#17
An astounding day. Another year has passed. All this love sweetens you, and twirls and turns you.
Of utmost importance is this excerpt from a conversation between Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin in A Dialogue (1973):
BALDWIN: [...] Bear in mind that this person facing you is a person like you. They're going to go home and do whatever they do just like you. They're as alone as you are.
GIOVANNI: Because that becomes a responsibility, doesn't it?
BALDWIN: Well, it's called love, you know.
GIOVANNI: We agree. Love is a tremendous responsibility.
BALDWIN: It's the only one to take, there isn't any other.
A few months ago, you sent this book to someone and wrote,
इस किताब का नाम है नन्हा नीला और नन्हा पीला। यह कहानी इतालवी लेखक लिओ लिओनीने लिखी है, और इसमें एक नीले रंग और एक पीले रंग के धब्बे की दोस्ती हो जाती है। इस कहानी में देख सकते हैं की जब हमारी किसी से मुलाक़ात होती है, तब हम अनिवार्य रूप से एक दूसरे को बदल देते है। यह बात बहुत सुन्दर हो सकती है।
More light shed upon this within this ghazal:
ḳhabar-e-tahayyur-e-ishq sun na junūñ rahā na parī rahī
na to tū rahā na to maiñ rahā jo rahī so be-ḳhabarī rahī
Hence there is a kind of dissolution as in “na to tū rahā na to maiñ rahā” but also, as Farid Ayaz says, transformation as in “na to tū tū rahā na to maiñ maiñ rahā”.
Further illustrated by the following poem (found here) that you sent a dear friend a long time ago, when you were quite different and quite the same:
By now, it could not be clearer to you that the chokeholds of ideology and identity aren’t useful anymore.
These paintings from Andie Dinkin’s Pool Scenes are as affecting as they are benumbing: