(Anamika)
This unique collection of love letters edited by poet-thinker Anamika Anu is a sweet blow in our terror-stricken, war-stricken, aggressive times, the same sweet blow that a sleepy student gets from his awake classmate, whistling to the tune of ‘Jaagte Raho’. These days, the fate of all writers has become that of sleepy students in frustration and fatigue.
Writers and artists are considered to be the ‘watchmen of time and society’ and ‘conveners of love’ and sometimes, when they forget their roles, they start beating each other – by changing shifts.
This time the slap was from Anamika Anu- ‘You reminded me so I remembered’- once I was also capable of love, the very embodiment of love! The feeling that the whole world started feeling like our own because of one person had once awakened in me too. Anamika Anu awakened each and every writer several times over the phone, forcing them to look inside themselves and also to look back so that a draft for the future could be made.
If we try to understand the essence of these words of Shelley (Percy Bysshe Shelley), ‘We look before and after/and pine for what is not’, then separation has become a permanent condition of our mind – separation from that which once made us tremble, be it a person or a utopia! Now it is understandable why Mahadevi Varma had given so much importance to separation as a metaphor!
Social and political relations are not true and honest but we still maintain sanctity in interpersonal relations. Even a thief steals after skipping ten houses – this saying is old, but its meaning has now become wider. Love is still a revolution, a spiritual revolution, the concern that we do not fall from the eyes of the beloved still keeps the youth inclined towards ideals. At least for a few years as long as the passion of love remains and this feeling also remains that someone is watching us – very carefully, with respect. There is someone in this big world who gets delighted on seeing me and who never questions my worthiness, my nobility.
By reminding us of those days of what Emily Dickinson calls ‘Tender Majesty’, gentle elegance or smooth modesty, Anamika Anu may want to free us from our present egotism! She has captured everything in the mirror, but the love letter she wrote herself was written by the word, in the form of a line! This is a witty feminist joke of hers. A unique initiative to break the established hierarchy between men and women in one go, where the word is just an address, it has to remain within the discipline of the line or else it will become irregular.
The letters in this collection can be divided into five categories. The first category will include those senior writers who stepped out of their own existence and looked at their youth like strangers and presented a meaningful report while laughing at their era of ‘Songs of Innocence’. Among these important writers are Asghar Wajahat and Maitreyi Pushpa: ‘I was afraid that my messenger pigeon would be killed. I did not want anyone other than me to sacrifice for my love. …Hey mom, you used to go barefoot in summers just to see your lover, this is very strange!’
The language and tone of the quote that Asghar Wajahat has made his ex-lover’s child say reveals two big truths: (1.) With time all kinds of barriers have broken, love is not ashamed of being body-oriented, the new generation is not as possessive about the body as before and no one goes through the trouble of love just to get a glimpse. (2.) Democracy has deepened even in personal relationships – the relationship of children with parents has become more open and friendly!
Now see the humorous nature of Maitreyi Pushpa- ‘Master did not know that he has sent Dushyant here who comes to the class with a flower arrow… When we went home, he treated us with so much love that even the family members started looking at us with surprise as to what sweet herb this irritable girl has found! Now it started happening that instead of talking to us, they all kept avoiding us because there was a strange kind of politeness in our nature and the family members were not able to digest this strangeness. What to tell them that now I am not that grumpy type of girl whom you praise and say that our daughter is not that ordinary girl… If we do not share the things of love with anyone, then there is a stir in the heart as if colorful butterflies are fluttering inside and if we share them, then the sharp needles of doubts start sinking into the heart.’
So many experiential, aphoristic sentences on one page, that too in a humorous tone! Whatever a great writer writes, it evokes the sweet smell that rises from the ground after the first rain. And with it the ground realities. Apart from this, it also reveals his class, his sense of place and the sense of time filtered through the sense of place. All these characteristics are reflected in the love letters of some other great writers and those writers are: Usha Kiran Khan, Surya Bala, Shefali Verma, Nand Bhardwaj and Alok Dhanva. Apart from this, one special thing is that their letters give the pleasure of reading a story – many such stories which we used to read in the Diwali story-special issue or love story special issue of ‘Dharmayug’ or ‘Sarika’. How was the life of middle class boys and girls on the threshold of youth in Indian towns – not only does it give a clear glimpse of it, it also gives a clear indication of the restrictions on women’s life.
The second category consists of those letters in which love is the source of emotional security, the pleasure of sitting for a while hidden in a wing. In Alok Dhanwa’s case, the source of emotional security is a slightly older woman – a Didi-like girlfriend who treats him like a Babua. In contrast, for women from insecure areas of the North-East and from minority, tribal, Dalit categories, the man is a true friend who is concerned not only about Priya’s emotional/physical security but also about her all-round development. In this context, the letters of Anita Bharti, Jamuna Bini, Umar Timol, Rosel Potkar and Vandana Tete are unique:
“Do you know that your bootie
under the canopy of the chest
How does it feel?
Your words are both a knife and a salve
Your words: the gods, the elements, the stars that were below…
to read the pictograms that are made from them
Paintings on the cave walls
which could be a return to life,
Complete one revolution!’
(Rossel Potkar, Translation: Anamika Anu)
My landlady is also waiting for you! Why? Because she will complain to you about who all have come to drop me off and she returns to her room late at night. Firstly, I am feeling guilty that I have left a child who is still nursing. And on top of that, this! One day, the neighbour Bhabhi ji said in such a tone that ‘the labourers who come to our place are from Bihar. Their tone was such that I also said that they only do ‘labour’, they don’t steal, they don’t rob anyone.’ (Vandana Tete)
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These letters certainly give a glimpse of how much the lives of working girls have changed in the last twenty years, how much the duality inside and outside has changed, how friendly men have become. There is another important category of new writers whose love letters are a strong proof of the fact that ‘there are other sorrows in the world apart from love/there are other reliefs apart from the relief of union’. This was as big a truth for men in the past as it is for women. The structure of the human brain is such that while being in love, he does not only think about love, the problems of the country, the world, the surroundings also bother him constantly and in such a situation, he falls in love. There is an open space for sharing concerns not only in the houses of Anita Bharti and Vandana Tete, but also in the houses of important writers and writers from Bihar, Jharkhand, North-East, Kashmir and other troubled areas, prominent among whom are: Vibha Rani, Geeta Shri, Anuj Lugun and Huzaifa Pandit.
“I am more determined than ever to make it through this curfew! I want to hold you in my arms…. I want your hair to spread over my face under Guruji’s watchful eye! I have read more than half of The Satanic Verses – it is a pleasure to read it in parts, but I feel a strange attraction towards betrayed lovers…. We will meet at the gates of Srinagar, when the soldiers give us the keys to the city! See you,……..! Have faith!”
(Huzaifa Pandit, Translation: Anamika Anu)
The fourth category is of the letters of those young writers in which their sharp sense of time is interwoven with the splendor of philosophy. Some of the letters also show their color of place, but most of the letters examine the ironies of the times through the eyes of a new woman. Eyes grow in every pore of a person immersed in love and if the writer is promising, then he weaves the three colors of time even in eternity, like Sachchidanandan, Nilesh Raghuvanshi, Anuradha Singh, Yatish Kumar, Akanksha Pare, Tasneem Khan, Gopikrishnan Kuttur, Shailaja Pathak, Omar Timol, Geeta Shri, Jayanti Ranganathan and Sanjay Shepherd weave dreams. The days of love are often also the days of unemployment, while economic and social insecurity bestows the pure beauty of a quivering dew drop on the heart of many of these best writers.
The fifth category is made up of letters of those four eminent writers who have lived abroad for a long time, that too so much that if someone translates these letters into English, it will be difficult to understand that these letters are written by an Indian writer. Here the intoxication of love has broken the bonds of time and space – nature, books, quotes, surroundings – all foreign – some unconnected threads are spread here, woven in a dream, like Louis Cunnil’s films, bathed in the fragrance of maple leaves, bakery and snow. There is the light of snow in the letters of Teji Grover, Pankaj Singh, Savita Singh and Manisha Kulshreshtha. The warmth in love – it seems like a camp-fire lit in a snowy region. A little mysterious and complete in itself, but the community seems to have been left behind here.
Overall, this collection, full of different colors of life, is highly readable and interesting for its unique presentation – various sounds swim like colorful fish in the linguistic subconscious of the collection.
Tags: Hindi Literature, Hindi Writer, New Books
FIRST PUBLISHED : June 23, 2024, 14:47 IST