Literature and Evil

It is disgusting how Kabir is so so socially relevant today. It means that our society hasn't changed in six centuries. We still discriminate, hate and kill on the basis of caste, creed and religion. It is shameful. But then so is Shakespeare. Julius Caesar is still remains a textbook for me in politics. Probably because this animal called man doesn't change much. It is Osho, I think, who said that the world changes, man remains the same. Can literature change man? There are so many today, who in spite of overwhelming historical evidence to the contrary, believe that literature can bring about change in human nature. Gunther Grass's From the Diary of the Snail believes that Change occurs usually at snails pace. The Political is finished and the enigma of Evil is what it was. The Yaksha of the Mahabharata is not very pleased with the answers we have been giving. The Sphinx refuses to drown herself and Oedipus can only pluck out his eyes and banish himself. Crime and genocide waits for none.....

Do we need to revisit Nietzsche, the Prophet of Darkness, in the 21st century too?

Love and Poetry Thinking about Meerabai

Love is one of the oldest theme of poetry. In fact, poetry is traditionally considered as an expression of love. This is the reason why writing love poetry is one of the most difficult challenge for a poet today. It is so easy to slip into a cliche or be sentimental in your treatment.

Yet there is no denying the fact that some of the greatest poetry in the world is love poetry: Lorca, Neruda, Paz, Meerabai, Kabir and of course Ghalib.

I believe Meera composed the finest love poetry in the world. Why? Because most of the others mentioned above were unable to transcend their masculine consciousness. Masculine love poetry is always tinged with the violence of lust and certain roughness which reduces the beloved to an object of sexual desire. Meera wrote magnificient love poetry without attempting to write like men. and thats what gives her poetry certain delicate elusive beauty which the male poets lack.

poetry and me

One of my teachers whom I hold in high esteem once said that he was now no longer interested in the literary approach which analyzes `language of literature or poetry' but he is interested in the `man-behind-the-work'. I disagreed. I felt that this belief is rooted in medieval bhakti notion of the poet as a saint and this attitude meant `saint-mongering' of some form. I felt that it is the special use of language that is important in poetry.

Today I feel both of us are wrong. The poet IS the Work and the Poem IS the poet. If the poem sounds dishonest and superficial, the poet must be the same too.


My poem IS Sachin. The mythical, surreal world on my poems is the world I inhabit: the world I discover, reveal through my writing, in a way.


I used to believe that the poems are not `expressions' of the self but `inventions'.
But today I feel that my poem IS my self itself