Interview with Manav Sachdeva Author of The Sufi’s Garland (3)

Nightingales are put in cages because their songs give pleasure. Whoever heard of keeping a crow? – Rumi

Part I

Dave Fromtheblog : maybe if you would like we can get into some technical aspects of poetry rhymed verse verse versus free verse Sufism many poems are sung the rhymed versed and the musicality of the composition allow an extra dimension to the experience what do u feel about free verse

Manav Sachdeva : I love it it is nice it can have rhythm without rhymes it can be sung it can be read it can be told and passed on enacted and drawn it can be shown it can be at once felt accessible and have its share of the poetry pail

Dave Fromtheblog : Interesting

Manav Sachdeva : I think the rhyming is nice but not necessary

Dave Fromtheblog : yeah sometimes in my own writing I find it constricting

Manav Sachdeva : yes it is poetry and it finds its own ways to get itself sung like rap which was disrespected as an art form and then people realized that in the hands of greats like Tupac and others it is beautiful so many, many great works and words in the new spoken word are all in rap and so sorely missing in other poetry that is cannonized

Dave Fromtheblog :that is  an interesting take

Manav Sachdeva : I find some rap poetry and work far more resonant and beautiful than some canonized works even if perfectly rhymed for they have no rhythm

Dave Fromtheblog : i dont like to make a difference between high art and low art, I see it as all expression, i think once we start differentiating

Manav Sachdeva : yes

Dave Fromtheblog : we lose the essence

Manav Sachdeva : it is all art great

Part II

Davefromtheblog: ready to party

Manav: yeah

Davefromtheblog: ok I guess we will dive right in. The next set of questions come from the title of your book
Who is the sufi and what is his/Her garland?

Manav: The Sufi is the searcher and the garland is his/her gift of his search to his fellow humans

Davefromtheblog: Why should one get a gift for searching? Isnt the fact that they are searching the gift
hmmm interesting answer that has got me thinking some things is it ok if I share to get your opinion?

Manav: yes

Davefromtheblog: Not everyone who seeks finds, What makes a sufi a sufi I feel it is more than just seeking
What is it that he is seeks?

Manav: See one doesn’t get a gift for searching but one does find and then weave it and present it he doesn’t seek

Davefromtheblog: ah ok. Not every sufi puts out a Divan of poetry does that change what a sufis garland is

Manav: everyone has a gift that they receive on the way and share it some of words others of deeds

Davefromtheblog: can u separate words from deeds when they come from the same place, which according to Sufi tradition is beyond being perceived by the 5 senses

Manav: well I meant to say a garland can be of anything flowers if they are found or words or anything

Davefromtheblog: What is your experience of the Sufi tradition

Manav: negligible really

Davefromtheblog: hmmm

Manav: negligible indeed

Davefromtheblog: that’s interesting to have a neglible experience and still name the book The Sufi’s Garland
in a sense

Manav: The poems are the sufi’s garland

Davefromtheblog: who is the sufi presenting them who has gathered the flowers so to speak

Manav: whose flowers were they for another to gather they were in the air

Davefromtheblog: Who is there for them to given ? – This reminds me of a sufi parable where the Master blows out the flame of a candle and asks the seeker if u can tell me where the flame has gone, I will tell u where it came from

Manav: of Kabul yes this is like rights who can give whose are they to give find me their owner and I will return them to them

Davefromtheblog: nice.  What is your writing process like?

Manav: it is mostly international written in international settings

Davefromtheblog: could you further elaborate

Manav: well I really am able to write more in Liberia, Kosovo, outside and in the U.S. mostly edit

Davefromtheblog: can you walk us through what happens when you get hit with inspiration, what is the process from inspiration to paper?

Manav: ok It is more organized now as I am married so I kind of do the Ghalib. Ghalib used to do a knot every time
he thought of a couplet and then fall asleep and in the morning slowly untie each knot and jot down each couplet meticulously slowly easing it out from memory I don’t switch on the light at any time of night as I used to but do something similar

Davefromtheblog: i gotcha

Manav: like Ghalib  until the next day make up a mnemonic or some such way also from dictionaries and thesaurus
I sometimes sit and the words dance and come together I love it once in Liberia I had an Urdu transliterated printed small dictionary and it was really amazing how they just wanted to weave it was magic I thought then that it is really easy but I realize now that it was inspiration that made it feel easy it is not always that they come together like they did then

Davefromtheblog: I understand when do u know when a poem is finished

Manav: Agha Shahid Ali, a wonderful Kashmiri-American poet, had a book, Rooms are never finished
Poems are never finished Whitman also had that view

Davefromtheblog: does that mean that u will go back to the poems you have written  and continue to rework them
I think robert graves was similar   I have to double check

Manav: I meant to say that poems are always reorganized and made perfect but can have meaning even in other forms other than finalized and presented–like a symphony that can be a symphony even with change of movements and alterations. It reminds me of a movie editing process where the scenes look like they naturally follow yet are the edits of a series of hundreds of hours of tape

Davefromtheblog: very well said what is most important to you in your poems

Manav: one can change the settings and rather create new poems…they can be studies or Etudes

Davefromtheblog: the sound, the imagery  etc I feel one poem has as many lives as the people who view it
and as such is in a way a living thing

Manav: yes like you asked in part 1 Who is the poet?  and who the poem if it is viewed after the poet has passed away
what is it and what is that relation even when s/he is alive to the poem

Davefromtheblog: I feel with you poetry has an air of mystery, or rather it is the mystery or an approach to it

Manav: today or was it yesterday I was walking and wondering that each book of religion is a book that is interpreted by a reader and each book of poems is a book that is interpreted by a lover — is that each book of religion is a book of poetry

Davefromtheblog: why the arguments then , why isnt there tolerance that comes from an expression of the divine?

Manav: maybe the gods also argue

Davefromtheblog: by God you are referring to what exactly

Manav: in the courthouse of the divine there must be company

Davefromtheblog: isn’t that company and illusion ?

Manav: and perhaps there are interpretations that we are chasing as Ghalib said
“Everyone knows the reality of Jannat (Heavens)
but to keep the heart happy this is a nice thought”
now what “this” is, is open to you
and what “reality” is that is “known”
so it goes the search

Davefromtheblog: it seems there is nothing concrete about poetry or this search but if is real there has to be soem solid ground at least initially

Manav: well what is concrete about loving one’s wife or husband child or father

Davefromtheblog: the bills? the arguments perhaps shared meals

Manav: yes the arguments

Davefromtheblog: these seem quit real,  maybe I can say that there has to be something solid first before we can experience what lies beyond. We have to experience the illusion of maya I imagine before diving of into samadhi

Manav: solid? expression is not solid

Davefromtheblog: for instance Inayat khan said we need an earthly beloved before we can venture to find the divine beloved in the mystical and poetic should start on something concrete before one makes a leap into the mystery
mystical and poetic experience *

Manav: what is solid in poetry a metaphor a flower a person

Davefromtheblog: the words?

Manav: what is not solid in poetry? if words are solid

Davefromtheblog: if anything is solid its only temporary of course but when I remember a line   of a favorite poem of mine I am remembering something concrete the meaning I may give it may change  there is a technical aspect to the art of poetry painting  music

Manav: yes

Davefromtheblog: there are scales  tones  rhythms these can be measure and studied the effect they produce , one’s interpretation

Manav: indeed

Davefromtheblog: may be different same for spiritual practice

Manav: that is tekhne

Davefromtheblog: there is meditation

Manav: and that is needed

Davefromtheblog: Do you think you can talk about the technical  aspects of poetry

Manav: sure

Davefromtheblog: how important is diction and imagery to your poetry

Manav: alliteration is something I enjoy a lot. Diction as specific as it can be and image as colorful and meaningful as indolent and resplendent as it could be using the canvas of words lazing out on paper in all its slowness
easing itself to meaning poetry is not expression alone it must have joy of taut although that is for the poet to decide and the listeners to feel and poems were oral indeed poetry is as old as humanity at least as far back as 8th/9th century BC in Greece and perhaps older in Mohenjodaro and Harappa (although I would have to check the later two)

Davefromtheblog: there is a connection between technique and the mystery in poetry and in spirituality. A seeker maybe given exercises to do by his teacher, each poet as a specific technique he has made his own
can u talk about this relationship

Manav: I am influenced a lot by Eastern poets and Antonio Porchia and Emily Dickinson the element of surprise
is in all of them the idea of joy of a find in the poems even if it is a word, a sentence, a couplet, a stanza  Tagore’s poems stirred a lot of both technical and meditative love of death and bridal consummation that I had not known
to exist it was so pregnant so luxurious so indolent so sweet in its technique and so pleasing the element of devotion in its repetition in some ways I grew up around poetry sung from rooftops every night in the form of jagrata which were all night incantations that sometimes would happen in our neighbors and I grew up in a smaller city than New York although not small by other standards so the houses would ring all night

Davefromtheblog: interesting

Manav: and during the day there would be the various poems and incantations of all kinds from all languages
in all ceremonies sung and that mixed with songs and poems in lyric

Davefromtheblog: I understand

Manav: the technique found itself inventing English both in form and style

Davefromtheblog: i remember the german that Meister Eckhart wrote in served to push the language
as a whole further I forgot where i read that exactly I feel that poetic expression furthers language  and that every age needs its own unique metaphors.

Manav: yes well poetry has a license but fiction does too I do find great inspiration in the Indian English and non-British English writings as they are newer. Sandra Cisneros The House on Mango Street was amazing
as it did new things

Davefromtheblog: i read an article about the growing amount of indian writers and how they are adding new depth to the english language novel

Manav: yes as the language speaking numbers grow so the language grows and as the geography changes so the vocabulary changes
Davefromtheblog: yeah I think The novels of Jumpha Lahiri have a wonderful air to them
a new way of presenting things there was a recent article also on the literature of Kashmir for a book festival recently in Jaipur

Manav: yes there is a major Jaipur Literary Festival every year oh how I would love to be there  it is happening right now
as we speak

Davefromtheblog: how do you reconcile the joy that is important for you to feel as a poet

Manav: my publisher said perhaps next year I may be able to attend

Davefromtheblog: and the violence in Kashmir?

Manav: I would like to go to Kashmir before being able to relate it as I feel no longer able to take a stand on it the more I read the less I can say I feel a first hand visit is needed

Davefromtheblog: sometimes people suffer and are drawn to put those experiences down, I dont feel joy when I have read some anthologies of poetry from Albania even some poetry from minority groups in the USA

Manav: well joy and frivolity can be different there can be a joy that is sad and deep it may sound contradictory

Davefromtheblog: if anyone has been in love I am sure its not

Manav: it is a joy indeed

Davefromtheblog: contradictory

Manav: right. One can laugh when it is no longer possible to weep or when it hurts too much so one expresses in a way that channels the coating

Davefromtheblog: how distinct are the emotions really? i wonder

Manav: to be joyfully messaging the pain Peepli Live a recent production of the great Aamir Khan does that by looking at the farmer suicides in a comical narrative sensitively it is something not easy to transmute otherwise through a sad narrative or a frivolous one but a vein can be touched that can be once light and dark I hope I am making some sense

Davefromtheblog: always I am oftentimes

Manav: I also think it is ok to be pregnant in sadness if that allows expression

Davefromtheblog: fearful of our cultural and social need   to hold on to emotions we always want to be happy
we always want to look out for sunny days I feel at least that is what I get
Manav: somehow fearing pregnancy in sadness is not needed

Davefromtheblog: from the media I remember tis quote
from Rumi where he says
“I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow and called out, “It tastes sweet, does it not?” “You’ve caught me,” grief answered, “and you’ve ruined my business. How can I sell sorrow, when you know it’s a blessing?”

Manav:

Davefromtheblog: the clouds have to weep for the field to grow as also he says somewhere

Manav: Ghalib says,
“Seeing her, my face lifts up in delight and she mistakenly believes that the affliction has relieved the person of its plight”
so the beloved can be seen even when pouring seemingly indifferent things it is a blessing for the beloved is still seen

Davefromtheblog: In the sufi tradition I believe it is said that the pain is the cure, – if one is thirsty don’t look for water stay thirsty. Do you have any words on this?

Manav: drink milk

Davefromtheblog: are the dairy farmers of America some of your sponsor?

Manav: thirst cannot be always fulfilled with water hunger nor with food sometimes what we are thirsty for and what we crave are different from what will help thus the drink milk analogy for when one is thirsty for water staying thirsty is good

Check out the Sufi’s Garland on Amazon

Praise for Manav Sachdeva and The Sufi’s Garland

`Sachdeva impressively succeeds in celebrating the true Sufi spirit with his meditations which delicately attempt to reconcile the esoteric inner `self’ with the exoteric `other”.  – Azra Raza,  Author of Ghalib: Epistemologies of Elegance

`Manav Sachdev’s poetry uplifts, heals and illuminates. A precious gift for those who seek beauty and truth.’
Salman Ahmad,  Founder of Pakistani Sufi Rock Band Junoon and the bestselling author of Rock & Roll Jihad

`Here is a new poet who crosses national barriers to encompass our divisive world in a grand mystical gesture of sublime concord.’
Mukesh Williams,
Author of Moving Spaces, Changing Places

`Manav Sachdeva Maasoom has a poet’s heart and a Sufi eye for metaphor and Love’s many-tributaried river.’
Irving Karchmar, Author of Master of the Jinn: A Sufi Novel

Tags: Agha Shahid Ali, Arts, Food For Thought, Free verse, Friends of the Blog, God, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Inayat Khan, India, inspiration, Interview with Manav Sachdeva, Kabul, Liberia, living in the present, Manav Sachdeva, Manav Sachdeva Maasoom, Milwaukee, poet, poetry, Qur'an, Reviews, Rhyme, Seeker after truth, sincerity, Spiritual path, sufi, sufi poetry, Sufism, the spiritual path, United States, What is sufism, William Blake