There are some things that money can’t buy
For everything else, there’s MASTERCARD
Remember this piece of copy? It was always accompanied by a pleasant piano overture that cued nostalgia and the warm fuzzy haze of orange horizons, and quiet picnics with family. Indeed, the imagery used in those ads was carefully constructed to convey the very opposite emotion that Credit Card debt could leave you with. Scenic evocations of camaraderie, laughter and community became a staple of these ads.
They had the kind of narrative that celebrated the first time a child learnt to ride a bicycle, the first time the parent let the child go, while subtly trying to hide the ostentation of the very lifestyle it celebrated (Who is riding the cycle? How much does the cycle cost? How much does the dress cost, that the child is wearing? What about the father’s cufflinks, his leather boots?).
But I liked this campaign, simply because it didn’t spell it out as openly as other ads. It usually left you with that blissfully puerile sense of comfort, lined with ‘familial values’. Vasudaiva Kutumbakam. Or what is that latest one? Lokame Tharavadu. The narrative enveloped you the way hum saath saath hain and hum aapke hain kaun neatly tied up ends. Except, it didn’t say it explicity, it pointed to some seemingly inaccessible truth that everybody understood and didn’t need to put into words.
When I first read poetry I never thought of it with that sense of calm acceptance. I imagined a poem to be a puzzle, a cryptic maze whose center housed a pearl that was hidden from view. If I could not reach that effulgent light, that valuable reward, it translated into a kind of inability, a falling short. I never said “I don’t get poetry”, but I thought it, and secretly envied those who could watch mastercard ads and smile to each other knowingly. In my poems, I needed to explain, in my readings of poetry, I needed to understand.
It took me a long time to understand that half the time even poets don’t know the real possibilities of the words they string together. This is the power of metaphor, of course, but also, the doorway that good art opens. I learnt that if a poem says only one thing, it has come out of a fascist impulse - there is an agenda. The writer has handcuffed the verse to a single meaning, has presumed divinity, and in that presumption lies the hubris.
I found the poem that I share with you today in a discussion of this very idea on social media - a friend had shared this poem, almost eight years ago, and tagged me. I marvelled at some of the lines, but was quick to respond (then) that I am still at the stage of not really being able to “understand”, or to explain. It was only many years later that I started to see that true communication is impossible in the first place. Its pursuit sets up a solipsistic loop that by its very nature gate-keeps experience. Poems that work, that multiply into culture, are poems that open up territories that they never set out to explore. This is why I never read a poem with the intent of trying to ‘get it’ anymore. There is no single ‘it’.
When somebody is telling you something, what do you? You listen.
The translation is by F.J. Bergmann.
If the poems and the commentary resonate with you, do consider ‘buying me a coffee’.
(Matlab, if you can’t, that’s also fine, obviously. This is a free newsletter)
Note: Those, not in India, who’d like to support the work I do at Poetly, do write to me - poetly@pm.me. (Paypal has left the building)
Thanks for reading Poetly! Do subscribe if you are not reading this in your inbox. Cheers!