Of prose and poetry

Hello Reader

You might have noticed a sudden rush of poetry on this serious prose-ey blog here. I have to admit that I have been influenced by somebody lately and the poems that you see are the output of that influence.

I have figured out that there is something exceptionally beautiful about poetry - it is something that lends it a certain kind of creative 'freedom' - freedom to embed every word with a plethora of feelings - dense, intense feelings, and yeah it is much more malleable unlike prose. It can be open to as many interpretations as there are readers and every single interpretation has a strange quality of making it personalised.

Some moments, some feelings get so beautifully frozen in time and space through a poem. And I see an element of cryptography there - because at the end of it you could get to the person who you are writing it for without making it completely transparent too - while others get a different personalised flavor out of it :P - you get what I mean, right?

Do check out my senior Rasagya's blog that is the fount of inspiration for my poetry, - here's it www.rasagya.blogspot.com

Happy reading!!!

Catharsis

I love the way you do it
That annoyance, that toughness
Which take the smile off my face


And catapult me into
Another world
Of silence, emotions and distances
Of dampened joys
Of ghazals and sad songs
Which ignite a different me
And inspire poetry
And voyages into self
Away from all power and pelf
And detachment above all


I'm so glad about this barrier
That keeps you from understanding my poetry
For if you did
Your eyes would go moist over it
And then I wouldn't have liked to see
The catharsis that would have followed

Of Hands - Visible and Invisible

The drooped flower had blossomed again - and I had gone and kissed her goodbye and asked her a favor.

'My letter which was signed by the dean is with Khurshid didi who is apparently out and I need to get a photocopy of it and give it to the mess' --- could you do that for me please?' I had asked with a bit of hesitation.

She smiled reassuringly and said aloud 'Sure!'

'Thanks...'

' - now that's what I don't like --- why do you have to say thanks for little things...???'

'...I guess I don't like asking favours - it makes me feel dependent - I have always been independent'

'...hmm' she moves her eyes in a reflective manner and enunciates, 'Markets cannot always work independently - they also need intervention.'

It reminds me of a supply- demand cross diagram and market failure that occurs when efficiency and equity see a tradeoff.

'Yeah, that's correct...you are my Government', I quip.

With that beautiful realisation, we part.    ***

NANDINI’S LITTLE TALES

‘You know, that teacher at my school?’

…Which one? I ask.

‘The one who takes her hair like this from the side and then puts a ‘chimta’ at the back…’, she tells me with a lively movement of her hands describing the hairstyle of her teacher. ‘I don’t know how she does it though’, she continues. She looks up from the drawing sheet she is coloring to find my face unsatiated by her detail.

She continues with her description of the lady who teaches her everyday in the classroom, trying hard to remember her name which I happen to enquire. Nevertheless she is determined to make me form a mental picture of her teacher’s appearance in my head. ‘She puts ‘lalli’ (lipstick) on her lips before going back home in the afternoon and then some person comes to pick her up in a car’.

…Oh! Waah,  I smile at her with an exclamation as she gets busy coloring the house she had drawn with the pencil. A damp smell of mustard oil spreads in the room. Her grandmother must have lovingly oiled her hair in the morning before sending her to school.

‘Paper acche se karke aana – fir hum bahut si parhaaeee karenge aur bahut khelenge’, I hear myself telling the little girl building castles in the air before her, of days ahead full of fun.

Every time I come home, these little kids are excited and they blush and do all sorts of movements to express their love. I know they miss me. I miss them a lot. And then we have a nice little fun class in the park. These classes come to end very soon, as I leave for Delhi everytime, to jump into another world – a fast paced world with lots of deadlines, a place choked with competition and ambition.

At last, I always smile back at myself for short-lived moments like these, at least I could treasure them for a lifetime and see the fruits of a little effort done two years back maturing every time I come back. Nandini is enrolled in an English medium school nearby. Her mother and grandmother work as maids in the colony and her dad is a painter – the one who paints real houses. It had taken persistent and pressing effort to convince her parents about sending her to school. The ladies in the colony had contributed a share in her school fees. Unlike kids of other migrant laborers, her parents have not yet migrated from this place from two years. Settlement has somehow ensured the continuity of her education.