Anurag Chaudhary, Poet & Writer

Anurag Chaudhary is a Mechanical Engineering graduate who is everything but a mechanical engineer. Having a passion for writing and poetry since a better part of his adolescence, he dreams to be the most beloved storyteller of them all someday. He is a staunch believer of magic, that is life. A dreamer by heart, a dreamer forever. A confused soul forever!

Define the perfect poem…

A perfect poem for me is the one which remains with the reader for a long time. If it is about life, the reader should correlate with it and refer to it whenever he faces a similar situation for example, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. If it is fantasy, then it should be brilliant enough to leave the reader exhausted with orgasmic pleasure of reading it. And I believe that a successful blank verse is the greatest and toughest form of poetry. 

Can you share a poem of your own?

My latest poem, A kid and his coca-cola. Hope you like it. Also one from past, Just that sound …

The kid and his coca-cola!

Through the smeared street where he lives,

Letting his absence discrete from Ma,
He scurries his way out to the Bazaar
Ah! The Bazaar! Where resides his heaven!

There lives a chemist, who so often humiliates pa,

And then there are outlets that sell everything good in the world,
He can’t have any of them and he just knows it,
That pa doesn’t have the fuel which runs this world, the green leaves and shiny pennies

But he has an eye to look beyond these dark sad alleys

A sun always shines and he knows where,
Near Abdul Kaka’s mart lies his treasure
And the chests come not in silver or gold but bright crimson

Crates full of half-empty glass bottles of coca-cola

The potion within resembles pa’s smutty wine in color
And gosh! It tastes heaven!
This heaven unlike others comes for gratis

He never leaves a bottle un-emptied, saving himself from such a sin,

He licks every last drop of every single solitary slender in the crate
Someday, he may be moneyed enough to buy and leave the bottles half-emptied for some poor little scum like himself
Till then, he can feast on his treat with blithe and blasé.

Just that sound!!

When the tired sun groaned

And the moon just yawned
They were behind the cloudy curtains
Exchanging their places, up in the Eden
Someone I call “me” was passing by
Oh! No, not in the skies but on the road far by
Held up in some work, I had wasted my whole day
Tired, weary, I was, least to say
Unaware of what happened all around
My head swinging on merry go round.
This whole thing in the skies “the exchange of seats”
Had taken a back seat
Mother was having her share clouds
Breezes accompanying the dusty shrouds
Just when came the sound of SPLASH
What happened had happened in a flash
Followed by what we call tip-toeing
The wet concrete beneath me just got some mowing
Sun by now in his dreams
the moon was in the quilts deaf enough to hear the rainy screams
I was all alone fighting the water in dark
Finding my way was never this hard
Blindfolded by the seductive night
My feet remaining my only might
Nobody followed, nobody was either
Nobody does in such a weather
Its just that sound of my steps
Trying to wake up the milky ball behind the clouds who already slept
It was faint though
I was just walking in a row
There was no better feeling
Soft drops on cheeks only cause the eternal healing
It couldn’t have gone crazier
I was never this lazier
On the steps to my portal
I felt the relief that was immortal
Yeah I hadn’t spoken a word that night
My eyes as well were out of might
Nothing else helped me either
It was just that sound which did the favor.

Who is your favorite poet/writer?

My favorite poet...umm....wow...I love so many of them. Sylvia Plath was amazing for the way she portrayed the pain of women. Rabindranath Tagore is someone I would prescribe you to read to understand why for me; he is the greatest Indian poet of all time. Wordsworth was the greatest when it comes to describing nature. Shakespeare was well Shakespeare, a true magician of words. There are many others, Frost, Coleridge, Keats etc.. But one guy, PB Shelly. My god, he stands out. It’s the way he wrote, if I can even write with 1% passion of Shelly, I would become a great poet and I know it.

Among writers, I love O Henry and Anton Chekhov among many others.

How do you maintain thoughts and ideas?

I try to look around, and many a times just start writing. I generally don't plot but let my stories and poems flow in their own ways. Trust me I have written more shits than anything because I just like to let my mind and words flow the way they want. Many a times, they don't make sense, but not every work is there to make sense or to get applaud. Sometimes I write because I am getting bored during an engineering lecture, sometimes I can’t sleep at nights because of a thought and I have to start writing no matter what time it is. I am kinda impulsive when it comes to writing.

Where do you like to write?

I am not from a writing background; I have done my bachelors from Mechanical Engineering because my parents wanted me to do. Writing is seen as a hobby at my home which shall not be taken seriously because one can’t make money out of it. This attitude has helped me in a way as I just need a pen and a paper and some free time and a wandering mind. I can write anywhere, anytime. As I said, impulsive streak. 

You have a wonderful blog with amazing poems. Will you publish your poetry soon?

I keep sending my poems at places trying my luck and a few forums like Poemhunter.com and poempigeon have my profile. But to be published is still a dream. I would love to if I can.

I wonder about your role/writing at Sportskeeda, but I am not really into sports, I fail miserably in this area, so I ask you to share something intriguing about Sportskeeda…

Sportskeeda (meaning "sports worm") is an India based sports website with a reach in many countries. I did an internship in sports writing with the website last October and after completing my internship I was offered a job of paid writer by them. The money was meagre ( $7 a week) and I had to devote 4-5 hrs a day in my research for it. So I quit the paid job this July.
It was a great experience but writing about sports means basically putting records and numbers in words and I got bored out of it.

What are you currently writing?

I am currently working on a manuscript by the name of Shanty of Shantaram other than random poems and short stories now and then.

What are you currently reading?

I started reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe this morning itself. It is a cult classic written in 1958 and is considered as one of the greatest English fictions ever written.

Where is your favorite place on earth?

My favorite place on earth will always remain my homeland India. The reason is the colors it imparts. Unlike the sophisticated West, Indians like to live impulsively and they are never out of color in life. There is always, always so much happening in every nook of this country. It is just magically unbelievable, also it is my home and I feel safe here. Having said that, if I can, I want to explore Europe to its deepest. I am always enticed by its beauty, especially Paris and Rome.

What do you like to do in your idle time?

Other than writing and reading, I am a huge fan of WWE and Cricket, (two things I wrote about at Sportskeeda). Well, I love Indian music and I love Dylan, McLean, Harry Belafonte, Brad Paisley, Sinatra, Warren Zovan etc. I don’t mind an occasional pinch of metal either. I am more into pop though.
I am more of a laid back and a hardcore romantic person, and so is my taste in music and movies too. I like to live at my own little pace and don't compete much for anything. 

And a huge fan of "Friends" haha!

Do you have advice for novice writers/poets?

My advice for any aspiring writer, umm, is what Octivia Butler said once,"You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it." That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”

So, just keep writing if you really really love it!

Connect with Anurag…

https://twitter.com/ch11

https://www.facebook.com/anurag.ch11

http://www.poemhunter.com/anurag-chaudhary/