Year 2015 was in its twilight, when I found myself
in between sheets of the brilliant memoir by Amitava Kumar, titled ‘Lunch with
a bigot’. All the twenty six essays left me with something to ponder. The
language is very fluid and it stays there in the mind, even when you have
closed the book and kept it in your rack. However, its not that simple things are always beautiful, but they are scary at times.
The most haunting line that I have ever read in my
life was written with the same ink as the whole book was. But the sentence
appears resplendent than any other sentence in the book. It was on page number
122, the page where essay number 13 ‘Ten rules for writing’ ended. It is about
VS Naipaul’s rules for the beginners which include Kumar’s tested rules as
well, which he prepared for his students.
Kumar, at the end of the essay quotes Annie Dillard
who once wrote a simple thing “How we spend our days is, of course how we spend
our lives”. Kumar says in the following lines, “Those words scared the living
daylights out of me”. The words echo in my ears and each echo intensify its
impact on the mind. I spend my day doing things which are unproductive, wasteful
and unnecessary. I talk about people and petty stuff. If I do not change my world,
probably I would spend my life this way only. It is my biggest nightmare to be
trapped in a mediocre life.
Talking about simplicity again, There are times when
books and people tell you in longest possible lengths how one should be. It
hardly leaves impact on the flesh or soul of an indifferent individual. Simplicity
has its own prowess. It can be beautiful and can be scary.
Keeping things simple is not easy, like writing
short and simple sentences and arranging them tight, which is a herculean task.
Playing on the words of Ogden Nash, I take liberty to say “Anybody can lead a
complicated life, but simplicity, my boy is an art.”
The other day, I was watching ‘Taste of cherries’ by
Abbas Kiarostami a legendry Iranian filmmaker, his film too carries a simple
message which is disseminated in the simplest way possible. Fed up from his
life, a man in the film wanted to commit suicide, en-route he seeks help from
people who could help in ending his life. He met a man, who told him, that he too,
like him wanted to end his life. The man told him that he left home to commit
suicide in a mulberry tree plantation. It was already dark when he reached,
after successive failed attempts at tying the rope on the tree, he climbed on a
mulberry tree .While doing so, he felt soft mulberries under his hands , at the
same time dawn broke too, he could now see mountains ,greenery and kids ,kids
who were going to school. Seeing him over the tree, children asked him to shake
the tree. He acted as they said; mulberries fell from the tree and thought to
end life from his mind .Mulberries were succulent. He ate mulberries, came down
and brought mulberries home for his wife. They ate together. Of course Mulberries
didn’t change his life but his mind.
In pursuit of larger than life events, we miss minutiae
of life and often life as well .Thus we feel rancour towards oneself and world
alike.
Another incident which stuck in my mind for its
simplicity was when Neha Dixit, journalist by profession known for her hard
hitting journalism was talking to me in the canteen. We discussed politics,
Rohith Vemula, campus and inter alia.
I will definitely forget all those things in
sometime soon but not her one sentence. “Tum
logon me jo plants diye the,unme white flowere aane lage hain”. The Plants
that you people gave have started giving white flowers).
Act of acknowledgement is always warming but Language
and tenderness of acknowledgement is what makes difference. I have loved her,
for her work and words but that Monday I became fond of her heart.
In the most tumultuous time of my life when I hardly
know where I am heading for. when I am not writing anything substantive. I have
started living life as a kid, a carefree life without thinking too much. As far
as writing is concerned, right now I keep my sentences simple, short, I arrange
them tight but make sure that they flow.
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