'I write, so I can sleep well'

The summer of 2014 has been dedicated to traveling. I've visited big cities, small towns, road side villages, jungles and river beds. I've asked myself why I travel and travel alone mostly. Many friends can't fathom the urge to see things from my own perspective, to be on uncharted territories to live life beyond that which has been set as your horizon. Wherever I travel, it is always people that I am attracted to, more often than not people are generous, going out of their way at times to indulge a complete stranger. And in that perhaps you carry back the observations, minute little nuggests of wisdom that stay with you. It is perhaps also why I find a bit of me strewn into wherever I have traveled. And thus on many nights when I sit alone in a huge guest house from a British era or a tiny forest bungalow by the river bed, I'm prone to tracing myself across where I'm spread thin.

While traveling through Kurseong at a certain point, I stopped for some tea. While the tea was being made, I saw another woman sitting in front of a shop. She was sipping her own tea while arranging the fresh vegetables she had put on display on the shop window. My gardener instincts, led me to ask her whether she grew the vegetables herself. She seemed surprised and then happy at being asked, pointing at each vegetable she summarized how they were grown, why frost was a nuisance, how her dogs kept her company on the hills. She looked at me after a minute, as if as an afterthought and asked me what I did. I looked at her hands then, she reciprocated by looking at mine. I looked around me at the massive mountains, the terrific greens, at the little dogs playing around, at life so uncomplicated. What does one tell someone so rich in mundane happiness, what the writer does. The immensity of simplicity, on a road that bends on a tea cup, suddenly seemed over powering.

I told her then that I write. Why she asked and what. I remembered my friend Amandeep Sandhu saying, 'I write, so I can sleep well.' I wanted to tell her then that I write so I can keep your essence alive, I write so that I can find a word that describes the immensity of this freshness. I looked beyond and fell silent. She tugged at my jacket, gave me a piece of charcoal and showed me the wall of her house, 'likho kavita'

Conversations into the night..A photocopy shop

9 PM tonight at my residence. The lack of cartridges in the printer leads to much uproar and I decide to walk down to the nearby photocopy/printer/cyber cafe shop, a 5 minute walk from my home. As I enter the shop there is a young lad in his mid twenties who is manning the shop. Apart from him 3 African students are cooped up in the confines of a cubicle huddled in front of a computer, speaking loudly a language I cannot understand. On the walls are mounted small shelves that hold little figures of Lakshmi and Ganesha. The dhoop has extinguished, a small electric colourful light blinks on and off, lighting up the silver-ish paint of Lashmi's figure. On the walls are plastered old calender pictures of other Gods and Goddesses, on a overhead ledge holds two small speakers. Even as I look at them, Lata Mangeshkar starts crooning, 'Najane kya hua'..

The young man takes from me the rather big bundle of worksheets that need to be photocopied and starts the process. I idly look at the walls and then outside, suddenly I hear a voice speak in Hindi, different from what the Africans are murmuring, I look around and realize the young man speaking on his hands free set. I look away. He speaks again, this time I listen to the one sided conversation and a slow smile creeps up..

'Kya kar rahi hai?'

(pause)..a bit slowly then..

'Arre aunga kaha hai na..mera man nahin karta kya..par kya karun..'

(Pause)

'Hmm..arre aise na kahiyo..humari toh jan chali jayegi..mar na jaye hum'

( smiles to himself) I look away

'Dekho..Shukravar ko agar hum ihan se train pakad te hain..to uske baad ke din pohunchenge..phir toh do din hai na hamare pas..jitna man kare dekh lena...'

(Pause)

'accha naraj kyun hoti ho..chudi karidein hain na tumhare liye, aur ek libstick bhi'

(Pause)

'chal ye bata..sapne mein hum aaye ki nahin..toh phir tune kya kiya'

(smiles to himself..laughs a bit too..ruffles his hair)

'humko bhi dekhna hai na tujhe..bohot din ho gaya na..ye sala kam itna ai yahan'

( Silence)

'Tu aise bolegi toh hum kaam kaise kar payenge..kal hi train na le le hum'

( Pause..rather long one now..I turn to look..he is staring blankly at the wall, his back to me..I shuffle my feet..walk towards the door a bit)

'Aaaj sapne mein ayegi na..main intezar karunga..abhi rakhta hun..man nahin lag raha kam mein'

( A click and his voice addresses me) I am jolted out of my reverie.

'Mam 15 Rupees huye.' I look at him side ways..he doesn't look at me, already busy with something else..there is no smile however. As I come out of the shop, he sits down with a sigh on a small chair..I am the last customer, the Africans have left.. the song stops, changes..something inconsequential starts playing. I'm tempted to step back, say something..but I leave..nothing less than poetry what I had heard..some nights are beautiful..they are also painful I guess.

A poem for Mahadevyakka- A.K Ramanujan

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Around the 12 th century, the Bhakti poetry movement spread rapidly in the Southern parts of India. Many of these poets especially those in the Kannada region were worshipers of Shiva. Amongst them was a well known woman poet named, Mahadevyakka. An ardent Shiva worshiper, she is said to have roamed around naked. When people asked her, about her immodesty she replied that, since the Lord had already seen her, she did not care about who else saw her.

A.K Ramanujan translated four such poets from the 12 th century, in his book- 'Speaking of Shiva' ( 1973) For Mahadevyakka however he wrote a special poem in a separate anthology called 'The Black Hen'. 

Mythologies 3

'Keep off when I worship Shiva.
Touch me three times, and you'l never see me again',
said Akka to her new groom
who couldn't believe his ears.

Om Om!
she seemed to intone with every breadth
and all he could think of was her round breast,
her musk, her darling navel and the rest.
So he hovered and touched her, her body deathly

cold to mortal touch, but hot for God's
first move, a caress like nothing on earth.
She fled his hand as she would a spider,

threw away her modesty as the rods
and cones of her eyes gave the world a new birth:
She saw Him then, unborn, form of forms, the Rider,

His white Bull chewing the cud in her backyard.

While I am not sure if the last line was meant to spring a surprise or add that little dash of humour as many of his poems, that end in a surprising twist. But Ramanujan is said to have undergone a tremendous change in his persona while he translated these Kannada poets, who spoke on Shiva. 

( The image taken from http://przmm.blogspot.in/2011/06/celebration-of-kama-love-frozen-in.html is a personal favourite of mine, it shows a broken image of Shiva and Shakti in a blissful union under the tree of life. The posture is supposed to resemble a Tantrik Bouddha..somehow the incompleteness of the broken sculpture seems to add to an unspoken of dimension that is yet to be discovered..perhaps never will and hence immensely seductive and mysterious)

( Story of Mahadevyakka from 'An A.K Ramanujan story')

A bit of Jasmine

It would rain tonight,

the winds had whispered-

The Jasmine by my window

shook in agreement.

A white canopy covered the brown earth,

as I greedily picked.

The rains they fell..

I sat a little apart

and slowly,

became their smell.

© 2013  Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury 

The diary of a common woman

I am a common woman, a point of view, a stumbling belief and some bitter faith in humanity are things that seem to linger on in me..kill me for that if you will and I shall still remain an ordinary, opinionated woman. Just like some of you guys, with inner demons, I deal with my history, chemistry if you like, with angels in the head screaming at the demons to keep peace & I emerge with some kind of de-coctioned form of God brewed in my own incoherent beliefs. I am pally with my God and with my demons too, I flaunt my simplistic opinions, the occasional tragedy and the calm beneath the alarm and on some day s I'm not on speaking terms with what the world calls a God for the lack of a better term perhaps? There are days, when I am a dreamer..an unskilled and incapable one at that, of which nothing comes, nothing becomes and still one plods at it. I am refuge, in convenient reason, the warm sun after a midnight's churning..a Beatnik gone horribly wrong, a misprogrammed radio with kathak and Odissi in tune to rock & roll..I am emotions rolled into a high performance heart..the fool who is tired with the mind games and sulks in a corner only to be pulled into the warmth of a smile. I am best locked in a closet like a mad man rummaging through another s drawers in search of an invisible love letter that never was written on paper but remained in the heart..I thump on the closet door, find it shut and grow quiet in sudden fits of peace. I am the fool, the woman who tried and never gave up, like the woman who hung from another's ceiling in another closeted door..I am the chameleon, Karma had decided to have a fling with, got bored and designed and walked away into the 'roses are red hue'..a cashless poet, writing nonsense poetry..for the silences that do not speak, for your sorrow and mine too, the chameleon who grew colors or died..the cashless, emotional fool who wrote long stuff for people who cared and those who didn't, who learnt no lessons, never the ones that mattered at least..I am Ms wonderful..filled in a bag full of posey s the scent of which I detest.. in a room full of good behavior, I am the smirk who wishes to kick aside good manners and get drunk...I am a bag full of mis-conceptions, the woman with a smile that you might just have picked up and begun to read..a howling wolf from lonely shores..singing lullaby s to decent children on decent days. I am the drunk, the simple woman , with simple needs, the fugitive with the need to escape..the warm hearted fool..the young man's stupidity, an elderly's smile..short sighted, mad and incomplete..I am all of you and yet none..I am trying & not-trying too.

Goodness, you're such a blind alley..the latest slang in town.

( Picture from Google)

Ismat Chughtai- an Urdu writer and some comparisons

I have been reading Ismat Chughtai's works recently. Some of her work( Especially the story of Quilt, published in 1942-which is posted here) is startling, especially considering the fact that they were written in a pre-independence era. In parts she reminds me of Indian poetess Kamala Das, just a more firebrand image. The interesting part about her stories is that she rarely describes as much of characters or significant events, in great detail. It is the moment that she gives more prominence to, which helps bring out a story & its people. I do wish I could have read her in Urdu though, just like her contemporary Sadat Hasan Manto. Although comparisons are unnecessary and mostly trivial, to me Manto will always be more universal..something like a whiff stuck in one's senses forever..because they cross all borders and appeal to humanity more than a sex, religion or community. Manto writes-

"One lunatic got so involved in this India/Pakistan question that he became even crazier. One day he climbed a tree and sat on one of its branches for two hours, lecturing without pause on the complex issues of Partition. When the guards told him to come down, he climbed higher. When they tried to frighten him with threats, he replied: “I will live neither in India nor in Pakistan. I’ll live in this tree right here!” With much difficulty, they eventually coaxed him down. When he reached the ground he wept and embraced his Hindu and Sikh friends, distraught at the idea that they would leave him and go to India.." ( From Toba Tek Singh)

Interestingly, I find the same weird and mystic traces of universality in Agha Shahid Ali (Kashmiri-American poet)..to me he transcends all boundaries and remains only and only a poet, speaking for all humans irrespective of sex and creed and personal wars. He writes in the,

'Land'

Swear by the olive in the God-kissed land—

There is no sugar in the promised land.

Why must the bars turn neon now when, Love,

I’m already drunk in your capitalist land?

If home is found on both sides of the globe,

home is of course here—and always a missed land.

The hour’s come to redeem the pledge (not wholly?)

in Fate’s 'Long years ago we made a tryst' land.

Clearly, these men were here only to destroy,

a mosque now the dust of a prejudiced land.

Will the Doomsayers die, bitten with envy,

when springtime returns to our dismissed land?

The prisons fill with the cries of children.

Then how do you subsist, how do you persist, Land?

“Is my love nothing for I’ve borne no children?”

I’m with you, Sappho, in that anarchist land.

A hurricane is born when the wings flutter ...

Where will the butterfly, on my wrist, land?

You made me wait for one who wasn’t even there

though summer had finished in that tourist land.

Do the blind hold temples close to their eyes

when we steal their gods for our atheist land?

Abandoned bride, Night throws down her jewels

so Rome—on our descent—is an amethyst land.

At the moment the heart turns terrorist,

are Shahid’s arms broken, O Promised Land?

(Here is the link to a translation of Ismat Chughtai's story- 'The Quilt' )

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6516861/Lihaf-the-Quilt-Ismat-Chughtai

( Image Courtesy Google Images)

The silence of the Bamboo

This is a corner of my garden, a clump of Yellow Bamboos. ..whenever I want silence, this is my refuge..the Bamboo roots are stubborn, they seldom let anything grow close to them..to me they are like the ghosts of poetry.. or those of thoughts, just itching to be dug out, begging to be understood, without the explanations of why & how...waiting to see a life forgotten..I leave this part untouched, un-manicured. It reminds me that certain things in life don't need to be dressed up..their beauty lies in being brown..the colour that is a part of everyone.

The fight of the 'Verses'

(This is a poem I wrote in the last 1 minute, bored of all my serious professional work..just some fun playing around with words..So if U 'r going to take it seriously, you are going to lose out on all the fun!..Enjoy)

Little Ms hoity toity,
Fell on some free verse..
Little Ms Hoity Toity,
Didn’t like it at all..
She screamed & she ranted
And she tore my hair off
But little Ms Hoity Toity,
Forgot about a word-
‘Life’ it was called..
That Free verse enjoyed in plenty..

Little Ms Hoity Toity.. saved Ms free verse
From an ill pronounced Saxpere’s and ‘savage encounters’

© 2011 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

The orbit of Sex

The orbit of licit sex is full of violence, sadness and boredom-

It is the illicit sex that inspires the gentleness of poetry....

© 2014 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

For Kamala Das

She died..I am told today

Her seed lisped out a cry

"Prayers for her..a silent something?"

What do I pray for a soul so satiated

Someone who feared to go so..

Someone so me in the me'O mine

I can but see her as a we..

The loss of someone close

The fear of loosing the presence

The stillness of it all

When the mind shrieks in silences

The soul cannot hear

For its journey from wherever to whenever has begun in earnest

The still of the body

In smiles that you see no more

In the cotton ear plugs that allow

Your cries to filter no more

In happy stillness they sit on a body that was once OURS

When death approaches in footsteps that wonder now here now there

When all at once it dawns on us that

she shall perhaps smile no more

fear no more

cry no more at the fear of shall we say 'The going'

The realisation is perhaps a relief in questions of the unknown

But would like to know from this disturbed soul of fears

was the passing a quiet?

And then the questions galore pour forth

Are you there again amidst us maybe in the hug of a woof

In the books that gather dust

In the little eyes acoss the lane that smilingly do their dance

Are you here somewhere in the presence that was ours?

Or are you gone and truly forgot, in the insence sticks I burn

Spiralling in their wafty smoke, the essence of a life all but gone?

In memories and in pages and in words that you leave for us

We find the you & you the us

For in that we are but connected

Perhaps in that umbical cord alone

You shall live a life fuller than what you thought you had

In the hyms of today, and hands folded in prayer

Let the you be rested

your essence in our minds it lingers

In the words that corpses can never be

Somewhere in this eternity called time

If the world were even to doom

the words would linger for posterity

In a hung transition called time

Like Sun, the moon and stars they assume a life of their own

Be not sad O Amma of mine

You leave not this world not its beauty galore

In urchins on the street and flowers that laugh

You remain within & within the heart.....

© 2010 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

To a Poetess

All my debts paid in vain
I wander back to life alone and forlorn
In her mappings and meanderings in the settings of the stage
She came and she vanquished and then left her seed to forfeit her claim
The wicked smile in place
Krishna & O Allah all in tandem they fall
musings but them all...
In awe springs of mutual desire as I... see her dance in profanity
when she and me we come together, tweaked we are as souls
I pay to you my ultimate
My soul you take my soul....
How many came at the altar of sacrifice thou called love
And I call pain..
How many came and loved but in vain
In being ME you became YOU
And in YOU I became finally the ME....

© 2010 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

In thy Madness My lord

Let me be mad in the things that I am,
Let me be MAD!
Let me be mad in the music that is the Lord
And things that strike a chord-
When madness is but sanity
And things too simple, yet deep
Let me be MAD O Lord
For then I am bold....
To live a life of cowards, let me not be told
Save me from the serinity
And let the madness unfold.
If kindness and hapiness of MINE be mad,
Then let me be mad once more-
For a life without depth and passion are assylum bound
And in such madness Lord
Let me not be bound!
To touch the hearts, to visit a soul, of things mundane and free
Let me be MAD in all my songs
That speak of thy eternity...
If keeping quiet, were sanity as PEOPLE sayest
Let me not be sane,
I'll just be MAD and love loud instead!

© 2009 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury