My father’s Suitcase

“As you know, the question we writers are asked most often, the favourite question, is; why do you write?

I write because I have an innate need to write! I write because I can’t do normal work like other people. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at all of you, angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can only partake in real life by changing it. I write because I want others, all of us, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at all of you, so very, very angry at everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page, I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all of life’s beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story, but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but – just as in a dream – I can’t quite get there. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy.”

Orhan Pamuk’s Nobel Lecture
The attachment contains the full text. And it IS a must read.

Pamuk Nobel Lecture

Zindagi ka saboot

Omprakash Mehra

Ve khilkhilati huyi us gali se nikli
to roshan
ho gaya fiza ka resha-resha
be-baat ki ho chahe
hansi, aakhir hansi hi hoti hai
zindagi ke mutallik ek taskeen ki mustakil gavah
sifat to yahi hai ki bade beman se
aur beton ke misbatan
shadeed bhedbhav se pali gayi ye tamamtar ladkiyan
khilkhila leti hain is tarah be-sakhta, be-parvah!!
tumhein zindagi ke saboot ke liye
yaar! kaho aur kya chahiye?

taking my translation skills in stock, i would just post the gist here. the nazm/poem talks about a moment when the poet hears a few girls passing through the street, their laughter and how it brightens the atmosphere around. the poet wonders, at their laughing, howsoever inconsequential it might be, the point is, it survived all through a life’s discrimation in respect to the boys, the sons…he says, that laughter enough is a evidence of life surviving against all odds.

read in a magazine at hindi bhavan, where dabur’s corporate office is. was waiting for boss for a meeting today. i think, the environment you read a literary piece for the first time also matters a lot. what do you say, twin?