Omar Khayyam is today best known for his rubais or quatrains but in his time he was better known as a philosopher, mathematician and astronomer.
The other day, halfway through a virtual conversation, or chat, I found myself unable to recall a much loved rubai of
Omar Khayyam. This lapse, unimaginable in one's youth but part of the daily landscape now, soon had me searching the bookshelves. I was looking for my Omar Khayyam and, unconsciously, I was looking for that coverless, disintegrating Jaico edition I had bought in the mid-1970s for two or three rupees from the booksellers who used to shout “take a look, buy a book” in the corridors of Connaught Place.
The book with the tempting sketches of the hedonist resting against a tree and drinking cups of heady wine from the hands of a sinuous sakiunder a full moon, sketches which, in a summer of artistic delusion, I copied on chart paper and hung all over my room.
Full report
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