A digression
from my usual preoccupation, was provided by a recent invite to talk about ‘being
in the northeast’. I have been trying to talk about poetry for a long time, because,
well, because I love poetry, I write poetry and I think it is because of poetry
that I am still alive today. I can
recite poetry at the drop of a hat, well.. especially my own, though I can also
recite Sylvia Plath’s lines
So we could rave on,
darling, you and I,
until the stars tick out
a lullaby
Yes, I like lines like that too,
though blood and thoughts of killing and being killed tops my list of favourite
poems. I also like Irom’s lines
For born with lips, For
endowed with thoughts/
How can I leave without
protesting?
not the least because it was translated by me
and of course the many poems which will be lost or not amenable to translation.
And all they ask
me is to speak on how it feel. That
too, will be lost in translation and yes, the feeling is lost in transition
too, a transition I did more than a decade back. I tried to push my luck, “You,
mean how does it feel to be a poet and coming from Manipur, you mean, how does
that landscape inform my poetry?”. “Oh!, you write poetry? Had no idea.” No, no
all we want to know is –How does it feeeel.
So there again I am put in that
pointless box and asked to think – Northeast vs India. I don’t even know what
the term Northeast means. I am asked to think of the comments I get when I walk
down the street and what will they do with that. “Nothing”, we just want an insider to talk about it. “So, you want
to hear how bad it was and thats it?” and all these will be given a patient
solemn hearing. Could I just recite a poetry which expresses all these? Hmmm “We
will get back to you shortly”. Quite a considerable length of time shortly is.
