couple of days after i wrote my blog post on stasis, i was typing the latest round of edits and generally just flipping through the manuscript. it struck me, almost in this way that i am reluctant to admit, that in this manuscript i cannot really avoid the two things i have been trying to avoid for a long time-- the legacies of Partition and Naxalbari. i mean, i have been obliquely referring to both in the poems already had. but, i was reluctant to refer to them directly. partly because within the spaces i have grown up, become politicized, they are not only overtly visible, but often over-shadow other conversations. and partly because, i was desperately wanting this book to be an account of middle-class domesticity. and the place of women within it.
also, i was reluctant (still am) to engage in bad socialist realism or sentimental leftism, which formed such a huge part of my coming into age. yet, it was during that morning, that i allowed myself to admit and inhabit fully the truth that i had known all along-- the kind of domesticity and women i am writing about, i can't really avoid either partition's or naxalbari's legacies.
and i learnt to listen to that epiphany. so, now, i am editing some of my old poems-- the Partition series i wrote before, some naxalbari poems. i also ordered some books, made a list of books i need to read as i work on revising these old poems and writing some new ones.
right now, i am trying to own that newfound boldness. the boldness and courage that i would require to write and revise these poems. and that courage, depending upon the directions the manuscript will take in the next few months, might also need some new historical and creative research. which means, more time. i am okay with that for now.
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