Day Twenty #NaPoWriMo 2023

Dear Readers,

The prompt on Day Twenty of #Na/GloPoWriMo goes like this:

Have you ever heard someone wonder what future archaeologists, whether human or from alien civilization, will make of us? Today, I’d like to challenge you to answer that question in poetic form, exploring a particular object or place from the point of view of some far-off, future scientist? The object or site of study could be anything from a “World’s Best Grandpa” coffee mug to a Pizza Hut, from a Pokemon poster to a cellphone.

It's Eid break in Doha and I will be travelling out of the country this evening. There's laundry to be done and a bag that needs packing. So, I'm sharing a spoken word piece that I wrote and performed in early 2021 because it fits the bill (I think). 

It's called "Yesterday is not alive." It's a long (ish) piece but I hope you'll stay till the end.

I'm sharing a spoken word piece that I wrote and performed in early 2021 because it fits the bill (I think). It's called "Yesterday is not alive." It's a long (ish) piece but I hope you'll stay till the end.

Our conversations are going to bury themselves
deep in the earth’s womb,
for they’ve failed to adapt to the thunderstorms
of Cricket scores
Market trends
Covid haul and the phone screen addiction
of the human race.

“Yesterday is not alive.” they say. “Live in the moment, for today.”
What should I do? Tell me!

For my world is alive only in the past.
The world I shared with you when we spoke to each other face to face, eye to eye.
I live in those yesterdays--
when you gazed into me and read me like poetry.
In those yester nights when you sprinted to the phone booth of a rain-soaked Calcutta gully,
just so you could hear me say ‘Hi’ from Chennai.
In those afternoons gone by when we held hands--
you used to caress my palm with your thumb, tracing our destinies across my creases, imprinting yourself on my heartline.
I live in those touches still.

But you’ve moved on… to a phone screen.

Even the poets these days only write about separations and distances.
No one pens down the belonging—the togetherness
of long-standing marriages.

I sometimes wonder if these poets prefer to carry on alone for the sake of their poetry;
sacrificing companionship on the altar of rhymes
just so they can continue reciting melodies of virah and longing.

Imagine: if the one they pine for in their lines
starts living with them one day-- dwelling in their dawns, dusks and nights
but, brings a phone along
for updates and company.

Their lover, them and a phone screen—
a tiresome threesome
that assigns a simple eye to eye
conversation to the realms of fantasy.

But poets don’t like to write about long lasting love. Do they? Why?
Well, it has no drama, no pining, no moon to gaze at, no clouds to fill the sky.
They want love like death—instant, dramatic, unquestionable, slam dunk!

Married love is so ordinary.
It flows like life--day after day after day in the gutters
of routines, packed lunches and bills to pay.

Till 2020, I didn’t mind this step-motherly treatment of the modern romantic poet towards reciprocated love.
So what if our love didn’t make it their pages but sat silently in the margins waiting its turn to be noticed one day?
Our conversations kept me company. That was enough.

But now even the margins have been marginalized.
This phone screen addiction has erased me.

I want to talk to you.
Your attention is elsewhere.

The words set forth from my insides to seek you but you’re not open to receive them.
Like orphaned kids, they trundle back seeking refuge
under a tin shed from the hailstones thundering
overhead
dhudhh…dhuddh...dhudhh…
Of cricket scores, IPL roars, Covid tolls, political polls.

My orphaned words-- they bound
back inside through my ears and run amok
like ruffians
running noses, tattered clothes, wreaking havoc
wherever they go.
They spray graffiti inside me. The ink bleeds and hurts me.
My words clamour to be heard.
Caged inside, they can’t breathe.

They find an escape at last. It’s through my fingertips.
They make them dance on the keyboard and write and write and write: poetry or prose or gibberish-- I don’t know. I don’t care. They are the warriors on a mission of resurrection. They will not stop. For they can see that in this era of one-sided posts and opinions, death awaits all impromptu conversations.

Our conversations will soon be assigned to the endangered species category. Once they’re gone, humans will try to recreate the nods, the pauses, the silences and genuine smiles using AI, perhaps on these very same phones.

They’ll curate our conversations and display
them in virtual museums.
Our children and then theirs in the future will log on and see
how you and I could sit together for hours-- talk, tease,
taunt, agree and disagree without
any phone or technology.

The margins have blurred.

Love is Death.
Love is Life.
Love needs words to survive.

I live in my past and bring my yesterday alive.

Perhaps, when our conversations are truly buried and gone,
the poets will write a few lines about how these exchanges were guillotined
during Covid times.
We will read, share and subscribe to their poetry
and proclaim it to be sublime,
sitting next to each other bound by love--
long-lasting, married love.
Your hands will hold your phone. Your eyes will not know how to seek mine.

We will come alive in our yesterdays in the future in someone else’s lines.

We will come alive in our yesterdays in the future in someone else’s lines.

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If you've stayed till the end, thank you:) I'll be here to read your comments. So, do share.