#BrokenAsides with Bhupender K Bhardwaj

When did you first feel like a writer?

To become a writer was indeed one of my earliest ambitions. Though I wasn’t aware at the time about the broad utilitarian perspective propagated by the Greeks, namely that of the good life, not that I fully subscribe to that view even today because of the tangential improbabilities that life can be subject to; I first felt like a proper writer in terms of chancing upon the voice of nature and transcribing it to the page in the middle of the summer of 2016 when I was about twenty-seven years of age.

What’s the most interesting thing that has inspired your writing and what was the result?

Having been trained in the discipline of sociology, it is indeed difficult to believe in any notions of hierarchy. So, a couple of interesting things provided a powerful impetus to my poetic ambition like being forever impressed by tropical landscapes and getting acquainted with the cornucopia of East European and Caribbean Poetry. The result of this kind of an interaction with the magnificent poetic traditions is that it has made me realize the responsibilities of a poet while bringing home the point that the more I grow through the years the less I know about the scintillating domain of poetry.

Paint us a picture: what does your writing process look like? Do you write in coffee shops at night or only on an old type-writer?

I am an advocate, atleast in my own eyes, of a hands-free approach to poetry. That’s why it would be difficult to find any sort of markings done or micro-notes developed on the pages of the poetry books which sit on my shelves. I also don’t maintain diaries of any sort. Only at the moment of truth, when my being has been made ready by an assemblage of real and emotive circumstances do I lyrically commit ink to the paper. And yes, I am very much a proactive consumer of tea. It sets my world in a fine balance.

Describe your ideal reader: who would your work speak to?

Now, this statement would seem counterintuitive that on one hand, certain people bemoan the fact that the sales of poetry globally are plummeting being nowhere close to that of prose and on the other hand, that writers of whichever genre have ever written, have done so first and foremost for themselves. When you dovetail this personal approach to poetics into some kind of a hypothetical and slightly artificial canon which has relations to the market place, then your books become some kind of a commodity which can be bought off the shelves like shampoos and after-shave lotions. This, in itself is not necessarily a problematic line to take but when poets write attuned to the signalling from the marketplace, then it leads to the minimal erosion of the poetic universe.

So, in conclusion, the poet is his own ideal reader to begin with and writes next for his close ones; they being the magnified form of the audience which may or may not listen attentively.

Who’s an author you’ve changed your mind about and why?

Poets and writers cannot in essence sit in judgement about literary directions and the work other writers are creating but the modern world is such that poetry journals and contests necessitate this function alongside the more important factor of bringing new talent to the notice of the world. In line with the above, I have always tried to understand writers from the Weberian lens of empathetic liaisoning.

If you could interview any other writer/artist, who would it be and why?

It has to be the band Metallica. They have fearlessly pursued a profound poetry in music. The lyrics are sculpted in both the philosophical and realistic modes of artistic sensibility. That kind of an immortality, many writers would secretly yearn for.

What motivates you to keep writing?

The natural world in all its fantastic grounded glory, the magic of the changing seasons and the rejuvenating grace of light on objects are the prime motivators for me to keep composing poems and through them develop a gradual poetic vision.

How do you deal with writer’s block or being overwhelmed by the writing process? 

The concept of the writer’s block reeks of fordist notions which posits the writer to be a mechanical contraption. While a few novelists might get motivated by setting a daily target, I believe genuine art grows in an organic manner detached from quantitative parameters.

Where would you like to see yourself in a decade? A creative writing teacher? As a best-seller? 

The brilliant sociologist Anthony Giddens envisages the modern society to be a type of juggernaut loaded with the perennial possibility of getting derailed. Still, if I can take a predictive shot as to where I see myself a decade down the line, then yes, I would be really glad to occupy the role of visiting professor of poetry at home and abroad.

What has your work taught you about yourself?

My slowly-developing work has only confirmed to me almost daily that as a poet I stand nowhere, that a single stanza of Walcott or Milosz can teach me more than a decade of living.