Ibtedai

Ghalib Ghazal in translation

2010-03-17T00:41:00.004+05:30

First Published in Museindia

(Translated from the original in Urdu)

Why should it not be full of pain,
merely a heart not a hard block of stone?
We shall cry ourselves a thousand times,
take jibes at us, why should anyone?

Not temple nor mosque, the Kaaba or a harem,
neither at a doorway nor a tomb or entrance.
We sit at common trodden pathways,
why remove us O unknown?

She, of the heart warming beauty,
resplendent as the noon sun.
Herself a vision to blast all others,
then why hide in a veil, all alone?

Piercing coquetry, bane of (my) life,
stinging endless arrows of pride.
Why would it come in front of you,
even if the image be your own?

Imprisoned by life or captive of grief,
both of them are one and the same.
Can man before death, in life itself
ever find all his sorrows gone?

Beauty and, with it, self estimation,
saved my lusty rival from indiscretions.
She had confidence on herself,
why then would she try this glutton?

There, she is arrogant and brimming with pride,
here a humble humility about ourselves.
Where do we meet on the streets,
why'd she invite us to meets of her own?

Yes I know she does not believe,
given she is unfaithful even.
Those who prize faith and fidelity,
to her lane, why'd they be shown?

Without the broken Ghalib, this world,
would surely not come to a stop.
Why cry so bitterly then,
why make such a pitiful moan?

The original ghazal in Urdu

Dil hi to hai na sang-o-khisht dard se bhar na aye kyon
royenge hum hazaar baar koi hamein sataye kyon

Dair nahin haram nahin dar nahin aastan nahin
Baithe hain rehguzar pe hum ghair humein uthaye kyon

Jab woh Jamaal-i-dilfaroz, surat-i-mehr-i-neemroz
Aap hi ho nazaarah soz, parde mein munh chhupaye kyun?

Dushnae ghamzah jaansataan, naawike naaz bepanah
Tera hi aqsi rukh sahi, samne tere aye kyun?

Qaid e hayat o band e gham asl mein donon ek hain
Maut se pehle admi gham se nijat paye kyon

Husn aur uspe husn e zan, reh gayi bul hawas ki sharam
Apne pe aitmaad hai, ghair ko aazmayen kyun?

Waan wo ghuroor e azzo naaz, yaan ye hijab e paas e waza
Raah mein hum milen kahaan?bazm mein woh bulaye kyun?
Haan wo nahi kkhuda parast jao wo bewafa sahi
Jisko ho din o dil azeez uski gali mein jaye kyon?

Ghalib e khasta ke baghair kaun se kaam band hain
roiye zar zar kyaa kijiye hai hai kyon?

Knowledge III

2009-10-13T12:00:00.002+05:30

I’m sure Bush knew
when he invaded Baghdad
abuses and insults he’d get
more than a few

What he had not known
was that he’d end with the stamp
of Muntazar al-Zaidi’s
size 9 shoe.

14 march 1-2 PM 2009

2 Poems in the 2nd National Poetry Fest, Guntur, Anthology

2009-08-21T19:59:00.015+05:30

Knowledge

One day
offended
I did not speak to you Dad
I knew, you, I pained
But what I did not know
then, was
that you’d revenge yourself
in absence,
never to be spoken to
again.

22 February 2009
9: 15 PM

If I could write this in fire

If I could write this in fire
so hot
For it to be etched on the very sinews of your heart
such that ’twould be frozen there for ever
That it could scorch your eyes
so no one else, evermore, would you read
have eyes for no other; the ones that read me last
That it could char your whole skin
so none would look at you
and I, only I, remained with your touch
fragrant with the odour of your sweat
gleaming in your infernal glow;
rekindling each day in my own sanctuary
those smouldering coals of lost memories
reading, re-reading,
such words-
inflammable.

Then, only then, would I say
Yes, indeed, I can write.

“If I could write this in fire”- is the name of an anthology of Caribbean literature.

Poem written sometime around late 2008- early 2009.

Poems published in A Posy of Poesy, an anthology issued by JKC College, Guntur as part of their Second National Poetry fest.

An article on the same:

In the hindu

Some other poems in the anthology:

Tikulicious

Nabina

Untitled

2009-05-19T21:30:00.006+05:30

UNTITLED

First published in "The Stephanian" 2008

It is a tale
that began the night
the temperature was to dip to zero,
when under the shade of the stars
many, we talked for hours two
when under tall deodars
I first spoke out
and patiently You heard,
and acquiesced

when winds from the Caucasus
cocooned us around
barren freezing streets
uttered barely a sound

still, music there was in the air
that we only heard
a few late chrysanthemums
we alone saw
the smell of the Night-princess[1]
came only to us
as watery winter vapours in
the air we two licked
and together felt the warmth
of our own little bliss.

When each night
in my room, at my desk
I sat to write,
looking at You
in the bed
not pearly white
but with a dusky beauty
all Your own,
I conceived conceits
really stolen from You
that you unawares
lent out to me
making me pregnant, when
You had refused to be.

Your each affectation,
Your gurgling laugh,
inarticulate sounds,
the orange kurta you had on,
your sleepy face in the mornings
in Your urgent causes-the delight
You took, in equating
men, cats and mice.

Days when you would
not talk to me
You atheist, I religious
You Feminist, this F-word
I never endorsed.

Moments
when at me, You confidently smiled
as I shyly dared look
into your deep eyes
as we shared our stories
of Your childhood delights,
of ducks and Disney’s
of my Dad’s demise
of the new play in town,
of Your growing renown.

There were also the nights
When You dragged me to bed,
Away from my dear inkpot and the rest
and You were creative
and You explored
new vistas of art, knowledge
Love and more.

But tonight was the night
when I looked up from my text
found the bed empty
and called out Your name
and called it out again and again
You were not in the house
not the terrace, the lawns
as I reached the kitchen
it looked all forlorn
as if you hadn’t been there
for some time;

but you were there with me
when I last rhymed
and you had always been
there with me, in my
writings- as my kin
my very soul, my sight,
from You my rantings
had so much imbibed.

But where were You now
as I looked up and called?
our house not as it had been
since the first day You had moved in,
You were as clean as I was dirty,
You’d even got ME to wash,
pushed me in the shower,
kept a naughty watch.

But where were you now
O my creative muse?
as I go back in time my thoughts confuse,

What had indeed happened on that night?
when it had been cold enough
to fear frost-bite
when I had spoken out, and so had You,
what were Your words?
I cannot now hear,
I see your lips moving
minus any sound,
do you turn back then,
and go back inside?
as I stood in the snow
waiting for it or for you
to abide.

I now think the poem should end here, though it has been pubslished in the Stephanian with the following stanzas that now seem redundant in a tautological manner.

But then,
how is it,
that You were there
all the time
always there when I wrote,
having kept Your work aside,
You had sat with me
or in front of me lain
I could see your toe-ring
On your dangling leg
Your breast’s rising and falling.

It just can’t be true
-what they all say
that these walls are not my house
I haven’t been there,
for years now,
that you were indeed
never there,
but for my mind…

I AM NOT MAD
They all speak false,

I just know
realities,
(that they don’t),
of a fairer kind.

5:46 AM 2 Feb 2008
[1] I have used a translation of my own for a jasmine like flower called “raat ki rani” in Hindustani that exudes an overwhelming and very pleasant fragrance at night. I found the Hindi name expressive and poetic enough not to ignore.

Poems in Museindia

2009-03-02T01:07:00.005+05:30

Three poems were published in the Mar-Apr 2009 Issue of Museindia, the literary ejournal:

View from Jama Masjid’s Minar

Like ants
they seem as I look down from the top
mostly white, some grey, some black, red e’en
creeping from one end to the other
of that large flat courtyard
itself Red
crawling to their ablutions - their wuzu
and then heading on to the side of the setting sun.

For whom this sijdah?
To a hawk-eyed viewer
who sees them
as ants, himself perched
forever at the top?

The Sole Slipper

I am the riot
that took place here
on the twentieth day of this summer

I am its victim
as I lie here,
stranded on the now desolate road alone
divided from
my better half

I was worn first
once
then entered repeatedly
and then left here, in a hurry
smeared with colour
in the middle

I am its witness
A soled slap on society’s face.

(5th September 2008)

Gujarat and Kashmir

I

If only it was
that the sky was not Saffron
and the ground not Red
and the house, the workshop, the bakery
were not ablaze
in flames that threatened
with more hate than heat

and had they allowed us
the little green haven,
Land,
that we too had nourished,
having wrested it,
from common foes,
with equal gusto

If only the eye was Red
merely of smoke
and my sister dead
of stabs in her back
only.

Or if, atleast
they had heeded
my folded hands, Brown
my head,
bowed in supplication, round,
in entreating
what humanity
a mob may have,
and not chopped it off…
to be soaked
in the fountainhead
of Red
that sprung
from my
diminished
corpse,
that did not
immediately fall
as had my head
(not yet knowing
manhood, nor
the sense in it all,
the candles of my
seventh wishes
not yet been thrown away),

Then,
when Abbu would come
in three days’ time
we all would welcome him
and
I would run up to him
And jump into his arms
as he’d come,
just as I had asked,
with a plane
exactly like the one
that made,
on Republic Day,
Tricolours
in the sky.

II

This
is what they called
“paradise on earth,”
and it was ours
we used to believe,
until,
the day
we first heard
the noise
and went to the square
to behold
that the world
had gone mad
that it was
Black,
and Red
made of shapes alien,
and smells.

Smells.
The smells
that smelt
like melting fat
in a pan,
greasy meat frying,
but
if only these too
could be smelt
similarly
with an appetite
that was not to be killed
for ages to come,
smells, that were not
so gross
so revolting
to make us reek of them
bath after
bath, week after
week.

They claimed
Kashmir.
They said it was theirs.
It was
their
right divine.
And so
they were making,
and said,
in future
would make,
more
such noises
and would create
more
such smells
everywhere.
Soon it was all over,
over the radio,
the Aakashvani
and the DD.

Now,

we have live telecasts
of
Kargil and
Kokarnag.
But
that smell has not worn out,
even though today
I live in Delhi.

But so has not,
the one that comes
from the
soil,
sandal,
snow,
saffron, and the
sun that
shines on the
stones of
Shankaracharya temple, and on
Srinagar and river
Sindhu.
Some things that
spell the
summary
of my Kashmir.

(24th September 2007

Vendetta in Mumbai

2008-12-01T23:38:00.001+05:30

A post on the Mumbai terror attack and the movie, V for Vendetta:

http://filmain.blogspot.com/2008/12/vendetta-in-mumbai.html

For it is you who put me in heat

2008-11-25T00:38:00.003+05:30

It is always (and only) you
who turn me on
It is always (and only) you
who turn me on
With your first touch
and your icy caress
When you brush against my lips
your windy tresses
As you glide by
giving me
goosebumps
When in your bosom I am
and hid is the sun
As warm vapours escape
my open mouth
And your musky mist
does me surround
It is you indeed who make me hot
And every year put me in heat
Oh, the coolest, my very own,
My very own
The winter of Delhi!

22nd of November 2008

Wrote it while studying the Wasteland, i guess when "winter kept us warm" and after having read a poem someone linked me to: You bring out the UP wali in me

Night Swan- A song of innocence

2008-09-11T03:24:00.003+05:30

Night Swan, Night Swan
Fair and Lovely white
Perched atop the verandah
Where eager steps alight
When in your little pond
You quack and invite
Bird-watchers, nature-lovers
who in your down feathers delight

Strutting about,
Dancing your dances
In winter, rain or hail
Coquettish, vain
You avail
Compliments, admiration
From the whole mail

But
Night Swan, Night Swan
You forget,
Like other swans
You never took your pair
With enthusiasts many
But true-bird none
To you no one
Owes any real debt
and you never laid
any chicks e’en

Have you ever thought,
When cocks near you
You have none,
In you no longer
They find any fun
where from this palace top
Shall you alight?

Where brood till the day,
The world from you,
And you to the world,
Pass forever out of sight?

Afternoon
February 7, 2008

Unititled

2008-03-17T18:01:00.003+05:30

When you opened the box,
O Pandora,
They say you let It go

Check its depths once again
I think they are mistaken

Ignore Donne, Death and Be Proud!

2008-03-04T00:23:00.006+05:30

O Death be proud
Thou dost not die
You do live
With those whose kin you spy
Or have already abducted
Or on whom you stalk
Daily it is you
Who, with me, walk
It is you I see all around
In every moan and every sound
The screech is yours is the piercing scream
The burning pyres, still graves, flowing ashes in gushing streams
All things bloom only to wilt
All marry life so Consummatum est! / (it is finished!)

March 3, around 10 pm

They Have Dried Up

2008-03-03T19:22:00.002+05:30

It is true,
indeed, she’d never been mine,
yet,
somehow did for me
what Bhagirath,
long back in time.

It had really flowed
each day, each night, each hour
every minute
quenching prosaic fields,
where I reaped rich,
blossoming fragrant flowers by the side,
with me as constant gardener,
sometimes little pansies of a few lines
purple
once a huge chrysanthemum,
a mellow yellow
another time, a lily- white
fragmenting which I’d play
“she loves me, or does not”

I have tried to build dams
to always gain control
to use to my advantage
channelise the flow
but ’twas its own master
rather I the thrall
not it at mine
but I at beck and call

Omnipresent, Omnipotent
it was my new God
this new Brahmaputra, this new Amazon

But then one day
it changed its course
began rubbing its sides
causing breaks in banks

I ran about frantic
to do best as I could,
but it was as if Thetis
I not half The Man.

What could I do as it fled away?
untie-able, nobody’s prey

It has left behind,
in its wake, just one lingering life
very desolate,
all my companions- my breathing words, my flowers
They have dried up!
as I now create
these with paper
origam-ous ones, that do not live
no smells exude.

3rd March 2008
12:10 PM, quite soon after waking up.

An Acrostic

2008-02-23T14:31:00.002+05:30

Jug, jug, jug, jug, jug, jugging
Understanding or trying to understand
Society, myself, poetry and writing
Trying to figure out the nature of man

Feel like penning something down
Enlightening, foolish, fermenting furores
Encrypting etymologies, unleashing new sounds
Latching to words anew, to get around

Life itself, limericking lampoons
Intense satires, making buffoons
Knowing the unknowability of all
Embattling staleness, to clichés maul

With nothing I own truly mine
Rusty, used language
I am trying to define
Things my own way, a tradition find
I can call my own, to
None owe allegiance
Good, bad or of mediocre kind

Alas, ‘tis not easy to disown

Poets, stalwarts, giants who seem, to
Own all ways to speak, say, scream
Encaptured the word, leaving
Me obsolete, just to sit, and to mope and moan.

22 February around 8 PM

An Ode to Kilimanjaro

2008-02-21T23:03:00.002+05:30

An Ode to
Kilimanjaro

What joy
in Everest, in K2,
mounts of this kind
when they merely build on
peaks around, the gradual incline?

O
Kilimanjaro
Thou massif supreme
Who rise head and shoulders
Above the Savannah surrounding
With wildebeest grazing golden greens
At your feet; rising up through woolly clouds
To heights ice covered, at Equator nature’s oxymoron

Making
Viewers giddy
With a sense sublime
Towering over the Black
Lording in your pristine White
The truest of nature, not a self-
Proclaimed Superior Foreign Light.

Your
Naked
Individuality
All glory your own
You need no PR, No
ladders on which to climb
Smacking of arrogance from
Your Solitary Throne, you do not
Conform, you are not conditioned
You rise, You rise; Your rise oblivious
Of the rest, you stare the Andes, Atlas, Alps and
Himalaya in their eyes, you see your own visions all alone
For you, O greater than Helicon and Vesuvius, the poets mind
Unique inspirations, sights, your own new kens, your own paradigms

7th of February, in the class after the Wordsworth one, where his encounter in the Prelude with trailing peaks was discussed.

POETRY SYMPOSIUM

2008-02-18T02:43:00.003+05:30

POETRY SYMPOSIUM
UNIVERSITY OF DELHI SOUTH CAMPUS
Benito juarez road, new delhi 110021

Tuesday, 19TH FEBRUARY 2008
s.p. jain auditorium

PROGRAMME

9.30 AM Registration

10.00 AM INAUGURAL ADDRESS:

PROF. Dinesh Singh,
Director, South Campus

SESSION 1:SOUNDS OF POETRY: READINGS
Malashri Lal (Chairperson)
Shiva Prakash
Keki N. DaruwaLla
Sukrita Paul Kumar
J P Das
Rukmini Bhaya Nair

11,15 TEA

11.30 SESSION 2 :
POETRY and TRANSLATION: PANEL DISCUSSION
ASHOK VAJPEYI (CHAIRPERSON)
SHIRSHENDU CHAKRAVARTI,
K. SATCHIDANANDAN

ANAMIKA

12.30 PM NEW VOICES IN POETRY
SUDEEP SEN (Chairperson)
RONID KR.
SABITHA TP
ANIL GURTOO
ARUNI KASHYAP
MAAZ BIN BILAL

SANJAY KAUSHAL

1.30 LUNCH

2.30 SESSION 3:
PERFORMATIVE POETRY
Vivek Narayanan
Mahmood Farooqui & Danish Husain
Madan Gopal Singh

04.15 VOTE OF THANKS :
NIRMALYA SAMANTA

TEA

I Am The Word

2008-02-01T23:08:00.001+05:30

I
am the word:
Spoken, read, written
thought, imagined
uttered, smothered
in tears, in laughter
as an abuse, abused
as articulated, power
stringed together
for link-ins
even break ups

I am the affirmative
and the negative too
I am in ascent
and
decline
in prayers, I am God, Satan
uses me too.
I am conceived
as you are
hatching out of pregnant
wombs
of matter grey
or colourless
waves of sound
of ink that is
blue, black or brown
I can s p r e a d like fire
travel faster than light
It is I who amuse
I who delight
I am signifier
I am logos, I am speech
I who communicate
Because of me harmony
Because of me breach

God SAID and that is
why there was light
and because of me
all was Good
and you could ask for Eve
It was I -split at Babel
I would be Pralaya

I am thought that is why Descarte

Poignant am I
superfluous too
I am there in quarrels
comforting silences with you

You have but to think
and I come to your mind
Get rid of me you cannot
Know me not well
and are marginalised

In politics, I rhetort
lecture in class,
in courts litigate
on roads I brawl

I am bourgeois
communist, capitalist
colonial, coloured, communal,
casteist, classed and the
vice versa too

I soar, I plunge
I am codified, I am free
I am aliph, bĕ, pĕ
I am A, B, C

Beautiful I am
I am ugly,
I wrong, I write
Workman’s necessity
The connoisseur’s pride
You need ME to judge
as thou shalt be too

I AM POWER
use me well
and at the right time,
craft me to your glories
sculpt your successes of me

I am in prizes
and citations too,

in death sentences,

it is I who woo

I am the soul
of all arts
Science needs expression
I am the language
of Commerce
Of Osama, Bush and Narendra too

I am the Azaan
at birth
Epitaph
after death

I am creative
I am critic
In this poem I am
I form cultures and traditions
I am inherited and taught
I evolve, I metamorphose
I am maimed, wiped out
Still living like the phoenix
of unnumbered facets
I
perch on lips
hibernate
in hearts
brood in breeding brains
leave marks on paper, impressions
on psyches

So let me fly
never stop
I am consequence
Yet I am process too.

Written sometime around the 24th of January 2007

Ballimaran*

2008-01-06T04:09:00.000+05:30

Said Ghalib,
’twas not his destiny
to be one with his beloved*

My lover too
Lives across his house
Is it something in the air?

Written at 4:01 AM, January 6, 2008
*Ballimaran is the locality in Chandni Chowk where Ghalib’s Haveli stands even today.
*"Ye na thi hamari qismat ke visaal-e-yaar hota"

Maharana Pratap

2007-12-29T12:00:00.001+05:30

“And today I was
Maharana Pratap!

Imagine the horror
that was there
on their faces
as I came terrorising
through the field,

sword in my hand
an army following
and shouts of “Jai Siya Ram”
thick in the air.

“Take no prisoners
leave no one alive”
was our battle cry
by heavens justified.

We smoked them out
we burned them inside
their own houses, how
dare they build
mosques, on our land
pristine?

One hundred fifty to
two hundred we
ourselves staked in
the pits at Patiya,

bloody bastards buried
their dead,
now they know
the other extreme.

We dug out the dead
from their graves,
and the unborn out
of his womb,

and there it sat
as a plump trophy
at the zenith
of my towering
shamsheer,

let’s see now
how much more
they produce,
how many more
circumcised parasites
they breed.

And women too
we just slaughtered,
Me, the Maharana
I won’t touch
The women of Khan-i-Khana
though some of the Chhara
may have done more
they may have ravished,
slitting and knifing the cunts,
breasts they may have chopped off
just as they did
with the penis of men
(but what the hell those were
already slit beams).

But what an orgy
what a melee
what passion
what fun
it couldn’t have been better
even in the
best of my dreams

The public, police, politicians
prosecutors on our side,
who dare touch us?
This day we separated
the milk from the cream.

And I was at its head
Maharana Pratap I was
not just Babu Bajrangi

Now I wish that
God granting
I get another chance
then not just two hundred
but twenty

thousand I want to slay
under my own supervision
as I drive on huge hordes
of Ram’s own saffron fleets!”

4-5 November 2007
Written a couple of days after reading Babu Bajrangi’s interview in the Tehelka issue, on “Gujarat 2002”, of 3rd November 2007.

An Epic Creation

2007-12-27T20:36:00.002+05:30

Lending order to the chaotic world
From all the material out there in flux
When brooding I had sat on it
While the two orbs had circumnavigated
Their Celestial pathways seven times each
And darkness and light
Had completed their patterns
To make themselves create days and nights heptad
Then I had found Grace
To be able to deliver
To complete my work of grand design
To accomplish what I had set out to do
Even if I had exceeded time

Lo and behold there it was
The paragon for all
To emulate
Marvellous in its scope
The benchmark for future posterities

What I had completed at last
After drawing out each element,
Sculpting each part of the body to be
So that in front of mine eyes lay

My MA assignment for ma’am Grace
For paper 3!

Written on 30th October 2007
When I was finally about to conclude an assignment for my tute that I was supposed to submit on 28th of October, to Ms. Grace.

Santiago Nasar, the Slain Saracen: Racist Motivation of Crime in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold

2007-11-01T21:44:00.000+05:30

First published in Literophile, a Universiy of Delhi Literary Journal, May 2007

Illustration by Moosa Khan

Crime has been an inherent part of both the oral and the written traditions since their very beginnings. In fact some crime or the other accompanied all major theories of creation and the earliest epics. In Greek mythology the gods themselves could come into being only with Zeus slaying his father Kronos, a Titan. The gift of fire for man was stolen by Prometheus from the gods for which he came to be punished for eternity. In the Judaic tradition the first murder by man was committed between God’s own grandchildren- Cain and Abel. The battle of Troy had its miseries in the elopement of Helen. Even our own epics could build stories to be told for generations only because of the crimes committed by Ravana and Duryodhana and the other Kauravas. However, with the crusades and more importantly with colonialism we see an unforeseen motivation for crime in man. Much of it arises out of and extends into racism.
In Chronicle of a Death Foretold Santiago Nasar, the young man of Arab origin is killed by the two avenging brothers Pablo and Pedro Vicario in front of a whole town gathered around to watch the foretold event. The justification-an act to rescue and reclaim the lost honour of their angelic sister. The culprit- the decadent machismo of the Latin American society. The sole victim for the majority of the society- Bayardo San Roman, the cuckolded husband. This is the truth as claimed by the narrator and agreed upon by most critics.
Yet, the narrator himself says “…no one believed that it had really been Santiago Nasar.” [p.56, Chronicle…, Doaba Publications, Delhi 2002] For once, what the narrator says can be concretely believed to be the truth with ample evidence within the novel itself to support it. Then what is one to make of the previously cited syllogism based on the essential premise of Angela Vicario’s word? How is it then that the whole of the closely knit society is able to allow and thereby commit a crime of such horrendous nature, of brutally killing an innocent young man?
Racism seems to provide the only rational solution in the search for a motive for such an irrational killing.
If, contrary to the novel, one is to proceed by examining the novel chronologically the reason behind Angela Vicario’s (false) accusation has to be looked at first. By not revealing the name of the real seducer Angela is clearly shielding another man on whose silence the onus of the killing lies heavier than the rest of the community. Gonzalo-Diaz-Migoyo in his essay Truth Disguised: Chronicle of a Death (Ambiguously) Foretold claims the narrator (Garcia Marquez) to be the real “perpetrator.” He is the cousin of Angela and an attempt to shield his identity would be an even more important desire for the girl. Perhaps his guilt is the reason for his obsession to uncover why no one prevented the act and his writing the novel may be an attempt at its exorcising. Anyhow it is not a particular act of vengeance but really protecting someone else that propels Angela to give Nasar’s name. However, “She only took the time necessary to say the name. …and she nailed it to the wall with her well-aimed dart, like a butterfly with no will whose sentence has already been written.” [p.29, Ibid]The ease with which the name slips off her tongue seems to suggest that the life of an Arab, a person outside her own community, is not worth more than that of a butterfly for her, as suggested. Nasar’s name in particular can be seen to be the first one to come to mind on account of his popularity, even a possibility of him being a past crush of hers should not be ruled out. For as Margot, the narrator’s sister says “I suddenly realized that there couldn’t have been a better catch than him (Santiago)… Just imagine: handsome, a man of his word, and with a fortune of his own at the age of twenty one.” [p.11, Ibid]
As is clear Nasar, the Arab provided a clear sexual and economic threat for the Latin-American patriarchal community and I will attempt to elucidate this further.
That Santiago Nasar was a threat for the community, perhaps for some perceived only subconsciously, can be seen amongst the various reasons of people for not having alerted him. While the narrator claims a certain ambivalence to have prevailed as to why no one assumed the responsibility of telling him, no concrete reason can be found to have existed simply because of the total failure of the accusation. Except for the brothers perhaps, who didn’t even pause to give it a thought, hardly anyone had taken the possibility of a liaison between Nasar and Angela seriously. Therefore all reasons for not having informed Santiago are either to be seen as an inconsiderate and unfeeling racist attitude towards the ethnic Other, or sheer hostility towards him and hence a pleasure derived from the killing.
That Santiago was a potent sexual threat can be seen not just through the narrator’s sister but also through Divina Flor who “knew that she was destined for Santiago Nasar’s furtive bed” and as she says many years after his death, “Another man like that hasn’t ever been born again.” In fact it is for this purpose that Victoria Guzman, her mother, lends a hand in the killing (through concealing what she knew even before Nasar got out of bed). Clearly the fear of the Oriental ram tupping the white ewe existing since Shakespearian times wouldn’t have been absent from the mind of this town, especially a Spanish community, after having lived under close to eight hundred years of Moorish Muslim rule.
Santiago, the inheritor of a rich legacy was also clearly begrudged because of his affluence. While everyone admires the financial resources and the party that has been thrown by his white counter part-Bayardo, Nasar’s life is cut short before he is able to throw one himself. He voices his wish clearly, (himself possessing the resources for it) when he says, “That’s what my wedding is going to be like. Life will be too short for people to tell about it.” [p.10, Ibid] However, the Vicarios and the rest of his community have other plans. Pollo Carillo says to the narrator that “he (Santiago) thought that his money made him untouchable” while his wife added, “Just like all Turks.”[p.64, Ibid] The silence of such a people can hardly be called anything but racist. The voluntary acquiescence of the people reminds one of the Nazi (the superior Aryan race) killings of Jews and more recently the targeting of Muslim businesses in Gujarat during the riots, both based on equally flimsy rationale but attempting to wipe out the economic threat from the Other.
In fact the reasons for not having done anything to prevent the act, especially those of the two men representative of authority- Father Amador and Colonel Aponte, come across only as poor excuses for the lack of desire to protect an Arab, even to the investigating magistrate. The young man (with a literary bent of mind) makes various points in his report that suggest the sheer un-believability of the incapacity of anyone to have prevented the act. Regarding the guilt of Nasar and its outcome, ironically he notes “Give me a prejudice and I will move the world.” [p.63, Ibid] At the insistence of all the people who saw Nasar on the dock and with Christo Bedoya but did not see him enter his in-laws’ house he writes “fatality makes us invisible.”[p.71, Ibid] All excuses seem feigned arguments to allow the event to take place without having to accept any responsibility for it. Perhaps that is the reason for so many people flooding to give testimony without being asked for it.
Father Amador although knowing about the impending killing and despite being God’s own representative, thinks it is a matter for the civil authorities. He thinks about putting a word in Placida Linero’s ear but forgets. More than saving a life, beholding the spectacle of the Bishop is important for him. On seeing him at the dock he supposes everything to be fine. And finally he tells the narrator, “The truth is I didn’t know what to do.” [p.43, Ibid]
Colonel Aponte is told about the twins carrying knives by Leandro Pornoy, the policeman who has already seen the killers with the knives and wandered back to report in an intentionally casual manner that is strangely reminiscent of the police sponsored violence of Gujarat. Colonel Aponte on his part does take a small step of confiscating the first pair of knives from the twins without arresting them but, on their procurement of a second set, gives priority to a game of dominoes over the life of Nasar. Clearly a disinterestedness in, if not an outright desire for, the killing of Nasar is at work on that fateful Monday, inside the hearts of all white men.
A further proof of there being a strict ethnic divide in the town is the attitudinal difference between the Arabs and the rest of the people of the town before and after the murder of Santiago Nasar. The only Arabs mentioned to us prior to the murder are Yamil Shaium and Nasar’s to be father in law Nahir Miguel. While it is ultimately the latter who gets to warn Nasar, the former also tells his best friend Cristo Bedoya about the situation so as to inform him without causing a shock. These are the only two men, besides the one conscientious woman, Placida Linero who make a real effort to prevent the murder. Nahir Miguel offers his gun and his house as a refuge while Yamil goes to look for his bullets. Even after the murder it is only Arabs, including Shaium with his jaguar gun, who chase the twins cognizant of the crime they had committed. For the rest of the town it is still a matter of honour, even if everyone knew the victim had nothing to do with the twins’ sister.
The final confirmation of the racist ideology at work comes from the point onwards when he leaves the house of Nahir Miguel in a confused and shocked state. Shouts such as “Not that way Turk; by the old dock,” [p.73, Ibid] present the derogatory stance towards the community by the whites; of denying them of even their true identity. The manner in which he is taunted and egged on towards the square (resembling a sporting ring) where the townsfolk have positioned themselves as spectators to view the killing almost seems to represent a Spanish Bull Fighting scene where the people taunting him act like forcados, the professional taunters while the twins become the matadors killing the virile bull, Santiago with repeated thrusts of their banderillas or knives. The association of the image of an animal with the Other once again goes to highlight the bestial sexuality and physical prowess of the Arab male and stresses the need for a taming through any means, any crime by the civilised race.
Moreover, the manner in which the twins, who have been so far presented as a reluctant duo, kill Nasar, casts off all doubt about their own subconscious stance towards the Arab. Even in medieval times, the lingering code of which they were protecting, death when administered to a friend was, more often than not, administered ‘neatly’. The clean death of a knight with a single stroke of the sword. However the death they give to Nasar is closer to the butchering of a Saracen caught by the Crusaders on the way to Jerusalem or that of a Moor at the hands of a Spaniard during the Reconquista in Spain.
It is tough to comprehend how, in the face of such solid evidential support for the true motivation for killing of a man by an entire community, the whole idea of racial and ethnic insecurities and hatreds has been neglected by critics. Moreover, to prevent this kind of slaying of innocent Saracens or, for that matter, any future holocausts such as the Nazi pogrom or the Gujarat riots, one has to look more closely at the psychology of such grotesque crime within the novel as well as in real life. Literature, through suggestions such as the ones in this novel, goes a long way in raising important questions in the mind of the reader. It is only through the sensitization of the common man to the negative aspects of ideas such as race and superiority that crimes not just against an individual but whole communities and races can be prevented. Literature and life, it seems, has to work hand in hand to identify criminal motivations and thereby, through awareness, ultimately wipe out crime from each other.

The Sonnet of Darkness

2007-10-26T23:16:00.000+05:30

For me the greatest fear’s to be blind
Devoid of sight, know left nor right
To never know colour, no stars no light
Life a constant nightmare: unending night.

To hear a chirping, know not whence it comes
To be burnt by fire know not what burns
Possess imagination greatly profound
Yet, unable to conceive any ground

Hats off to those for whom day and night
Always same: no night too dark, no day too bright
Yet in this world magnificently survive
Showing the world the way to fight

However to God they must be dear
So came epiphanies to the blind seer

Written in 2005, with a view towards technicalities of the sonnet form, the iambic pentameter...

Illustration by Ritwik Mukherjee

Akbar Allahabadi in translation

2007-10-26T23:06:00.000+05:30

The following is my first ever attempt in translation from Urdu to English. I have attempted to keep rhyme and meter intact in the spirit of Urdu Shayari.

Akbar Allahabadi:

Batayen aap ko marne ke baad kya hoga
Pulao khayenge ehbaab, fateha hoga

My translation:

Allow me to tell you what will be after death
There'll also be prayers at the funeral banquet

Ibtedai- Trying To Tell A Story

2007-10-24T21:19:00.000+05:30

Ibtedai
Or Initial or Introductory,

the names of my first blog and its first post, represent what is nearly my first real foray in to the open world with my acts of creation. Like Milton, I hope that it will "fit audience find, though few."

I begin with a self reflexive poem on the creative endeavour for me,

Trying To Tell A Story

I
Want to tell
The story of the Word
For which
Words enough
I haven’t
Found
Yet.

I grope in the dark
I read in the light
I search my soul
To be able to indite

Imagination
I don’t think
I lack,
It’s the words
That escape me
From
Me
Forever
In flight
I catch them
Now and then
As I run constantly
Pin them down
And
Scribble them
Or
Trap them
In my
Hard disk

But these are only
The feeble runners
The weak ones of the herd
Who fall prey to my
Inept snares

The fiery gazelle
Know no leaps
No bounds
Too high
On and on
they flee
from me

I do have tomes,
Trophies that
Hang
On shelves on walls,
The Advanced Learner’s
Has the whole lot
Neatly bound
By feeble threads
Alphabetically arranged
Barely three inches thick

Yet
these are not mine
to boast of!
A chaos of darkness
That I have not moulded
Into worlds of my mind
Into days and nights
Poems and novels
And stories
That I want to tell

My prized catch
Still remains
Far far away.

Written
1:30 AM Oct 12, 2007
Delhi