Title : ‘A Letter to Mika Nivola’

Hola Mika,                                                                                         Sun, Jun 21, 12:55 AM

Greetings from India !

Sorry for the delay in response to your previous communication ! Our lives are going through some unprecedented changes and challenges. Hope you are safe and sound in your place ! Thank you for reaching out to me ! It’s a hot summer day in Delhi. Summers are expected to be very hot here. People and their never-ending expectations ! I am waiting for the monsoon to hit Delhi soon. I love rain and winters ! I have finished reading your letter. It is more than beautiful ! It is a visual treat ! I am already walking on the streets of Medellin. Our Medellin. Medellin of the World. There is music playing on my sound system. Ed Sheeran featuring Andrea on ‘Perfect’. Here I am walking on the streets of Medellin. ‘Perfect’. The wooden rooms, the old men half naked and smoking, smoke rings lost in the air, the sky of Medellin may be blue, the crates of red eggs, the megaphone and the sunny afternoon. While reading your letter, I started visualising the expression on those old faces. A mixture of dry ice in a lemonade and fading sunsets. Their faces are more naked than the remaining part of their bodies. A conviction as you said marinated with sweet and bitter nakedness of life.  The eggs I visualise are redder than in your description. ‘Perfect’. Poetry out there. Poetry here. Poetry. Skin, Ears, Eyes, Taste or Smell. Poetry in red eggs toasted in the olives of nostalgia. Poetry in the vanilla and fruity flavor of whiskey finely preserved and matured in an American oak cask . I have not been to any of these places. Travelling is different from living. I am already walking on the streets of Medellin. Reading is no less than walking. The woman with her baby cheering to a poet from Somewhere on earth. Medellin. Poetry is not perfect. Poetry has dust on its unkempt hair and hands made of clay. Poetry has fingers covered in mud and veins drenched in sweat and blood.

I am sitting in the living-room of our apartment. Our living-room has large windows facing a T-Point adjacent to the famous Ring Road of Delhi. Andrea is hitting the right chords of ‘Perfect’. The curtains of my windows are drawn close to protect us from the scorching heat of the June sun of an otherwise noisy Indian summer. Closed curtains also gives the feeling of a closet. There is so much happening outside ! To know less is to know more in these unprecedented times. This time, the summer is different. Less noisy and less polluted. The government officials have estimated the numbers of virus infected people in Delhi itself is going to be more than 5 lakh by July end. It is quite a spectacle. A spectacle of numbers ! They have become so indispensable  in the way of perceiving reality. We are straightjacketed into a dense matrix of numbers. Big data, statistics, surveys, meter readings of power connection, grades and even citizen identity. Poetry gives me a fresh lease of life to breathe in this age of numbers.  ‘Perfect’. I remember somebody made us dance to that Ed Sheeran song on the night of our wedding reception. Sweet memories of nervous steps and faint blushes. Love. ‘Perfect’. Perfection has no history, only half extinguished memories. A few kilometres away from my place, an Ashram is refashioned to equip itself as a temporary facility with 10000 beds to quarantine virus infected patients. Dark and grand. Andrea is about to finish singing the song. I am writing to you. Poetry is how a human being made of flesh and blood negotiates with his surroundings. Poetry is reading the synapses and silences of time and space. To err is poetic. To perfect is luxury. To read is forgetting. To write is human.

I am not sure if I could give satisfactory answers to the questions you raised at the end of your communication. I am sure, this is just a beginning of a creatively stimulating friendship. We need to keep writing letters like these. I really hope to meet you in person someday, and I would not mind the International Poetry Festival of Medellin be that meeting ground.

Namastey

Debasish Parashar

Delhi, India.

( Mika Nivola aka Miguel read Debasish Parashar’s poems virtually in Spanish at the 30th International Poetry Festival of Medellin on 16th of August, 2020. This letter is part of a series of e-mail communication between Debasish Parashar and Mika Nivola )

[submitted on 9/12/2020]