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It’s not the first time I am harping about metaphors and it certainly won’t be the last. As we say in Hindi—X cheez hi aisi hai. Which literally translates to ‘X is such a thing’ and loosely translates to…well, you get it. X here being a perfect metaphor. There’s very few things more pleasurable than a perfect metaphor. It is like a chewing-gum that never runs out of flavour. You can keep chewing on it for hours. You do run the risk of choking your wind-pipe if you carelessly swallow it but we’re all responsible adults here.
What is a perfect metaphor? Whatever brings two seemingly disparate worlds together. Generally, the more surreptitiously it’s done, the more pronounced its effect. A perfect metaphor ideally feels like cracking of your bones with sudden impact. There is a split-second delay in the realisation of pain. A pain so intense that everything else fades away. I can vouch for it as I have fractured my ankle multiple times. Well, not everyone is as careless with their landing so this might not be a relatable example. Let me give it another try. A perfect metaphor is like watching a perfectly timed defensive shot in cricket. It’s only when the ball crosses the thirty-yard circle that you realise how well the shot was played, and how fast the ball is rolling off to the boundary.
Enough of these metaphors to tell you what metaphors are. I won’t embarrass myself further by making more futile attempts at explaining something that can easily be understood with exquisite examples.
Here’s a few very short poems that come to my mind when I think of a perfect metaphor.
In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough. — Ezra Pound
Separation Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color. — W.S Merwin
Stationery The moon did not become the sun. It just fell on the desert in great sheets, reams of silver handmade by you. The night is your cottage industry now, the day is your brisk emporium. The world is full of paper. Write to me. — Agha Shahid Ali
Though all these examples are from the genre of poetry, it is not the only place where you find perfect metaphors. In poems, especially short ones, metaphors are easier to recall because they are the very point of poetry. In prose, they often come shrouded in narrative and have to be looked for with intent. If you want to look for them, that is. Why a normal person would not want to look for gems like these is beyond me—
Adda has exactly the texture of the sort of clothing I love. Clean, but not too white, quite loose, providing some amount of unnecessary slack beyond one’s exact needs, soft to the touch, pliable.
— Buddhadeb Bose
The buses look dog-eared and mauled about, as though some metal-munching monster had woken up to find his pantry bare and nothing but these tough old workhorses to chew on.
— Anita Roy
There are more, there are always more but I will let you find yours. You don’t necessarily have to look for them in books. It’s not a pleasure reserved for the literary types. Not really. For example, India’s most famous stand-up comedian’s most famous joke is in the form of a metaphor. Zakir Khan’s sakht launda trope might have travelled further than it should have, but it has been able to do so with the help of a metaphor — yahan mai pighal gaya. Unless you have spotted a human being melting literally, you can’t deny that it’s a metaphor and comes very close to being a perfect one. There are more of these in popular culture, there are always more. You only have to look. If you’re interested in the pleasures of a perfect metaphor. Why a normal person would not be interested in it is beyond me.
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Anne Carson writes on the pleasure of metaphor in "Eros the bittersweet" - you might enjoy it!