Poetry a mixture of passion, fantasy, calculation: Javed Akhtar

Bengaluru: The Bangalore Poetry Festival’s started with great energy and anticipation on Saturday as famed songwriter Javed Akhtar taking the centrestage.

Tracing back his poetic lineage to his grandfather Muztar Khairabadi, Mr Akhtar felt that one’s journey and evolution as a poet largely depends on the atmosphere that they are raised in.

“It is a kind of osmosis. I lived, breathed poetry. I learnt about poetry without even trying to learn about poetry. No fruit is acquired through genes and poetry, the music of language needs to be chiseled and shaped, constantly. There needs to be a discipline, rhythm, taal that a writer needs to adhere to. It is a mixture of passion, fantasy, calculation, craft and forgetfulness. Poetry is some kind of schizophrenia.” he said with a laugh.

Celebrated for his simple yet mesmerising language, Mr Akhtar said that evolution is a part of the journey of becoming a poet. “Mistakes only add bricks to the castle, the more the bricks, the bigger the castle. Words are to a writer, what colours are to a painter. Reworking is a part of the craft,” he said.

Prose poetry, which has seen a surge in social media, doesn’t make sense to him. “Speaking and singing are certainly very different. It’s either prose or poetry. The two disciplines are very different, without adding poetry to it; will it not get the respect it deserves,” he said.

“However, the young blood today does realise the value of the little song that can quench their thirsty soul, as there is a wave of poets today in the country. I see a resurgence of poetry all over India and that makes me hopeful. The culture we received from our parents was not passed on to the next generation. No thank to us, the youth of today have realised this and are in search of poetry," he said, reading from his book “In Other Words”. Politician Varun Gandhi, revealing his other side, recited his introspective poems from his second anthology, Stillness.

Poets Dr Neal Hall Winter, Prathiva Nandakumar, Akhil Katyal and Robin S. Ngangnom recited from their works. Nabina Das, Bina Sarkar, Nitoo Das and Robin Ngangom paid a rich tribute to Mizoram and Nagaland, stopping to discuss about the impact of AFSPA in the region and geo-political issues the Seven Sisters face.