Analysis of A Nose Ring's Ode to the Nose

The first time I met you was on an ordinary summer afternoon in Bombay bazaar's scrounging heat
where little boys were waving their stiff handkerchiefs near the pale old Shikanji stall which played Jagjit Singh's Ghazals on F.M
and a young couple was biting snow cones dipped in black currant syrup from disposable paper cups.

You, walking towards me, were a temple
I, a Muslim, was so curious to enter that I could hear riots storming in you, on you, around you, already in my head. There was a bloodshed when you held me in your palanquin, stains of pain filled every Chowk we walked through together and I heard tremor-like sobs underneath your skin.

The next day, when the war decreased to its aftermath (pomegranate seeds squeezed), we swam unconsciously in bubbling lakes of coconut oil and drank our vitamins from the navy blue parachute bottle.

Each time I rotated around you, I discovered my axis through your 2 mm diameter pinhole again and again. All the goblets of air you inhaled were for the magical universe I was ringed around with a mighty white bead that added honor to me while you added honor to it, compensating it the right to make you look pretty. Then on Friday and Saturday nights we wore Lacto Calamine and Vaseline to shimmer the whole next week and create a syzygy of a courageous nose and a jingling nose ring.

Please accept my apology for the days you turned into a rotten jujube and sobbed silently under heavy breaths. The days when you looked like a shrunken raisin and ached for air, air and air quietly without taunting me. I am so sorry for all those times when your olfactory indicators refused to respond to the fragrance of your favorite ice-cream due to the ache of holding me, but we still ended up together like happily ever afters just because you kept me close to yourself.

I confirmed that you and I glued together, are hashtag soulmates, hashtag made for each other, hashtag couple goals, the day when a lady complimented both of us. "Goddamn", she said as if we were the chart busters of the whole body, as if we rocked the show without actually singing.

I bet you never imagined what life is going to grow into if you ever give up on it. Without you, the universe will succumb into a tiny whit.

Names, places, animals and everything will sear into nothing.

Without you, the world will lose its face. People will have all the oxygen, all the nitrogen but without you, they will lose their breath.

And I? I will be useless.

I will lose my homeland.