Anjali Yadav- End Sem Submission

Prompt 3.

This prose piece is written in response to a ghazal I wrote, called ‘Ittar Shop’:

“Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight?

Whom else from rapture’s road will you expel tonight.”

-        Tonight by Agha Shahid Ali

Two kohl eyes met in my Ittar shop tonight.

And how it wounded my heart, I shall tell tonight.

Amber, Musk, Rose, Lavender. The fragrance,

their conversation created, you should smell tonight.

My head aches with the clink of ittar bottles, but

their fingertips—brushing, it was a spell tonight.

I remember chandbalis stroking your neck-line.

You now have a shauhar, all madmen yell tonight.

Your inconstancy still flickers in my eyes.

Seeing you pass by Jahan Numa, they swell tonight.

Wine and the morning after, a pinch of lime.

All offerings, shall drown in a well tonight.

~~~~

I saw Us at the Ittar Shop Tonight

The men had dispersed after the Jumma prayer. I looked at my prayer mat which had a design of an arched window with no nazara to offer to this man. The mat’s crease divided the window in four parts. I don’t know why I kept looking at the prayer mat after praying. It didn’t make sense. Nor has been my praying and breathing. I carefully folded the mat following the creases, secretly hoping that, unlike you, at least they stay with me.

I started walking towards the northeast exit of the masjid. The cool November sandstone was burning me from the inside. Balancing the folded mat under my armpits, I followed the trail of men taking the same exit as mine. The white taqiyaah heads were hustling down the Jama Masjit’s stairs.

They looked like a dancer’s ghunghroo gone astray, or

a pack of marbles let loose for a play.

While some shoulders thumped pass me, whereas some begged me to get to a side, I kept standing there and soaked in the breeziness of the full-moon night. I wanted to climb up the minar and catch the moon red-handed making love with the moonlight. But I had caught you, and you were no less of the same silver light. The stars beheld this spectacle of love-making only to gossip about it later in the morning.

But I wasn’t standing outside for nothing. I was waiting for him. Usually, everyday after the namaaz, he was already standing outside the gate but today, I had to wait for him to arrive. When I first met him, I ignored his presence, thinking of him like any other fakir one comes across outside the mosque. But I heard him reciting nazms of Ghalib sahib. I asked him, “What is your name?”

He looked up. He must’ve smiled, I don’t know, I couldn’t see from his thick beard.

He said, “Allah” and resumed with the recitation.

That’s how I met him, and that how I know he met me. Since then, every evening he stood outside the northeast gates and waited for me to come out. We didn’t speak, we never spoke but smiled seeing each other. His presence was a cool breeze which subdued the burning heat inside me for some time. But he reminded me of her. And it was in that painful longing of her, I cajoled my heart by meeting this fakir.

His beard had become thicker but I could see his lips curling into a smile. Today he was late. A sudden pang of anxiety ran through my body. Has he left me too, I kept thinking to myself. But then, I saw him. Climbing up the stairs his thick locks were bruising his bare shoulders.

“These gora log. Rok liya for a photo”, he said, wiping sweat from his temples.

“Aren’t you cold?” I worried about him. I did.

He smiled his usual smile, cleared his throat and began,

“wo sardiyon ki dhup ki tarah ghurub ho gaya

Lipat rahi hai yaad jism se lihaf ki tarah.”

A shared warmth curled up on our lips and that was my sign. I left.

Meena Bazaar was spilling with pungent smell of sweat, kebab, and incense. I slowly walked pass the street, saw a few agitated faces of foreigners, stuck in the crowded street. The rickshaw and tuk-tuk drivers drove past each other, leaving just a hair-line gap. I crossed the road that divided the Jama from Meena Bazaar, whilst looking for a concrete to keep my foot on. One of the tuk-tuk drivers, who recognized me as Ishfaaq miyan’s son, asked me to pass through his vehicle. I waved a salaam and offered him to come to the shop for a chai.

He promised. But promises are promised to be broken. Like you promised me your heart only to be left deprived of the promised.

Mehboob & Co. was the name of our ancestral Ittar shop, named after my great-grandfather. The shop went into ruins during the British Colonial Era but was later developed under the patronage of Abdullah Bukhari, 12^th Imam of the Jama Masjit, who helped the community post-insurgency. I saw Abbu sitting in the revolving chair which I gifted him on his last birthday. He said he felt like a boss while sitting in that chair. I had sometimes caught him fondly revolving in that chair like a ten year old. He had light incense sticks. He had been complaining lately that ittar causes him headache. But a businessman cannot take up a fight with his business.

After seven, Abba retired to home and I took care of the shop until it closed at ten or sometimes eleven. The drop-dead silence in the shop, complimented the hustle of the bazaar. A beggar woman was screaming on a biker but I heard nothing except the tick-tock of the watch. And just then, I saw a couple – hand in hand, walking towards my shop. I gently hoped that they do not enter my shop but my name, Bakht, had failed me tonight. The boy checked on her smile before opening the doors of the shop. Reassured that it was still there, he pushed the ‘Pulled’ door. And in that moment, months of sanity went into a well tonight.

Two pair of kohl eyes met in my Ittar shop tonight, and how it wounded my heart, I shall tell tonight. I pulled a smile with all my strength and asked their preference of fragrance. He turned towards her seeking an approval. She lowered her eyes in submission and he said, “Ji, Jasmine.”

I cleared all the heaviness which sat on my throat and said, “Ji Jasmine bahut aam hai. Kuch aur?”

“Inki pasand kaafi aam hai.” It was the girl who responded this time.

The boy, clad in pathani suit gently turned his head towards her and said, “Aap khudko aam mat kahiye.”

And that was it. Her cheeks reddened and smile refused to part with her lips. She hit his arm with all the love she had and told me, “Aap kuch bhi accha dikha dijiye.”

I showed them everything – Amber, Rose, Musk, Lavender. But the fragrance, their conversation created, you should smell tonight. The more I looked at them, the more I was reminded of Us. Dear Anjum, I try hard. I try hard every day. But looking at them, sitting in front of me, completely immersed in love, made tested my sanity tonight. Oh Anjum,

“Hum ko ab tak aashiqi ka wo zamaana yaad hai.”

I still remember chandbalis stroking your long neck line, as you debated with the gatekeepers of the shrine. “Madam, you cannot enter the masjit past daylight”, they had reasoned with the one who later became the love of my life. And it aches every time I think how you brushed aside all the advances of being my wife.

Do you remember the afternoons we spent together at the stairwells of the Jama Masjit, reading Faiz and Ghalib—with winter sun cascading down your nose line. Did you notice how intently I listen when you talk of studying Archeology? You went on and on about monuments, their pre-history, historiography but all that I paid attention to – was the glee in your eyes. Nobody had told you yet but me, that you talk with your hands more than you ever will with your mouth. And it still warms me thinking about the subsequent efforts you made on cutting down your hand-movements. Little things.

Sometimes, I deliberately stepped in front of the tuk-tuk, so that you could gently pull me towards yourself. I faked spice in my mutton kebab so that you offer me your water bottle which, I know had brushed against your lips all morning.

But I cannot erase that dreary morning—still, when you called for a morning chai, only to tell that your palms will soon be in yellow dye. I cannot forget how you cried in my lap, only to later call me with names like, “misogynist, patriarchal” – whose meaning, still in love, I wander to find. You curtailed me from reading nazm for you, forgetting that you were the Nazm yourself. You introduced me to the world of social media whilst sitting in Ritz Cinema’s aisle. Oh! cruel destiny, I stalked your nikaah, from the very same profile.

“Are you okay, miyaan?”

I was brought back from the blanket of your memories which is wrapped around my body. Today it was him, other times, it is Asif or Ameen.

“Ji, ek dam”, I lied.

They purchased three bottles of ittar and left. I closed the shop at ten today only to catch up with the grief tonight. I switched the lights off and dropped the shutters. I was again in the lanes of Meena Bazaar. The hustle had faded and the locals of the walled city were in the streets. Some were walking their dogs, while some were just taking their post-dinner strolls. It was like any other night until I spotted someone in peach salwar-kamiz.

I could faintly identify the footsteps. And this faint identification lead to a confirmed acknowledgement that they were hers. I had heard them meticulously when she climbed up the stairs of the same masjid. Each step that she took, reminded me of the days I spent claiming and blaming her. I followed the figure until it stopped in front of the Jama Masjid. Her hair was now touching the waist-line, unlike how I saw them first, barely reaching the shoulders. The tresses were open, but were playing peek-a-boo under the veil. Her wrist was crumbling under the weight of bangles. Yet she used them effortlessly to probably describe the balconies of the architecture of Jahan Numa.

Her hands were curled into a man’s, whom we shall call her shauhar tonight.

~~~~

Most of what we know about love comes from its memory. And memory is not something which you put behind in the past. It is the palpable things that you carry with yourself still – the touch, the sight, and the living absence. The morning after, I woke up to see Anjum leave. She had already left but today was her leave-taking.

~~~~

Work cited:

Chupke Chupke Raat Din Aansu Bahana Yaad hai by Hasrat Mohani. 

Main Munharif Tha Jis Se Harfe-e-Inhirat Ki Tarah by Musavvir Subzwari. 

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Self-Reflective Note

This elective was more than just reading about four forms of writings – poems, graphic novels, creative non-fiction, and novels. Reading and writing are closely knit. And the importance of this relationship is pressed enough times whilst in a writing program. While going through the course outline, the graphic novel segment, which included great graphic-writers like Joe Sacco and Art Spiegelman pushed me to take up this course. I do not remember the last time I read a graphic book. The graphic novels classes surfaced the childhood memories of reading comic books every fortnight. Besides finding this particular section exciting, it was challenging as well. The way I read comic books as a child – to focus just on dialogues and text was altered. We were asked to look beyond what was being ‘said’ by reading facial expressions of the characters, the space between two panels, and the different forms of transitions.  

Through the graphic-novel classes, I learnt that there was a lot being told even while nothing was actually being said. For instance, the space between two panels, called the gutter, has nothing in itself to offer. But when it is read between the two panels, having a context, it has lots of understanding to offer. Reading graphic novel was a great brain-storming exercise to read in-between the lines. It was through this section that I learnt about the visibility and invisibility of the author. For instance, in Joe Sacco’s Palestine, the author himself is hyper-visible. I could trace this visibility through reading the text meticulously and applied the same way of reading to later texts in the semester. It made me aware of the level of interreference the author intends to make in his/her work.

Another most important take-away from this course, for which I will forever be thankful was the workshop class by Aditi Rao on metaphor and imagery. On day one, she asked us to select any grand idea like, love, hate, loss, etc. I picked up the word, ‘void’ which I had used in my poem, Chipped Memories:

“I sit even now

with the same chipped tea mug

which has now become a vessel

to empty the void you created.”

I deliberately chose this word after the classroom feedback, which propelled me to rethink its usage because it was very heavy in contrast to the lightness of my poem. Rao then asked us to give it a shape, color, movement etc. This exercise significantly helped me in identifying ways of breaking down complex words for better comprehension of the readers. It also helped me in concretizing an abstract word. This grounding helped in knowing about the subject and the character we are writing about. Amidst the discussion, I remember her saying, “Poems are about abstractions, in a concrete way.” And this advice has remained with me. The second class on metaphors nuanced my writing about the power of particular. A phrase used by Rao to emphasize why turning to abstract ideas is not a great move for poets and writers.

The technique of repetition and line-breaks helped me in not just bringing the meaning of the poem, but also how to bring it effectively. I learnt to use repetition with caution, in adequate amount, and not to over do it. Later, I realized that over doing also creates an affect but it has to be kept in mind whether this affect is desired or not. Discussions on line alignment— that short lines give rise to curiosity and suspense, whereas, end-to-end lines promise certainty helped me in crafting poems for the mid-semester assignment.  

The distinction, between lyric and narrative poetry helped me in reading different styles of writing poetry. We learnt about these terms while reading Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘The Fish’, where the lyric with ‘thick descriptions’ seized my interest. Now that we are talking about lyricism in poetry, we cannot ignore the same in prose. Having a little understanding of the lyric and the narrative, by the time we reached Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, I could mark distinctions between the language—where it was being narrative and where lyric. I read The God of Small Things for the first time two years ago, and the only review I gave in regard to its language was, “beautiful”. But the word beautiful in itself is very grand—abstract. So when I re-read Roy’s book during this semester, it was more dense. I could identify the different narrative devices of capitalization, metaphors, and imagery deployed by her. Different readings of the same text, over a period of time creates a different understanding.

This course, nuanced with weekly exercises, class-room participation helped in reading the texts better. There were thirty people in class at a time, each with a different reading of the same sentence, which widened the ways of approaching a text.

The last and the most crucial things which I learnt during this span of four months was the art of criticism. Each class began with an exercise to identify one line which worked and one which we’d like to change in the writing pieces. This, I think was the most constructive way of criticizing somebody’s work. So, the know-how of this constructive approach is as much important as writing.