May I Have Your Autograph Please!
May I have your autograph please? No, no, don’t hesitate. Aren’t you the prize winner of this year’s Poetry competition? I really would appreciate it. Why, you ask. Why? That’s funny. No one asked me that before. Because I collect them. You think not, you say. You think not what, that I don’t collect autographs? I could show you if … oh you mean you don’t want to give me your autograph. But why? Everyone gives autographs. Famous people like to. You say I’m not familiar with your work so why should I want it. Why would I? Does it matter? I mean does it matter whether I’m familiar or not. By and by I will come across it I’m sure. If you aren’t already a household name then you will be. Of course you will be, why else would they host this occasion for you, a reading of your own work? It’s not everyone they throw a soiree for! It is not everyone for whom the stage is set and track lights trained upon or arrange for Shivnath Shastri to sit upon dais and pontificate. No, it isn’t. Only for those who show great promise. Ask me, I’m a veteran. I’ve come to many of these and I ‘ve seen what is laid on and for whom, and I know the difference. Look, we have sauteed prawns today. Usually there are drinks with just crackers, or tea and biscuits. I hate the tea-and-biscuit ones. Sometimes when the biscuits are particularly unsatisfactory, I go off to the India International Centre. There’s always something going on there, an illustrated talk on yoginis or a memoriam for a celebrated writer who has just passed away in America. I usually sit right through to ‘Question Time’ taking notes on what important people say.
Am I a freelancer you ask? Why, so I am! Isn’t everyone who comes here? Look at the little note books they carry and the clothes they wear. Well not to be falsely modest I have written my piece or two, published as well. You might have seen the one on Premchand in the Statesman … now was it 2009 September or 2009 October. The third Sunday? See how my memory fails. Till last year I was sure of most things, but now the mind plays tricks. At my age, you ask? Yes I know you said nothing but I can read it in your eyes. I don’t look old you think. Of course I don’t. Let me let you into a little secret. I dye my hair. You don’t believe it! Again I can see it in your eyes. My boot polish black’s natural? You think I’m Bengali? They all have oiled black hair. No I’m not, not Bengali. Actually my friend, I am from Patna. Malcolm is the name if you must know. Early prodigy I was. Father Xavier at the Entally School announced to the class: Malcolm’s won the Patna Schools’ English League prize. It was on advantages and disadvantages of something … I don’t remember. He used to hold my essays up to the class to read out. Always preface it with a quote he said. Emerson, Waldo, Paine, Rousseau, the lot. I did that and also from the poets that I read; the Romantics, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth- ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’; Browning’s ‘There she stands my last duchess, hanging on the wall,’ and Shakespeare. (My, didn’t I know my Shakespeare! Could stand up in class and recite Mark Anthony’s speech without a pause.) I would use a phrase here and a phrase there. Father Xavier liked it. The class liked it too. They all thought I was meant for great things.
I did write; all day, all night; ah you wouldn’t think to look at me now that I was a poet. That dais you sat on. I sat on it too. It was at the Poetry Society’s 4th Annual, that they organised. I won. Yes I won, and all prizewinners’ poems were put in an anthology and I was asked to read mine out and the same track lights were on me, the ones that were on you today. I felt them warm my body; it began to glow. I felt light around my head, anointed like a saint. I knew how Jesus must’ve felt being crucified, not the pain I mean, but the lightness that comes from seeing yourself exalted in people’s eyes. I’m sure you felt it too when they sat rapt in attention, hearing you. As if you were somebody different, elevated, almost as if touched by the divine. It brought the warmth of a halo around me too when I looked down from the dais and saw those miniscule beings there. I was a poet, a POET. We went from one literary gathering to another. This went on for some time. I must say I enjoyed it, but as days passed, I couldn’t write any more. It wouldn’t come. I returned to my old school hoping it would return. I began to teach Class Eight boys but a little voice nagged me from inside. What are you doing teaching schoolboys it said, you are a poet!
I came away. I took a small barsati apartment here. The landlord wanted three months rent in advance. I took a job in an export unit a classmate ran. When I checked the ledgers the figures would dance. I could barely follow their jiggle. When they stopped dancing they stared at me and said: go away, what are you doing here, you’re a poet. It went on like this till I gave up. My classmate found me a room with a kind lady who needed a caretaker. What did it matter what they called me? I would have freedom to write poetry all day. She works nine to five and has no one to mind her animals; two dogs, three cats and a cage full of parakeets. I feed them, wash them, walk them. In return she gives me a room and dinner. She told the neighbourhood I was a poet. They used to call me `Mr. Malcolm’ in the lane. When is your next book coming out, they would ask. Next year, I’d reply, as I chewed my pen. But the next year came and went, and the three cats are five. Do something with your time, she says at dinner. The neighbours shout, hey Mac, how ‘re the pets doing Mac! When she returns, I take my coat off the hanger and tell her I have an appointment, an interview to catch. You see this, it’s a bit threadbare but its English tweed, the best, may I tell you. You know Auden wore a Harris tweed like this, and so did Elliot, You never knew? Ahaa I see a puzzled frown, and finally a twinkle. Enjoy yourself young woman, enjoy yourself! You are on the dais and you have earned it. You are a queen, what does it feel being struck by grace? But you don’t answer; your eyes are on the faraway, for you have seen a light … and when you see me, you see a funny man, short and thin, black hair, specs. You see me sling my bag and slouch away. Ah you have noticed me leaving. Where am I going so soon you ask; what no prawns today, you smile. Maybe it’s the India International Centre I go to. They have Jatin Chatterjee giving an illustrated talk on the Sufi tradition and I am into Sufi nowadays. Researching my next … poem. But you’re in a hurry you say. Funny … she’s moved away … heck why bother, I have so many and this one, like so many others may sink into oblivion faster than she knows. But hurry I mustn’t be late … who knows … another autograph … an interview, maybe?