Griffin calls to come and kiss him goodnight
I yell ok. Finish something I’m doing,
then something else, walk slowly round
the corner to my son’s room.
He is standing arms outstretched
waiting for a bearhug. Grinning.

Why do I give my emotion an animal’s name,
give it that dark squeeze of death?
This is the hug which collects
all his small bones and his warm neck against me.
The thin tough body under the pyjamas
locks to me like a magnet of blood.

How long was he standing there
like that, before I came?

– Michael Ondaatje

Download audio file (bearhug_64kb.mp3)

Why call a hug given with such love and wholesomeness a bearhug? A bearhug is usually so intense that it’s supposed to crush your bones and perhaps even kill you. The poem is so brief and filled with such wonder at the effortless seeking of love of a child, that to call it touching is an understatement. One of my other favourites by Ondaatje is “To A Sad Daughter“.

[Mp3 Download. (Right Click, Save As)]

The last one and half years we lived half our lives on Google Talk. We’d work together and play songs in the background. She is one of the most ardent readers this blog has ever had. From a previous post about her –

Our hostel was a particularly beautiful one. We each had a wonderful balcony large enough to fit a mattress. In the evening, when the crows slept for a while before they went nuts at midnight – the campus would be drenched in the sounds of birds, running squirrels and falling leaves.

She put my faith back in girls who came from Calcutta. She wasn’t what is commonly refered to as the naika (how do you define it – excessively coy?) variety. But maybe that is just my bias. (Yes, I know it is. I can imagine my friends from Calcutta coming with a frozen fish to beat me up.)

Here’s the cute little podcast we did of her singing “Sweet Marie”.

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Among our favourites was this wonderfully sappy and light mooded number with Revathi and Salman Khan. [Link to YouTube video.] Hope the journey back home is pleasant DR. We’ll miss you.

The poem from Ardh Satya is a tough one to start with. Not to mention that Om Puri read it with his incredible voice in the movie. I don’t recall the rhythm of the poem, however – I do recall with great clarity the goosebumps I had. I was a baby when Ardh Satya (Trans. Half Truth) was released. I never saw it in a movie hall. Much later, perhaps when I was about 14 I saw the movie, and was spellbound. In Vijay Tendulkar’s stories, there is an element of dignity that is explored.

Click here to hear me reading Ardh Satya (in Hindi).

Govind Nihalani‘s Ardh Satya was to a great extent about the theme of moral impotency and the loss of one’s self-respect as a person finds himself being part of a system that he never related to. This loss is amplified when he meets a woman, who appears to have far greater courage than him. He questions his courage and self (the theme of manhood) as he comes to face with this quiet power. He ends up seeking protection from the very goon he wanted to lock up. The way he looks at it, his own system fails him. He ultimately kill the goon and surrenders. One of the outstanding scences in this movie has to be when Om Puri gets drunk and calls up Smita Patil (the female protagonist). Such anguish and such rage. This particular poem by Dilip Chitre is read by Om Puri in a scene where he picks up a book of Smita Patil’s and reads one poem out to her. In the movie, there is one more poem he reads out to her. But this gave me far more goosebumps!

Disclaimer – I am an impatient person. I just read the poem out loud once and then recorded it. This whole recording was accomplished in about 15 minutes. Yes, it can be better, and yes, it isn’t a fraction as wonderful as the original. But then I am not Om Puri.

The poem:

Chakravyuh mein ghusne se pehle,
kaun tha mein aur kaisa tha,
yeh mujhe yaad hi na rahega.

Chakravyuh mein ghusne ke baad,
mere aur chakravyuh ke beech,
sirf ek jaanleva nikat’ta thi,
iska mujhe pata hi na chalega.

Chakravyuh se nikalne ke baad,
main mukt ho jaoon bhale hi,
phir bhi chakravyuh ki rachna mein
farq hi na padega.

Marun ya maarun,
maara jaoon ya jaan se maardun.
iska faisla kabhi na ho paayega.

Soya hua aadmi jab
neend se uthkar chalna shuru karta hai,
tab sapnon ka sansar use,
dobara dikh hi na paayega.

Us roshni mein jo nirnay ki roshni hai
sab kuchh s’maan hoga kya?

Ek palde mein napunsakta,
ek palde mein paurush,
aur theek taraazu ke kaante par
ardh satya.

I haven’t been able to find a suitable translation for this piece so far. I am attempting a very literal and weak one with some liberties taken. (Time taken – 10 minutes – so please don’t get too critical.) To being with, translating the word Chakravyuh is hard enough. It refers to a certain spiral battle formation of troops in a war-maze. (trans. Chakra = Spiral/ Wheel, Vyuh = Formation) The formation by itself becomes an organism. You don’t as much fight a soldier or a warrior, as much you battle the entire formation. Battling the formation with a strategy becomes self-defeating. In this poem it perhaps symbolizes a never-ending maze of enemies.

Who was I, before I entered this maze,
Is not something that I will remember.

As I entered the war-maze,
there was only the life-threatening
closeness between the enemy and me.
Even this, I will not realize.

After getting out of the maze
Even if I earn my freedom,
The maze by itself, will not change. Unaltered.

To die or to kill,
To be killed, or to take someone’s life,
Even this will not be decided.

As a man wakes from his sleep,
and starts to walk, he can never
again, see the world of his dreams.

In this light, the light of choices,
Will all be equal?

Impotence on one side,
Manhood on the other,
And in the centre,
(tipping the scale) is the
Half-Truth.

To listen, click here. (Or Right Click, save as).

We now bring you Jack Gilbert’s Failing and Flying. Click here to listen to me reading it.

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
On the other side of the island while
Love was fading out of her, the stars
Burning so extravagantly those nights that
Anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
Like a visitation, the gentleness in her
Like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
Through the hot stony field after swimming,
The sea light behind her and the huge sky
On the other side of that. Listened to her
While we ate lunch. How can they say
The marriage failed? Like the people who
Came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
And said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
But just coming to the end of his triumph.

The Myth of Icarus is perhaps a story to warn people from hubris. Or edging close to the world of Gods. But in Icarus, we see that the free-fall may offer joy to some. That while the movement of a “fall” is downward, it needn’t necessarily be something takes away from an experience. The “fall” instead is the sum total of rejecting heaven and its comforts. It is, in fact an acceptance of one’s fragility. A celebration even.

Love isn’t a contract. Sometimes, it ends. As do some of its manifestations. But we fall in love nor not for the promise of enternity, but for the promise of exhilaration. For the promise of memories. The end of love then, is not failure. It is the rejection of safety and divinity. An acceptance of how the most beautiful things are necessarily mortal. And must be enjoyed in solitude. Here’s Slate’s interesting take on Jack Gilbert’s poetry

No other poet I know captures so well a mind torn between the pleasures of austerity and the fecund, intoxicating powers of abundance. What Gilbert is searching for, poem after poem, are the ideal circumstances where the two intersect, and privation becomes a form of richness, a sharpening of the attention. He is often called a poet of loss, but his poems of loss describe bereavement with a strange relish.

Why exactly am I reading poetry when I have MIW (More Important Work) to do? Because poetry is hypnotic sometimes. Especially a familiar poem. It crashes, wave after wave in some sequence of repetition that I don’t quite bother to decode. In the middle of this hypnotic read, my mind calms a bit. I return to my world, knowing that another can be refused. And reclaimed tomorrow.

Download audio file (failingandflying_64kb.mp3)

PS – If you liked this – please do drop a comment. Encouragement is always welcome. (Somewhat like Ogden Nash’s advise on babies – A bit of Talcum, is always Walcum.)

So here’s me reading James Schuyler’s The Dark Apartment.

You wonder why a poet would write about The Dark Apartment.

James Schuyler has to be one of my favourite poets, despite the fact that I have read very little by him. From the piece I linked to some remarks on his poetry.

Largely exempt from the daily grind, Schuyler vastly prefers attending to the unrehearsed incident and the play of the mind as it moves with its intrinsic vigor through observation, association, and reflection. Such variegated activity of the mind serves to direct, if not precisely to organize, the poem on scales both fine and large.

The recent conversation about infidelity in one of the posts reminded me of The Morning of The Poem which won him a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1981. His poetry is a stark portrayal of homosexual love and the pain of honest sexual statements. From another post, this is how I first chanced upon James Schuyler’s poetry.

The poem…

Coming from the deli
a block away today I
saw the UN building
shine and in all the
months and years I’ve
lived in this apartment
I took so you and I
would have a place to
meet I never noticed
that it was in my view.

I remember very well
the morning I walked in
and found you in bed
with X. He dressed
and left. You dressed
too. I said, “Stay
five minutes.” You
did. You said, “That’s
the way it is.” It
was not much of a surprise.

Then X got on speed
and ripped off an
antique chest and an
air conditioner, etc.
After he was gone and
you had changed the
Segal lock, I asked
you on the phone, “Can’t
you be content with
your wife and me?” “I’m
not built that way,”
you said. No surprise.

Now, without saying
why, you’ve let me go.
You don’t return my
calls, who used to call
me almost every evening
when I lived in the coun-
try. “Hasn’t he told you
why?” “No, and I doubt he
ever will.” Goodbye. It’s
mysterious and frustrating.

How I wish you would come
back! I could tell
you how, when I lived
on East 49th, first
with Frank and then with John,
we had a lovely view of
the UN building and the
Beekman Towers. They were
not my lovers, though.
You were. You said so.

It’s been a while since I read out poetry. My throat maybe a bit dry and scratchy. The nervousness may show as well. But Bah!

Download audio file (darkapartment_jamesschuyler_64kb.mp3)
To listen click here.

This includes some insanely funny stuff that had me spraying a fine layer of fruit tea on the keyboard. To listen – click here. The page which has all the links to the podcasts is here.

By the way – anybody have an idea where this music is from. South America was suggested – any more specific answers?