chhookar mere mann ko

If running away was any good, meri jaan, it would have worked by now. Or maybe we haven't been doing it right. Maybe we haven't been running fast enough, or far enough, or in the right direction. Maybe what we need to run away from - after all the over-ratedness about it - is ourselves.

Strangely enough, the moment you hung up there was a bolt of lightning and a crash of thunder, and the freight train came by, eerie, noisy, metallic wheels clanging on metallic tracks, strange withdrawn whistle tooting a haunted tune. Feeble-excuses-for-rains, I thought, that were feeble no more. The sky seems to pour down in torrents right now, as I sit facing the window with the raindrops falling, crashing onto already-damp grass with already-cooling ardour. It was funny, wasn't it, me being the clown, now standing on my head - look honey, no brains! I can balance a book on my head and walk downstairs! I can make music with a fork and a wine-glass! I can strip naked and dance in the rain! Look how I can entertain you! Look at me, look at me, don't go, look at all the weird, bizarre, stupid things I can do to retain your attention!

It was so obvious it wasn't working. You were elsewhere, your mind was elsewhere, and you realized, as soon as you entered, that you wanted to leave. You are 21! What am I doing? Why am I going insane? Why are we talking about these things? Who is this girl, this madwoman, who is this stranger in my bed? Look at me - a grown man, successful, reasonably happy - what am I doing with this foolish young thing? Why am I wasting my time? All those questions and more - all my intrusions, all my idiocies, you put up with them all. And then you thought - running away definitely seems like a good option now. Chalo karke dekhte hain.

Lifetimes later I rose, I rose from my bed, from my head, from what I had read, I rose, I rose, I rose from my bed, we had met, I was sweating, my bed was wet, lifetimes later I rose, I rose from my bed, I had never slept, I was hungry, I wished to be fed, I was thirsty, I wanted it wet, I rose, I rose, I was awake, lifetimes later I rose and I ran. I ran through the streets, I ran through the city, I ran through the concrete, I ran through the plaster, I ran through authority, the small and mighty, I ran in my clothes, I ran barefoot, I did not bleed, I was bloodless, dark, dying, I ran, I sprinted, I ran to your words, your fragrant arms, your skirt, your words, to you, for it was you, I knew, it was you, it was you.

The poet writes a poem, the reader reads another one.

Well this is what he said, what Octavio Paz said. I'm not sure what he meant by it. If he meant what he apparently means, then it's pretty scary.

But look at it this way. This sentence, the poet writes a poem, the reader reads another one, is a poem. Read it another way...not the way Paz may like you to read it perhaps...so that everything becomes unintelligible (to Paz's satisfaction).

But what he meant (I think) is that a poet is a poet as well as a reader. Something is on his mind, or nothing is on his mind, and he writes a poem. He goes to the loo, takes a piss, washes his hands, makes himself some coffee and brings the coffee back to his table, sipping it. And then he reads what he has written. He's become a reader. He is shocked by what he has written - this sounds like a different poem! He is surprised. But he likes it, he accepts it.

OnePlus5t wrote:If running away was any good, meri jaan, it would have worked by now. Or maybe we haven't been doing it right. Maybe we haven't been running fast enough, or far enough, or in the right direction. Maybe what we need to run away from - after all the over-ratedness about it - is ourselves.

Strangely enough, the moment you hung up there was a bolt of lightning and a crash of thunder, and the freight train came by, eerie, noisy, metallic wheels clanging on metallic tracks, strange withdrawn whistle tooting a haunted tune. Feeble-excuses-for-rains, I thought, that were feeble no more. The sky seems to pour down in torrents right now, as I sit facing the window with the raindrops falling, crashing onto already-damp grass with already-cooling ardour. It was funny, wasn't it, me being the clown, now standing on my head - look honey, no brains! I can balance a book on my head and walk downstairs! I can make music with a fork and a wine-glass! I can strip naked and dance in the rain! Look how I can entertain you! Look at me, look at me, don't go, look at all the weird, bizarre, stupid things I can do to retain your attention!

It was so obvious it wasn't working. You were elsewhere, your mind was elsewhere, and you realized, as soon as you entered, that you wanted to leave. You are 21! What am I doing? Why am I going insane? Why are we talking about these things? Who is this girl, this madwoman, who is this stranger in my bed? Look at me - a grown man, successful, reasonably happy - what am I doing with this foolish young thing? Why am I wasting my time? All those questions and more - all my intrusions, all my idiocies, you put up with them all. And then you thought - running away definitely seems like a good option now. Chalo karke dekhte hain.

Lifetimes later I rose, I rose from my bed, from my head, from what I had read, I rose, I rose, I rose from my bed, we had met, I was sweating, my bed was wet, lifetimes later I rose, I rose from my bed, I had never slept, I was hungry, I wished to be fed, I was thirsty, I wanted it wet, I rose, I rose, I was awake, lifetimes later I rose and I ran. I ran through the streets, I ran through the city, I ran through the concrete, I ran through the plaster, I ran through authority, the small and mighty, I ran in my clothes, I ran barefoot, I did not bleed, I was bloodless, dark, dying, I ran, I sprinted, I ran to your words, your fragrant arms, your skirt, your words, to you, for it was you, I knew, it was you, it was you.

read this over 2-3 times... so well written. Is this from the archives, or something new? One of these days I am going to try  imitating your writing style.

OnePlus5t wrote:The poet writes a poem, the reader reads another one.

Well this is what he said, what Octavio Paz said. I'm not sure what he meant by it. If he meant what he apparently means, then it's pretty scary.

But look at it this way. This sentence, the poet writes a poem, the reader reads another one, is a poem. Read it another way...not the way Paz may like you to read it perhaps...so that everything becomes unintelligible (to Paz's satisfaction).

But what he meant (I think) is that a poet is a poet as well as a reader. Something is on his mind, or nothing is on his mind, and he writes a poem. He goes to the loo, takes a piss, washes his hands, makes himself some coffee and brings the coffee back to his table, sipping it. And then he reads what he has written. He's become a reader. He is shocked by what he has written - this sounds like a different poem! He is surprised. But he likes it, he accepts it.

like they say, everyone interprets a poem in their own way, that's why most poets don't try to explain it... It's fun to see different interpretations.

rasāsvāda wrote:read this over 2-3 times... so well written. Is this from the archives, or something new? One of these days I am going to try  imitating your writing style.

I had paused deletion (I lied earlier) to wait till I returned from Patna. I went back to the business of deleting them today and saw that this was the best stuff I had written and that it was not true that I had never pushed myself to see what I could create. It was a satisfying experience in a weird way. Then, I realized, I was "back" in more ways than one, after four months, and it was no longer necessary for me delete to see if it helped! Delete I will, that I know (because I can see a pattern to my behaviour, namely that I won't attempt and I won't leave traces of attempts at writing seriously) but it won't be today. You might wonder why this strange wish to destroy? I have given several different reasons for why I never took up writing, but now I can see that all those reasons too have an unmistakable pattern -- I never wanted to slog and I was not happy seeing that writing, like any other job in the world, was the most boring, tedious thing. I had gone down to the world of books and writing to escape from harsh reality but found that my universe hadn't shrunk and hadn't changed. People here were as petty, vain, fickle, 9 to 5, unfair, brutal, random and childish as they were on the surface. There was no pot of gold here at the end of the rainbow. And that it would not get any better than this (I was 21) and that it would get only worse and that this was my last chance to go back to the life of luxury with dad. 
 
I carried sleep-deprived, bloodshot eyes, for the longest period I have known (the last four months). I do not care if there was a psychiatric etiology to it for I now accept that I cannot fully control my heart just the same way that we cannot fully control our future. The word "fully" is important, because, as you know, things are true for a reason, they are not true by accident, and we can find out what is going on and we can prove what is going on but it is just that if you recede from this position and examine all truths that we have... then we can see that it is also true that we cannot control our future because things are "also" true for no reason. I do not know how I returned to the world. I am serious. But I am not surprised. It's because things happen for no reason, they happen by accident... :p

So I am keeping these Swarthmore diaries for now. : ) I no longer believe writers write for themselves (as opposed to for readers). If one person in this universe - you - likes what I write, then I am satisfied. It means that your experiences as a human are no less enriching than mine. It means that I just happen to write better. If nobody likes what I write, then it means nobody feels the way I do and then I could say I had a unique set of experiences of the universe that was either extraordinarily intricate and transcendent or totally asinine. The money is on the latter. 

All writing is imitation. I think Shakespeare said that? He said that the world is a stage. Ek hi cheez hai. You are never too old to learn. In your case you are never too old to get better at this skill. I am your lifelong fan and look forward to more from you!

 I'll post a few more from the archive -- maybe.

good you have the archives... and write new stuff too.

i just vent. am not a writer by any means. A dry engineer, who would have scoffed at all the syrup i write had my life fared any better... This site is just most patient with my stuff hehe...

Another from the archive. I selected this one to imitate Jean Paul Sartre. He was a master novelist (besides beside a philosopher specializing in phenomenology  -- right up my creek). He used to weave his philosophy around his short stories. He found the approach creatively satisfying and it was not necessarily a new method to make philosophy more accessible. Let me see if I can do the same with this short piece to draw parallels with what I learnt in meta-math and meta-science in the last four months.
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So. What do you wish to talk about today? A new tale? Tale of Kafir, my hero, who measures his life in terms of re-visitations to the Taj Mahal? I am three visits old, he said to an American woman looking for nirvana in Kathmandu's Thamel area. He was digging shamelessly into a falafel sandwich. The woman watched him. Kafir gnawed, chomped, masticated and then, queerly, he too was looking at something - tanned breasts, a pair of them, and the Yamuna in between, and the Yamuna spewed wine right then as beads of sweat. Yes three, he repeated, remembering the conversation from where his mind had wavered. Yes three, he repeated, pinching himself awake, into affability and social ettiquete. I am three re-visitations old. Or you can say this is my fourth life, or you can see I shall return to the Taj once again. Every time I return, he said, my past, my present, and my future coalesce. And I stand naked before the moment, he went on in his exotic refrain. And eventually, after the lifetime of a moment draws to a close, I am pushed, I am cajoled and I am escorted to the doors of perception, to the doors of human existence, to this beautiful prison, Thamel, and I start a new life, um, er ... say what's your name? Oh! Cathy, Cathy, she said, a little abstractedly, a little jolted to stay awake. Yes Kathy, he said, I shall again return to the Taj. I too plan to visit the Taj, said Cathy. When do you return to it next? She asked, looking askance at Kafir as Thamel's sunset dissolved both of them in it's ink.

(I'll add comments later.)