Somewhere i have never traveled gladly beyond...

There’s nothing like a Sunday morning to fill this space on my blog ….I’m listening to some amazing music…and sipping exotic herbal tea…I have switched off my cell phone. Of course I love my cell…or rather I need it but that’s my point. I feel enslaved.Try switching it off sometimes…anxiety levels go down…. they really do… at least for me. My audumber gang must be cursing me. I can hear radhi say…”what are u talking about? U never take calls cos your phone is always in your bum…”I looove u Radhi…J

I fear that my blogs will make me a recluse cos they have become my refuge…. my safe haven…. sometimes the more u meet people the more you don’t wanna know more people…books are better…Not that I’m a loner…cos people and their ways never fail to intrigue me…

On blissfully unrushed days when i kinda seek a sense of tranquility and churn the ‘windmills of my mind’ I unmistakably tread upon memories of my days as a Xavierite. Once a Xavierite you’re always a Xavierite even if you have studied at IIM after your tenure at Xavier’s. Xavierites are very passionate about their college life. Xavier’s was like a second home…on second thoughts Xaviers was home.

One of the cherished memories in my archives is the memory of my Literature class…especially the day when we rigorously discussed EE Cumming’s poem….”Somewhere I have never traveled gladly beyond…”
My mind begins wandering around the quintessentially arced premises…then the distant sounds of music filtering through the IMG (Indian Music Group) room…then the flight of stairs…. two floors…. huff and puff and swear words to curse the fact that we had to walk so much to reach the terrace classroom…it was almost akin to a journey to the exhilarating peak of a mountain from where the view is rewarding. This classroom up there on the terrace was equally worth it on that rainy day…. We were allowed to carry a cup of coffee to class that day. I remember reaching the classroom half drenched in my attempt to cover that cup of coffee….
A thin pink booklet – 20th Century American Verse…

Page 12 - Somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond…..

Somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience,

your eyes have their silence:in your most frail gestures

are things which enclose me,or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens(touching skillfully, mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility: whose texture compels me with the color of its countries,rendering death

and forever with each breathing

i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;

only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands…


What stirs me about this poem is the mingling of the senses… ‘the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses…’, ‘your eyes have their silence’. The chaos of love reflected in the havoc played by his senses is rendered inimitably by Cummings. The sense of inadequacy of the poet to capture his feelings comes through beautifully….It’s a delightful confusion….

The imagery in the poem is more consistent than a first glance would indicate – especially the imagery having to do with opening and closing. The potency of this imagery hits you with all its force when you read the brilliant last line…. nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands…it has a strong tactile quality. Rain is such that it touches you everywhere because it’s wide reaching and pervasive (the rain thus has huge enveloping hands) …but Cummings goes beyond likening his beloved to the rain. She cannot physically shroud someone like the rain and in that sense has small hands but she penetrates everywhere and overwhelms the poet more comprehensively than the rains….hence...nobody,not even the rain has such small hands.



'your slightest look will easily unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers,you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens(touching skillfully, mysteriously)her first rose '

'Or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly…'

These indicate the vulnerability of the lover…of how his defenses are lowered….

“At its most immediate level, it is a poem that honors an inexplicable mystery: how, through the experience of love, one human being can awaken something in the beloved that nothing or no one else has .....” It further delivers the exquisiteness of relationships that cant be trapped in names..in words. It describes the many-leveled intimacy between a man and a woman.

It also reveals a mystical longing for transcendence that grows out of the experience of love. Transcendence is the experience of a dimension of life that is beyond all everyday categories, something that feels utterly complete, is timeless and silent, and conveys the feeling of being at the very root and essence of existence, beyond all distinctions of subject and object, of "I" and "you."

The title also signifies the quality of an incomplete experience….the anticipation….its always the elusive..the unfinished that is more beautiful….it reminds me of Gulzars song…Katra Katra…

Katra Katra milte hain
Katra katra jeene do
Zindagi hai..behno do…
Pyasi hoon main
Pyasi rehno do….
Will post the lyrics later ;)