Rules of Writing

From the new issue of Literary Activism

Valparaiso, Sergio Larrain, 1963. Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons.

I am very happy to report that the new issue of Literary Activism has carried my Hindi poem “सच छूछा होता है” and my translation of the poem in English under the title “Rules of Writing.” There are two other pieces in this issue, both by two writers whom I admire immensely, Vineet Gill and Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. I’m grateful to Amit Chaudhuri for his elegant introduction to the issue and to Satyanand Nirupam at Raj Kamal Prakashan for his edits on my poem. Read below or at the site.

Editor’s note : Kumar is a novelist, photographer, artist, and, on the evidence of the Hindi poems he has been writing in the last two years, a bilingual poet. The poem below (which the author has also translated into English) is a one-off: a balanced consideration of countervailing positions that segues, unexpectedly, into manifesto. It raises a question that’s suppressed in Indian Anglophone writing: the importance of mausam, or the ‘weather’ (and everything that the word implies), to those who are mahaj lekhak or ‘mere writers’. Mausam seems to mean an aspect of the everyday. If we are to subscribe to the poem’s account of the Gandhian temperament, it would appear that most Indian liberals today are mahatmas: ‘great souls’ preoccupied with ‘searching for the truth’ who are unmindful of ‘the ringing of a bicycle’s bell’. Invoking the curmudgeonly, problematic Naipaul (on whom the website has another New Year’s upload), the poem presents a much-needed argument against the idea of the ‘great’ shortly after it pays Gandhi its respects.

सच छूछा होता है।

महात्मा गाँधी की आत्मकथा में

मौसम का कहीं ज़िक्र नहीं,

लंदन की किसी ईमारत या

सड़क के बारे में कोई बयान नहीं,

किसी कमरे की, कभी एकत्रित भीड़ या

यातायात के किसी साधन की कहीं कोई

चर्चा नहीं–

यह वी. एस. नायपॉल की आलोचना है।

लेकिन मौसम तो गांधीजी के अंदर था!

तूफान से जूझती एक अडिग आत्मा–

नैतिकता की पतली पगडण्डी पर ठोकर खाता,

संभलता, रास्ता बनाता बढ़ता हुआ इन्सान!

अगर आप सच की खोज कर रहे हैं,

क्या फर्क पड़ता है कि

सूरज आज शाम 6:15 पे डूबा कि 6:25 पे?

लेकिन नायपॉल की बात सर-आँखों पर!

अगर आप महात्मा नहीं

महज लेखक हैं,

आपको ध्यान देना होगा

नोट करना होगा,

अपने आसपास की दीवारों पर

खरोंचे गए प्रेमियों के नाम

छतों पर गिरती बारिश की बूंदों का अंतराल आंधी में झूमते पेड़ों की डालों का लचीलापन

साइकिल की घंटी की आवाज़

या फिर दंगे के बाद का सन्नाटा

लिखना होगा,

कैंटीन में चुपचाप बैठी युवती के बारे में

जिसके सामने रखे पानी के गिलास में

पूरी दुनिया उलटी दिखाई देती है।

Rules Of Writing

Nowhere in Mahatma Gandhi’s memoir

does he mention the weather

or describe London’s streets

its houses, or even a room, the crowds,

no discussion of any mode of transport—

this criticism has been made by V.S. Naipaul.

But the weather was inside Gandhi!

A solitary spirit caught in the storm

a lone self

walking, stumbling

making his own moral way!

If you are searching for the truth

how does it matter

whether the sun set this evening

at 6.15 or at 6.25?

But I do heed V.S. Naipaul!

If you are not a Mahatma

and merely a writer

you will have to pay attention

and take note of the lovers

whose names are scratched

on the walls that rise around you

the interval between the drops of rain

being blown on the roof

the lithe branches of trees

dancing in the wind

the ringing of a bicycle’s bell

the silence after a riot.

You will have to write

about the young woman sitting alone

in the canteen and the glass of water

in front of her in which the whole world

appears upside down.

Amitava Kumar is the author, most recently, of the novel My Beloved Life. He teaches at Vassar College and is currently a Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library.