Vidha Saumya is a drawer, cook, and a bookmaker. She seeks visual interest in the idea of congregating bodies, popular culture and the notion of deformity. She has held solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions in Lahore, Mumbai, Helsinki, and Tampere. She is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Visual Culture and Contemporary Art at Aalto University, Helsinki and is a member of Museum of Impossible Forms, Helsinki.
These poems are part of the project Monumentless Moments – The Utopia of Figureless Plinths, supported by Kone Foundation.
THEM
A group of international classmates stayed once in a house together
At one time there were 10 of them
Divided in rooms under one roof
On the beautiful island of Guidecca
It was such an international group
All had blonde hair
Except those two
Who didn’t even have light skin
And good lord when they left
Using the shower
The beige bathroom floor looked like a mosaic
With their jet hair
Now dog hair is fine one’s sofa
Ones clothes, guest’s clothes,
Dining table,
Chairs,
Bed,
Bathroom,
Wherever… That’s how it should be
It’s really rude to treat a dog like an animal
You must accept it with all grace
Feed it well,
Give it a human name
Those two?
Them you can call Indians
…
MY HUSBAND
My husband has a peculiar face
He has kind eyes, sincere too
Beautifully shaped eyebrows
His lips are not so visible,
You see he has a full-grown beard
I like it very much, I don’t let him shave
Is that why he is picked out for a random check?
He now has a breathing machine
Which looks like just about anything
Is that why he has to open it and show?
Assure?
His laptop, poor Steve, on the desktop of this minimalist machine is a plethora of screen
shots and grant applications
Final, final 1, last and final, ready to send
Is that why, it has to be logged in and checked
And his laptop bag, you know the best I could find before he left for the West
From an international brand nevertheless
All of fourteen thousand
But the bag doesn’t display its price tag, nor its function, it displays the man who just had
it on his shoulders and had emptied it put and placed it carefully on the conveyor belt
Hoping he had not left in by error
A cutter, a pair of scissors or a matchbox
Because no bearded brown man, with a name that rhymes with Allah Hu Akbar
Could have ever used a cutter to cut paper, scissors to cut cloth or a matchbox to light a
fireplace
Every time we travel, I think of multiple Hindu names he could be given in case of
emergency
I think of what will he do by himself if at all he’s detained
I think and think and think of various consequences
Submitting my thesis or becoming an influential artist is the least of my worries
Sivuvalo Platform 