THE other day, I was having a discussion with one of my self-proclaimed rhymester friends who thought himself to be a man of letters. He considers that he is a great metrical poet, who coined many new meters in Hindi. He also managed many awards and rewards and got his books published (at his own expense) and claims to have written many prefaces and reviews but again, no one paid any attention to his reviews.

I am very compassionate with him and read everything he writes but there is nothing in his poetry worth reading. Moreover, he thinks he is the only poet who knows about poetic meters and to conform and to follow metrical poetic forms he creates lines which have no meaning at all nor the first line of his poem has anything to do with the second one. You will not like a single line created by him simply because it is nothing but putting together the same sounding words. He has created mutual admiration groups on social media. It has further inflated his self-image. Not only that, he is so extremely ‘gifted’ that he writes around ten poems every day for which he says that it is due to the blessings of Maa Sarasswati. He sends, in vain, to publish the so-called literary pieces here and there. Even local papers have turned down his pieces of art.

Utterly disappointed, he has come to the conclusion that all the editors of newspapers and magazines are jealous of him and they do not pay any attention to his literary output. As his best friend, I am the only observer of his poems but never dared to find fault with his art. I also know where the flaw is. In his poem he is always abusing every member of society. He thinks all the politicians, officers, engineers, professors, political parties, religious groups, media and media workers are corrupt and dishonest. They are a burden on society, they are parasites and because of them there is poverty and all the vices in the world. They are looting the poor, scripting the story of commission and scam.

In other words, ‘hell is empty and all the devils are here,’ as Shakespeare writes in ‘The Tempest.’ In short, the negativity and abhorrence is the keynote of his poems in particular and theme of his life in general because during general gossip too, he would be abusing others on the basis of their caste, creed, class, social groups and beliefs.

My dear friend does not understand that until he comes out of that negativity and wraps up the sweetness of love in his creation, he cannot become an artist because the very first condition of creativity is that you must kindle the light of love in your heart. I remember an episode of Hindi Classic movie ‘Baijubawra.’

Baijubawra goes to Guru Haridas to learn music and says he wanted to learn music so that he could beat Tansen and avenge his father’s death as he believes that Tansen is the person behind his father’s demise. The guru is astonished, ‘music and revenge’! How these two opposing forces could go together. So long as Baiju had feelings of revenge or hate in his heart, he could never learn music.

I always wish to narrate this episode and enlighten my versifier pal, but I could never bring myself to say that to him. I also aspire to convey the message that he would never become a great poet until and unless he abandons negativity and embraces love in his art and in his life as it is said by Virgil, ‘omnia vincit amor’ or love conquers all.