Sit
Sit, drink your coffee here; your work can wait awhile.
You're twenty-six, and still have some of life ahead.
No need for wit; just talk vacuities, and I'll
Reciprocate in kind, or laugh at you instead.
The world is too opaque, distressing and profound.
This twenty minutes' rendezvous will make my day:
To sit here in the sun, with grackles all around,
Staring with beady eyes, and you two feet away.
Commentary
I love this poem by Seth. It hit me hard when I first read it. I realised that so much of my communication is done electronically these days and it has gotten so cryptic and purpose-driven over time that I’d almost forgotten what it was like to spend an afternoon ‘talking vacuities’. I like it also because it reminds me of my friends from college and university … with whom I spent many such twenty minute rendezvous … and the nostalgia of being back in Bombay just sweeps me away (sigh).
Some day I’ll make it happen again. A trip to Prithvi Theatre maybe, two cups of coffee, two friends and a twenty minute rendezvous :).
— Salima
Minstrels Links
Vikram Seth:
Poem #650, All You Who Sleep Tonight
Poem #754, Protocols
Poem #460, Round and Round
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Suresh Ramasubramanian · 19 December 2001
I must really thank Salima for this poem. It sort of provides me a solution for all these 15 hour workdays I’m having here in my new job @ hong kong … (and because I happened to be chatting with another friend - also an expat bombayite) about just this kind of feeling.
This one has more than a touch of Omar Khayyam … immediately reminds me, for some reason, of “a loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou”.
Virani Salima · 20 December 2001
Glad you liked it. I suppose we have (atleast one) common denominator ..the 15 hour work day sounds all too familiar. :)
************************ Salima Virani
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Chitralekha Chetia · 29 August 2006
poetry as lucid and effortless is this is closest to my heart. this is poetry unrestrained, flowing from the spontaineity of the moment. I just turned twenty six and I have a man in my life who could have said the same things to me. And thats why I connect with the substance of this poem.
Vikram Seth is remarkably simple in language and rich in essence. He inspires me to write unabashedly; as who i am and not what i pretend to be.