Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Jaideep Warya , Aurobindo Marg City Poetry by The Delhi Walla - October 19, 20190 Poetry in the city. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Most people listen to songs on the FM during their commutes. But one late evening in south Delhi’s Aurobindo Marg, landscape architect Jaideep Warya was spotted reading a poetry book… inside his car! It was his father’s TS Eliot—almost every page was annotated with blue ink, making the copy look doubly precious. In his early 30s, Mr Warya also writes poems. Fond of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels, he shares one with us. It’s on rage. Detailing the back story of this particular composition, he wrote in an email, saying, “The poem was a way of exploring how our culture makes different demands on us than our human nature; anger emerges,sometimes out of nowhere and for no real reason. And yet our upbringing trains us to be polite, kind and, most importantly, civil. Some of us are better at doing this than others, as the current social and political climate around the world will demonstrate. But even those who succeed have to fight an almost daily battle to keep their anger and ill intentions towards others at bay, and probably always wonder if it’s worth the trouble.” A Modern Sort of Anger In anger, fury swallows me whole, and inside it I reside, till it implodes over time. I may swear and I may threaten to break-your-bloody-neck!… but that far I never get. Instead I end up wishing pain upon you, not inflicting it. I end up turning pale, frustrated I cannot hurt you. At worst I will ignore you, or stare you down malignantly (very, very malignantly) if ever you attempt conversation. Of course I won’t mind if someone other than me hurts you, That’ll please me greatly… I think… probably. Don’t mistake this for fecklessness, for trust me I seldom feel any emotion other than glee on ever seeing you in strife. I delight in your every failure. But you see this isn’t the age of honor and duels-to-the-death. Anger rarely achieves fruition. Its crescendo muted, distorted by meaningless fits of reason. I’ll never raise a finger (not even the middle one) lest I offend you. Commitment is too hard, even to hatred. The situation is so pathetic that I’ll be seething and you won’t even know it. You’ll just walk past, maybe even smile at me, and though I’ll want to curse I know I’ll hold it back. Rest assured, in my hatred of you, eventually, the only person hurt will be me. Autobahn poet 1. 2. 3. 4. FacebookX Related Related posts: Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Job, BKS Marg Subway Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Anannya Dasgupta’s Amaltas Poems, Amrita Shergil Marg City Series – Delhi’s Bandaged Heart, Around Town Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Ankita Surabhi’s Heartbreak Poetry, Lajpat Nagar Delhi’s Bandaged Heart – Saquib Hussain’s Poem on Forgiveness, DLF Phase 3, Gurgaon