Tag: Gulzar

The poet in Malashri Lal is a quiet observer. She finds her muse everywhere; in her daily life and in the people she meets. Her poems talk to and talk about everything that catches her attention- from trees to lost souls to flowers and even Gulzar Sa’ab.

How does a poet write a poem? Is it a logical process like prose or is it a play of mind, intuition, experiences? Malashri Lal believes that the process of writing a poem involves more than just words and rhythm.

There must be some kind of a serendipity and intuition at play when writing a poem?

Both happen. Serendipity also happens and the accidental development of a poem also happens. I had written a poem about Geeta Chandran, a well-known dancer and a very good friend. I had gone to see Geeta. She was doing this absolutely stunning performance which is on the life of Gandhi. She is such a beautiful dancer and she did that whole thing wearing a stark white saree with a black border. She did not wear a kanjeevaram saree like the dancers usually wear. There were no props, nothing! I was so moved with what she had done with the Charkha and Gandhi using simply light. I came and wrote this poem and sent it off to Geeta and Rajiv. She liked it so much that she shared it with everyone.

//In Gandhi’s Shadow
“For Geeta Chandran

The dancer’s taut body
Bent to the bullets of
Of hate embedded in the history
Of my country,
Her body curved into the grace
Of supple Satyagraha
Pangs of hunger
Self-induced silence
Never retaliating when violated
By lathi charge, insults, aggression.

The scavengers bent double
To scoop up human waste
While others blocked their nose
And eyes and ears to the wretched poor.

Gandhi watched alone
Stricken to the core by the
Assaults on human dignity.

The dancer’s hands wove subtle ropes
On the invisible charkha
The warp and weft of
India’s Independence
That even today drives us together
And also apart
While Bapu sighs, Hey Ram.”//

It is interesting that you have written a poem on the poet himself!

I along with some others in a group had worked very closely with Gulzar sa’ab on a project in Chamba in 2010 or 2012. It was about preserving the old history of older women. We had done a conference in the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (formerly known as the Vice Regal Lodge) in Shimla with Gulzar Sa’ab. This building is quite old. It has a seminar room which is quite beautiful. It has silk brocade walls and chandeliers. Gulzar Sa’ab was reading his famous poem “Kitabe jhankti hai band almari ke sheesha se” in that room. It goes back to those old days when boys and girls could not communicate directly with each other and hence they use to hide love notes and petals pressed in these books and meet on the pretext of returning the books. A world that today’s children will never recognize. It struck me that he was reading it at time when digitization had come in and hence, I wrote this poem.

// A Poet’s Remembrance
For Gulzar Sa’ab

In the brocade-lined old hall, the poet read,
Kitabe jhankti hai band almari ke sheesha se
And time stood still while images wrote their story in the air
Resonant with words
His deep gentle voice and crisp words meld lyric and memory
Of yesteryears without digital exuberance
When love was wrapped in dried rose peals
And modesty was not an anti-feminist term
Libraries of books have lost their role as mediators in young romance
The ubiquitous cell phone has abbreviated both love and intimacy
The poet though nostalgic has a wry smile
Giving voice to those pages locked behind the glass.”//

Your poem “Afternoon Serenade” talks about lost souls in search of company.

Yes. I frequent this place in Delhi where a lot of elderly people come and I have years of memory of older aunts and uncles frequenting that place. You can go there any time after 4 in the evening and they are always willing to give you a coffee and a pastry or a patty. In Delhi, people don’t visit each other’s homes like they do in Jaipur, so a lot of elderly people find company in such places around Delhi. These places are impersonal, affordable, beautiful and you are not obligated to anyone. I used to feel so grateful for such places for these elderly people because had they not been there, they would have been sitting alone in their homes. Whenever I go there, it is a kind of an impromptu companionship where you will meet someone or the other and then have coffee with them or go for a walk with them. Many such people I know live completely on their own. They aren’t financially dependent and have caregivers but where is the human company or the intellectual companionship. These are people who have been government officers, professors, they have had positions of authority; today they are sit and read the newspapers in such places. But the image that I want to convey through this is a positive image because these people still have places like these where they can find company and spend their time nicely.

//Afternoon Serenade

“Lost souls in search of company
Seek out tables
Overlooking the pond
Staring at the water and trees beyond
Pretending not to hear
The loneliness within
That yearns for voices
And finds it answered by birds
Longs for movement
Kindly activated by squirrels
Hopes for glorious flights
Then finds butterflies enacting this dream
In teacups, the images float one into another
While the afternoon turns to dusk
God’s creatures steal into their nests and lairs,
The lost souls wrap blankets of forgetfulness
Around their frail shoulders
And quietly doze into the next dawn.”//

So, when you visit such places, you write your poems there and then? Do you carry a pen and paper with you?

Yes, sometimes I write it there and then and sometimes the image stays with me and I come back home and write it. These days, I write my poems on my phone and email them to myself. Before the phone, I used to write them in diaries or pieces of paper.

What is the story behind the poem “Easter Lilies in an Empty Home”? Whose home is this?

When I shifted into this other house (which belonged to my parents) that we have in Jaipur due to personal reasons, I had bought some Easter lilies that had been in the old house right from my parents’ time and planted them here. I live in Delhi and visit Jaipur every now and then. But now what happens is every April, these bulbs have proliferated. I do nothing during the year. But every April it is like a riot of colours with these lilies. Every year, the bulbs are growing in numbers. I wrote this poem in the April of 2023. I feel lilies are a message from somewhere as if to say that we are still there in your life, don’t worry.

//Easter Lilies in an Empty Home
“ ‘Come’ they call out,
‘It’s the season of forgiveness’
A hundred lilies stand tall
Renewed by the magic of seasons
The pink stripes may be scars from yesteryear
The white streaks are healing balm
To be washed by the dew
The supple leaves
flat and curved
cradle the flowers that have no other family
Some do, maybe three lilies on a stem
But they squabble like siblings
Pushing for space
They calmly grace the garden of a silent home
The owners alive only in obituaries
The lilies don’t worry on that count
Buried bulbs know they will creep upwards in season
Life’s renewal is a beautiful certainty.”//

There is another poem in which you talk about your mother.
I wrote this poem when I was abroad visiting my son and daughter-in-law. We were on a vacation somewhere and I was looking at the sky changing colours in the evening. Somehow this poem came to me. I lost both my parents in a tragic car accident. I was very close to my parents. They were my friends, teachers and mentors. I had a very open relationship with both of them. They had a very complimentary relationship with each other. My father never went to the kitchen. Not that he didn’t want to but he made such a mess of it that my mother told him to stay out and let the cook handle everything. Today, there are these talks about feminism and equality. My concept is somewhat different. A relationship between a husband and wife should be more about complimentary rather than division of labour.

Dreaming of Ma by the Sea
You live somewhere between the black night and the bright star,
Free of body and its temporal limits.
In green leaves turning to red in a mellow autumn
I catch a glimpse of the saree pallav on that day
You knew life was short and might become shorter.
In the shimmer of an unsteady wave on the lake
I recall your tremulous smile when you whispered trying a hopeless cure,
In the rough hewn rocks that line the harbour,
I remember your will to fight an uneven battle with the rouge cells.
Here, on shores unknown to you and me,
We meet again.
When the dark sky rests on the sparkle of stars,
Living and dying are no longer apart.
..To be continued

This article by Shailaza Singh appeared in Rashtradoot Newspaper’s Arbit Section on Saturday 27 April 2024.