Poem for My Father

Cucurbitaceae

I do not need the label.
I know what it is,
this bitter gourd.
Curl gnarled knob vegetable
the one children avoid,
concealing it beneath that which is palatable,
its better-loved cousins:
the ridged vetakolu, the smooth pathola, the tender cucumbers.
Who would shun the better-named, the ladies fingers, say,
such elegance attached to a bundle of sticks,
such variations in texture within, the slippery, the soft, the fibrous, the seed,
a cornocupiea of treasures.
But this one here,
this one served up as a curry, in chunks,
coconut gravy and briny spices,
green chillies and fresh onions,

doing their best to overwhelm that which resists;
as a salad, thin, spidery, pin-wheels deep-fried and tossed
with lime, and white flecks of capsaicin,
with salt to heal, not wound, and yet –
this one merits no mercy.
It is bitter. There is no acquiring a taste for it.
There is no love possible for it.
There is only an understanding of its virtues:
it reduces the high of sugars
it enhances the complexion
it counteracts the defects of birth
it staves off malignancies,
it reduce the infections of the four-lettered scourge of our milieu.
But in this faraway place, displaced from home,
I gaze at the bag that my father has sent.
Consumed, it is panacea;
left alone, long past its date of expiry, it is talisman.
I think of my father’s health.
I wonder, who will send me bitter gourd?