The scientist
Today morning I simply didn’t feel like getting out of the bed. I really shouldn’t have… except that I had to go to work and earn me some money. Anyhow, while I was getting out of the taxi, which I had taken to the station, I saw a shell on the seat, right about where I was sitting. And that inspired me to write a poem titled I Laid A Shell. It went something like this:
The day began on a low note (terribly self absorbed I can get, at times)
with old friends replacing friendliness with cordiality (just a phone call that affected me when it really shouldn’t have)
A slow pocket of a morning bunched up over my head,
like a blanket, it was.
All answers revealed in a dream,
had slipped away.
But as I stepped out of my taxi,
I saw, left behind, a rolled up paper
shaped and coloured like a small, multi-layered shell. (aah, finally)
The colour of an inexplicable shade called Mother of Pearl (she said, with a relish)
And it made me think, I have laid a shell,
and that made me happy.
I really should have stayed in bed.
Kamila ohmygod ohmygod Shamsie is loverrrly. The Poet in her novel I learnt is based loosely on Faiz. But the feminist icon, who blows air smoke out of air cigarettes, the brilliant theatre artist, the daughter who simply wants her mother to come back, who doesn’t believe that she is dead… all of them moving in and out of the narrative saying things that made so much sense. Meanwhile, the friend’s book seeks to cancel aphasia (it’s written in the blurb… whose essential point of existence is to dumb down the book!)… right, so cancel aphasia (which is the inability to articulate thoughts or words, and comprehend them because of a hit on vital places in the head) with words.
Which basically means, a lot of words. And either I’m mildly aphasic myself (although Wiki sternly insists that this is not a psychological illness) or her postmodernism is particularly strident.
On a related matter, I wish Varun hadn’t told me that I needed to read one book in every 3.65 days to achieve my target. Somehow, it seemed more achievable when I hadn’t known the exact maths of it!
