Distilled Galleries

Thanks alot for the comment farrukh. I``m surprized that after nearly 6 months since submitting, the article was published. even nicer to see that it was appreciated in the manner that you put it in. I see your a writer (too), in fiction esp. how`s that going for you?

grift

On reading the poem another time I now think that there could not have been any better title for the poem than ‘Distilled Galleries’. As I have said in my earlier response the poem is a ‘portrayal’. The poet is himself aware of the pictorial quality of his work. The hospital appears to him as a sort of ‘picture gallery’. He has become a sort of detached observer of ‘paintings of agonies’. Shahnawaz Farooqui has said that literature takes birth either from attachment or from detachment. If this is true than this poem is a part of the literature of detachment. I don’t know why the following verses of Mir are coming to my mind;

Dil’li kay na thay Koochay Ourakh-e-Mussawir Thay
Jo Shakl Nazar Aa-ee Tasweer Nazar Aa-ee

Absolutely majestic. A great portrayal of one of the bleakest and most difficult and painful of experiences; the final moments of ones’ beloveds. Intense. I would have called it `the attendant`. Hope to have more such things from you.