Poetry and a lack of motion

I've spent a good part of the last five months complaining about how much I dislike Calcutta. While I've tried to channel some of that into a little comic routine about how the Bengali language probably originated, bitterness for the city of mishti shines through more than the creativity in another joke based on the Bengalis-are-lazy stereotype.

Dissatisfied with the present, I've had two choices - invest in an incrementally better future, or fall back on a cosier past. It's getting chilly here for a city this close to the coast, so I've shamelessly snuggled into the latter.

I've happened to have crossed paths with many poets over the past seven years in Roorkee and Ahmedabad. A loyal reader might remember the brooding Perusing Poet I haven't mentioned in a while (I don't harbour any illusions of a loyal readership, by the way - I'm just glad you're reading this). There's Kondy who's written his second novel now but will always be a poet to me. And back at A, cursing himself for wasting almost an entire weekend chatting with me about me must be young Minnu. Three that come first to my mind.

They're all very different people - the first probably a strong believer in Sylvia Plath's "no poetry without suffering" school of thought. The second argues over troubling questions about being and believing, but whose real themes are probably closer to love and longing. The third, easily the most prolific of the lot, is a painter of portraits so vast and intricate, that I fear my mind is too small for their size and depth.

But why I call them poets is not because they write verse - as a matter of fact, none of them writes in rhymes, the one form I find easiest to go through because I just sing it - but because of the sheer density they bring to each sentence. Each word is carefully chosen, and each line is like a twist in a complex-looking knot, which opens up with a little swoosh as you put them all together. In the world of words, they aren't so much architects or artists, as they are sailors - roaming the seas, picking up rare oysters, drinking to good health, brooding and suffering in storms, and making perfect knots.

In their world, I'm the dilettante. The architect who's tried a hand at building domes, and given up in the foundation pits. The painter who's bought the canvas and colours, but frets over the clothes he'll spill those colours on. The curious kid, who collects educational degrees on a coat hanger, sells some food for buying clothes to put on more hangers, but shivers in the cold room of missed opportunities. Their world is my world - words are the rope they anchor their thoughts with, and I'm still finding the words to tell my story to myself.