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I can't find stuff that Jeet Thayil has written his post-America era. I don't think these are from then but they could be. And my copies of his books are back in India.


If you can find it, please read Shape-Shifter. It is my favourite. Read this interview and understand yourself why I lust after him. If you know me well enough, that is.

If you don't: His "weird co-passengers answer" and this earlier post should tell you that we'd have been made for each other, had both of us been single. (In my head, of course. He probably likes really thin women with killerbones... I mean collarbones...curly hair and a shimmering nosepin, none of which I have.)

 

See that I-hate-posing-properly-for-a-picture smile? Sigh...

(Picture: The Hindu)

By Jeet Thayil

The Boredom Artist

Life, said Hobbes, is nasty, brutish and short.
He left out boring, as grim a condition as any.
His tigerish namesake's epiphany,
in 20-point captions, is a Sunday slot.
Then there's Chekov, who, a moment ago, wrote,
The earth is beautiful, as are all God's creatures,
only one thing is not beautiful, and that is us.
Between philosopher, toy tiger, doctor, there's
a ladder of land no man claims as his.
I'll settle down there with old friends, familiars:
a monkey, my famous barking birds in pairs,
and defrocked Sukhvinder, the bald brahmin bear.
Dawn, like whiskey, half-lights a watery world:
all things break down to flesh, food and fear.
It's late December in Fleetwood, downstate NY,
"glorious showers, thunderclouds continue".
My mind unwinds as the century slows,
dribbles its years to a whining close
and defunct days peddle the news.
Listen: nothing, not even love, is true.


Slumming in Bombay, Beelzebub

found himself at home. Finally, he
had a reason for lethargy.
Inert like everybody, unable to sleep,
he blamed the humidity.
No use to say, "But B,
that's what this city does: saps you,
leaves you spent like change,
separates the dudes from the ditties."
He was having none of it,
a tools-down, feet-up, none of it,
and then the boss arrived, unexpected,
on a Sunday.
But his boss - now what? - had changed.
Hard as it was to believe,
she seemed kind, distracted, humorous,
endearing even.
The day she came to take him home
they were seen at the Hanging Gardens,
hand in hand, watching the dust bees
ride their pollen machines.
It was Christmas Day, just after dawn,
even the heat and humidity at peace,
it seemed, and Beelzebub's boss serene.

*****

Strange things that have happened this week.

A.K.A

Unsolicited advice to aspiring poets.

1 Do you use the word 'yonder' in daily conversation? Even once? No? Then don't use it in your poems. Which takes us to point #2

2. Don't try and find a word that rhymes with it. You'll only come up with 'wonder', unless you want to use 'blunder', 'thunder', 'torn asunder'. I thought not.

3. Don't rhyme if you have to cut, colour, spit and polish the idea in the line to fit the rhyming word in.

4. Show, don't tell. Please
'Still rocks.'
'Electric electricity' (!!). Yes
'Silent vacuum'

5. Use "deafening silence" only if the silence is deafening. Don't use it for a quiet night. Or a pleasant enough poem.

6. Shards, angst, the depths of your shattered soul -- all very nice. But if you are still writing this when you are 23 and are not sitting in a padded cell or, at the very least, getting therapy, then stop. Grow up. There's a reason it's called adolescent angst.

7. Use a semi-colon. It speaks volumes. Also of your work.

8. Keep it simple. Even the complicated stuff.

9. Read Jeet Thayil.

10. Read, edit, read, edit, read, edit. Take at least a week to make it right. You may love your first draft but slowly you will come to realise that there is much more that can be done, some more that can be taken away.


And in the 'weird things keep happening to me' department.

Is anyone else getting email that is from "buddisttrains"? What the hell is that? I've got something from them twice this week.

Suddenly, there's almost no money in my bank.

I can't find a piece that I had done on Thayil for Daily News and Analysis. He has been my favourite living Indian poet for a while now.

Update
Is it just me? Or is that word verification thingamejig throwing up real words that are misspelt these days? In the last four days I have - poleez, jinzeng, tranter (not a real word but sounds like one) and djigkle.  Yes, I think about these things.