ನೋವನ್ನು ಬಯಸದಿರು ನೀನು

ಬಿರುಗಾಳಿಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕ ಹೂವಾಗದಿರು ನೀನು 
ಬೆಂಕಿಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕ ಮರವಾಗದಿರು ನೀನು 

ಶ್ರುತಿಯಿಲ್ಲದ ಹಾಡಾಗದಿರು

ಶಬ್ದಗಳಿಲ್ಲದ ಕವನವಾಗದಿರು

ಕಣ್ಣಹನಿ ನೀನಾಗದಿರು

ನೋವಿಗಾಗಿ ಹಂಬಲಿಸದಿರು

ಮುಳ್ಳಿಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕ ಎಲೆಯಾಗದಿರು ನೀನು 

ಕಲ್ಲಮೇಲೆರೆದ ನೀರಿನಂತಾಗದಿರು ನೀನು 

ಮರುಳ,

ಹೊಸ ಶತಮಾನದ ಆದಿಯಲ್ಲಿ

ನವ ಜೀವನದ ಹಾದಿಯಲ್ಲಿ

ಕಾದಿರುವುದು ತಿರುವೊಂದರಲ್ಲಿ

ಸುಂದರ ಪ್ರೀತಿಯಾ ಓಲೆ

ಬದಲಾಗು ನೀನು 

ಬದಲಿಹುದು ಜಗವೆಲ್ಲ 

ಕಾರ್ಮೋಡದ ಕಗ್ಗತಲಿದು 

ಇದರಡಿ ನೀ ಬೆಳಕಿಗಾಗಿ ಕಾಯದಿರು.

೨೫ ಏಪ್ರಿಲ್ ೨೦೦೫ 

Someone today asked me if I wrote poetry. I write, or used to write bad poetry. Some were scribbled in the middle of class, some between assignments, some in the depths of misery. While thumbing through an old notebook this evening, I found this poem I wrote for a friend in 2005. 

Thankfully, I have stopped writing poetry now. 

Edit: For those who asked, here is a very rough translation.

Don't wish for pain

Don't be the flower caught in a storm
Don't be the tree stump caught in the fire

Don't be a song without melody
Don't be a poem without words

Don't you be a tear in the eye
Don't wish for pain

Don't be the leaf stuck to a thorn
Don't be the water poured on a stone

Mad one,
In the beginning of the century
In the path of a new life
There awaits around the corner
A beautiful love letter

Please change
The whole world has changed
This is the darkness of black clouds
Don't wait under them for light.

25 April 2005

An Epiphany About Writing

Let me be a narcissist today.

On days just before when I know something bad will probably hit the fan above me, I like to write these kind of things down, to remind me of those times when I was smiling.

This blog gets its little pile of fan mail, I have to report. 'Fan' is too fancy a word, they are people who are nice enough to write me, telling me what they think. I like to assume they continue to read these pages. These mails mean so much more to me than what I hear from friends, not to say that I don't appreciate that. I do. But hearing from those anonymous strangers who have a nice word to say always makes my day. I have saved all those mails.

I even amuse myself with the slightly bizarre ones. Some want to make 'fraandship' with me. A favourite is one that I still can't make sense of. To this day I am not sure whether it was a brickbat or a bouquet. Another seemed like a description of a date in a faraway place. I save those too. 

If you are reading this, I thank you. Do keep writing in. I always reply.

In a series of epiphanies that I have been having off late, today's was, predictably, to do with writing. I got commissioned to write something for a place I have huge respect for. That, and other things in life, other writings, toned down the restlessness, the panic I was in yesterday. For sometimes, it is best to carry Bohemia in your hearts. 

And then I and a former colleague, an editor I have good respect for professionally, and is a much loved mad hat friend personally, were chatting this afternoon. Nearly three years after I left, it feels really good to hear my writing is still remembered, and to an extent, missed. Then there was this person I was talking to today, a colleague from some six years ago when I was just starting out as a reporter. Though in the same newspaper, we had never met; he being in a smaller town. As before, again today, he still remembers the stories I wrote back then, the many bylines, the many reports. I admit, when your name, your writing garners instant recognition, it is quite a high. 

This is the best reward for the months and nights of questions I have asked myself, to write or not, to answer this call or not. I realize that I don't have a choice here. I am answering it, just by these words that I cannot stop myself from writing.

This was narcissistic. I shall not apologize. For I may soon need to remind myself these words.

Neruda's The Word

You can say anything you want, yessir, but it's the words that sing, they soar and descend . . . I bow to them . . . I love them, I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them, I melt them down . . . I love words so much . . . The unexpected ones . . . The ones I wait for greedily or stalk until, suddenly, they drop . . . Vowels I love . . . They glitter like colored stones, they leap like silver fish, they are foam, thread, metal, dew . . . I run after certain words . . . They are so beautiful that I want to fit them all into my poem . . . I catch them in midflight, as they buzz past, I trap them, clean them, peel them, I set myself in front of the dish, they have a crystalline texture to me, vibrant, ivory, vegetable, oily, like fruit, like algae, like agates, like olives . . . And I stir them, I shake them, I drink them, I gulp them down, I mash them, I garnish them, I let them go . . . I leave them in my poem like stalactites, like slivers of polished wood, like coals, pickings from a shipwreck, gifts from the waves . . . Everything exists in the word ... An idea goes through a complete change because one word shifted its place, or because another settled down like a spoiled little thing inside a phrase that was not expecting her but obeys her...They have shadow, transparence, weight, feathers, hair, and everything they gathered from so much rolling down the river, from so much wandering from country to country, from being roots so long...They are very ancient and very new... They live in the bier, hidden away, and in the budding flower... What a great language I have, it's a fine language we inherited from the fierce conquistadors... They strode over the giant cordilleras, over the rugged Americas, hunting for potatoes, sausages, beans, black tobacco, gold, corn, fried eggs, with a voracious appetite not found in the world since then... They swallowed up everything, religion, pyramids, tribes, idolatries just like the ones they brought along in their huge sacks... Wherever they went, they razed the land... But words fell like pebbles out of the boots of the barbarians, out of their beards, their helmets, their horseshoes, luminous words that were left glittering here... our language. We came up losers... We came up winners... They carried off the gold and left us the gold... They carried everything off and left us everything... They left us the words.


Excerpt from Pablo Neruda's Memoirs.

Neruda! In the grip of Neruda!

Lot of the Lamp

Here is the thing about lamps. When dark falls abrupt, like night falling over Africa, people seek out lamps, flooding onto its edges like their lives depend on it. Which it usually does, for who likes the deepness of a moonless night? Who wouldn't then prefer the glow of a lamp?
Here is the thing about people then. After the night is pushed over by the first rays of the morning sun, when spring winds rise up to hug the cherry trees, the lamps are put out. Who needs a lamp when you can hold the sun within your outstretched arms?
Perhaps to wait for people upon whom night falls like in Africa is the lot of the lamp. 

Like a Rolling Stone, Now and Then

So where was I? Between work, books and loves of many manner, with thought-worms in the head and fidgety in the feet, I have been keeping these pages at a slight distance. Like a beloved pet, I take it for granted, expecting it will understand when I come back, expecting it will embrace me with the same love again. Presumptuous hasn’t yet bitten my behind; it is the quiet over confidence that I dangerously flirt with. Yet, here I am, again, oftener. Because writing in catharsis. And a lot more else. I am a much nicer person to people in my life when the restlessness is channelized through these words here, now.

Where was I? As I sit here on Deepawali day wholeheartedly cursing the boys on the street for the bombs they are lighting up (how that noise is fun is beyond me), the last few weeks goes by in a flash. I travelled in the North East again, on work though, this time. There was a too short holiday in Wayanad from where, as a souvenir, I brought back an injured hand. It was in those two weeks of absolute rest when I couldn’t type a word that I realized how much I need writing for my sanity, to remain insane. Then there were some emotional ups and lows, the usual, the usual though. Life would be awful, my writing would die if the days were all rosy and pink and happy. *Shudder*

And now where am I? I am in a very happy place right now. And that is not merely because I am writing again. It is more about...how do I put it…that smile I wake up with every morning, that blanket of goodness that envelopes me the rest of the day…that happiness for the world. I don’t remember how long ago it was that I felt anywhere close to this. I like to be a creature of instinct. One day, it felt right, even when it didn't make any sense. It all felt right and I decided not to fight and push and run this time. Happiness was available and I decided I want to take it, in pounds and barrels this time.

Bohemian rhapsody. Storytelling. Neruda (Neruda did it!). Life is good. I smile again.

Ah Neruda!

After 1 am one night, we read aloud and were overwhelmed by Neruda. Trying to answer - "How old is November anyway?" - we discovered surreal-ty in our loves for Cohen, Dylan, Sinatra. And Piano Man.
And thus, thinking it was about time, I remained overwhelmed.

Diary of a Wounded Writer

A short holiday led to an injured hand. And forced rest, off work another week. And because I can't write, I now think up all kinds of things and get frustrated because I can't write. I read, at near marathon speed. I get irritated because my hand movements are terribly restricted.

I watch dozens of birds feed and chirp and make a racket. A squirrel tries to chew its way through my roof. A snake I haven't seen this time.

Cyclone Nilam has sent rains by. It is very cold and rather misty today. My dog Blacky is a lump of black, so black that he doesn't show well in pictures.

I miss writing, more desperately than I could miss anything, anymore. Much as I try to live in denial, I don't feel alive if I'm not writing. That acceptance now brings its own set of issues right now.

Then there are new people and hence new issues in life. The calm lasted three years. Now there is a hurricane in my path.

Well, bring it on.