POETRY: Aapro Freddie / Rhea Dhanbhoora
Rhea Dhanbhoora has a new collection of poetry–Sandalwood-Scented Skeletons (Finishing Line Press)– arriving in the universe in February. We’ve had Rhea on the show before, and to say the least we are very very excited about this book. Dhanbhoora was nice enough to record this loving ode to the one and only Freddie Mercury for us. It’s a doozy. Give it a listen.
“Aapro Freddie”
by Rhea Dhanbhoora
You know when you claim someone and maybe they know, maybe they don’t, and maybe they agree and maybe they don’t but it doesn’t really matter because there’s no way you’re going to fall out of love with this person who is you but also not you but someone else; bigger, brighter.
The thing is, we see him everywhere we don’t usually see ourselves, and then we see ourselves in him so there we are, all of us: on stage, on your dusty vinyls and cassette tapes and broken CDs and in your heart and carved into your buildings and chiseled onto street corners.
He is everyone’s and no one’s, this four-octave rock God; immutable energy infecting Lake Geneva, that bronze body poised in eternal triumph, private loves, public personas: all of it mixed in with the sempiternal genius of his creations.
So when we say aapro which you don’t understand and just nod and smile and think: oh, there’s another crazy Queen fan my gosh they got to the developing countries too, and when you think of him as the hot, hot, hot British superstar, remember that was him, yes, most certainly — but for us, he is always aapro Freddie, that is: our Freddie.
Freddie from a city called Bulsar; Freddie who wore the white vests: no coincidence they look so much like our Parsi sudras, we like to joke; Freddie with those Parsi teeth and that distinct nose and the mustache that looks exactly like all the cool uncles swilling hard liquor at our weddings and Navjotes; Freddie with the big voice that told us without meaning to tell us that we could do it too.
Our Freddie.
Rhea Dhanbhoora is a writer living in The Hudson Valley. Her new poetry collection Sandalwood-Scented Skeletons is available for pre-order now.
