I can write the saddest lines tonight.
Write for example: ‘The night is fractured
and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’
The night wind turns in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.
On nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
To think I don’t have her, to feel I have lost her.
Hear the vast night, vaster without her.
Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass.
What does it matter that I couldn’t keep her.
The night is fractured and she is not with me.
That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off,
my soul is not content to have lost her.
As though to reach her, my sight looks for her.
My heart looks for her: she is not with me
The same night whitens, in the same branches.
We, from that time, we are not the same.
I don’t love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her.
Another’s kisses on her, like my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes.
I don’t love her, that’s certain, but perhaps I love her.
Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long.
Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms,
my soul is not content to have lost her.
Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer,
and these are the last lines I will write for her.
- Pablo Neruda
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Birthday '10
So, it’s that time of the year again, the day when I must fulfill the tradition I started five years ago. Not that I ever thought much of this day. As far as my memory goes, I don’t remember coming into my parents’ dreams and asking them to copulate so as to bring me into this House of Wonders that is this world. Nor do I remember filing a request with Allah Saeen, if he has anything to do with such biological matters i.e., to have my soul descend into this fetid mess that he calls his magnum opus. Goddamnit, must all creativity be cooked in a bit of looniness with a hint of self-delusion? Anyway, long before November 17, 2005, I had, painfully, I must add, been compelled to learn that the only certainty associated with a date of birth is a date of death. Again, that’s just how the Supreme Dude has laid out his version of a Star Plus soap. But around 17-11-05, I had been confronted with the grief of simply existing so starkly that I began to wonder whether such days which people generally take as celebrations of life are actually much more, or less, or even nothing at all. So, I vent what I feel every year on my birthday; and these are grotesque feelings, for which I am regularly accused of having a penchant, as opposed to being happy and feeling special just on account of the fact that the particular accident of my birth happened on this day.
What, then, is so special about a birthday? What makes us strut about the face of the earth on this particular day, expecting special treatment from everybody? Do we think that our existence is such a blessing upon all creation that everybody ought to bow down in thanks for it, and sing accolades to our greatness? Or, is it because our lives are so worthless that we leap at this 24-hour opportunity to actually dupe ourselves into thinking that we matter? Of course, parents make us feel as though we matter. But is it more about us or about celebrating their own success since we technically represent fruits of their labor? And friends and family, they just want to fulfill a social norm, wish you a ‘happy birthday and many more to come’ so as to continue having cordial relations with you. After all, getting along with people is what makes one move along in life. But, even in our limited social context, what about the ones we have hurt, the ones we have let down, the ones we have dropped by the wayside as our life-priorities shift and we evolve into newer, fuller human beings? The ones we have fooled with false words and promises, forced to accept our viewpoint as regards life, and conveniently discarded once they have been fully converted while we move on to bigger and greater things, without even a look back at what we may have done to them, without a strand of remorse for not taking responsibility for our own word or deed? Why should they be happy, or thankful? And even if they are, hopelessly devoted as some fools tend to be despite all repudiation, why should they behave and express it in a way that is only acceptable to us? Expecting them to would be a lot like a torturer of the Spanish Inquisition releasing his victims from the death-vices, iron maidens, crowns of barbed wire, swinging razor pendulums etc only to sing him a birthday cheer. After all, the torture is for their own benefit, their souls are being cleansed, their demons exorcized, their wayward and ‘self-destructive’ beliefs corrected. Throughout history, the oppressor has told the oppressed: ‘this is for your own good.’ Such is the way of things.
Anyway, before I get carried away, birthdays are not special if we ourselves insist on them being so. They are special if people we know, whose lives we have touched in one way or the other, feel it in their hearts that the incident of our birth is worthy of celebration. Dada Jaan does not even know the date of his birth, and yet, everyday, people quietly pray for his long life and health in solitude, and recognize his existence as essential for the continued well-being of not just the family, but of a large number of people outside of the haveli walls as well. Perhaps, that makes every day his birthday. Nano was born on March 1, 1928. But the fact that this family celebrates her life everyday even three generations down perhaps indicates that she has transcended the need to feel special for just one day of the year. These are two people who have taken responsibility for their lot in life, taken pains in the pursuit of its fulfillment, suffered for people, with people, and have had glory as their reward. In complete contrast is the much-cherished individualistic ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ creed of our times, where we are all so desperate to stand out, ‘notice me, notice me, I am different, I am special,’ that we all end up clawing at one another’s faces and being miserably the same. Special, in our case, can only be taken to mean retarded.
I turn 28 today, a day that coincides with the great ritualized slaughter that is a prized tenet of our glorious religion of peace. Leaves an impertinent idiot like me to question whether in the BC’s the G-Man was a groupie to Baal’s cult of blood and gore. Today I will gorge myself on mutton and not even think about what an abusive, leech-like, take-all-give-nothing relationship I have with life. And for all that I have got to show for my 28 years, I might as well have been 82 today, a dying geriatric in an old-home with savings multiplying by themselves in some bank account or a fluid-sustained vegetable in a hospital bed, or just plain dead, and it wouldn’t have mattered one bit.
What, then, is so special about a birthday? What makes us strut about the face of the earth on this particular day, expecting special treatment from everybody? Do we think that our existence is such a blessing upon all creation that everybody ought to bow down in thanks for it, and sing accolades to our greatness? Or, is it because our lives are so worthless that we leap at this 24-hour opportunity to actually dupe ourselves into thinking that we matter? Of course, parents make us feel as though we matter. But is it more about us or about celebrating their own success since we technically represent fruits of their labor? And friends and family, they just want to fulfill a social norm, wish you a ‘happy birthday and many more to come’ so as to continue having cordial relations with you. After all, getting along with people is what makes one move along in life. But, even in our limited social context, what about the ones we have hurt, the ones we have let down, the ones we have dropped by the wayside as our life-priorities shift and we evolve into newer, fuller human beings? The ones we have fooled with false words and promises, forced to accept our viewpoint as regards life, and conveniently discarded once they have been fully converted while we move on to bigger and greater things, without even a look back at what we may have done to them, without a strand of remorse for not taking responsibility for our own word or deed? Why should they be happy, or thankful? And even if they are, hopelessly devoted as some fools tend to be despite all repudiation, why should they behave and express it in a way that is only acceptable to us? Expecting them to would be a lot like a torturer of the Spanish Inquisition releasing his victims from the death-vices, iron maidens, crowns of barbed wire, swinging razor pendulums etc only to sing him a birthday cheer. After all, the torture is for their own benefit, their souls are being cleansed, their demons exorcized, their wayward and ‘self-destructive’ beliefs corrected. Throughout history, the oppressor has told the oppressed: ‘this is for your own good.’ Such is the way of things.
Anyway, before I get carried away, birthdays are not special if we ourselves insist on them being so. They are special if people we know, whose lives we have touched in one way or the other, feel it in their hearts that the incident of our birth is worthy of celebration. Dada Jaan does not even know the date of his birth, and yet, everyday, people quietly pray for his long life and health in solitude, and recognize his existence as essential for the continued well-being of not just the family, but of a large number of people outside of the haveli walls as well. Perhaps, that makes every day his birthday. Nano was born on March 1, 1928. But the fact that this family celebrates her life everyday even three generations down perhaps indicates that she has transcended the need to feel special for just one day of the year. These are two people who have taken responsibility for their lot in life, taken pains in the pursuit of its fulfillment, suffered for people, with people, and have had glory as their reward. In complete contrast is the much-cherished individualistic ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ creed of our times, where we are all so desperate to stand out, ‘notice me, notice me, I am different, I am special,’ that we all end up clawing at one another’s faces and being miserably the same. Special, in our case, can only be taken to mean retarded.
I turn 28 today, a day that coincides with the great ritualized slaughter that is a prized tenet of our glorious religion of peace. Leaves an impertinent idiot like me to question whether in the BC’s the G-Man was a groupie to Baal’s cult of blood and gore. Today I will gorge myself on mutton and not even think about what an abusive, leech-like, take-all-give-nothing relationship I have with life. And for all that I have got to show for my 28 years, I might as well have been 82 today, a dying geriatric in an old-home with savings multiplying by themselves in some bank account or a fluid-sustained vegetable in a hospital bed, or just plain dead, and it wouldn’t have mattered one bit.
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