cat did not say anything. It went near the
fireplace. By then, the cat was feeling
very cold. It went near the fire and sat down, facing
it. The woman busied herself, preparing
for the day before her household woke up. She talked
to herself as she moved about.
The cat felt at ease. The fire was warm, and the tales
kept coming. It forgot why it was there
in the first place. Since then, the cat’s place by the
hearth was set, but it never retold the tales
it had heard.
No Glistening Starts Tonight
--- Achingliu Kamei
Under the yellow street light, two working women
No glistening stars to adorn their luxurious hair
Dirty city hounds passed them on motorbikes
Dusty littered space filled their minds
Disrespect for women- passed down through generations
Crimson red night, beast howling in their souls.
Darkened, muddied, sullied minds
Dark blood, dust-filled, impure minds
Evil is about to escape unbridled.
Flee working women, don’t just stand there, sipping
tea
You are not safe in your skin and hair
You’ll be pressed, squeezed like a flower in a page
Men out here are made from hatred and spite
Under the yellow street light is no place to be
Hard-working women from the North East.
Darkened, muddied, sullied minds
Dark blood, dust-filled, impure minds
Evil is about to escape unbridled.
Bloody grey, rarely pink, blood moon hounding.
Evil silhouette descends, mind ceaselessly burning
with lust and desire To harm, as the stray
cat looks on in fear.
Afraid to inhale, deeply, the scent of fallen laburnum
blooms
Working women, run, don’t hold Home in the city
Dirty city hounds are on the prowl to physically abuse
you
Darkened, muddied, sullied minds
Dark blood, dust-filled, impure minds
Evil is about to escape unbridled.
Do you see the screams on the moon’s face?
People stand by and create reels for ‘content’;
Innocent, gentle, pure and good ones are stepped on
Repeatedly. Paved roads are not forest floors
The stars are not out tonight to shine on your
luxurious hair
Conscience has fled the streets, cries for justice
drowned
Darkened, muddied, sullied minds
Dark blood, dust-filled, impure minds
Tonight, Evil escapes unbridled.
Under the yellow street light, two working women
No glistening stars to adorn their luxurious hair.
The Gankhiang Toy
---- Achingliu Kamei
Two little girls were playing beside their mother. She
was cooking rice-gankhiang porridge.
The girls were making an insect toy from the
vegetable’s discarded stems. The mother taught
them how to make one. The creativity of ancient
foremothers passed on. Whenever a good
toy was made, they laughed in glee.
The toy was 100% organic. They did not mind what it
was made of. They had a great time
under their mother’s loving care. They cared only
about perfecting their creation and
admiring each other’s gankhiang tang toys.
Many, many years later, the village became a town,
then a city. The children now play with
cheap toys made in China. Some of the parents
competed. The all-organic toy was discarded.
It was too rustic, they say. Their children became
sickly, and their growth was stunted.
*Gankhiang = Roselle plant
Tang= Stick/stem
Death in Doses
---- Achingliu Kamei
Colonial shadows, on people and land
reduced, dehumanised as ‘Natives’;, & ‘Savages’;
Fought for the aliens, assimilated,
They are mere ‘light brown skins, white masks’;
Death in doses.
Independence dawned, and power shifted
The more powerful still dominate
Whispers of sovereignty grew louder, till it became a
shout
AFSPA entered the scene, then spread its tentacles
Blood of martyrs and women watered the soil, and river
beds
Death in doses.
Open peaceful spaces became battlegrounds.
Unemployment gnaws, alcoholism thrives in every nook
and corner,
Inter-communal fires ignited, rage on in an unending
loop
Number four. Opium haze became the fad. Youths tumbled
Generations wasted
Death in doses.
Global village, development and cash flow
Food and living habits flew the nest
‘Processed food is the civilised food’; its fruit-
Carcinoma, sugar diseases and kidney failures
Death in doses.
Dark chapter follows dark chapter
Yet the resilient, creative and brave endure and
strive
Survive. Or are they? How do 22, 50000 resist 1.48
billion?
“Empires have a way of deceiving themselves into
believing that, being superior to others,
they will last forever”;
So, hope remains.
The Tiger and the Clever Grandmother
---- Achingliu Kamei
Once upon a time, a beautiful girl lived in a village
with her
clever grandmother. Her parents died early, leaving
their only
daughter. The widowed grandmother took her
granddaughter
in and looked after her.
They lived a hard but quiet life in a small thatched
hut a
little farther away from the village centre. The
grandmother
was very handy with her hands.
Like a man, she made all the
bamboo walls for their hut. The widowed grandmother
was
wise and knew many things other male villagers did not
know.
Her small garden near the house yielded enough for her
and
her granddaughter.
“Grandmother, pluck me that red fruit. I’m hungry,”
said the granddaughter Jaugai.
“Here. This is the juiciest one.”
For many nights, her grandmother had been looking at
the
moonless dark sky. One night, the grandmother spoke
tremulously to her granddaughter on their nightly
vigilance.
“Look up there. Do you see that tiny sliver of white
light?”
“I don’t know anything, Grandma. I see only the bright
stars shining and sparkling like the precious stone
carried by
the flying snake.”
“You are not paying attention. If you are always
thinking
only about shiny things, you will never learn,”
replied Jaugai’s grandmother.
She pointed her gnarly fingers toward the sky. “That’s
the
new moon. You should remember what vegetables and
crops
to plant at what time in the moon’s phases. Many
farmers do
not know this. If you are patient and wait for the
right time,
your crops will yield the maximum amount.”
Like this, the grandmother taught her granddaughter
well
over the years. Years passed, and the granddaughter’s
wisdom
and beauty spread far and wide.
These are the days when man
and animal understood each other. One day, when the
grandmother was working in her garden, the Tiger came
to
ask for the granddaughter’s hand.
The grandmother refused
to bring out the granddaughter for the Tiger to have a
look at
her. The Tiger got angry and said that he would eat
the
granddaughter.
The clever widowed grandmother told the
Tiger, “Wait, you taste my flesh before you eat my
granddaughter.” So saying, she pinched at her arm and
gave
the Tiger a piece of her flesh. The Tiger ate it. It
was so bitter
that the Tiger ran away, never to be heard again.
***
What had actually happened was that the old woman
plucked a bitter
brinjal and gave the Tiger a piece of it. The Tiger
thought the bitter taste must be because the
grandmother must belong to a community of impure
blood.
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