ARTIST STATEMENT
This deeply personal piece is a love letter to my sisters, who both commute to and stay in the city on weekdays because of work. We are very close and despite how often we are away from each other, we stay in touch every day, mostly by sharing pictures of food, whether it is our meal for the day, or promotions from new restaurants in town.
Food is our love language. We often buy or make food together, and baked salmon mentaiko rice is one of them. I found myself missing my little sisters’ baked salmon mentaiko rice one night, as I was sitting alone on the couch where we often sit together to watch TV. I was also reminded of the times I made their lunch boxes. And thus, this piece was born. It also reflects the feeling of homesickness they experienced when they first moved to the city all by themselves.
PRAISE
Nadir M.R.’s ‘sentimental rice’ captured our eye with her utilisation of the prompt to expand upon the themes of loneliness and (the absence of) home. In her poem, we are transported immediately to different moments that are all connected through food, allowing us to reflect on the days we have all felt longing before. We appreciate her storytelling, as the poem starts with ‘foreign’ places, and then returns home, reminding us of the strong interconnection between food and home. Through her beautiful way with words, the poem also portrays the bittersweetness of familial ties.
—The Brunei Writers
“sentimental rice” responds to The Nasi prompt by The Brunei Writers.
sentimental rice
12pm lunch in a foreign city,
and on your desk sits a yellow box.
crisply baked mentaiko sauce
a generous spread on top of a sheet of seaweed
hiding the rice underneath,
mixed with shredded salmon—your favourite.
put together by a big sister’s love,
at 4am with half-closed eyes, still heavy from sleep.
under fluorescent lights that glare in your eyes
you eat and wonder how she could stand
the same kind of glare in the dark
while preparing this for you.
with green tea, it tastes just like
the 2am dinner on a lonely weekend night in
while everyone’s slumbering in the next room
and your sleep schedule just isn’t fixed.
makes you remember, too,
of random 9am picnics with family by the ocean
on school holidays back home.
kids riding ATVs out on the beach,
mean jokes and canned laughter from uncles and aunties,
and the sweet, satisfying taste of salmon fillet.
you eat the rice again.
and you cry.
you miss home.
Nadir is a ghost. She appears, and then she doesn’t. If you are lucky, once a year, you may catch her in disguise as a member of the Brunei Writers, either mingling among a sea of poets, or staring quietly at an ominous painting in an art gallery. Sometimes, she throws her writing into the black hole of the internet, donning other names that shall never be heard in the light of day. Her works are mostly poetry and contemporary fiction. At the moment, she is strangely obsessed with oranges.