Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Oh, Your Magical Ways...

Dear PACH,

This is my second letter to you, in a series of many more to come, God willing. But this time, I write to you with a very heavy heart. Not sad, just a heavy heart. If I understand you right, you endorse words as a therapy for setting ease to all aches. Isn't that precisely what you demonstrated yesterday? You did, and I trust you, each day a little more. So words, aah, not that they are easy to find. But I will try. For you, for all who make you, and for myself. By the way, did you hear, they called you a 'healer' from behind foggy eyes yesterday? You're too grand to register it sometimes, I thought I will tell you once.

Aastha's art  and Aaqib's artistry 


They then called you magical. It did not seem enough. So they simply began calling you magic. You know I agree with them, and you know what I think about you. I think you are crazy. You are doing crazy stuff which my mortal experiences put in doubt. How, no tell me, how can you have an entire gamut of people come together from distant corners of human diversity and share details of love and life which are feared, which are locked, and which are seldom retrieved from those painful musty corners? Do you believe what happened? I have to, you see, because I was present there, and was listening and absorbing and hugging and absorbing a bit more. Please don't laugh at me when I tell you this, but I think, I have absorbed a fragment of each heart which beats for you. I honestly, genuinely feel so. And carrying those many hearts in my heart, it makes me heavy. It makes me float for a while, too, but it leaves me full, and pleasant, and heavy, all at once.

As I said, literally and figuratively, leaning on each other. 


Tell me, do you know magic? You have to, you are just too mean and too smart to give it away. Or you're just secretive, in a nice way. You keep your magic under wraps, you make me nervous before each meet, you put my excitement to test, but you do it so I may never have any idea what kind of spells your wand will cast on those many hearts looking at you in innocent anticipation. Oh, you playful thing. You make it rain too, which pushes me to assure others while I am shivering with panic deep within. But now I know - you did it to take us to the place where we began. And of course, you take us there to help us realise how far we have come in how little time. We did dwell on it - from a cosy group of nine, we became a cosier group of some forty odd people, all taken together. So cosy in fact, that the warmth drew in people from other tables, stopped some more in their paths to other destinations. Was it because our coffee smelt better than their coffee? Okay, now I am being crazy. It was our mad laughter, our visible happiness, our lovely verses and then, this unmistakable love and trust we shared. That invited them. That invited everyone. That is also what keeps us together. Trust, before love. 


It was another of those days when people cried, and I again, could not. I never cried in your midst, did you notice? You know why? Because I was taught to carry hearts with care. I was also taught to care for emotions laid bare. And there, in that gathering spreading out person by person on the floor, all veils had been voluntarily abandoned, as I looked around in absolute disbelief. Only pure and honest expressions came out, some via exquisite pens, some via gleaming eyes. You did this. I do not even understand what you are made of, or how did you become a living, breathing entity, but I do know you did this. You don't just know magic. You are magic. 
That is what my last letter to you looked like - In Your Nascent Days 



There is this little girl among us, who called you a gift. The best she has gotten in her life. You crazy PACH, I hope you realize you are just two months old, and here are your admirers, calling you a gift and a blessing in the same breath. I am sorry, I should not call them admirers. If I call you a living, breathing entity, it is they who infuse life and breaths in you. They are a part of you. They lean on each other, they lean on you. It is positively insane the way you make them come up with pristine thoughts, gem-like words and majestic verses. You took us on a journey from Agha Shahid Ali, to squirrels and suicides, to schizophrenic delusions, pausing for sometime at Eliot too - all the while perched high on the wings of love, being flapped gently by that demure, yet vivacious girl. You taught us of hope and hopelessness, of love and its silences, of strangers exchanging mute glances, of inhibitions and their overcoming, of bantering in love, of break-ups and break-up humour, and of poetry and its essence. Pardon my extra-liberal usage of the word 'love' in these musings, but, excuse me, is it really my fault?!


Aastha di's creativity - oh, she gave life to the Panda!
Mist. In my eyes. Has to be, right? You are crazy, PACH. I maintain. Last time I spoke to you publicly (for personally, I seldom stop chattering away with you), I was apprehensive about you losing the innocence with which you were born. Today, I have to tell you, that if it were possible in the world to gain in innocence with time, you have accomplished that impossible feat with grace. You're growing, alright, but you're still the toddler whose chuckles give life to the despairing. People are exposing their softest sides, flowing with you in gay abandon, and while you might get used to all this unbelievable attachment, I will still look at you with goofy disbelief. 

You wash away my cynicism, you filter me off all the bad energies I acquire on the way to meet you, and leave me nascent and beaming to face a new week. Trust me when I say this, I feel a little newer after each tryst with you. It is akin to how finding love makes you feel new. This, you already know - finding you was like finding love, in more ways than one. 

You're poetry. You're stories. You're trust. You're love. You're magic. You're enough. 

Talking about you is not, but then, there are tales still waiting to be woven into the regal velvet of your fabric. I will wait for the tapestry to develop a little more before I get down to describing it again. 

You're now called PACH and more. 
All this, still, in your nascent days. 
All this, in your inimitable magical ways. 

PS - I now have one. Aditya Mani Jha, our master storyteller, left me a message which touched me beyond imaginations. He sent us blessings, exquisitely worded. And while reading it, all I could think of was the person where it all began - Anup. However much PACH grows and branches out, it will remain on the first page of our fact book that he gave birth to this idea which is has now acquired a life of its own. Each day PACH makes me happy, I never forget to thank him for it all. I call him the superboss, as do many now, and he is the nicest one could ask for. A genius poet, an outstanding human being, he merits an entire, lengthy post, but that, later. For now, I just want to thank him for being bored in life, because in that boredom lay the seeds of PACH, and of a grand vision for poets and poetry. PACH looks up to him, as do all those who are a part of it. 

Oh, and for PACH to be this crazy, Anup has to be crazier, which he conveniently is. 

24 comments:

  1. I could find nothing whatsoever to say so what I decided to say is that I could find nothing whatsoever to say. God Bless you both: Panda and Anup.

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    1. Thanks for the blessings. Too many I have now, but each is special.

      Welcome to my blog!

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  2. Aahhh, its pretty evident you are under the spell of PACH. Anyway, how come you did not cry after all that you wrote. Or maybe you did? :)

    Also, lovely pictures yaar, especially astha di's drawing. I shalll be there super soon.

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    1. Crying is such a personal thing, only the closest know ;)

      Aastha di is fantastic, beyond words. You should meet her, and also all others.

      Thanks for always being so sweet, and for always having so much faith in me.

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  3. Dear PACH

    I love you, I really do. You've just transformed me into something I did not believe would happen anytime soon. I am a new person altogether now. Sheer magic you are! I know I can rely with all my secrets to you.
    Stay this way, or just get better. But wait! Can it be any better than this?

    Love
    One of your admirers.
    (And Saumya di's and Anup bhaiya's too)

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    1. You're a PACH admirer? You're a PACH lover!

      You write the best things, little girl. We admire you, and I say this on Anup's behalf too.

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  4. Oh god I love you :D
    Pachin' hell man!

    To goofy disbelief and goofier smiles :)

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    1. Of course, you love me more than you can ever tell me :P

      Thanks, again. For all this.

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  5. Pachbound! Kya kahoon aur :-)

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    1. Aaj apne ek blog par doosra blog nahi likha? Kaafi vichitra ehsaas hai.

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  6. Thanks. For everything , every word here and yes , one biiiig hug to you and anup. U made a dream come true for so many of us. This is d second best thing to happen for me this year .. and i swear i already dream of growing old with pach .. to come running in its shade every other sunday and to keep spreading the delightful tales all time..

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    1. Oh wow! This comment of yours is such a beautiful addition to all my musings. Thanks to poetry and thanks to twitter, that you connected to become such a beautiful part of PACH. We're all hanging on, together.

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  7. So magically you write this Saumya!

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  8. I can imagine your face when you wrote this and read and re-read it.. I feel exactly how your face was emoting .. This was really beautiful.

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    1. Thanks Sonalika di. And you know what more is beautiful? You are, and your heart is.

      Thanks for joining and loving PACH.

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  9. When I saw the option of rating this (article? bleh) lovely letter, my eyes instinctively went to 'Excellent', and then I unchecked it after clicking on it, because expressions of sacrosanct love like these, cannot be categorised, rated, or be termed a blog post. They're just memories, feelings and much more inked in words.

    How you've managed to even write and express what we ALL experience in our PACH meetings, PACH Whatsapp conversations,I can't help but wonder. Thank you so much for penning down with such acute precision, on behalf of all of us, what beautiful thoughts, feelings and changes our journeys with PACH have brought about. Couldn't stop smiling as I read through. =)

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    1. Longest comment, makes me happy!

      It makes sense to be insane about PACH. The more I live with you, the more I write about it, the more I realize it all.

      To you also, heartfelt gratitude for getting along on this ride.

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  10. I read this earlier and now I wonder what a pity I miss the magic...

    You all are a bundle of love and rhymes and laugh and just everything :)
    Stay blessed always :)

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    1. Your words sound link a blessing. Thank you.

      And I reiterate, hum bahut dil se bulaate hain. Please aate rahiye :)

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  11. Hello gorgeous! I read your blog whenever I get time out of crappy office schedules and it so totally perks me up! I want you to do something for me. Make a post on trust issues, boundaries and misunderstandings which crop up with the closest of friends and what happens when you find yourself on the wrong side of things...i.e. being accused of stuff that you did not do. I see that your perspectives are a whiff of fresh air and I would really look forward to some answers on this from you. Do it whenever time permits but write one nonetheless! Will look forward to reading it in your mellifluous words.

    Big Love

    SS

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    1. You know, the theme you have suggested for a blogpost is really quite interesting, and I would love to take it up in one of my blogposts someday. Time is a scarce commodity these days, so I cannot promise when I would be able to write, but it sure goes on my 'To Do' list.

      Thanks for this lovely comment!

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  12. I guess it's enough. Now I shall join you people.

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    1. Yay!

      Sunday it is then, and you shall be informed of the time and place soon!

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