A Return Gift From The Birthday Baby

Dear Devika,

I can survive the rest of my life with these lines. Coming from a poetess of stature they have an added weight. Thanks. But honestly I don't know who's James Henry Leigh Hunt and haven't read any of his poem. When you talk nicely about him, he should be a great poet.

These lines are quite reassuring. Many people did not want me to post the poem on my b'day or even after that. As I told in the prelude, a talk about death need not necessarily be defeatist or depressive. Having an open mind about death gives us an open mind about life itself. Thanks for reinforcing my belief in my lines.

Thanks again, Devika. You gifted me a beautiful poem on my b'day. It may not be a matching return gift, but I am happy that I could repay "in the same coin"

love,

 

Dear Malathi,
Honestly this poem came out not because I was emotional but because for a very brief period of time, I could suspend my emotions and intellect and let the words pass through me.
Why not at 50? If I had had the inspiration I could have written the poem even at 20.
We always think that people who are older are closer to death than those who are younger. It is not so. With its time unknown, everyone of us have a distance with death that can only be described as indeterminate.

Thanks. Unlike my stories and articles, with poem, I do not have deadlines or self-imposed minimum output requirements. I let it come through at its own pace. I got the core of the poem ready two weeks ago and I have been polishing it all the time.

How sad! But I'll tell you something, Malathi. Once the words have come out of your mind, they will never go out of this universe. Don't search for that piece of paper. Take another piece of paper and search for the words. Who knows you might get better words this time. We are all waiting for you to post that poem.

Yes, she was. I told her about the poem on my b'day itself. But she refused to read the poem on that day. And only yesterday before posting she read the poem and found it good. But she felt rather heavy and did not speak for a while.

regards,​

 

Dear Kamla,

Thanks. As I have been saying all along, poem is something happening to you. You do not plan to write a poem. It is like blood-circulation or heart-beating. Nobody says, "I am now sitting here and circulating my blood" I don't circulate my blood. The blood circulates. Poems too happen like that. Great ones and the ones I write, all follow the same rule. More than you, Kamla, I needed the preparatory material. It is what I wrote for myself.

I loved the expression you used. To grow right in front of your loving eyes, and those of all the ILites, is a very rare blessing. In another angle I would say, that it is your love that is growing. And when you look at me with increasing love, my growth in stature appears as an optical illusion. That's the crux of it.
But again in another level, I can divide my writings into Pre-IL days and Post IL days. SHE or HE or a poem like this, I could not have written except with the love and affection of you and the other 19643 members (member-count at 8 20 AM IST on 1st May 2008) who constitute this wonderful community.

You are right. We need not dwell on the meaning of death 24 by 7. But have to think of it once in a while, so that our living gets the right perspective.

I have read Mitch Albom's book and his earlier one too, Tuesdays With Morrie. You should read The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche after that.

Thanks for the touching fb, my dear friend.
love,

 

Dear Malathi,

I am thrilled to see that you have quoted those lines in the prelude which I loved to write.

And your poem written some 14 years ago is simple yet profound. When you have the time and inclination get hold of a standard sandhyavandanam book and read Yama vandhanam. It's so very wonderful.

And people always think that chitra guptha belongs to our profession. As we keep an account of assets and liabilities, incomes and expenses, chitragupta keeps an account of rights and wrongs.
But let's stop here for a while and look on the name chitra guptha. You know gupth means secret. (In those days there was a movie on sex education called "guptha gyan" secret knowledge) And the word chitra means wonderful.
So Yama is a keeper of a wonderful secret, death. Osho used to say that death is the only phenomenon which human beings could not corrupt.

regards,