We hold hands up the slender staircase
\nladen with rubble, to reach a room where sunlight
\nenters wounds in old windows. Licks
\nthe damp walls yellow. The Gomti drifts
\nalong the barren backyard \u2013 its water soundless,
\nholding a mirror to the sky. Laughter foams
\nat our mouths, becomes echo.<\/p>\n
I see a carnival across the river \u2013
\na patch of land on the bank, concealed
\nby sprawling trees and undergrowth. Men
\nbrought down on their knees by other men.
\nQueers quietly leading lovers into the arms of
\nNeem, to speak in the language of bodies.
\nWe are two boys in our early twenties
\nwho can read touch like that, who have broken into
\na 200-year-old mansion, without permission,
\nto see from above where people like them go
\nafter 377 has been read down only for those
\nwho can stay behind closed doors \u2013 in the custody
\nof cheap hotels, or houses that welcome nights
\nwith the sound of latches closing.<\/p>\n
Whispers have come to greet us The current is still slow in the river. Time runs Cover Image: Photo by Ravi Sharma<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We are two boys in our early twenties
\non the pavilion \u2013 the ghosts of revolutionaries
\nwho hid in the basement of this manzil<\/em> in 1857.
\nLet out when someone excavated the halls
\nlast month, they do not know the nation
\nimagines itself free now. The metro snakes past us
\nas they speak. A bulldozer has reached
\nthe other side, its talons ready to dig \u2013
\nmodernise this part of Lucknow with flagpoles,
\npavements, and cameras. The nation has a thousand eyes
\nsprouting everywhere in its reach. These ghosts,
\nlike us, are looking for new places to hide.<\/p>\n
\nslower. Speckles of the afternoon retreat
\nfrom his face, as I turn to the ghosts,
\nask why there are no declarations of love
\non these pillars. We are told to come closer
\nto each other, look carefully when the light dies out.<\/p>\n
\nwho can read touch like that, who have broken into
\na 200-year-old mansion, without permission,
\nto see from above where people like them go
\nafter 377 has been read down only for those
\nwho can stay behind closed doors \u2014 in the custody
\nof cheap hotels, or houses that welcome nights
\nwith the sound of latches closing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":445,"featured_media":24280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3962,3401],"tags":[162,1191,1518,66,203,367,71,1760,11,40,261,99,1523,52,25,1935],"class_list":{"0":"post-24277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-accessibility-and-sexuality2","8":"category-fiction-poetry","9":"tag-access","10":"tag-accessibility","11":"tag-agency","12":"tag-desire","13":"tag-gay","14":"tag-identity","15":"tag-love","16":"tag-poem","17":"tag-poetry","18":"tag-queer","19":"tag-queerness","20":"tag-relationships","21":"tag-safe-spaces","22":"tag-section-377","23":"tag-sexualities","24":"tag-vulnerability"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/445"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24277"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24285,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24277\/revisions\/24285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}