Kashmir on your timeline — realism or magic realism?
Samuel Beckett is sharing a rare picture
On my Facebook Timeline.
This is not stuff of poetry
It makes it here for it irritates me
Is not enough that he pops up
Every now and then
With a smart-alecky quote?
I scroll further down and someone
Has put up a status
Expressing in so many words
The beauty of an age-old sunset
All of this is real
In this space and time, reality
Has seeped in,
Into poetry
Poetry isn’t happy
Where are those strange people
Where is the pause
The space to breathe
Why so much chaos
Why this noise?
Noise
My mother is standing in the kitchen
Cooking, and humming a song
A song about dislocation
Ek Akela Is Sheher Mein
It’s a song I am way too familiar with
I know the feeling
And the jokes that surround the song
(Abodana = Sabudana)
Raat Mein Aur Dopahar Mein
It is a song about my life
It is a song about the life of millions
This thought is making me hate the song
It is making my struggles ordinary
Abodana Dhoondta hai,
Aashiyana Dhoondta Hai
I decide this is not my struggle
I have a home, I am not looking for one
Even if it is a rented one
Even if I don’t like it and still pay thousands
Even if I have to move to a new one soon
At least I call it home
Like I said, realism has seeped into poetry
I don’t like realist poetry,
I don’t like it when people talk about revolution
Like it is on sale at a market nearby
I don’t want to talk about my broken heart
That needs healing
Like I said, realism in poetry sucks.
Sucks is not a poetic word.
It sucks.
Let’s try magic realism
(I am fancy, I like fancy)
Let’s try magic realism and Kashmir
Since we are talking about dislocation,
And since we like clichés.
Joseph Brodsky, sitting in Poland
Wrote about Belfast in Ireland
I at least live in India
Some license, you could say.
Though I know nothing about Kashmir
I have never visited Kashmir, and
The newspapers lie.
I have known that for years.
But let’s just try writing about it
What is the harm? And
Let’s use magic realism
Let’s just fictionalise it a bit
Abodana dhoondta hai
So here’s the story
There was beautiful Kashmiri girl
(Because all Kashmiri girls are beautiful)
The Kashmiri girl had turned eight
It was her birthday, and there was no cake
Aashiyana Dhoondta Hai
She lives in a wooden house
Like they show in the movies.
The girl wants a cake,
For her birthday.
I could give her a name, but my
Vocabulary of Muslim names is limited
Oh yes, she is Muslim
So the girl who is Muslim and has turned eight
And wants a cake for her birthday,
And who I cannot name, can’t go out
Because of the curfew
(Kashmir is always under curfew)
She has a pretty skirt, red as the
Little Red Ridding Hood’s hood.
It was a birthday gift
From her father.
No. Her father was not a separatist
Nor was he on (our) side. Shush
Point being, there was no cake
In that big wooden house
Because of the curfew.
There was an army camp nearby
The girl was friends with a few officers
(Magic realism)
And they knew about her birthday
So they brought her one
They could move during the curfew,
You see.
And the girl was beautiful
Like all Kashmiri girls
And she now had a cake.
But her father who was neither on our side
Nor theirs, did not know what to do
Was he supposed to take the cake
Was he supposed to refuse the cake
The army men had wings on their backs
Fairy godmother wings
They came with a timeline
Take the cake or it will vanish.
So let it vanish, it’s just a cake
They started laughing,
We are not talking about the cake,
They said, batting their wings
The angry father refused to take it
Was he moving towards separatism?
Who cares.
The wing batting was fast now
They were floating midair
The beautiful girl still staring at the cake
Butterscotch, her favourite
The floating angels then left the place
They had their camps waiting for them
The girl got the cake though
That ended well.
Aashiyana dhoondta hai.
Did you like the story?
Will it irritate you if it popped up
On your timeline?
Does it even matter
The girl got the cake.
What a cliché, aren’t you saying that?
I told you already, I know nothing about Kashmir
I had admitted to that in the beginning
Why tell a story at all then?
Good question. I don’t know why
And what magic realism?
Such a sham
Stop writing poetry. Do it now.
Is this poetry?
Fine, let’s not talk about Kashmir
It was a mistake, you are right.
What did you say? Kashmir is a mistake?
About right.
Anyway, I don’t have any stories.
I don’t know what to tell.
Just go back and read all the authors you like.
On Facebook.
I am sure Oscar Wilde has a line or two
For you. He is another smart-aleck
Go now, change your cover photo
You haven’t done that in ages.
Shashi Kapoor wants to be freed.
Realism is back again.
Ugh.
You learnt that ‘Ugh’ on social media,
Didn’t you? Such a loser.
Oh wait, is this just realism or
Is this confessional poetry?
I don’t understand the genres,
New at all this, you see.
Such a loser.
Your genre defying
(Genre defining)
Poetry is crap.
Crap is such an unpoetic word
It is crap.