2015

Your story is written

by an unseen hand

in a long-winded sentence,

which doesn’t really say much.

Year-ends come

like commas, marking

a pause, to allow

you to catch your breath;

But then some

are like semicolons:

you know

it might as well have ended

here;

but it didn’t;

it won’t;

it

just

won’t...

~ aviD

Naivete

For an irrational moment
I had thought our fates
have been sealed,
among that multitude
of books, some as old
as civilisation, and some
new as your youth.

A quiver of thrill ran
through me as I introduced
Odyssey to you.
Even Homer would have seen
the affection that glazed
my eyes as they darted
from the book to your face.

“Iliad too must be about!”
I’d said looking away impulsively,
eager to conceal that very affection.
Would I sail the Aegean sea
to reach you? Would I launch a thousand
ships to have you?

No! But I was willing to share
my books with you. And my food.
And, believe you me,
that’s a bigger endeavour on my part
than the ones epics exalt.
All the while we walked
those semi-lit alleys
of Connaught Place,
I’d secretly hoped that you’d
place your hand around my waist,
or plant a kiss on my cheek.
All the while we talked
in the frail chill
of an early December evening
I’d secretly hoped that you’d
tell me one thing that you like
in me.

When I dared to probe your feelings
you said that you’ve been
meeting other people, and that
you treat all of us equally.

Never had egalitarianism
sounded as ridiculous and offensive
to me before.
What was I to put it down to?
Your naiveté or mine?
Yours could still be extenuated by
your age. But mine should only be
damned.

~ aviD

Why Am I Not Buying A Kindle Yet?

As someone who always carries a book in my bag (yes, I always carry a bag too), I am often advised to buy Kindle. I have myself toyed with the idea of buying one often. Kindle is lighter, can store many books at once, has a great battery life, saves paper etc. But there’s something that holds me back every time my fingers hover dangerously close to the ‘Add To The Cart’ when I visit the Amazon website.

So what are the reasons one may not want to buy Kindle, despite being a book-lover? I am sure, you’ve heard the “Oh, it doesn’t feel like a real book!” argument. So I won’t go there. Let’s explore other reasons.

Books make for great conversation starters: You’re reading on the metro, lost in the magic of words, oblivious to the world around you. You don’t realise that there’s a pair of eyes secretly watching you. No, actually, it’s the title of the book that’s caught their attention. The observer comes up to you and interrupts your book-induced revery saying, “hey! That’s an amazing book you’re reading. I re-read it last week. How do you like it?” He smiles at you. A disarming smile. The Jay Gatsby kind of smile. You smile back, happy with the realisation that there are still things in the world that are prettier than the book you’re holding, and share your impressions of the book. For all one knows, few minutes later, you two may be walking off into the sunset discussing books and quoting your favourite lines. Now, can this happen with Kindle?

Books make for pretty home decor: I am not sure how many of you realise the incredible power of books to render a dull and deserted corner of your house alive and welcoming. Just stack up a few books against the wall, throw in a large floor cushion or a beanbag, hang a pendant lamp—and you’ve just made your room awesome! Some book-covers are so exquisite that they can rival art objects easily. Use them well and see your space turn Oh-so-classy!  Can you do that with Kindle?

Books speak for you: When someone comes over to your place for the first time and looks at your books, they get a sense of person you are without your having to say it. Your books open a tiny window through which one can peek into your personality. Your taste in books speaks for your outlook towards life. Then by asking you which are your favourite ones, the highly recommended ones, the ones which you didn’t like as much, they can fine-tune their understanding of your weltenschauung. All the books laid out there on your shelf have a little bit of you preserved between their pages. If one is perceptive enough one can read into your personality, to a reasonable degree, by reading the titles gracing your book-shelf. I am not sure if someone on their visit to your house may want to ask you to open your Kindle for them so that they may see the titles you own. (On a related note, those who don’t notice your books, aren’t worth being invited second time round. Just saying!)

Kindle is expensive: Actually, I am poor. There! I said it. So maybe if you’re thinking what to buy me this Diwali, I have already made your life easier. You can thank me later. After I have thanked you for your generosity, that is. Don’t worry, I will make do with the amazing benefits that physical books come with. We HAVE to save trees. Remember!

The Morning After

Like a snake,

the night sneaked

into the burrow of oblivion,

leaving behind trails of 

fading purple that slowly

gave into a dim orange.

 

And now the sky looks

as if it has borrowed its hues

from the smudged kumkum

that adorns Her breasts.

 

The breasts are marked.

The previous night they were

marked with rich patterns

drawn with fine kumkum, and

this morning, with tiny crescents

(where His nails had dug into).

 

Faintly aware of the new morning, 

wrapped in the haze of memories

from the previous night,

She blinks and yawns,

fighting back the torpor, 

with a delicate stretch of hands  

(the fabric of time and space

 contracts and expands!).

 

Her locks, curly and black,

dishevelled as they are,

with lose mogra flowers

tangled in them here and there,

look ravishing. 

(Last night He had knitted

 these flowers in her braid.)

 

The surroundings look cluttered:

disarrayed garments (that had been carefully 

chosen the night before); the lose and 

scattered pearls that, till the last night,

had strung and swung on her bosom;

a forlorn flute and a few ruffled peacock feathers.

 

He is lying next to her.

His eyes, like the petals of a blooming lotus,

underlined with thick lashes, still closed. 

His eyelids are stained with the red

of her lips and her lips stained with

the black of his kohl.

 

On his nether lip sits a bite-mark

(She smiles shyly as she observes it);

the tilak mark on his forehead is half erased;

the pleats of his turban lose, almost about to come off.

 

His nearly undone turban is crimson-stained. 

She looks at it, confused, then, images flash in her head:

He is decorating her lotusy feet with mahaavar. 

She giggles when He praises his own artistry. 

He brushes her feet gently,

making her slightly giddy and tickly.

 

And He then implores her to place her right foot

on his forehead right betwixt his eyebrows. 

Reluctantly, she complies. 

Something like an electric current tunnels through him

the moment her sole touches his forehead. 

(Galaxies are shuffled;

 they spin and collide, 

forming galactic vortexes !)

 

He pulls it down slowly, 

feeling its softness and warmth on his face, 

and sucks her toe for while, 

before bringing it further down

and placing it on his broad chest 

and pressing her sole hard against it,

lost in divine ecstasy. (New universes are born!)

 

She had closed her eyes,

for she could not have dared to witness

the sacrilege, although she was the very instrument of it.

A moan escapes her lips (there come the Vedas!).

 

Now reminiscing about it,

in this serene dawn, 

she cannot seem to gather the details of what followed.

There were only signs and imprints

left now to tell the tale:

her body was now smeared with the chandan 

He had worn last night, and his body

had trails of scented unction that

She had anointed herself with.

Plea

He lies grunting,
smeared with blood and dust,
on the battlefield.

You two stare at each other.
Your eyes— dilated, smoky,
And fiercely red; his— defeated, dull, depleted

And full of plea,
as even death refuses
to grant him refuge
from your wrath.

How dreadful one must be
to have even death shudder
at the thought of embracing him.

He is watching you thirstily
as you clench your teeth,
and clasp your fists around the trident,

and is waiting for you to lunge it
in his once ego-swollen, now pain-crushed chest.

He shivers and rolls at your feet,
as you draw the trident back,
fearing that you may change your mind
and let him live.

You laugh,
violently, boisterously, throatily,
nostrils flaring, nose-ring swaying,
unwilling to grant him his
most willed will at this moment: end!

With a wounded ego,
a maligned soul,
a motionless body
and exhausted eyes
he is looking at you longingly
to salve him from this indignity, this humiliation.

O Ma! Relieve him now! Be merciful, O Durga! 

 

~ aviD

How do I thank you?

How do I thank you
for making me a
hot cup of coffee in
middle of this autumn-flavoured night?

For grazing my legs
with your foot as we sit
on opposite chairs on the verandah with my earphones plugged in and
Gulzar's lyrics tugging at my heart?
For gazing at me from the opposite
chair as though there's been nothing
more important to you than gazing at me thus?
Ever!


For continuing to gaze at me
when I avert my eyes from you and close them,
conscious and shy,
from all your gazing, and pretend to concentrate on the lyrics?

For leaning forward to kiss me;
but then tousling my hair
pulling my right cheek instead?

For then, as the watchman beats
 his stick on the ground somewhere
in the distant background and as the
trees murmur in the light breeze,
wrapping your arms around me
and nuzzling at the cleft between my neck and my shoulder?

For taking one earpiece and humming
along with me as we spoon
under the half-bitten moon?

For being so tender, so thoughtful, so perfect?
How do I thank you--most importantly-- for not being?
~ aviD


"कोई आता है पलकों पे चलता हुआ, इक आंसू सुनहरी सा जलता हुआ
ख्वाब बुझ जाएंगे... राख रह जायेगी
रात ये भी गुज़र जायेगी ...."
~ गुलज़ार

My Bookish Woes (2)

I often tell myself that one day, when I grow up, I will read non-fiction too. But for now I am content with my world of fiction. Such a confession often invites judgemental looks. ‘So you don’t want to broaden the scope of your reading? You don’t want to be informed? Don’t you want to grow (and sound) wiser?’ These are the implied questions that are raised along with the eyebrows. The underlying assumption being: fiction is not brain-nourishing, to put it mildly, or that it is juvenile, to put it bluntly.

In the last post I talked about how while growing up I was never introduced to classics. So I was untouched by the art of the Tolstoys, Austens, Brontes, Prousts or Twains. By the time I came to realise the importance and necessity of reading classics, it had been too late. After a point you just have too much on your plate. It becomes difficult, if not impossible, to take time out for such pastimes or to make up for what you had missed out in your childhood. And thus you want to make the most out of whatever little you get of this precious reading time. However, for a reader like me this situation presents a new dilemma. Should one read things that one would like to read or one ought to have read by now? Or should one read stuff that’s supposed to make one wiser and more informed (or at least make one sound wiser and more informed)? Of course, I mean non-fiction. 

Whenever I sit to read fiction something in me feels a bit uneasy. Or perhaps guilty. Guilty of not devoting this time to sharpen my wits by reading non-fiction. Does reading Pride and Prejudice not befit me, for it could be written off as nothing more than glorified chic-let romance from the Victorian era? Does reading Madam Bovary (or Lady Chatterley’s Lover) not become me, for it can be scoffed at as nothing but litany of woes of an ingénue who asked for all the trouble? And, of course, won’t my reading Harry Potter, at this age, make no-one want to take me seriously? (Yes, I haven’t read that either; don’t abandon me now please!)

Although people like me would want to believe that reading fiction makes you smarter, there’s not enough credible and concrete proof to suggest so. Thus we still can’t conclusively say that fiction indeed makes us smarter and nicer. 

One may argue that reading fiction comes with its own benefits. The staple ones being: facility with the language, enriched vocabulary, development of the organ of empathy, escape from grim reality, awareness of and exposure to other cultures than your own etc. But are these enough? 

Firstly, it must be stated that fiction is not entirely untruth. It’s not falsified reality; but it is reality ordered and arranged in a certain fashion so as to make it more lucid and tangible. There are indeed additions and subtractions done by a writer to dramatise and to intensify the reality, but the base is, mostly, the lived experience (of the writer’s or of the people they’ve known). Not even wildest of fantastic fiction is without modicum of reality. 

Good fiction can go beyond the aforesaid perks, I feel. It could help you crystallise sentiments that are otherwise amorphous. It breaks down, in words, what you may be feeling at any given point in time, or that you may have felt at a certain point in time in the past. The joy of stumbling upon sentences that capture ever so precisely what you’re feeling is incredible; it makes you want to thank the writer heartily. It could also make you wonder if the writer was snooping upon you, or if the writer is endowed with uncanny prescience. Emerson had once remarked that, “in work of a writer of genius we rediscover our own neglected thoughts”. That’s the beauty of art: it helps you find yourself by losing yourself in it.

  Good fiction can even induce new epiphanies. It holds your hand and leads your way to the threshold of the sanctum of realisation; and then it withdraws its steps as you enter the sanctum, while it stands at the threshold with its arms crossed, smiling, contented in the knowledge that within you’re revelling in the glow of that realisation. Thus in a way good fiction has the potential of not only informing your outlook (‘inlook’ too), but also rendering it anew. Like any other form of art, good fiction could be both informative and transformative.

Another thing that draws me to fiction is that it gives you an impression, even if false, that you can control time. Of all things that are disobedient, time is most annoyingly so. But when you immerse yourself in a good book, time does slow down. You get to observe and dissect those micro-expressions, micro-thoughts, micro-moments that elude us in our high-paced lives. The consciousness of a (good) writer can push itself betwixt two closely overlapping, infinitesimal moments, and then wring out the very essence of all that is felt by us in those fleeting moments, such that the consciousness of the reader can then soak up that distilled essence.

“We can learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology,” Noam Chomsky had once said.

Even if not brain-nourishing, fiction could very well be soul-nourishing. Then, how could a reader, who has already missed out a lot of these wonderful gems in his growing up years, not feel compelled chose fiction over non-fiction? And even while I choose to read fiction, I am torn between the urge to read those classics and the stunning works of contemporary literature. As I read one book I feel tempted to pick another, echoing the perpetual complain of every reader: so many books; so little time! So apparently, my bookish woes aren’t coming to an end anytime soon.

My Bookish Woes (1)

I am writing this sitting in a train and next to me sits an elderly couple. The gentleman is easily in his mid-sixties and is reading a book. Curious to know what book he’s reading I tilt my head at a certain angle, imagining that I am doing so imperceptibly. But it is not so. His wife notices me and asks her husband to show me the book he’s reading. Embarrassed, I smile and thank him.

‘Oh, it’s just a novel! Tell me son does it suit him to be reading such novels at this age? Now at his age he should be reading Gita, but your uncle keeps reading these novels,’ the lady tells me and then chortles. The gentleman stares at her, then at me and goes back to reading his book.
This made me interrupt my own reading and reflect on this incident a bit.

 I was raised in a conservative vaishnav household, wherein reading any kind of secular literature, unless it was academic, was seen to be a form of dawdling. While reading non-fiction still qualified as quality reading, reading fiction (novels particularly) would attract disdainful looks from the elderly. ‘Human form is too precious to be wasted on these fabrications!’ their looks said. Reading novels was for idlers. My grandmother would tell us the story of some distant aunt of ours who’d earned a bad name for herself because she read too many novels; or maybe because all she did was to read novels. We were told that it was difficult finding a match for her. ‘Which saas would want a bahu that just drinks tea and read novels all day?’ my grandmother would say shrugging.

 As a result of this wariness that my folks had vis-a-vis novels, as children we were never exposed to classics; I had not heard of Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters until after I finished college. There was hardly anyone around us who read fiction, which obviously meant there were no works of fiction in the house on which we could lay our hands. This is not to say that there was aversion to books or to reading. In fact while my SoBo peers were reading Austen, Dickens, Twain et al., I was reading Meera, Jaydev, Soordas et al.

Now in retrospect when I analyse the situation, I find it very amusing. In one sense this practice could be seen to be very restrictive and orthodox, depriving a child of the pleasure and treasure of world of fiction. Yet in another sense it could be seen as an exercise in decolonisation, even if inadvertently so. We were not disallowed per se to read these classics, but we were never encouraged either. And even when we did read them (thanks to the school library), we were completely oblivious to the canonical status that these books enjoyed. For us it was just another novel, and for my folks, perhaps just a waste of time (and of the precious human form). We would have never gotten around to appreciating the indigenous literatures, if we were distracted, or even possibly consumed, by the glamour of the English classics or novels in general.

However, this ostensibly decolonising practice could have also taken a perilous turn: it could have made us myopic and parochial, and worse still, chauvinistic. We too could have turned into narrow-minded nincompoops, who are so blinded by the almost mythical glory of the past that they fail to realise its goriness. But we were salvaged. And like it is almost every other time, this time too it was mummy dearest to our rescue.

My mother had been a reader in her childhood. And I can safely assume that she must have been a secret reader. I don’t know how and when she lost touch with this side of hers; but during our late-night conversations with her, I distinctly remember, she would often tell us how as a child she was fascinated by the world that Enid Blyton would create in her popular series. She would get us Chandamama (in English) to read and would also often read it to us also. So she was the one who had introduced to the world of fiction.  More importantly, she had also passed on to us her love for languages and reading.

But perhaps it was a little too late. A considerable span of my childhood had already passed without reading fiction, and whatever little I read would not qualify to be called refined literature. Still, the seeds that mother had sown did not go waste.

Much later in my life I decided to study literature formally. And my introduction to literature, and by extension humanities, as an academic discipline prevented my falling prey to chauvinism. (Though I must confess I was almost there. Almost!) It taught me that genius does not belong exclusively to one country, one race, or one community. And, interestingly, my being rooted in the indigenous culture in my growing up years also prevented me from blindly holding the western canon in reverentially high esteem. It taught me that imperfection also doesn’t belong exclusively to one country, one race or one community. So, in a way, it did solve its purpose of decolonisation. To put it simply, I realised: to err is human, and to think that we (the Orient) have never erred or that they(the Occident) cannot err, is bovine!


What I still could not fully shake off was this deeply ingrained guilt I feel while reading novels. Even today, I feel some sense of scruple if I sit to read a novel first thing in the day (no matter however desperately I want to). A couple of years ago an relative of mine had come to visit us. I was in the first year of my master’s and was trying to penetrate Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness. He walked in to my room and upon finding me reading, he asked me hesitantly: ‘beta, is this your course book or just a novel?’ For him a book that was not a course book (prescribed in the curriculum) and was fiction, was still just a novel. Just a(nother) novel. What a waste of the precious human form!

But my bookish woes aren’t confined to just this culturally conditioned guilt. Books now present me with a new and a different set of dilemma. I should try to write about those the next time though. For now I have a book to return to. 

PS. The elderly gent sitting next to me is reading Half Girlfriend

Squalor Of My Thoughts...

Tonight I sit to unload the squalor of my thoughts on to this pristine paper, thereby tainting it. Must not the paper resent me? There are better things that could have been scribbled on it.

And while you think that the daily drudgery of life is a battle in itself, a battle to be fought more with yourself than the world outside, life suddenly delivers a blow so staggering that you reel for days, trying to absorb the enormity of it all. Days! In those days you don’t live life—life lives you. You are just doing one thing after another to deal with the blow, hollowed out and crushed.

You just look around, amused, as the rest of the world moves on at its usual crazy pace, unmoved by your tragedy. You want the world to explode. You want the people to express profuse regret for what life has done to you. You want the world to come to a halt and just tell you how immensely unfair, undeserved, and incredible your suffering is. You want all of them to commiserate; and yet you get grated when the platitudes begin to roll: Keep faith in God. Don’t lose hope. Be positive. Stay strong...

What else can they say? They’re not at fault. Perhaps, they’re right too. Yet it all somehow sounds patronizing. You don’t want to answer the calls of the people who call to ask after how you are coping, for that would make you feel helpless all over again; yet you despise all the people who did not call to check up on you, to extend help. The problem is not them, it’s you. It’s what the tragedy has made out of you. 

You look at yourself in the mirror and realise that you’ve aged, suddenly, rapidly. You see it on your face and you feel it in your body. You begin to feel laugh at people who fuss over petty issues. You begin to hanker after the time you’d fussed over those petty issues. How wonderful those days seem now.  You begin to envy everyone around you who leads a normal life, or normally abnormal life, and deals with normal problems. You begin to wonder how elusive this one thing has been all your life: normalcy. All your life if there’s one thing you’ve craved immensely, it is: normalcy.

In the wake of the blow, though, you begin to see things more clearly. You get to know those who really matter. You get overwhelmed by the kindness and support that pours from unexpected quarters. You get disappointed when people you’d depended on the most turn you down. You look at a random person’s face (as you sit across him in a train) searchingly, meekly hoping that they may see, in turn, all that you cannot show the people you know. Because that will make you seem weak and vulnerable. You want to grab a stranger by their collar and collapse, yelling and crying.

The thing takes the biggest toll is your ego. It gets smashed utterly and brutally. The blanket of insularity you’d wrapped around yourself gets ripped off. The shell of solipsism, that you once aggressively guarded and rationalised, is pounded open and you stare, wistfully, at its bits strewn all about you. You’re left with only two choices: roll at the feet of others and ask for their favour, or perish.

Tonight I sit to unload the squalor of my thoughts on to this pristine paper, thereby tainting it. Must not the paper resent me? There are better things that could have been scribbled on it.