For an anonymous critic of mine

I had decided I would not write anthing other than my own poems in this blog. But an honest (or eccentric whatever) comment on my last poem by one of my friend who chose to remain annonymous compelled me to compose this post.

I always believed that a poet's strength lies in two things-one in his authority over words and second honesty of his ctitics. Words never betrayed me. They always made opportune appearance and delighted me. But I was always unfortunate with my critics for all the critics I got never commented honestly. All of my poem supposedly won the heart of my critics. They always found my poem right, they always found my words appropriate, they never could find more apt feeling than what my poem depicted. That always confused me. Then only I learnt the realily. And the reality was the praise, the appreciation, the blind acceptance was not for me, but for the most sacred thing of world what I used to write about in my poem. 'Love'. Definitely it was love.

For a writer a difficult time is when he himself questions his creativity. I strived to false my own hyposthesis about my critics. I quit writing poems of ideal love and wrote on more real and conspicuous events. Words of Dreams were replaced by cruel reality of life. And unfortunately my poems lost the attraction of my friends who were eager to hear them before. Though I was not happy with the outcome, at least it proved my hypothesis.

It is love indead which is most talked and appreciated everywhere. In whatever form one conceives.

And for the first time, I got a 'Bohemian' criticism for a poem which was entirely dedicated to popular choice. Wow I wish it had come a little earlier. But anyway, my dear friend I can give you more than a thousand reason why I wrote that poem. But I dont intend that.

I take it that you are not a quasi-american. Then you must have some idea of history of Indian literature. In case u are temporarily suffering from amnesia, let me brush up your memory. Almost 90% of Hindi, 100% of Sanskrit, almost 100% of Urdu, nearly 100% Mathily poems and almost 90% poems in other indian language were written with a central subject of 'LOVE' and a related topic. You may conclude two things-one this is the most adorable subject ( as I stated before) or second this is the easiest and most natural to write about. whatever u conclude is imaterials.

The point is - "Hamako Maloom hai zannat ki hakeekat lekin, Dil ke behlane ko Ghalib ye khayal achha hai." When u got to win a writing competition, you got to write Love.