it is arational..not irrational...but arational

What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance with official lies,
A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
Readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this and only this I find salvation

Czeslaw Milosz, lines from dedication

heres S. arguing with me that east european poetry might have its own individual characteristics but reading the poems from that region you feel as you feel while reading any other good poem...a quivering of sorts...he then turned to talk a little about czeslaw milosz as an exemplar

"sample this..i think milosz is good...his writings have that incisive quality...his prose especially....reading captive mind was like reading a textbook of logic..his talking about things in that manner..and then you approach his poetry..he no longer operates within the confines of logic..it is arational..not irrational...but arational....not bound by reason that can be located in space and time..in the way the most beautiful things are...no longer burdened by the signs and the symbolisms..it acquires a universal character...that is no longer east european..or post world war 2.. or communist-era..in fact it is outside history...totally untouched by the vagaries of history..yet it can not be anything but a product of his personal history..that is what makes it all the more fascinating..

but in the end..milosz is good.." (S. in a conversation with me, 2007)

fragments of stucco works, pavilions, arches supported on columns communicating with us

Certainly not one of the pictures which could do justice to Thirumalai Nayak Palace. We look for information boards and knowledgeable visitors to garner information - the palace was divided into two major parts, namely Swargavilasa and Rangavilasa. We try to make out the royal residence, the theater, shrine, royal bandstand, quarters, palanquin place - my sister remarks one of the songs from the film 'Guru' was shot here. She is ready to step into a dance when I have an urge to find out where the king would watch dance performances., hear musical evenings and literary discourses. Is it the same place where today people come to watch evening dance programs - maybe not. An interior palace museum opens up and I feel it is a more befitting place for the same. It was also a place where the wives lived with concubines - or did they not?

One cannot but think more about those individual construction workers who built it. More than the king, more than the architect he employed for the purpose. That during those days they shifted palaces My mother gives me snippets of vital information as we ruminate on them immersed in the palace - its fragments of stucco works, pavilions, arches supported on columns communicating with us - The harem and the queen's place has gone. The grandson of the king Thirumalai Nayak, Chokkanatha Nayak broke down the palace and took materials for building another palace in Tiruchirapalli.

I start remembering lines from Marquez's "the autumn of the patriarch" and again note india might have a different magic reality to present.

capture the fact that CMBT bus stand was ISO certified

Somebody recently told me he looked like Ajay Devgan. I said to her he was more of an Irfan Khan - equally intense but more handsome. ( all this when he grows a beard over this picture) . This is in Chennai's local train, we are on our way to City Center Mall , Mylapore near Marina Beach. After too many days of calm and sea in Pondicherry, one likes a day of seeing the city fare of multiplexes and shopping malls. Saw a forgettable movie that day and brought home a brilliantly absurd play by Ionesco. Landmark is turning out to be the best place for finding fictional treasures. To top it all, we had a lovely biryani in the evening and were caught by a policeman trying to capture the fact that CMBT bus stand was ISO certified.

they say 'money'....'money' ...'money'

Somebody told me - he could look at this picture and keep looking at it. Dhanushkoti for me was a place one could keep walking, on sand, straining to look at the sea on both sides amidst an old church, an old temple, some hamlets all in ruins. a whole village lived ( no thrived) we are told by the guide till 1964 - a cyclone came. My father tries to find his own people in the historical imprints of this place pointing to a narrow gauge railway track, barely visible covered by sand. He tells me grandfather came here on a train...I wander, hopping broken windows, wiping sand from my fingers as i support myself on rocks to come to smiling children engaged in a game. I take out the camera for a pic. they laugh, i think of taking another pic, end up taking three more, they pose for me in wrestling positions, they are in a battle in the next, and peep through a tyre for the third, when I am about to leave, they say 'money'....'money' ...'money'