Thursday, November 13, 2008

writing ouside your sphere of experience

the best definition of poetry i have ever heard came from Dr. Harivansh Rai Bachhan ( what a surprise, an HRB fan saying that :) ) so anyways, he says if i have a headache and i write a poem and then you read it and now you have a headache. that is a poem. how eloquent is that, and how infinitely hard a goal to meet.

but then, what if i don't have a headache, but i still want to describe a headache, and i do it, and i do it so well that you get a headache, well how great is that ? hmm... i know, besides the obvious sadistic implications of the kind of person i am who would want to give you a headache for no good reason, think about it. is it possible?

can i write from a point of view that is not mine and still make it convincing enough?

will it be authentic?

yes, i think it can be done in theory. why ? here is my logic : you know that javed akhtar person, he writes these amazing songs from women's perspective, how does he do that? or gulzar , i mean they have to be writing stuff beyond their own first hand experiences. and they are very good at it too. not to forget that HRB the great wrote madushala, this pioneering groundbreaking work in hindi literature on the perils of wine drinking, serving, and its effects. the intricacies of our society's relationship with drinking, the hypocricy of it, all of which was up untill then supposed to be found only in the anals of urdu shayari, the thing is he did not even drink wine :) there, isn't that a good point. so i know it can be done. what needs to be seen is, can i do it? and therein - as the bard would say - lies the rub.

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