The idyll and the poet

The houseboat had stopped in the middle of nowhere spurring the apprehension of an urbanite how safe would it be to spend the night here.

On one side is the vast expanse of a paddy field, stalks still green and half-grown, suggesting it is still some time to for harvest. On the other is the river or backwater on which the boat -- that we had hired for a day -- was anchored. Evening was about to settle down and I could see, standing on the embankment that divided the field and the water, faraway signs of habitation.

Lighting up a cigarette, I decided to stretch my legs a bit. As I went walked down embankment, I came across a man struggling to manoeuvre his canoe along the canal. The little boat was getting stuck to the divider. Seeing me, he gestured for help. It needed a push. I gave it and the canoe was back in its course. “Come over,” he called.

I focused my gaze on the man, small in stature wearing a dhoti and shirt. His most striking feature was a jet black moustache. “Come come” he urged again. Being the thoroughbred cynic that a born and bred citizen becomes, my faculty of reasoning started acting overtime. My mind became an instant Formula One track where stories of mugging, abduction, never to entertain a stranger and the likes were whizzing like the cars, trying to overtake one another. “Come on, guest, guest,” he said.

Somehow I jumped in. He introduced himself as the common language of exchange was a smattering of English. Radhakrishnan wanted me to visit his home, a couple of 100 yards away. Such was the power in his invitation, I could not decline and as it is I was in his canoe.

In that little journey, Radhakrishnan told me he is a poet. I said, “Like Kumaran Assan”. His sparkling white pearls beamed from behind the bush of his moustache. “Oh you know about him.” I have rarely seen any face light up so brightly hearing just the name of a poet. Well, Assan is the “mahakavi” of Kerala and under the unknown evening sky in an alien land, Radhkrishnan spoke of the poet’s demise in a boating accident, while rowing a boat himself. He said rowing the canoe and ferrying people was his profession. And a few weeks ago he got an opportunity to read his poems on the All India Radio. It was surreal but true.

We reached his house by the riverbank. I was embarrassed as he called out his wife and said something in his mother tongue. His daughter came out and showed us in. I realised I was almost in a perpetual state of namaskar. I tried to be normal still trying to figure out what’s going on. His small house bore obvious marks of impoverishment.

Radhakrishnan’s wife came up with a plate of freshly-cut mangoes. The slices were the sweetest I have ever had or ever will. I thanked them profusely. We talked a while. Then Radhakrishnan walked with me back to our houseboat with a torch in hand. I was learning new lessons in hospitality.
Life may not have always been generous with Radhakrishnan always but he has been rather munificent with life. That’s what makes them poets. That is why they paddle canoes with a song in their hearts. 

"Far from  the madding crowd's ignoble strife/ Their sober wishes never learend to stray;/ Along the cool sequestered vale of life/ They kept their noiseless tenor of their way..."

Thank you, Pablo...

Been a long time, isn't it? How long has it been? Well if I put dates, it becomes rather a pedantic documentation like the history books of our school.
Numbers really don't matter. What does is the living inbetween numbers, the long sighs inbetween the process of inhaling and exhaling that says, we are alive.
A gap of a galaxy exists between exisiting and living. The sighs fall somewhere within.
What is it Manini, that you are seeking to know? The name that has been made famous by the ancient Sanskrit poets lurks somewhere deep. The meaning actually.
It is one of those nights when I want to write the saddest lines, but with joy.
Somewhere down the road, I have come across Neruda. And after a long, long haul found his Memoirs too.
What makes a work of art endearing to one's own self, or shall we say soul? Involvement perhaps. Things that one wants to say, do, paint, sing has already been done by someone most beautifully and they don't even want a price for it when we endlessly share their room.
It is one hotel that gives free hospitality. And thankfully, there are so many hotels like that. Where you can just check in even unannounced and still the manager will greet you with a smile. He knows what you want and without even ordering, you will be offered the best of facilities.
Rick's cafe was one of those places. People just walked in knowing there is solace and happiness. Knowing when the world is crumbling around you, it is one place that will offer you a place to sit, a someone to talk to, a someone to share your trepidations, innermost ones, even though they may not be your family.
Did Rick have a family? We don't know. He wanted one, that we know for sure. But he got only friends, lifelong ones, at his cafe.
When Rick is troubled, there is Sam, who has pledged his life for him. The attachment is completely mutual. No raging storm could tear them apart. Sam was surely not part of Rick's family.
Neither was Ilsa or Renault. They are the ones we meet on our walk down the road. And they become family. They stay together and sometimes are ready to die together.
There is something about this word, friend, Manini that confuses me most.
At times when I was asked to choose between the two, I never had second thoughts. Now I do have second thoughts, but I think I will choose what I am used to choosing.
Even though I have to write the saddest lines, night after night till there will be no dawn for me.
“Lines fall on the soul, like dew on grass…”

DREAM OF A LITTLE GIRL

For once, let us go back to the last episode of Tagore's NOSTONEER. Bhupatee has decided to go to Mysore to take up an editor's job, leaving behind a mourning Charulata. His decision to leave Charu has been quite bluntly given expression. He understood Charu was trying to leave the house because Amal was so very much present being absent.
Finally, Bhupatee asks her to come along, but Charu declines.
Why? Why did Charu refuse Bhupatee's invitation?
Tagore, of course, did not leave us with the answer. Thank God, he didn't.
There will always be some questions that we ourselves need to find answers to or keep the search going. Are finding answers more important or the search itself keeps us living in hope that someday we'll find the right answer.
Hahahahaha!!
Amal and Charu created a beautiful world for themselves where the entry for the rest of the world was completely restricted. Nobody was allowed a peep-in. Over a period of time, they adorned the world, which was more real than the real world itself, with the most beautiful part of purest passion. It was actually a beautiful world.
Isn't all the worlds, created by a man and a woman in their closest recesses of the heart buying items from the shop called feelings, the most beautiful? Doing up a house is almost similar till it becomes a home, after some years of living in. How could Charu leave that world and go along with Bhupatee?
Someone has to nurture that world with all the care that sorrow could bring, when one of the resident chooses to say goodbye. Like Amal did, like Elsa did.
The world, once created, cannot be destroyed. However one tries to bring it down, to bomb it out of the face of existence, it survives, because by that time it has become a part of the existence.
The reason why Rick was sure "she will come" and refused Sam's entreaties to go for a long drive and get drunk.
We will never know how long did Charulata nourish that world. My guess is, life long.
And perhaps during one of those never-ending nights, when dawn plays hard to get and that gut-wrenching feeling tries to burst out and declare to the ignorant world about the raging storm ravaging the actual world, Charulata must have had a dream.
The dream of a little girl with a pout in her arms, biting her lower lip with eyes like a pond just after rains, about to overflow. The dream of a little girl comes to remind those two people that the world they had created exists, untainted, unharmed, unscathed. Amratolla Committee will be in session once more. The master-plan of landscaping the little patch of land into a garden of Eden will take shape. Amal and Charu will carry on painting their world with colours and sunshine.
"I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more;
The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key;
And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song."

Just a book

Whenever I go to a bookshop, why do I always want to buy a copy of To Kill A Mocking Bird?
Yesterday, after lunch, we walked into a bookshop. Apparently, it is one of the most famous bookshops in Delhi, tucked away in one corner of the Outer Circle, currently under repair. Well, like all bookshops, it also looked rather inviting or rather I want to feel that way. We feel, what we want to feel, isn't it?A couple of days ago, I read an article on this bookshop. It has been graced by names that matter, including the prime minister, to get their share of newspapers and magazines, when they were yet to reach the pinnacle of fame. Notwithstanding, I started browsing the shelves and like meeting old friends, I came across titles to whom, I said, "Hey, how are you? Haven't seen you for a long time."And then I met Atticus Finch. It had a black cover with a sketch of a bird in white and wrapped up in transparent cellophane paper. I took it in my hands and caressed it as if I had met an old friend in a dank apartment after a long time, on a birthday. The rush of emotions was felt along with the questions of where I had been all this time, why didn't I come to meet earlier, it wasn't fair on my part and such sort--that bundle of inexpressible words that go through in that moment of embrace that tries to delete the absence that had been. Both know that the meeting will be fleeting. It will be over in a matter of minutes. One had waited for a long time for the moment and another had travelled a long, long way for the moment to happen. There was nothing surprising about the meeting. No mystery at all. But that existential urge and the carnal craving to make the moment eternal is something worth revisiting a thousand times. Is it the gait of Gregory Peck, a widower, a father of two, a lawyer and an idealist residing in Maycombe country during the years of Depression? Or is it how Jem and Scout was growing up? Or is it just about some fondness or affection? Difficult to explain as emotions, silly emotions, always are. There can be no apparent reason to buy another copy of the book. As it is, we tend to possess two copies of most of the books we possess. Perhaps, it is about liking something so desperately, that one loves to go back to it at the slightest opportunity. There can be no rhyme or reason to it. One should not try to find one too. Else, why should Rick open a salon in Casablanca, where he came because he thought there was water. He was misinformed, he said. He wanted to be misinformed. He liked it that way. Wish I could buy another copy of the book.

SONGS OF EXPERIENCE

Sleep used to be my faithful friend. Whenever I wanted, I could reach out and find that person is waiting for me with open arms. But my fickleness, I guess, has had a contagious effect on this friend of mine. She doesn't take me on as eagerly as she did till some time ago.
Last night was one of those when I was desperately looking for sleep and she was eluding me, well desperately.
The television was on and on one music channel they were playing those good old Kishore Kumar songs. Suddenly it was the song from Blackmail, a movie I never got to see nor have missed it, started playing. "Pal pal dil ke paas tum rehti ho."
I suddenly went back a couple of decades and wondered isn't this one that hooked me to Kishore Kumar and opened up the whole vista of popular music? It actually was.
Those were the days of cassette players and I got one Kishore Kumar cassette and this song was the first one on the list. Well, the exact and year and date have been lost in oblivion but I was in school then.

What followed were afternoons and nights of backbreaking work. Writing down the lyrics in English alphabets and learning them by heart. And of course, humming them in hours of loneliness when words started to take tangible shapes. And before I could realise, the voice of the man became my voice. People have told me I am tone deaf and I believe them. I was not born to sing like most people in the world. But how can I deny myself the love for the Kishore Kumar songs.
"Har shyam ankhon par tera anchal lehraaye/ Har raat yadoon ki baraat le aaye"--these simple but beautiful lines, when they took shape in my mind, they formed a world of their own.

And last night all those images born out of those words were revisited. As Rakhi was going through a bunch of letters, I flew far away in time. Those afternoons when I was alone at home listening to songs, writing them down and memorising them. Well these were just a part of initiation. The involvement grew with days, weeks, months and years.
Songs, if they are beautiful, always have an association with pain. And words give shape and body to that pain: Tum yunhi jalaate rehana, aa aa kar khwabo mein"...
The song that followed was : Tere bina zindagi se koi shikwa, to nehi, shikwa nehi...with Sanjeev Kumar and Suchitra Sen walking among the ruins. Ruins of life perhaps.
"Ji mein aata hain tere daamon mein sir chupaake hum/ roote raheein roote raheein"--well, how will sleep be my friend if words like these keep haunting me. It's not my fault that I can't sleep night after night. I have stopped listening to music but what will I do with those that I have already heard. It's not the melodies that keep haunting, keep coming back. It's the words in their shapes that I gave them come visiting me often when its all dark. "Jab mein raaton ko taare geenta hun/ Aur tere kadmoon ki aahat sunta hun/ laage mujhe haar taara, teera darpan..."
Is it possible to unpluck Kishore Kumar from the soul. Even though Macbeth pleaded to the doctor to unpluck the unkindness from his wife's bosom, it wasn't possible. Some things are done for good, irrevocable and inscrutable.
Like Rick will always have Paris!

Mark, my Antony

Suddenly revisited Antony. It was some years ago, or shall I say light years ago, that this character had me in a vice-like grip and caused a lot of emotional damage. I am talking about Mark Antony of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. I remember Sisir babu's lectures on this play. Well Antony was the quintessential hero, hurtling towards inevitability with a sweet nonchalance.
What is so adorable about Antony? After all these years, sitting in a New Delhi office on a listless Saturday, Antony is the last thing that I should have gone back to.
The world today is mourning MJ, the king of pop. A friend texted me the news yesterday morning. In the evening while talking, he refreshed my memories about how some of us practised the steps of MJ in our garage. A wry smile stretched my lips. I could almost see that friend, in a sleeveless vest, furiously trying to match MJ's steps in pouring rain and we were egging him on. Life was so simple and so full of life. Now even a smile feels like a herculean task.
But Habu isn't like that. He reminded me how the three Ms — Maradona, MJ and Madonna — ruled our lives during those years. When he said, that I started recalling those days. Most of the images have gone hazy though a few are still very bright. Of course, Diego gave us the greatest pleasure but then I wasn't really happy. Because I was a Brazil fan. I remember how horrible I felt when Brazil lost to France that year.
It has always been like this. When the rest of my gang was going for it, I chose to walk some other street. When they were practising moonwalking, I spent sleepless nights because somewhere Lenin's statue was being pulled down. The separation from the surroundings has been too deep-rooted. It started too early.
That's the reason why Antony appealed to me. How easly he could say "Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide rch of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.." even though serious state affairs awaited his attention.
Never really he cared for the kingdom or fame. He preferred to stay in his own world, the world of Cleopatra though he was desperate to break free of the Egyptian fetters. Contradiction? Yes. Confusion? No.
Not that he didn't know about Cleopatra's frailties or pretentions. He was aware of them. But he lived with his own understanding of the Egyptian queen and died by it too. No amount of critisim could sway him from his love. He tried to reason even when Cleopatra, furious with the news of his impending depature says,
"Eternity was in our lips and eyes,
Bliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor,
But was a race of heaven: they are so still,
Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,
Art turn'd the greatest liar."
But his honourable love always stood on trial. The Queen was too insatiable to satisfy. Antony tried his best and gave his life. "Unarm Eros, the long days task is done." That too after chasing a lie. Like a bridegroom he ran to death as if going into a lover's bed.
All for a lie or a life full of beautiful lies? Ask Antony, if you can.

Amma among stars

Don't really remember whether it was the first poem of Kheya, but the song deener sheshe ghumer deshe is suddenly making all the way into my realm. Especially those lines, "ghore jara jabar taara kokhon geche ghor paane, paare jara jabar geche paare/ghoreo nahi paareo nahi, jejon aache maajhkhane, sondhebelay ke deke ney taare."
I have been listening to this song since how long I don't really remember. I heard it ma singing. Well she wasn't much of a singer, but she used to sing. Then it was Hemanta. His rendition of the song had a feeling of John Denver's 'Anne's song'--you fill up my senses.
With Hemanta singing the song, its like filling up one's senses. Just as Sam's Time Goes By filled up the senses of two individuals. One forced Sam to play it once more. And another barged out from the other end of the bar with a tremendous sense of rapproach and anger in his voice, "Sam, I thought I told you never to play..." and stops short. He never could finish the sentence and never could ask Sam not to play it again. Never.
These days, the evenings in Delhi are beautifully spread out against the sky. Sky, one may ask?It is the same sky that Tagore wrote "ghomta pora oi chaya". It is the same sky that Elliot spread out for Prufrock. Yes, the sky that Rick looked up and saw the plane towards Lisbon.
One can look up and see the quiet bedspread change colour throughout the day, through the seasons, through the year. Once evening tip toes in, like the sound of dew drops, the sky takes its favourite colour. It stays like that for quite a long while so that all the Ricks in the world can wait for all the 'Kids' to walk into their jin joints or walk into the darkness in search of a beautiful friendship.
Don't really remember when I heard it first. Maybe from my amma. She said when people die, they became stars in the sky. "So when I will die," --and I started crying instantly--she said with her fingers in my hair--"you just look up and you will be able to see me." Well, as life is, she died one day. And I tried looking up and saw just stars. It's too late but I realised she lied to me to keep me happy. Just as Rick lied to send Ilsa away to America. As captain Renault said, "She went, but she knew you were lying."
But when I realised that I will not be able to see amma when I look up, it was too late. Some lies just are forever.