Akif Kichloo has been a favorite ever since I read his earliest poems. With every book that he releases, he retains his position. He continues to evolve and inspire, so when the opportunity to interview him arose, I grabbed it. A conversation filled with honesty, poems and life in detail :
Z : First of all I would like to congratulate you on your new book. Can you tell us something about it?
A : Thank you so much. I keep saying this a lot, but this book has been my life, sweat, and blood for the last two years. I can’t even fathom to think of the kind of work that this one demanded from me. Although the poems came very organically to me, still the amount of mental straining I had to do in order to deliver concisely what I had in mind was something else completely. Even though this is my third book, but it marks for me, personally, a rebirth as a writer. I don’t think after putting in all this effort, I will ever be the same again, both as a writer and as a human being. There has been a seismic shift inside me and I am sure I am going to carry it forward into everything I will ever write or do in life.Well, about the book, I tried to capture the essence of what it feels to be falling and falling and never hitting the net waiting below you, that might eventually break that fall. It is like talking about being in suspended animation for the longest time and never knowing what is coming to the fore next. This was the exact emotion I had been feeling for such a long time in my life and this is what I wanted to capture as honestly as one could in this book. Not to put a negative spin on any thing, rather facing what needed to be faced. Sometimes the universe has a way of putting you through the grind to make you who you are always supposed to be. There has to be this lack of gravity sometimes, to straighten your spine, and make a real living/breathing person out of you. I guess, this has been it for me, and I hope who ever get to read it find something in there for themselves.
Z : What inspired you to write “Falling through Love”? How long did it take to germinate? How was the whole journey of this book from the first poem to what it is now?
A : Inspiration as always was life, but there were technical reasons as well behind my wanting to make this book. I wanted to write something consciously that helped me grow as a writer. I wanted to break the mould as they say, and make something that I could be proud of, and there are not many things I get proud about. Telling the truth and trying to understand the hows and the whys of that truth, this at its crux requires a lot of rumination as well as active participation. You have to hold your vision toward your insides while being at the same time at a comfortable distance from yourself. This is the only way to have that proper perspective. So the idea behind this book was kind of me meditating on life, my journey through it and attempting to understand the questions about its different facets. With this, rather than trying to answer the questions for myself or for any one else, I decided to make friends with the questions themselves, hold their hand if you will, and tried to see where they could take me. And man did they take me somewhere! Although I say it with a lot of joy, and writing this book did bring me a lot of joy, and so do the wonderful reviews that have followed its worldwide release but as the Chinese curse says, “May you live in interesting times.” I would never wish the experiences I had to go through in my life to be able to reach this place where I could write this book. I would not wish those experiences on my worst enemy. My prayer for everyone is and always will be, “May you live in ordinary times. And may you have only tales of joy and happiness to share with the world.” Although childish, and impossible for most of us, I make this wish from the core of my being for every living person around me. I started on the journey with this book already inside me while I had run away from the world to the Himalayas for a year. One day I just had this urge to get up and run away, and that is precisely what I did. I left my old life in America behind me and moved to a small town called Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh, India. It is a beautiful small town at the foothills of Himalayas, and there is hardly anything to do there. Everyone there seems to be on a different wavelength altogether. People just sit there and don’t listen to the world while listening to the world, by which I mean the real world without its noise; the calling of the universe, and what is this calling if not our own heart telling us the truth.
Z: What is writing to you? What was your first experience that made you realize that you could make an impact on the world by your poignant words?
A : I don’t know what impact I can make with my writing. We, as a species, are really superficial you know. Everyone is running from what is inside them. Who gives a fuck you know as long the pay checks are rolling. But there is so much more to life than those pay checks. So much more to our own existence. We really don’t have to live like zombies. I think this is my message. That we are allowed to think. That it is okay if what you see on the television screen is not the reality of your life. It doesn’t have to be. You are your own person and all the things you are running from, are actually the things that define you. So if you really don’t have any fucks to give, why not, not give two fucks about running from your issues and actually face them, you know. Why take everything so arbitrarily? We can run from our problems but that doesn’t mean our problems won’t keep running after us. And this way we are always playing catch up. So much potential gets lost because of this. So much pain and hurt manifests simply because our postponing of it. There is a buddhist saying which says, if at night you are walking alone and you see a ghost, you should walk straight towards the ghost. I guess, this is a beautiful way of saying, go little scared human, deal with your problems head on first.
Z : How do you judge the right time for a poem to be presented to the world?
A : When you sit down and write, I think the writing starts talking back to you. You are as much writing as the writing is speaking to you. Holding your hand and taking you with it on a journey. I usually write a piece and let it sit for a few days, or maybe weeks sometimes. So the next time I get back to it I have distanced myself enough from it to know if it is any good. Once you do this, I guess you pretty much know what needs to be done. I usually edit it one more time on the second sitting and then off it goes again in some drawer. It is usually on the third revisit to the same piece I know if the poem wants to go to the permanent stack or to the bin. The poem itself tells me that. I guess we have this inherent tendency to bullshit ourselves, and this is the main reason for me to revise and edit any piece of writing. To get rid of the nonsense and leave in nothing but the bare truth.
Z : How did publishing your first book change your process/ way/ outlook of writing?
A : Thank god for writers of bullshit. I call them demented writers. If it wasn’t for them, and them selling hundreds of thousands of books, publishers would never take a chance on writers like me. Although it might be supply/demand scenario playing out, by which I mean, people wanting to read stupid nonsense and writers feeding them exactly that. haha. I won’t say I haven’t been part of that scenario but you learn and then you want to grow. My first book was an unexpected success, and I guess it was like a pat on the back for me. It gave me confidence as a writer to explore more. So I decided to change directions and started writing about completely different subjects for the second book and the whole process felt so satisfying that I knew I am going to repeat the whole process for the third book. I don’t want to be writing about the same things again and again. I want to explore my truth, yes, that is a constant in my writing, but the range of subjects I write about always need to change. This is like the mental gymnastics I want to put my brain through in order to grow as a writer. So, I would say, rather than my first book, it has been the process of publishing my first, second, and now the third book that has constantly informed my writing process.
Z : Do you have any unpublished and half-finished books? What are they about?
A : There are a lot of books in the cards. I wish I could talk about these right now. Maybe another time when I am confident enough to put those ideas out into the world?
Z : What does success mean to you?
A : Success means being able to sleep well at night. If I go to bed with a lot of negative energy within me, I have failed for that day. It is as simple as that for me. No amount of wealth, travel, literary glory, family bliss, job satisfaction, can substitute this for me. I guess ones nightly rituals say a lot about ones general outlook on life. If you notice a person at their bed time, you can know a lot about them.
Z : Where do you like to write? Is it your ideal writing space? If not, what would it be?
A : I don’t have a specific time and place for writing. I usually write when I know if I don’t put it on paper, my mind might implode. That is where my need to write stems from. Someone once told me that sometimes you choose a career, but sometimes the career chooses you. I guess writing has chosen me and whatever I try to do to get away from it, something or the other brings me back to the writing table. Hopefully something good comes out of it. Coming back to your question, my ideal writing space would be away from the hustle and bustle of the world, maybe somewhere on a cloud somewhere or under a waterfall tourists haven’t managed to figure out the way to yet. haha.. Solitude is my ultimate companion when it comes to writing and as long as I get that a few hours every day I guess I would be fine with any environment I am put in.
Z : What are your plans for the future? When can we expect you India and one thing you miss most about India when you’re in the USA?
A : I was planning to move back to US this September for my Masters in Creative Writing at an esteemed university there but unfortunately we live in a world filled with hatred and prejudice. My visa got rejected twice for the US for some reasons only known to them, so I have decided to stay back in India for the time being. I thought once I start my writing degree, my life as a doctor would be permanently behind me but it wasn’t to be I guess. There was a silver lining to this as well. At the time all this was happening, my dad got diagnosed with colon cancer and prostate cancer at the same time. So it is good I am here to be by his side while he undergoes treatment. We are hopeful of a speedy recovery knowing well the path to recovery is going to be really hard and painful. But our spirits are up and we are up for a good fight. Spare a thought for him if you will tonight. He needs all the positivity in the world right now.
Z : Lastly tell us something about yourself that no one knows?
A : I have started to write love poems again. Although secretly, without sharing them with the world yet. But yes, I have. And it is something I want to explore more in the near future. Hopefully, life gives me another chance at love. I want to be able to tell the world that I am in love and it is the most amazing feeling in the world. But I guess there is still time for that. haha. Also, I am currently living in Gurgaon, taking care of my dad, and it looks like I am going to be here for at least the next 4-5 months. So if anyone reading this is ever in town, hit me up and I would love to catch up.
About Akif Kichloo – Akif is a Poet, Doctor of Medicine by profession, and Author of three full length poetry collections:
Falling Through Love
Poems That Lose
The Feeling May Remain
Amidst the uncertainties of this amazing, terrible, magical, horrible, yet beautiful, life, as he puts it, Akif Kichloo writes of love, grief, healing and self care, posting a couple of poems weekly to his various social media pages with a huge following of avid readers and poetry lovers from all over the world.
Check out my review of his book ‘Falling through Love’ here : https://thebigbiblionaire.wordpress.com/2019/10/30/review-falling-through-love-by-akif-kichloo/
The Big Biblionaire 