Season's greetings

Recipes on plum cakes in special interviews with chefs, christmas special desserts in restaurants, red and white santa caps and christmas tree decorations on sale, santa clauses too in local markets ... everything is red, green and white! It may be an indicator of western imperialism, the impact of American television shows all running new and old episodes of 'the christmas spirit' but the way Indians, a majority of them non-Christians, have taken to Christmas and made it their own seems to hold out a hope. Hope of harmony, of cross cultural celebration, of festive spirit transcending religious barriers.

But something prevents me from making any such inferences. For the past few years Diwali and Id have been falling around the same time- a gap of a day or two between them making for one long holiday. The markets were buzzing, everything was gay and glittery. I sent out greetings on behalf of my family to all on our email list wishing them for both festivals. I know it was naive on my part but i didn't anticipate the reactions. Some were simply astounded that I clubbed the festivals together. Some were angry that i had tarnished my grandparents' name by making them wish on Id. One relative, living in the gulf, replied saying it made sense to wish him as he was in a 'muslim country' but why subject others to it. Most of them noticed and had something to say, either immediately or through the whispering network that characterise family communications. none of them ever cringe when wished 'a merry christmas' or reply similarly to greetings on the 'season of giving'.

so as for composite culture, we arent there yet. Meanwhile, I will return to polish off the plum cake.

to poetry with love

Poetry came into my life along with love. As I struggled to make sense of the strange bunch of emotions which deliciously complicated my being, I began to articulate in verse. The internal struggle on admitting that another person could enter and hold any power over my domain, the independence of this personal domain itself so newly acquired and hence so precious, found an outlet in words. But words about other things- opinions and emotions- asserting this independence and in this assertion containing the connection I denied. I think I could then qualify for the ‘bad poet’ of the generation, but poetry I did write.

Love brought in poetry to my life but I never wrote about love. But as love receded, the poetry drained out. Though I found and lost love after that (to one I owe the joys of hindi and urdu poetry), but never did I recover the well springs of verse. I tried to suck it out, now trying to word lost love but the stray phrases petered out, like promising dark clouds of summer, leaving behind the frustration of inadequacy. Prosaic I called myself, often wondering whether the love I have found since has also been that- prosaic. Later, I even stopped reading poetry, thinking I had lost the capacity to connect to verse

That’s when Neruda came into my life, unannounced, unexpected, in the form of a film. And my eyes turned to verse again, trying to find meaning in the now unfamiliar pattern of words. (oh why cant they be all straight lines, from one end of the page to another, paragraphs which cut at the appropriate frequencies, arguments which are introduced and concluded). Love is so short and forgetting is so long, he said. Poetry and love belong to the same old trunk of memory, shoved into the farthest corner of the attic but never abandoned. Indeed, it’s the memory of love that makes me turn to poetry again. Not to pick up the pen ever perhaps (so other contenders for the ‘bad poet’ title can relax!) but to reconnect to the personal domain buried under experience, caution and all such clichés of living.