How the words came
A favorite from 2024 about words, vernaculars, and other dissatisfactions
This year declares loudly it’s almost done. I hear its music and its cacophony. I think about the year, as I’m sure you’re doing too. We humans live in cycles—internal and external, bodily and spiritual, innate and devised—and we need them to survive, thrive and surmise an account of our days.
Last year, on the Dec 31st of 2023, I shared 23 thoughts from the year. I plan to do something similar for 2024. It’s brewing and I’ll share it soon. Meanwhile, here’s what 2023 brought. I share it in case you missed it because 2024 builds on it…
As for what 2024 wrought and brought, I’m sitting and thinking about how words arrived for me this year. I remain dissatisfied—and even that sentiment dissatisfies me! I joke sometime that I’m working on my “anti-resume” but on a serious note, I’m aware of my own need to fix that internal habit where I find it hard to sit with what simply is, and bask in its miracle. For miraculous it is. All of it! Longer post and thought right there, which will surface, no doubt…
For today I divert your attention to a poem. Of all the poems that spilled out of me in 2024, this one is my favorite. I’m sharing a video recitation of it.
The poem ponders a question I get asked often: which language do you write in? English, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi…? Thing is, I write mostly in English—for now, although understandably Hindi, replete with Urdu words, bubbles up a lot—but the sentiments and emotions arrive on their own terms in multi-faceted vernaculars. Most multilingual poets will understand what I mean, I think.
I presented this poem in September at the 2024 South Asian Literary Festival here in the Bay Area. This is a video from a prep session for that event.
The original post with this poem is here—
Hope you enjoy the poem AND the video!
My wife and I listened just now to you practice reading “Words like oxygen.” We shared this moment with you in the beauty of language, of words unknown, only sounds, then explained, their music fulfilling inborn sensuality and beauty. Thank you, Reena, for the gift of you and your words in 2024.