I was waiting for some profound thought to hit me, perhaps like the way a bus hits a pedestrian every alternate day, so that I could make myself sit in front of the Microsoft Word and type a few inspired words. But as it seems, I have not been hit yet. And I just thought that it’s high time I stop waiting. Whenever I am waiting for a particular bus, it never comes. Well, never until I already get up on a different bus and see my awaited one pass by me in a tortoise-like speed. So, that’s my fate.
Poets – male ones – are so hung up on their muse. Muses – somehow always the female ones – seem to have a great doing in the creativity of the poets. I ask, what about female poets? I surely do not consider myself as a poet. But here I am, waiting to be struck by an idea, and I am sure that had I been a man, quite a few female muses would have come by my side and cajoled me to write something about them by now. I know highly creative men/young men who are regularly being pursued by other women/young women to have a piece written about them. I have no such muse! No young man asks me to write even a line for him! The best I can do for myself is that I write a few lines, badger my friends to read them and tell me how they are. More often than not, the so called poems are too commonplace, and my friends are just too polite to say “stop torturing us!”
But my point here is why am I – rather female writers (pardon me big time for considering myself a writer. But since I can write, I can perhaps call myself so in the simplest sense of the term) – devoid of a muse? And even if I choose a particular muse for myself, how would I like him to be? I am pretty sure I would change my muse every week or month, the way I change my favourites. Currently, my muse would be Benedict Cumberbatch for sure! Have you watched Sherlock BBC? If not, your bad. If yes, you know why I am going gaga over the man. THE man. :)
His voice, his hair, his height, his coat, his style, his arrogance, his bossiness! Oh yeah, his nicotine patches – though I am sure that’s nowhere as romantic as old Sherlock’s pipe – but never mind. Cumberbatch doing anything would catch my fancy for the next few weeks.
I thought I would do a separate post on Sherlock. But I realized that there is too much to say, and too few words. Or perhaps I am too hung up on Cumberbatch to objectify the series. Anyway, that was not the point.
Since I studied Feminism in my Masters, I think it would be unfair if I do not deconstruct – yes, another serious thing I studied and which has since made me dissect every accepted notion under the sun, from Lokkhir Pachali to the latest Roadies vote-out – the reason behind lack of male muses.
Dear Deconstruction would say that women were hardly ever given the opportunity to study, let alone writing poems. So, in the earlier days, when poets like Sidney and Spenser were fighting over muses, their women were very likely to be waiting to hear the poems, but never write something by themselves. Perhaps they did write, the bold ones, but I can guess that their muse would be their lover. Well, the male poets would also take the lover as the muse, but they would also treat her as a supernatural higher spirit. Anyway, not elaborating on it, for that will ruin my mood.
And dear Feminism would say that while in the earlier days, women were not given the opportunity to write, these days when women are more empowered, they do not need any male inspiration.
I beg to differ.
I do need a handsome eye-candy like Benedict Cumberbatch or Tom Cruise or even Ranbir Kapoor to give me inspiration! In other cases, smart businessmen or engineers would also do, as long as the inspiration keeps coming! :)
