I'm somewhere still stuck at the best parts of my past week but I'll tell you one of my most precious moments busking at GEC, Trissur. While I was writing for the last person, I saw a middle aged man waiting by the board with my name on it. After a few minutes, I decided to ask him whether he was waiting to talk to me, in which case, I would have to let him know I'm done for the day. He said he was waiting for me but just to show me his poetry. He writes in Malayalam. I told him that I'm nobody to pass a judgement on his work but in his eyes, I saw that anything I say could somehow be a ray of hope. It didn't matter what all I'd achieved or hadn't. It didn't matter that I was still struggling to take my art to places. He told me he began writing after his divorce and it has helped him. He asked me whether I could spare some time to listen to a recording of his poetry and for me, it somehow felt like that perhaps was the purpose of my entire journey to GEC this year. I gladly complied despite running out of time and I was not disappointed. His name is Prasanth Parappur and I'm hoping that someday his poetry reaches the eyes and ears of those who would really need it to make it through the night. The nature of each poem I wrote this time was in one way or the other connected to sharing the little hope I'd found under a rock. I hope I never run out of hope or words.
