BLOG Nov 18
I got offline from FACEBOOK.
Got tired of false news, whiners, meaningless comments and selfserving intellectuals.
Most of them are busy in promoting themselves. I wonder when they get quiet time to sit, think and create.
It was not so in my elders. There were no awards, big/or small. No one ran around for recognition. I grew up seeing Mahadevi Verma, Sumitranandan Pant, Firaq Gorakhpuri.
Mahadevi ji rarely went out, and when she did , she carried a pool of silent reflection with her. I found Pantji often walking in his little garden and humming a tune. Firaq’s life was also very alone. But they all created first rate poetry. I could not dare to think of being a poet. The bar was very high.
When I read contemporary English poetry I am often baffled. When I read contemporary Hindi poetry I say to myself, Hey, I could write like that. But I don’t even try. Writing fiction and thinking constantly about my characters takes all my time. I remember asking Ageya ji longtime ago, When and how do you write?
I am bigtime admirer of Agyeya ji. I still read and reread his writing. You will find a book by Agyeya at my night table, as well as the latest fiction in English. I don’t read trendy things. Though just finished reading Paul Kalanithi’s ‘when breath becomes air” his discovery of 4th stage lung cancer and subsequent death at age 36. He was just completing his residency in neuroscience at Stanford. Right after that I read Erick Jong’s Fear of Dying. Just like Lily/Yaman finds solace at the ghat of Varanasi, Erica Jong’s central character finds peace in imaginary caves in Goa. But I wrote mine first. Besides very few people read what is my latest in Hindi.
So at my question Agyeya ji laughed and said, I prepare to write for eleven months and then write  in the 12th. I knew how true it was and is. Unless you churn it over and over  you cannot create anything worthwhile. It takes me years of thinking, weaving the plots, creating the character before the final draft. And then , that’s it. I never revise or edit. It comes on paper in the final form. True of Pachpan Khambe  to Nadi.
Rajendra Yadav used to be bothered by it.  He often said,”You just send the final draft , which is your first draft, for publishing”. That is true, so much editing is done already before I sit down to write. Nirmal (Verma) was also very secretive about his writing. When he was in US with Gagan and I was also in Boston , on medical leave for a broken ankle, Nirmal wrote during the day and we met sometimes in the evening, at our place or theirs. I always pestered him, “Nirmal, tum kya likh rahe ho?”
He would smile, look into his glass of cognac and say nothing.  Once he said, “ ab meri shadi ho gayi hai, mujhe aap kaha karo.” I knew it was a joke. The ties of  our unique friendship were so deep that my tongue refused to say aap to him. His death came as a big personal loss to me. Bhishamji and Nirmal were my very special friends.
Someday I will write about my writer friends' wives. I will become very unpopular.