From One Poet to Another

I gave her a gift

A misquote

Wrongly acknowledged to Ernest Hemingway by a film

Where the writer says to the protagonist

“If your story is bad, I’ll hate it. If it’s good, then I’ll be envious and hate it even more.”

And I know it’s a misquote – I know that now

Because I spent four hours looking it up,

Since it sounded suspiciously like a true Hemingway quote

And even though it’s probably not him who said it,

I think there is some truth in that line.

We use words for a lot of things, you and I

And there are times when our words sound caustic to each other

Even if we meant them otherwise

But, then again, we use words enough to know that more often than not

We do, indeed, mean them to be caustic.

And while we both can differentiate between the good and the bad

There are times when everything that’s yours seems good, while everything that’s mine seems bad

Until, enough time passes and the sides flip

So that suddenly, everything that’s mine seems good, while everything that’s yours seems bad.

You were surprised when I told you, the other day, in a random conversation

That even though I don’t let you know, I do read your words quite diligently

I pore over your poems, trying to figure out the little nuances that I might have missed

As I pass over the lines the first time, trying to soak up too much too fast

Only to return for a second helping

To taste those words once more, leisurely

And it is during that time, that revisit of mine

That I begin to truly hate your words

And hate your style

And hate your emotions – which, I guess, are now mine

Since I am the one experiencing them after reading Your poem.

I always encircle “cooperative” when asked the question “Are you competitive or cooperative?”

But the more I think about you, and about us, and about your poems,

I keep wondering if that’s who I really am, or if that’s the person I want to be

Because cooperative, by definition, means “involving the joint activity of two or more”

But I know that if you and I ever got together to write

One of us is going to end up dead.

We are jealous folks, even if we don’t usually want to admit it

Because we know what it feels like to piece those words together to bring out the emotions

And no matter how we word it, there’s always some bit that seems to be lost in translation

Between the strange language our heart speaks in, and the language that we write in

And we know just how difficult it is when a poem, fully formed, longs to burst out at inopportune moments

So I have to write on a flimsy paper napkin,

With a pencil,

That I borrowed from the waiter while he brought the bill, expecting to be paid

And as I scribble feverishly, I can feel the eyes of the patrons on me

And the smirk of the waiter, seeing me acting like a child,

As I desperately try to wrap up everything that I want to write on that little square paper napkin.

And when I get back home, and try to make sense of all the things that I wrote out

And try to ensure that nothing from that page goes to waste,

And that everything I wanted to say comes out exactly the way that I felt it

I find, that you have written something too – something about a little beggar boy,

And the glimmer of the universe in his eyes, while he munched on the snacks you bought him

So that once his tummy was full, he could think about other things as well

How his first thought was of God, and the happiness that shone through his eyes as he munched on that God-given gift

While you took your notes, on a crumpled old bus-ticket, the way I took mine.

No matter how desperately I might look for that boy in my scribbled notes, I know he’s not there

And now, no matter what I write, and no matter how I write it, I’ll never be able to forget the boy’s eyes

Even though I’ve never seen them

No matter how much I try to depict him, I know that I can never get him right

The way you did; the way your words did

And so, after you know that I’ve read through the poem, you ask me,

“So, What did you think of it?”

I can’t tell you, that I hated it because I liked it so much

I can’t tell you, that I hated it because I can’t forget the boy

Or the God, who took care of that boy, and put that shining universe in his eyes

I can’t tell you, that I hate the emotions that choke me as I read through your poem

Emotions that I know will keep me up all night

And I can’t tell you, that the next time you write a poem, you can ask me to read it

But don’t ever ask me that question, “So, what did you think of it?”

Because, for better or for worse

I will, always, hate the words that you write.

~

Of Silent Chairs and Mute Memories

Her name was Chameli. Once the jasmine flower she was named after, she had folded back into the bud that she had been a long time ago. Against the misty morning, in her delicate white dress, she looked radiant. She had been beautiful, and there were those who remembered that. Time had flown, though, and she had been trapped in her memories, and become that delicate flower bud once more. She had laid out the chairs in the field just the way she remembered it. Li’l Jo Singh, Mr Bakra, Mowgli Man, Alice Kumar Chautala, Maikalal Jaikishan, all members of the short-lived A-Team. She had long forgotten their real names, but their strange faces were still as vivid as the quirky names she remembered. That’s what they remembered her for, coming up with strange names. So lost was she in her memories, that she had forgotten her own name as well. She was Champa Chameli, presiding over this morning’s meeting on the dreary, bleak, misty morning.

I had hoped to catch her off her guard, so I moved through the empty chairs as silently as I could. Past experience had shown me that the trick worked – take her a bit by surprise, maybe startle her just a little bit, and she’ll suddenly become a lot more relaxed. Give her the illusion of being in control of me too, at just the right moment, and suddenly I would find myself a part of her little game, her periodic dance with the past that haunted her so much.

I crept closer and closer, and just when she was standing up after straightening an imaginary chair cushion, I leapt forward and whispered ‘Boo’ right into her ears. It didn’t have quite the effect that I had hoped. Instead of being startled, she turned around with a smile and said in her cute, little-girl manner, ‘I knew you were right behind me. You’re not good at trying to be a ninja, Makdee. You’re late for the meeting.’

‘I’m sorry, Chameli,’ I said with a smile. ‘I got caught up…’

‘In a web?’ asked Chameli, but I knew it was a rhetorical question. It was a joke at my expense, something that she found incredibly funny. I had no idea why she came up with the name Makdee, a spider, for me. I wasn’t a member of the imaginary A-Team, so Chameli didn’t really need to give me a name. I could have been me; but I knew she was scared of reality now. She preferred this dream world of nonsensical names and silly, childish games now. Somehow, I had become a part of that as well.

The chairs were laid out in the same way as they had been since I had known her. It had been so long ago that I don’t even recollect how and when I met her for the first time. Maybe it was at one of these meetings. Maybe we saw each other from a distance at a café. Maybe we met over lunch, and shared a meal a long time ago. I didn’t know anymore, and she was too lost in her delusions to care too much about those trivial things.

I had a job to do, though. I had to shake her up a little bit, give it another try. Maybe the infinity-plus-one-eth time would do the trick. I wanted to be tactful about it, I wanted to stall for a while, and I wanted to not tell her the things I knew she didn’t want to hear; but these were things that weren’t in my hands anymore. I existed only for Chameli now, and she had made me up for a reason.

‘Who’s the guest of honour today?’ I asked her as I took my seat next to her.

She giggled shyly, and said, ‘It’s Jaikishan; he finally told me that he loves me. Alice was wrong; didn’t I always tell you that?’

‘Why do you call him Alice? I mean, he’s a guy after all!’

‘You look at him! I’m sure he’s gay; he’s so effeminate after all. Besides, he likes it if I call him Alice,’ she said matter-of-factly, running a hand down her beautiful white dress.

‘Chameli, there’s something you should know,’ I began again, knowing well that it would be a fruitless endeavour. I had done this enough times to know it, but it was my job. It was precisely why Chameli had conjured me in her mind – so I could try, time after time, to snap her out of her hallucinations and back into the real world. ‘Chameli, are you listening?’

‘Yes, yes. I’m listening to you, Makdee,’ said Chameli absently.

‘You’re dreaming again, Chameli. It’s time you woke up and went back to your world. The people in the meeting, they’ve all gone, they’ve left. Don’t you want to know what happened to all those people? Wouldn’t that be good, to know them in real life, instead of inside here, only inside your mind?’

‘Oh, Makdee,’ she said exasperatedly. ‘Why do you come up with the same story every time? Look, Jaikishan will be coming soon; it’s going to be our first date. And Alice told me it would never work out!’

‘Chameli, Alice isn’t real,’ I said, taking another shot at it. ‘Alice lives inside your mind. Jaikishan exists only in your head. They’re not real, not here at least.’

‘Shush, Makdee!’ said Chameli, standing up suddenly. ‘Jaikishan’s here! You stay here, Alice will keep you company. I’ll see you later, ok?’ Another sudden smile and she ran off a little way off the cluster of chairs. I was sitting alone again, surrounded by phantoms just like me. They couldn’t see me, and I couldn’t see them – it was an arrangement that seemed to work just fine. My job, my purpose, my destiny, that wasn’t coming along so well, though. I could see Chameli animatedly holding a conversation with the thin air in front of her, no doubt speaking to Jaikishan. Things were going exactly as I had always known them to be. In a bit, Chameli would be lost, and there wouldn’t be any purpose for me to stay for the day. Would I leave then, though? Would I be able to walk away?

Chameli was taking Jaikishan’s invisible hand now. I knew I shouldn’t be watching this, but I couldn’t help it. She was putting his imaginary arm around herself, and getting lost in his warm embrace. I wondered, as always, if I should stop her or not. I knew I wouldn’t in the end – I never did. That wasn’t a part of my reason for existence.

She melted in his arms, invisible as they were. She crumpled to the floor, and lay down still. It would be over soon, I told myself. This day would end soon, I told myself. Beyond the circle of chairs, I could see Chameli kissing a phantom lover, a ghost-boyfriend from the past. I could see the beads of sweat glowing on her skin, could see her writhing with pleasure in the soft grass underneath her. It would be over soon, I told myself yet again.

But it wasn’t Chameli who had complete control. I knew it would last yet another lifetime; I knew Chameli was lost just a little more, yet again. While I could do nothing but sit and wait, and watch her falling in love yet again with Jaikishan – the imaginary, invisible man Alice had been wrong about.

~

Inspired by Magpie Tales. I looked for the source of the image, and found that it's by Rosie Hardy.