Universe: Remains of the day

Through intimate images, ‘Requiem for a Home in Manipur’, a book of poems, blends private memory and the human cost of conflict — these are silenced stories of a wounded land and a plea for healing.

The Gate

Cast in iron, painted white

it stood tall, spread wide

letting cars and lorries

glide through

like beasts returning

from the wild

Shaped by Mother’s touch

arms open to kin and stranger

it secluded kitchen clatter

from the rev and purr

of engines at dusk

deterred drunks, prowlers

night callers

muffled the knock of the unsure

asking for things

we couldn’t part with

But one night it buckled

under the pounding and the kicking

the air swollen with screams

The world spilled in, unbidden

We ran through the very mouth

that once held back

everything we feared

Now it is in ruins

shut tight

bolted

welded with heavier hinges

If we stood before it now

would it recognise us?

The Garden

Colour hums like a hymn.

Dusk or dawn,

green breathes like a dream.

My mother, patient

as earth, nursed

each leaf as if

it held our name.

My father, guiding roots

with weathered hands, taught

beans to climb,

gourds to swell.

They moved

a quiet duet

through seasons of bloom.

Bougainvillea burst

against old walls,

roses whispered,

lilies bowed.

Each stem remembered.

Palms wet with rain,

my sisters-in-law came

to replant memories,

make space for more.

We didn’t just grow flowers,

we grew something

we could own

leaf by leaf.

Even now, if one leans

past the gate

branches will whisper

we once lived there.

— Hoihnu Hauzel is a journalist and author. Excerpted with permission from Copper Coin