A Dead Poet

It was raining heavily. Standing in my balcony, I was passively watching the rain drops showering the earth, when a guy came ambling. He was in his early 30's and had a prominent, receding hairline. I had never seen him before (living in a guest house, you get used to seeing new faces around). We exchanged greetings, and after staying quiet for a while, talks began.

We started with usual company banter, “How is the job going?”, “What’s your work?” and so on. This guy was working in Coca-Cola for an year (after working in another company for 7 years), and was a chartered accountant. The way he talked gave me an impression that he was feeling quite lonely. He was talking in philosophies and generalities, and I was enjoying listening to him, so we continued.

This guy was passionate about poetry. He was a fan of Ghalib and Harivansh Rai Bachchan. He himself seemed to be an excellent writer (he narrated two of his compositions to me). His writing style was inspired by Ghazals and was enriched with splendid Urdu words. He said he has a diary full of self-written poems.

“But I don’t write now. In fact it has been 4 years since I have attempted to write anything”.

I asked, “What happened friend? You got too involved in daily chores or what?”

He said, “No, it’s not like that. I just stopped writing”

“There must be a reason. Was it a girl?”

He smiled, “You are quite intuitive.”

(Well you don't need to be intuitive to guess that. Behind 90% of the things that happen to a guy, there is a girl involved!)

“Yes. There was a girl I loved passionately, as is shown in movies. She loved me too. It was during our graduation days. I had always liked writing poetry. But it was that girl who was my inspiration. She loved listening to my poetry and I loved writing for her.”

I had understood now. I said, “You are married, right?”

He was lost in his own thoughts. After a moment he replied, “Yes”.

I said, “And the girl is not the same?”

He smiled, “No. That love story couldn’t materialise. On the insistence of my parents I married another girl. Still I was excited. I had always felt some sort hollowness in my life after my relationship with the 1st girl had ended. Now I thought there would be a person who would always be there for me. I felt happy.” I was smiling too. (whatever you say, and whether or not you believe in marriage, but it does bring a smile to your face!)

He said, “But the 1st night was a disaster.”

(hmm...first night disaster...what could that be!!)

“What happened?”

“I recited a few lines from “Madhushala”. I was feeling complete at that time and it came naturally. But after a few lines she interrupted me. She said, “Dear, I don’t like poetry very much. I can’t even understand your poem. Can we talk something else?””

I was trying to control but we both burst into laughter.

After a while he said, “You know there used to be a day some years back when my first love used to urge me to write poems for her. I used to feel so happy, reciting the lines I had written just for her. Then there was that day, when my wife said on the first night of our marriage that she doesn’t like poetry. It was like somebody doesn’t like my soul. I have never written since”

I decided to let him speak his mind. I didn’t interrupt.

“If I would have got married to the girl I loved, my life would have been so different. Daily chores and hard work would have always been there but there would have been an anticipation. An anxiety when I would have told my poem to her, whether she would like it or not. People tell me to get my poems published. But how can I? These are dead for me now, as is their inspiration.”

I was partially listening to what he was saying, but my mind was wandering somewhere else. I used to be more of a loner when I was a kid. I had some great friends, but many a time I preferred staying alone and I never used to miss anyone. But over the time, the great friends became greater, and so did the time we spent together. Perhaps I would never make a friend who is incompatible with me. Even if I did, the friendship would itself die. But what choice this guy here had now. He was stuck in a phase in his life with an incompatible partner whose incompatibility he had discovered on the first night itself, but he couldn’t do anything about it, nor can he now.

He said, “There is something I have observed in my life. It is the ordinary who succeed in life, of course in materialistic terms.”

Perhaps he wanted to divert the topic. But he was still speaking from his heart.

I too continued on this new topic, “Of course. Advanced beings understand the flaw in system very soon."

"What do you mean?"

"The flaw in the system is that if you follow it, you would end up at exactly the same point where everyone else ends up. It’s like a written script. Schooling, college, job, marriage, children, raising them, getting them married, retiring, the end. So they get disillusioned. They do what their hearts desire. There are people who leave a job fetching billions to become musicians, some do social service in rural areas leaving the comfort of their sofa cushion behind, some just leave to travel across the country and the world. They may end up dying on streets. The world may never call them successful. But they know better. They know it’s better to die as a beggar after living life of their wish than to die on a sofa after being a slave of the system.”

Now i was speaking my mind.

We talked for some more time—music, drugs, people and many other stuff. It was after a very long time I had such a talk with anyone. Remarkable evening. After all, how many times do you get to listen to a real love story, that too of a poet!