Xitij by Mayank Chhaya
If poets knew mathematics, they would be physicists. While you make sense of that on World Poetry Day today, let me revisit some excerpts from my old posts about poetry and poets.
Poetry and physics have been part of my life since my teenage. I occasionally excel at the former but never at the latter. Recently, I have added a third P to my life—painting. I think that completes the picture for me. Physics is about fundamental structure and deeper, elusive realities. In many ways so is poetry. Painting is about interpreting reality. So is poetry. I don’t think it is an accident that I dabble in all three.
Over the past four and a half decades I have written a great deal of poetry and all of it unpublished. That begs the question: Is a poet a poet only when published? I don’t think so. This morning to mark World Poetry Day I have chosen some random verses.
ख्वाबों की गिरफ्त से नींद यूँ छूटी
जैसे किसी बच्चे के हाथ से रेशम छूट जाए I
(Khwabon ki giraft se neend yunh chhuti
Jaise kisi bachche ke haath se resham chhut jaye)
(Sleep detached itself from dreams
Like silk slips away from a child’s hands)
खुश्क पत्तों के जंगल मे
दबे पाओं चलते हो
यह क्या करते हो?
(Khushk patton ke jungle mein
Dabey paon chalte ho
Yeh kya karte ho?)
(You walk tiptoed
In a forest full of dry leaves,
What’s the point?)
आधी कटी हेरत में, आधी हैरानगी में
जिंदगी फिर भी गुज़री, पूरी दीवानगी में
(Aadhi kati hairat mein
Aadhi hairangi mein
Zindgi phir bhi guzri
Puri Deewangi mein)
(Half was spent in astonishment
Half in torment
In insanity life was fully spent)
April 20, 2014
Poetry is an unnecessary talent. Having written it since 13, I think I have earned the right to say this. That said, not all talents should be judged for their worldly utility. The real worth of poetry lies in its inspirational quotient.
I have not done a scientific study to say this but I am fairly certain that great poetry has inspired people to do great things. The poet is necessarily is an inspirer or an illuminator. Poetry is a catalyst. If a single poetic line inspires people with genuine utility-oriented talents to do great things that help humanity at large, then poetry serves its purpose as does the poet. However, it is not the poet’s business to do things. Poets lead a life of conceit where doing worldly/mundane/utilitarian things is anathema.
December 7, 2014
I was always a poet. Therefore now I am also becoming a painter. Painting, like poetry, is about imaginatively interpreting and presenting reality. A poet is a painter somewhere and a painter is a poet somewhere.The purpose of either craft is not necessarily to look for the ultimate truth but to present many different versions of it. The only requirement is that those versions should have the minimum virtue of being compelling. They don’t have to be right. They have to be captivating.
It has been my experience that a poet does not really grow with time in so far as it concerns his or her command over the craft. Since poetry is the craft of the distillation of reality, one has to possess it fully in the first place. It is a prerequisite. You don’t get better at that that. You already ought to have been at your best before you start. That is what I mean by a poet not growing with time. What perhaps grows is the ease with which one constructs poetry which is debatable.
Poets are like perfumers. They have to be able to mix life’s experiences and distill them down to portable essence.