What an exciting week
Yesterday, there was a gas cylinder leak in the house. It should have been simpler to solve than it was. There was illness involved and allergies. Allergies can really fuck up your sensory responses. Somebody in the complex has used strong fertilizer. It smells very similar to gas and I was getting both smells. The cylinder is kept in an alcove in the outer wall of the house. The alcove is gated and locked. Panic causes loss of memory. Keys and combinations require memory. I remember rummaging for hammers and torches. Also, shame and anger for being in trouble, then self-pity, then guilt for the self-pity, and an irrational wish that someone else would deal with it so I could go back to my study and write my article. Immediately after, I thought about this blog post. Then, I thought about doing a backup of my work. Also, how being an adult means knowing how to recognise the many smells of death. Also, how people should use less fertilizer, especially for decorative gardens.
More cheerfully, there’s an interesting BFS film fest at Ashirvad on June 4, 5, 6. It’s a retrospective of films by Anjali Monteiro and KP Jayasankar. There are three short films called Irani Cafe Instructions, Breasts and Agreement around poems by Nissim Ezekiel, Kutti Revathi and Salma respectively. There’s also Our Family, which I’ve watched and love. Details here.
This time’s Toto Funds the Arts reading is of Aditya Sudarshan’s new play. It is tomorrow at 6.30 pm at Crossword on Residency Road. Aditya Sudarshan is a fiction writer based in Delhi. He is the author of a detective novel, A Nice Quiet Holiday (Westland Books, 2009) and several published short stories. He is also a scriptwriter for NDTV’s political comedy show, “The Great Indian Tamasha”. Sensible People, his first play, “is set in a middle-class milieu in Central Delhi. It is the story of two well-respected bureaucratic families that are forced to face up to scandal and re-examine the values they live by.” It will be read by Lakshmi Krishnamurty, Priya Rao, Shashank Purushotham, Deepika Arwind , Swetanshu Bora and Neha Miglani.
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I’ve been ill continuously for a while. Which means I want to crawl into a hole and be the opposite of friendly until it all blows over. This is because of self-pity and the belief that misery when wallowed in will feel like a warm, fluffy pillow. It’s also because of vulnerability which is hitting such a high note these days that my ears want to burst.
And blogging seems to me to be an activity that requires a mix of friendliness and honesty (aka vulnerability) and other leafy-green things.
But somebody mentioned that Jeet Thayil said at a workshop that just as carpenters don’t get up in the morning and say, ‘I’m not in the mood to make furniture today’, poets shouldn’t get up and say ‘I’m not in the mood to make poems’. Since this is much hearsay, I hope he really did say that. (Take it as a very loose quote, practically a non-quote. But I like the thought and it wasn’t mine so I must loosely quote.)
Extending that, can writers of any sort wake up on any day and say ‘I’m not in the mood to be vulnerable today’?
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There’s an interesting series on at Very Like A Whale about poets and technology. And at Poetry Foundation, is there more to life than poetry, like say, laundry? I love doing laundry. Also, cleaning and re-organising and cooking. But sometimes, these can become reasons for procrastination or avoidance. I suppose the trick is to recognise why you’re doing something at a given moment, and always be aiming to do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. How exhausting. I thought about this yesterday after the incident. That if I’d been less reluctant to leave my computer, I might have reacted quicker.
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I’ve added a Library Thing widget to the sidebar, mostly because I like looking at book covers and this seems like a convenient way to have some around. There’s no real order to the books in there though. I’ve added some recent books but I’ll probably go backwards and add some earlier ones, and then whatever I read next. So it’s not a chronicle really, more like a cloud. Also, I’ve moved all links to poems published in journals to the page titled Poetry. Supernally clever idea, yes?
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June 2nd, 2010 at 4:10 PM
About the carpenter quote, a similar one that is widespread is “the difference between a professional writer and an amateur is that the professional writes even when he doesn’t feel like it.” Also applies to carpenters and others of course.
The difference is that professional carpenters (and dentists and others) don’t face competition from amateurs.
Get well soon. And feel well soon.
June 2nd, 2010 at 4:20 PM
@Rahul: Oh, I hadn’t heard that one. Is the writing of poetry a competitive activity? I like to think not. There are so few of us, especially in India, that we should be supportive rather than competitive–and I think we are most of the time. Thank you for your good wishes. This is the upside of writing blog posts even when one is down. You get sympathy from more people than is your fair due.
June 2nd, 2010 at 5:06 PM
I think I will always remain amateur. I read and gossip more than I write
And I don’t write everyday.
June 2nd, 2010 at 5:16 PM
@Swar: Reading and gossip are writing-related activities. So it’s all actually for the higher purpose. Also, food, drink, sex, relationship drama(s) of all sorts, walks, drives, bus rides,
June 2nd, 2010 at 9:00 PM
I saw the quote years ago in some book, I’ve quite forgotten which. Google reproduces several variations, but I can’t find an attribution. I suppose only people who earn significant money from their work are competitive
June 3rd, 2010 at 10:50 AM
@Rahul: You may be right about that. There are advantages to not earning. Heh.
June 4th, 2010 at 9:07 AM
yikes. hope you feel okay soon and the gas thing is sorted out!
June 4th, 2010 at 11:21 AM
@SB: Thanks SB, better now and yes, the leak has been sorted.
June 7th, 2010 at 2:35 PM
ani,
you are right. everything is related. chaos theory, e=mc*2, not just six degrees.
June 10th, 2010 at 12:47 AM
this will make you feel better:
http://mymilktoof.blogspot.com/
June 10th, 2010 at 3:01 PM
Your book no find in Bombay. Why this?
June 11th, 2010 at 10:59 AM
@Abhijit:
@failednihilist: thank you! are you failing at the nihilism these days? nice to know
@Sche: Sahitya Akademi store?
June 16th, 2010 at 2:31 PM
Gas, fertilizer, computers. I suggest you switch off all sounds and smells, and sleep. Which is what you are doing anyway, probably. Get well soon.
June 16th, 2010 at 6:24 PM
@Banno: Oh no, not sleeping…but want to
. Better now, thanks. But sleep is always welcome anyway considering the insomnia.