“Letters to Mother”
New age publishing in India = celebrity publishing.
This is the latest offering from HarperCollins India.
19 June 2020
New age publishing in India = celebrity publishing.
This is the latest offering from HarperCollins India.
19 June 2020
On 11 June 2020, I was invited by the renowned Hindi publishers Rajpal & Sons to talk about the importance of fostering a book reading culture. Rajpal & Sons is a 107 year old literary publishing house, based in New Delhi. They are one of the oldest and largest publishing house in India. Nobel Prize, Booker Prize, Magsasay Award and Bhartiya Jnanpith winners like Dr. Amartaya Sen, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, RK Narayan, Ruskin Bond, Khushwant Singh, Amrita Pritam, Patrick Modiano, Kyung-Sook Shin, Liela Slimani, Devdutt Pattanaik, Dr. Pratibha Rai and J.Krishnamurti have been published by Rajpal & Sons. Their classic bestsellers are books like Madhushala, Kitne Pakistan, Vayam Raksham, Ashad Ka Ek Din and Draupadi, and recent bestsellers include Zindagi 50-50, Kashmirnama, Bali Umar, Mallika and Chabbila Rangbaaz Ka Shahar.’ Their stable of authors is formidable . Hence it was an honour and a privilege to be invited by Mrs Meera Johri and her son, Pranav, for an interaction on book reading culture. The webinar focused primarily on the culture begins at home particularly by encouraging children to read. But for adults too, outreach programmes and fostering libraries in communities is equally essential.
Here is the recording of the programme:
19 June 2020
Sharad Sharma is a Delhi based cartoonist and comics trainer. More than twenty years ago he started the grassroots comics movement. It has now spread across the globe. He has taught a wide variety of people — be it a vegetable vendor or homeless person. His aim is to teach how easy it is to draw comics to tell one’s life story. The slogan is ‘Any Body Can Draw,’ (The ABCD of Grassroots Comics). It has proved to be a powerful alternative medium of communication. According to Sharad Sharma, “The grassroots comics are different from mainstream comics created by professional artists, they are creations of common people having no as such artistic ambition but a burning desire to express their own self or share their point of view. The simplicity of the grassroots comics approach lies in the fact that it just requires a pen, paper and something to say.” He adds, “We believe that the process of a grassroots comics workshop is much more important than the final product. The workshops are not just for simply imparting or acquiring drawing skills, but rather focus on how participants can develop an eye for an issue. They learn how to identify the stories, which really matter to them and are close to their heart. They are shown different ways and examples of how to compose an idea, develop a story around it or just tell their life stories or even start by sharing any small incident. This participatory method promotes the sharing of each individual’s ideas that are then discussed among participants, leading to debate inside the workshop hall and later in society.”
Recently Sharad Sharma conducted a workshop with the Rohingya refugees in India. Some of the stories were published in Rendered Stateless: Not Voiceless. The stories have been collected according to the following themes: The Exodus and Aftermath; Amenities beyond reach; Fight for Rights; Health Hazard; Languishing language; Mission Education; Past-Tense Present-Tense; Struggle for Survival; Usual Suspect and Uncertain Future. There are translations in English of each comic strip at the bottom of the page. The stories documented are heart-breaking. Suddenly it becomes evident that when people are stateless, with no documentation to their name, they have no identity and then access to very basic amenities or education became a hurdle. The goal of this project was to help Rohingya refugees to document their life stories back in Myanmar as well as their current struggle for survival in India. Although a good number of media reports have been published on their condition in India but there are no instances when they themselves were provided an opportunity to express their concerns. Telling your life story to others no doubt is a healing process by itself, but what makes this process more interesting is when the same thing is done with the help of a medium like grassroots comics. Here you neither require your audience in front of you nor seek their immediate response. One has a choice to either reach out to a selected audience after producing the final wall poster-comic by reproducing it through photocopy or make it available in public domain for larger reach.
Sharad Sharma says “The exodus of around one million Rohingyas from Myanmar was an unprecedented crisis, especially for South East and South Asian regions. As per the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 17,500 Rohingya refugees are registered in India, although according to some claims these numbers are as high as 40,000. The work of the UNHCR to protect their rights becomes more difficult as India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. Government of India terms Rohingyas as ‘illegal immigrants’…” (Sharad Sharma, “Rendered Stateless, Not Voiceless”, Timesnow.com, 5 March 2020.)
The stories are narrated so simply that even a child can comprehend. My ten-year-old child remarked, “I have read some of this book. I really liked it. It is about refugees. They are very truthful and the refugees are not scared of telling the truth and they are telling their story to people on how they experienced this life and how much pain they have and how they were discriminated against and they were not scared of what might happen to them — because if the people who hurt them might find out about this book but the refugees are not scared, they are brave, because they have faced enough violence, lost everything else, so they may as well tell their story unafraid.”
Here are excerpts of an interview with Sharad Sharma:
I was in touch with few youth activists from the Rohingya communities since 2014 and was keeping a close eye on their issues both in India and other parts of the globe. In last two years there was a plan to do this project but there was no financial support available then. In 2011, I did a similar workshop with the political refugees from the Burma, there were around 8-10 thousand Burmese refugees were living in west Delhi (non-Rohingya). In the beginning of the current project I showed them comics produced in previous workshop by other Burmese refugee and that was very encouraging and helped to generate lots of interest among these participants.
It took almost 8 months to complete the project. But the groundwork was going on for almost a year.
We organised two workshops:
The experience was overwhelming.
From Delhi Workshop
This feeling of the “ownership of the Comics medium” – that is my story ¬told in my way – was felt throughout the room when the participants were asked to draw their own stories. With blank sheets and pencils in their hands, the participants were asked to draw any story they want to share. Minutes into the process, multiple stories and narratives began to emerge on each new sheet. “This is my school, back in Myanmar!” “This is me and my friends, going on the road. These are the trees back in Burma!” “This is me, and my sisters and this is our home!” “Here we are stopped by Burmese police and not allowed to go since we don’t had any permit”
With the idea of taking the discussion further, participants were shown comics from a workshop held ten years back with the other Burmese refugees (non-Muslims). Some of them enjoyed reading Burmese language comics after a long gap. The translators in the room helped in communicating the stories in Rohingya language to those who might not understand the Hindi-English bilingual description. What truly sparks the discussion further with these comic stories is when participants say, “This has happened to us too!”, “We go through this as well!” “Wait, isn’t this what happened to us too!?”
The comics illustrated how some experiences and stories are common and unite people in their shared sense of struggle and hope. Issues such as bad healthcare, harassment in homes and public spaces, exclusion and discrimination.
From Nuh (Mewat) workshop
A ten by thirty feet bamboo shack located at one corner of the settlement now being used as an informal school-cum-Arabic classroom was selected as our hub for next two days grassroots comics intervention. An exhibition of the comics posters developed in earlier workshops was displayed outside the hut. Although 30 persons registered for the workshop but only few of them turned up on time as we were told by the local coordinator Jafarullah that people are both shy and scared of drawing. Once the exhibition was put up, a discussion on the stories and objective behind the programme started that encouraged many to join. New electric bulbs were bought to light the dimly lit hut. Soon the hall was full of kids, youth and elderly, but wait…where are the women? With some effort finally 5-6 women joined the workshop.
As soon as a drawing session on facial expressions began, participants started enjoying the session and their fear of drawing became a thing of the past. All were excited to see stories developed by the residents of the camp in Delhi about their daily life and hardships of the past. Now they too were eager to share their own stories.
One after other participants started telling stories of their past, communities and harsh life in the refugee camps, struggle for survival, language barrier, lack of empathy and fear of being deported. Since the workshop was happening in the middle of the camp it became the centre of attraction for all the kids who camped all the time at the gate of the workshop venue. The women that had joined the workshop late, picked up the concept fast and started writing and doodling their stories on the paper. The electricity was quite irregular hence technicalities of the comics making was explained outside in front of the exhibition. One of the youth leaders of Rohingya community Ali Johar interpreted everything in local language. At the end everyone was assigned homework of creating rough pencil drawing based on their stories.
The day two started with great enthusiasm, participants were already at their seats and eager to share what they had drawn last night. The most curious were two elderly Azizullah (70) and Md Tayyab (65) who contrary to my expectation drew their stories overnight. They were keen to show it to me as if they wanted to make sure if what they did was on the right track. A large number of them consisted of children who had very little patience and were also competing with each other at the same time. Apart from this there were two major hurdles, one was language and the other, illiteracy. Most of the Rohingyas were well versed with conversational Hindi but unable to read and write it. While the other challenge was that the new generation, born and brought up in India, is not familiar with Rohingya language. Interesting challenges but these were overcome with the assistance of the school students who helped others write their dialogues. There was a clear camaraderie visible around that no one should be left behind and everyone was helping others.
Since the women also have household responsibility they were getting restless as the time passed, many of the kids especially girls came to their rescue and started helping them finishing their comics at the earliest.
As if the cold weather and dim light in the shack were not enough, we started facing frequent power cuts at the end of the day, a sign that the hardships for Rohingyas are never ending.
One of the participants Sadiq Khan was so impressed with this idea that next day he brought his daughter to the workshop. Even when there was no electricity the father daughter duo switched on their mobile phones torch and continued to work on their comics without complaining.
While we collected all the final artwork, there were many kids who asked for white paper as they were interested to draw more now.
Through the local organisation Rohingya Human Rights Initiate, which is a youth led organisation, we got access to their camps.
Most of the refugees are very tied up with their work and not in the position to spare much time for the workshop, our goal was to get their struggle for the survival in India and journey from Burma to here. The initial storytelling session helped them to understand how to pick only that important aspect and share relevant stories, rather telling everything about their life. Our format and time doesn’t allow that.
It is with World Comics India, but in most of the workshops we return it to the creators. May be someday we will use them to exhibit it at some platform. (due to NRC agitation in the country we had to drop those plans). We printed big flex with photos of some of the participants holding their comics and it was hung in their camps during the launch of Rendered Stateless: Not Voiceless. The book was also launched in one of their camp.
There were some participants who shared some good stories but couldn’t come on the second day to complete /convert it into a comic. Some of these stories were about their life back home, some about difficulties in getting work in India. One of the area we wanted to focus on their mental health issue, which was not possible to discuss in detail due to sensitivity and also time constraint. One of the girl has created one such story about her mother.
From 8 to 70 years.
In Delhi women were more active as they were frequent to the workshop venue (it was an organisation close to their camp and teach their kids).
Many of the stories they shared about their fear on NRC, government plans to send them back home and their expectations from Indian authorities – all this was shared without any hesitation. Even the stories of exodus they shared willingly. They had faith in us, as RHI activists were present during the workshop. In fact, the activists had introduced us to the participants at the venue. At times they acted as interpreters of the Rohingya language. This was also for the first time that they got a chance to share their ordeal with someone, the idea of documenting these stories on their own/ or their own way was very exciting to them.
I was in touch with them since long and reading a lot about their issues. Visited their camps in Khajuri Khas and other areas before the workshop, interviewed youth, children to get a sense of the situation.
22 May 2020
It is not very easy to read while the lockdown is on but I have managed a wee bit. The following are only some of the books I managed to read in April. Many others that I read I wrote about in separate blog posts. As always it is an eclectic collection.
Stephen and Lucy Hawking’s The Universe: Everything you need to travel through Space and Time is a brilliant collection of essays about the universe. It begins with a beautiful but very brief essay by Professor Stephen Hawking, “The Creation of the Universe” where he simply and clearly tries to explain the origins of Universe, packing it with concepts too. The contributors to the volume consist of eminent scientists, some Nobel Prize winners too, and a school student, Nitya Kapadia. The range of topics is extraordinary — understanding the origin of life, the Big Bang theory, idea of Space, travelling through the Universe, the idea of Relativity, from the solar system, the planets, speculating about life in space, Zero-Gravity Flights, Time Travel, wormholes, the Goldilocks zone, the geographical structures on Earth, Artificial Intelligence, Robot Ethics, 3D Printing, Internet Privacy, Quantum Computers etc. The template set by the late Prof. Hawking is the blueprint for the subsequent essays in the book. It makes science so easily accessible for young and adults alike. ( Confession time: My 10 yo daughter and I have been taking turns to read this book as both of us are fascinated by complicated subjects explained ever so simply!)
Scientific discoveries do not necessarily happen always in a staid manner, in controlled laboratory conditions. S D Tucker’s fascinating book Forgotten Science attempts to uncover the backstories of some of the extraordinary scientific applications that we take for granted in modern times. For instance, figuring out the circulatory system within an individual and the effect of medication if taken orally or injected directly into the bloodstream was discovered after experimenting upon dogs. These experiments were conducted by Robert Boyle (1627-91), often described as “the father of chemistry”, and Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723), the anatomist, architect and designer of St Paul’s Cathedral to test William Harvey (1578-1657), court physician to Charles I, hypothesis about the circulatory system of various living creatures. Another equally bizarre and immoral experiment was carried out by Nazi doctor, Dr Sigmund Rascher ( 1909 – 45) to test the effects of high altitude and how to recover from hypothermia. Taking advantage of his close proximity to SS Head Heinrich Himmler ( 1900-45), Dr Rascher got permission to conduct experiments upon prisoners in Dachau concentration camp. In 1942 Rascher was given a pressure chamber and began locking prisoners inside to simulate the effects of high altitude upon Nazi airmen and parachutists. By altering pressure changes quickly or slowly, Rascher could mimic both gradual ascents and total freefall, and see what such states did to the human body. The effect upon the prisoners varied from exploding lungs, while others began to rip their own hears apart with bare hands due to the unbearable stress they felt inside their skulls. He killed about eighty prisoners in this ghastly manner but dismissed it as saying they were ‘only’ Poles and Russians. Some of his other experiments were on hypothermia, discovering the blood-clotting agent called Polygal and developed the cyanide capsule which later even Himmler took to avoid capture by the British. Ultimately Rascher too was incarcerated at Dachau for publicising the falsehood that he had extended the childbearing age of women and as proof he said his wife, touching fifty, had given birth to three babies, when in truth they had been kidnapped. Rascher was shot in April 1945. Several scientists who had worked with Rascher ended up working at NASA.
The next three books belong loosely to the category of science fiction — The Flight of the Arconauts by Sophia Khan ( steampunk fiction); The Sin Eaters by Megan Campisi and Analog Virtual by Lavanya Lakshminarayan. The Flight of the Arconaut is written at a nice pace. Neat dialogues. Interesting attempt at blending names to denote cultural melting pots. But it seems to have been heavily influenced by contemporary scifi young adult literature. It is also very desi in its telling by cramming the main narrative with so many stories and backstories. I see no reason why all must exist in the forefront. It is also inexplicable why must SpecFic, or in this case Steampunk Fiction, be so obsessed with conservative social rankings especially along gender lines? Why not break free? Also why is birth and regeneration such a massive preoccupation. It is as if it is impossible to think beyond the writing of H G Wells, Aldous Huxley et al. Sophia Khan’s saving grace is the packed dialogue and a superb grasp of the English language — LOVE IT! The second volume in this trilogy should be fun.
The Sin Eaters and Analog Virtual are debut novels. Both the writers seem to be voracious readers. Keenly imaginative writers too but not sufficiently confident enough to create landscapes of their own. While theatreperson Megan Campisi creates a parallel reality to Elizabethan England in The Sin Eater to explore the rumours of Queen Elizabeth I having had an illegitimate child. Campisi builds the premise of her story upon the social mobility a Sin Eater has within society and is able to pick up bits of information. So this part-mystery, part-historical fiction, is thrilling to read in parts with the strongest moments in storytelling being different scenes, much like the scenes enacted on stage. Usually the best moments in the novel are when the sin eater is in an enclosed space like a bedroom or a chapel attending a recitation or funeral and there are onlookers, replicating a play being enacted on stage, watched by an audience. Megan Campisi’s forte is theatre and not long fiction. But if she persists at this craft and attempts to write what her heart tells her to, she has the potential to do well. Much of this holds true for Lavanya Lakshminarayan who need to break the shackles of a well-read reader of science fiction and create with the assurance that resides deep within her, an imaginary landscape with its distinctive vocabulary, unique social structures, and a clear inner logic to the society she creates so that any reader coming to it for the first time will fall in love with her story. For now Virtual Analog is competent storytelling but no more. It may also fit snugly on the joint imprint that her publishers Hachette India have with Gollancz but Lavanya Lakshminarayan is capable of much, much more than what is displayed in Analog Virtual. What shines through the books is their keen imagination. They are creative writers whose confidence will soar with their third books. If they persist at this craft and attempt to write what their hearts tell them to, they have the potential to do well.
And then there are the two works of fiction — Meena Kandaswamy’s Exquisite Cadavers and Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s Like a Mule: Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun. Established writers. Controlled writing. Immersive reading experience. Meena Kandaswamy’s Exquisite Cadavers is an extraordinary reading experiment with parallel texts laid out on the pages — the main narrative and the interior monologue of the writer. Fascinating. It is a sophisticated cross between poetry and prose. Such books are meant to be experienced. In the old-fashioned sense. Linger over the pages. Dip into the text. Read along the margins. Shut the book. Mull over what one has read. Imbibe some more. Go back to a few lines. Meena Kandaswamy’s sense of rhythm as a poet has not left the prose. It is gorgeous! Her writings have always been infused with a ferocity that seems tto have been sharpened over the years but there is something special about this novel. Fifteen years down the line Exquisite Cadavers will be used a fine example of a literary text that will be read by the general reader as well as be a prescribed text. This is not a novel that will not be easily converted to an audio book — nor should it be. Likewise Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s novella about Morayo Da Silva, a seventy-five-year old Nigerian, living in San Francisco. She reflects upon her life as an academic, author and a diplomat’s wife. It is also a moving tale about ageing and suddenly being at the mercy of tender and well meaning care of others. Ladipo chooses an extraordinary literary technique of giving every character the first person narrative which at first is confusing but slowly adds up to the variety of perspectives and unsolicited advice Morayo gets upon her hospitalisation. The saddest part in the novel is when her kind young friend decides to tidy up Morayo’s apartment thereby ridding it off a clutter of books. Morayo is understandably upset, a hurt that many are unable to comprehend. It is a novel that criss-crosses continents — Africa, America and Asia. Irrespective of the land she is in, or when nostalgia hits her regarding Africa, Morayo’s levelheadedness always wins. It is a novel that cuts across cultures seamlessly and sensitively. There is never an awkward sense of looking at other cultures as “other”.
Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women and Jess Hill’s See What You Made Me Do are ( to use cliches) — mind blowing books. Both by journalists-turned-authors whose books were written after many years of intensive research and recording testimonies. Both these books will influence women’s writing, women’s movements, and all aspects of feminism in a manner similar to that of Simone de Beauvoir and Germaine Greer’s influence. Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women is about talking to three women about sex and desire for nearly eight years. It became a publishing sensation. While the subject itself would attract attention, it is the narrative, the confidence with which the subjects explore their own complicated reactions to sexuality. Significantly Three Women marks a watershed moment in contemporary women’s literature on how women talk about their sexual desires and needs. In many ways the strength of Lisa Taddeo’s is very similar to male writing, an unquestionable confidence. Jess Hill won the Stella Prize 2020 for Look What You Made Me Do. A title that probably gets lost as it is very similar to many of yalit and chiklit titles, but this title has a purpose with sinister underpinnings. It encapsulates the blame-game that inevitably every male perpetrator foists upon his female victim, usually said in a manner that fools the victim to believe the falsehood — she is too blame for the violence being meted out to her. In this particular book, Jess Hill focusses on domestic violence and her analysis of it is horrific. She breaks many myths about it being only restricted to certain socio-economic sections . Her profiling of the perpetrators is pathbreaking as she creates categories. Some of the men when they appear in court seem as if they can never hurt a fly and yet the incidents they are involved in are gut wrenching. Much of what she says is familiar to women activists and legal teams such as that violence is not necessarily always physical but emotional, psychological, financial etc. The manner in which the information is presented in Look What You Made Me Do will help this material in reaching to newer audiences. Women who either need help themselves or those close to victims. Both these powerful books are going to be seminal in the field of women/gender studies, human rights, manual for legal and counselling professionals.
The final book is the stupendously magical award-winning Lampie and the Children of the Sea. It has been written and illustrated by Dutch illustrator Annet Schaap. This is her first novel. It has already won the Woutertje Pieterse Prize, the Nienke van Hichtum prize, the Bookenleuw and the Gouden Griffel for the best Dutch children’s book of the year. It has been translated into English by Laura Watkinson. It is also the only translated book to have been shortlisted for the 2020 Carnegie Medal Award. It is a stunning modern fairy tale about a little girl, Lampie, living in a lighthouse with her father. Due to some unfortunate events Lampie is sent off to live in the Admiral’s home where it is rumoured a monster resides. It is a heartwarming tale as it is also a tale of Lampie overcoming prejudices and learning to live on her own terms, overcome hurdles and set goals for herself to achieve. The joy with which this story seems to have been written flows splendidly in the translation. It is truly magical to read it even in the moments when there is deep sadness and unnecessary violence. The imaginative plot matches the wild imagination that children are prone to creating for themselves. Yet Annet Schaap, an adult, an illustrator and a storyteller, pulls her strengths together of — an adult’s perspective on a child’s world sans judgement, creative imagination and a wide-eyed wonder at the power of stories to weave her magic. There are multiple layers to Lampie and the Children of the Sea. Whether the monsters in a child’s life are real or imaginary, they can be confronted and set free. It is a book that will appeal to adults and children alike!
14 May 2020
In 1993 Taslima Nasreen wrote Lajja ( “Shame”) in Bengali. It was her response to the anti-Hindu riots that had broken out in Bangladesh after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Ayodhya, India on 6 December 1992. The novel was published in Bengali and within six months sold over 50,000 copies. It brought the author “fame” that till then had been unheard of in the subcontinent. Prior to this, the only other author to have had fatwas issued against them was Salman Rushdie, an author of South Asian origin but residing in UK at the time. Lajja became one of the first books in translation to be talked about by many readers internationally and this was at a time even before the Internet. ( Dial-up modems, with limited email access, were introduced in India in 1996!) Lajja became a bestseller rapidly. The English edition for the subcontinent was published by Penguin India. Subsequently a new translation was commissioned by Penguin India in 2014-15. The translator of the later edition was Anchita Ghatak. The book was banned in Bangladesh and fatwas were issued against the author. Taslima Nasreen fled to Europe and later laid roots in India. At first she chose to live in Calcutta/ Kolkatta and is now based in Delhi. Years later, Taslima Nasreen still needs security cover wherever she travels.
Lajja was explosive when it was first published as it was a Muslim author, upset by the communal riots in her land, who was writing sympathetically about a Hindu family. The story details the progressive radicalisaion of Suranjan who firmly believes in a nationalist Hindu outlook. So much so it is a belief he continues to nurture even after he, along with his family, flee Bangladesh to become refugees in India. In India he becomes a member of a Hindu nationalist party. Pirated editions of Lajja were sold in India. It became an international bestseller and was translated into many languages. Taslima Nasreen, a doctor by training, has become an established writer with more forty publications. She defines herself as “a secular humanist, a human rights activist, and a prolific and bestselling author, who has faced multiple fatwas calling for her death”.
More than twenty-five years later, Taslima Nasreen is back with a sequel to Lajja. It is called Shameless. Arunava Sinha, the translator, told me “the original title was Besharam but eventually the Bengali book was published, also in 2020, with a very tame title, e kul o kul. The book was written more than ten years though.” Nevertheless Shameless is a unique experiment in writing a novel. It has shades of Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of An Author” with Suranjan as the protagonist but in conversation with Taslima Nasreen. The opening pages of the novel have Suranjan, the character, visit Taslima Nasreen, the author, and bring her up-to-date with the events in his life. It then develops into a fascinating narrative where a novel is obviously being drafted but it has so many overlaps with reality. With the author-turned-character (or is it character-turned-author?) providing pithy comments and at times intervening in the story by persuading the characters to act in one way or the other. It is a work of art. Shameless is a sequel to Lajja but seems more that that — Taslima Nasreen seems to have sort of trickled into the space between reality and fiction to put herself under the lens. But the conversation is more than that. It is a conversation between writer and character, commentary on the turbulent times. Taslima Nasreen’s was an emotional response to the increased communalisation in the subcontinent after the fall of the Babri Masjid. It was not necessarily literary writing. But in the intervening years Taslima Nasreen has evolved as a writer. With Shameless she has given herself space to speak frankly without hopefully attracting any more bounties for her head. Also the writing is very close to her memoir (Dwikhondito, 2003, translated into English as Split: In Two, 2018 — translated by Maharghya Chakraborty). Interestingly in recent years her voice as an author comes through very strongly in the English translations despite her experimentation with a gamut of translators. A testament to her strong writing. There are sufficient examples in the novel that indicate her belief in being a secular humanist stem from having experienced or witnessed firsthand many incidents in the name of religion. Much of this she distills into her writing of Shameless, exemplifying how much of the personal informs the political.
Arunava Sinha’s translation is superb. He is a renowned translator who has made available many Bengali writers in English but with Shameless his professional expertise as a translator par excellence is established. He channels Taslima Nasreen’s authorial voice beautifully. His past experience of working with Bengali authors has helped him tremendously to hone his expertise in being utterly respectful to the desire of the author to be heard in the original language and carry it forth impeccably into the destination language, enabling the readers in English to appreciate the text for what it is. It works brilliantly in a translation like Shameless where the author herself has a lot to say, much of it tricky.
The time lapse between the publication of Lajja (1993) and Shameless (2020) marks a significant period of socio-political history in the subcontinent as well. With Shameless Taslima Nasreen seals her place as a relevant author who creates political art, a need of the times when plainspeak is not necessarily always welcome.
6 May 2020
Memoirs, autobiographies and biographies are a great introduction to a life. They also share a period through personal stories making history come alive. Memoirs are mostly a great story told from one person’s perspective — “my story”. As Eric Idle says to John Cleese while discussing the latter’s memoir in a public conversation, “well it is very hard to write about yourself” but a memoir is also only a slice of history or what you choose to tell.
In textile historian, entrepreneur and collector Jenny Housego discusses her childhood in England, her marriage to journalist David Housego and her passion for textiles that was ignited during her stint at V&A, London. She developed a fascination for “Anatolian carpets of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries … [she wanted to show in her research] that the so-called early Egyptian carpets had actually been made in Anatolia and displayed many examples of early Christian and Byzantine art which seemed to me to bear close similarities to the designs on these carpets.” Her husband, David, was soon posted to Iran, Afghanistan and later India. She accompanied him and sometimes on the tours he undertook. Along the way her love for textiles deepened. On her travels she was able to collect exquisite samples. When she came to India she developed an interest in the paisley designs of Kashmiri shawls. It sparked a lifelong love for the handloom. Jenny Housego managed to convert her keen interest in Indian handlooms into a successful business. At first she set up a company with her then husband, David Housego, called Shades of India. Subsequently when her marriage fell apart she set up another one — Kashmir Loom. This time focussing specifically on her interest for handlooms from Kashmir.
A Woven Life has been co-authored by Maya Mirchandani as Jenny Housego’s left side is paralysed due to a stroke she suffered some years ago. It is a memoir that is easy to read. It has tiny illuminating details that only reinforce how good art combined with talent can survive through the ages. For example, Jenny Housego’s granduncle was the famous American painter, John Singer Sargent. In one of his portraits uses a Kashmiri paisley shawl woven in India. Jenny Housego spotted it in the painting while searching for antique shawls whose motifs she could incorporate in the Kashmir Loom design library. She decided to find out if the shawl still existed. Sure enough. It did. She sent the image to Warren Adelson, a friend
and well-known art dealer in New York who specialized in Sargent paintings. The shawl had been used as a regular prop in many of Sargent’s paintings but he had decided to gift it to one of his clients. Incredibly the shawl was now owned by a British peer, Lord Cholmondeley, who kept it at his stately home.
Presumably, Sargent must have painted an ancestor of the lord’s wife with the shawl wrapped around her and then must have given it to her. Warren wrote to him on my behalf and his Lordship kindly agreed to bring it to London for me to see. In the hallway of his Mayfair home on a cold, dark rainy day, the shawl was brought to me and placed on a table. The hallway was badly lit and no one offered to hold it up for me to photograph properly. I remember draping it over a side table as well as I could, then my flash failed. The wool was coarse, clearly woven from local sheep, not pashmina at all, but the shawl was exquisite in spite of the rough wool. It had been looked after well. Woven using the technique called ‘kani’ for which Kashmir is renowned, it had patterns on a large border and on either end of the shawl were big paisleys in shades of blue with accents of kashmir loom: stepping out of another’s shadow reds and pinks. Each paisley was made up of tiny leaves and flowers woven to form the shape. Above the main border was another row of much smaller paisleys woven the same way, but set at an angle, slanting to the right. The outer border at the very end of the paisleys wrapped around the entire shawl like a vine of tiny blue-green leaves. Bent over it in that dark hallway, I knew I had to try and recreate it. I didn’t know if it would work, but I was certain it would become Kashmir Loom’s signature item if it did.
Her life with David Housego had very interesting moments. For instance, they were living in Iran in the period before the revolution, so the shift in sentiments from the Shah to the Ayatollah were palpable. Then as a prominent foreign correspondent, David Housego, had access to many sensitive stories. For instance, David had written in the Economist, saying that the Iranians were building a naval base at Chabahar on the eastern side of the Gulf coast. Husband and wife journeyed to Chabahar where the Iranian government representatives denied the existence of such a base until a night watchman who had obviously not briefed by the officials confirmed that David’s report was correct. Another terrifying moment is Jenny Housego’s account of David and her younger son, Kim’s, abduction by militants in Kashmir. Kim was taken away from his parents in Srinagar and there was no trace of him for seventeen days. Given that David was a well-known British correspondent based in South Asia, he knew relevant people across the subcontinent. These included politicians, diplomats, journalists etc. As a result, according to Jenny’s memoir, David was able to keep the pressure on the militants since he had activated all the channels and would hold regular press conferences. David too mentions the abduction of Kim in an article he published in 2011. ( David Housego, “An Indian Journey“, Seminar, 2011.)
A Woven Life has two very distinct narratives embedded in it. One is Jenny Housego’s passion for textiles particulary Kashmiri weaves. The second is her life with David Housego. In fact it was David who inadvertantly set her off on this journey of textiles by encouraging her to apply for a job as a museum assistant at the Victoria and Albert Museum ( V&A) in London. She was apprenticed to Dr May Beattie, a leading scholar of her time in
Oriental rugs and carpets. It obviously ignited a passion that Laila Tyabji, Chairperson, Dastkar, recognised upon meeting Jenny Housego for the first time. She recalls it in her foreword to the book:
... we settled down to watch her slide presentation of the Punja durries’ documentation and out came the second side of Jenny! Behind the diffident, very British, understated, rather shy exterior was an insightful, academically trained mind; the scholarship coupled with a passionate excitement about her subject. …I still remember Jenny’s illuminating exposition of ‘interlocking circles’ and how so many motifs and designs are based on combinations of this. After that I saw interlocking circles everywhere – on Etruscan mosaics, Celtic stone carving, Mughal jaali lattice work, Kutchi ajrakh block prints, rococo wrought iron, Indonesian wax resist batiks.
Despite her marriage falling apart after thirty years, Jenny Housego is unable to recount incidents in her memoir without mentioning David regularly. She comes across as bitter while talking about his non-existent parental duties when their sons were toddlers. Having said that David was an integral part of her life and to a large extent seems to have given her the opportunities to pursue her interests in textiles. In the book trailer for A Woven Life there are lovely snapshots recorded from Jenny Housego’s life, many of them are of the Housegos as a happy family — a bit at variance from what the text portrays. Regretfully it does not have sufficient details about textile histories and Kashmiri handlooms. The book would have been richer by offering more detailed insight into these traditional forms of weaving. Nevertheless A Woven Life is a quick read.
PS I read an advance proof of the book, given the current lockdown due to the Covid19 healthcare crisis. Sadly, it did not have a single photograph. But I am assured by the marketing team that the print edition will have photographs accompanying the text.
4 May 2020
Sudhanva Deshpande’s Halla Bol: The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi is an account of the left activist Safdar Hashmi who was brutally murdered on 1 Jan 1989 at Jhandapur, Ghaziabad. Safdar Hashmi was 34 years old. Jan Natya Manch was staging a 30-minute play called “Halla Bol” on the road when the actors were interrupted by some politicians who wished to cross. Hashmi requested them to return in a little while. They seemed to listen and turn away except they returned bearing iron rods. They attacked the troupe leaving Safdar Hashmi very badly injured. He had been hit on the head many times. By the time of his death Hashmi had been hugely influential in street theatre with his group called Jan Natya Manch or Janam. He was a member of the CPI ( M).
In Halla Bol Sudhanva Deshpande recalls the earth-shattering events of the day. He was one of those who took the injured Safdar Hashmi to hospital. Working “backwards” from the opening scene of the murder of Hashmi, Sudhanva Deshpande recalls the main highlights of Safdar Hashmi’s life. Both men share similar qualities of being street theatre practitioners and a political activists. So while this book is promoted as a biography, it falls more into the category of a memoir and an unusual one at that — a collective memoir. Through much of the book Deshpande is able to rely upon memory as in many instances he bears witness to the events that occured but for many others he interviewed many people who knew Safdar Hashmi and/or had worked with him. There is a veritable army of people mentioned in the text and acknowledged at the end of the book too. It is a democratic inclusiveness of all those who knew Safdar Hashmi — as a man, a colleague, a relative, a theatreperson, a political activist etc. Deshpande’s account while highlighting that Hashmi used the arts for communicating his politics. As cultural critic Kunal Ray mentioned in his review of the book, “Street theatre is political. It began as a workers’ movement against capitalism. As a medium of performance, it facilitates direct conversation or confrontation with the audience or onlookers defying the restrictions and gentility of a proscenium space. It also undermines the hierarchy of the performer and the audience. Street theatre is democratic and Safdar Hashmi believed in a vision of the arts that is secular and people-oriented. He also believed in an art advocating social justice. It is therefore impossible or perhaps unpardonable to think of Safdar without his politics.” ( Kunal Ray, “Review: Halla Bol – The Death and Life of Safdar Hashmi by Sudhanva Deshpande”, Hindustan Times, 24 April 2020) . Interestingly enough National Street Theatre is 12 April which is also Safdar Hashmi’s birthday.
Halla Bol is an interesting testimony of a life well lived and rudely cut short by hooligans. It may be considered a biography but is more of a primer on theatre in India with a fascinating account of the evolution of street. More importantly an amalgamation of traditional forms of artistic expression that was combined with drama for a public performance. Today we take this for granted, whether watching a play, reading a book or even watching a film. In the 1980s it was still a brand new concept and had the desired impact upon the audience, mostly workers for Jan Natya Manch performances, and who suddenly did not feel alienated any more from cultural performances as plays like “Halla Bol” used vocabulary, situations, dialogue etc that was familiar — “Just like us”. Safdar Hashmi was undeniably sharp, intelligent, a hugely gifted artist, a visionary and knew how to combine smartly political acts with creative expression. Yet there are moments in the book which make it seem like a hagiography since all those interviewed or reminiscing about Safdar Hashmi continue to miss the man fiercely. In a biography one expects there to be a distancing between the author and his subject offering a perspective to the reader but this does not always happen in Halla Bol. Nevertheless this book is a treasure trove of memories, a people’s history of theatre movement in India, evolution of street theatre, documentation of various attitudes towards performing theatre, empowering future generations of theatrepersons by enabling them to be confident in borrowing elements from traditional forms of theatre/ folk art and making it their own. Within months of its publication the book has been translated into quite a few Indian languages. It is a seminal book on Indian theatre.
Read Halla Bol
4 May 2020
Debali Mookerjea-Leonard is a Bengali translator, author, and professor of English and world literature. She lives in Virginia with her husband and plants. She has translated the late Sunil Gangopadhyay’s novel Blood. Set in Britain and America of the late 60s and early 70s, it is about a highly successful Bengali physicist Tapan who settles abroad. Despite all the successes he has garnered he is unable to put to rest the trauma he suffered as a child when his father was killed by a British officer. This occurred a little before India attained Independence. Coincidentally he meets Alice in London; she is the daughter of his father’s killer. Tapan’s world goes topsy-turvy as he tries to figure out what to do since he nurses a visceral hatred for the former colonial rulers of India. It is a peculiar situation to be in given that he has more or less decided to relocate abroad and never to return to India. It impacts his relationship with Alice too who is more than sympathetic to his feelings and is willing to let the past be bygones but it is a demon that Tapan finds hard to forget. He does go to India briefly to attend a wedding and meet his paternal grandmother — someone whom he loves dearly and who had lost two sons in the Indian Freedom Struggle. So much so that the Indian politicians are now keen to bestow upon her a monthly allowance recognising her sons’ contribution as freedom fighters. It is upon meeting his grandmother, who is past eighty and who witnessed much sorrow in her lifetime, that Tapan realises it is best to forget and forgive that which happened in the past and move on. Otherwise the past becomes an impossible burden to shed. Blood is a brilliantly translated novel that does not seem dated despite its preoccupations with the Indian Freedom struggle and a newly independent India. For all the stories and their intersections, it is evident that Blood is a modern novel which is worth resurrecting in the twenty-first century. The issues it raises regarding immigrants, familial ties, free will, social acceptance, loneliness, etc will resonate with many readers. As Debali says in the interview that “As an Indian expatriate myself, I found Sunil Gangopadhyay’s frank treatment of the subject refreshing.”
Sunil Gangopadhyay, who died in 2012, was one of Bengal’s best-loved and most-acclaimed writers. He is the author of over a hundred books, including fiction, poetry, travelogues and works for children. He won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel Those Days. This novel Blood was first published in 1973.
Here is a lightly edited interview conducted via email with the translator:
1 . How long did it take you to translate Blood? In the translator’s note you refer to two editions of the novel. What are the differences in the two editions?
I was on sabbatical during the spring semester of 2018 and Blood was my new project. I began working on it around the middle of January and completed the first draft in May. However, I let it sit for a year before returning to revise it.
I chose to use the second edition (1974) of Blood, rather than the first (1973), because the author made a few revisions. The alterations are minor, mostly cosmetic, and include replacing a few words in the text. These are mostly English words transliterated into Bengali: For instance, in Chapter 1, when Tapan asks Alice if she has the right glasses for serving champagne she responds, in the first edition, with “Don’t be fussy, Tapan” whereas, in the second, she says, “Don’t be funny, Tapan.” The revised second edition also corrects spelling errors and misprints.
2. The book may have been first published in 1973 but it seems a very modern text in terms of its preoccupations especially the immigrants. What were the thoughts zipping through your mind while translating the story?
To me the novel’s handling of immigrant concerns feels brutally honest. Blood refuses to romanticise the expatriate condition as exile and, instead, adopts an ironic stance towards immigrant angst, homesickness, and nostalgia. Yet, the irony is tempered with pathos in the narration’s uncovering of immigrant dilemmas. For instance, an Indian immigrant uneasy about her fluency in English chooses to stay indoors, but remains enamoured with England which she nevertheless cannot fully experience. Through the exchanges between the novel’s protagonist Tapan and his friend Dibakar, Blood also offers the realistic view that immigration is often driven by practical considerations. As an Indian expatriate myself, I found Sunil Gangopadhyay’s frank treatment of the subject refreshing.
This does not mean that western societies get a pass in the novel. Through situations both small and large the novel exposes the racist and anti-immigration views prevailing in the United Kingdom, during the 1960s. That said, Blood is also critical of racial prejudice amongst Indians. Given current debates around immigration and citizenship both in India and across the globe, the novel’s treatment of this subject remains relevant.
Connected to issues of migration and home, the novel brings to the fore complex questions about homeland and belonging, uncovering how the location of “home” has been rendered unstable through the Partition’s severing of birthplace and homeland.
3. What is the methodology you adopt while translating? For instance, some translators make rough translations at first and then edit the text. There are others who work painstakingly on every sentence before proceeding to the next passage/section. How do you work?
For me it is a mix of both. I typically plan on translating a text it in its entirety before proceeding with the revisions but this intention is usually short-lived and seldom lasts beyond the first few pages. I find it difficult to progress until the translation feels most appropriate to the context, fits the voice, and fully conveys the meaning of the original. While translating Blood I have spent entire mornings deciding between synonyms. It is like working on a jigsaw puzzle because there is only one piece/word that fits. And sometimes I have had to redraft an entire sentence (even entire paragraphs) to elegantly capture the sense of the whole!
4. What are the pros and cons a translator can expect when immersed in a project?
First, the cons, the impulse to interpret. And the pros: the joy of being able to partake in the (re-)making of something beautiful.
5. Are there any questions that you wished you could have asked Sunil Gangopadhyay while translating his novel?
Were he alive, I would have requested him to read a completed draft of my translation.
6. What prompted you to become a professional translator?
My translation-work is driven primarily by the love of the text and the desire to find it a larger audience. In the future, I hope to be able to devote more time to it.
There is also a pedagogical dimension to this. In my capacity as a teacher of world literature, I aim to expose students to the vast and rich body of vernacular writings from the Indian subcontinent, inevitably through translations. And from personal experiences in the classroom, I know that many of my students are genuinely curious about writings from around the world. Blood is a small step in that direction. It is a book I want to teach.
7. Which was the first translated book you recall reading? Did you ever realise it was a translation?
I believe the first translated book I read was one of the many “Adventures of Tintin”, The Secret of the Unicorn. But children’s books aside, the book that came to mind immediately upon reading your question is Gregory Rabassa’s translation of Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. It may not have been the first translated work I read, but it ranks among the most memorable ones. This is because while I knew that Marquez wrote in Spanish, Rabassa’s translation preserved the novel’s artistic qualities so meticulously that it lulled me into thinking that I was reading the original. It is a quality I aspire to bring to my work.
8. How you do assess /decide when to take on a translation project?
Not to sound self-absorbed, but my decision is based largely on how deeply the work moves me. My first translation project involved a short story by the Bengali author Jyotirmoyee Devi, entitled “Shei Chheleta” (“That Little Boy”). It depicts the predicament of a young woman who lost a family-member in the Partition riots. The author handled the subject with great sensitivity without resorting to the maudlin. The story would not leave me alone. I had to translate it because I needed to share it, and discuss it with friends and colleagues who did not read Bengali. Similarly, Gangopadhyay’s novel intrigued me when I first read it. I thought about the characters long after I had finished the book, imagined their lives beyond the novel. I knew that one day I would translate it. It hibernated within me for years because, in the meanwhile, there were Ph.D. dissertations to write and research to publish. Finally, a sabbatical gave me the gift of time, and I just had to do it.
9. How would you define a “good” translation?
Preserving the artistic, poetic, and, of course, propositional content of the original is central to my understanding of a good translation. To resort to the old cliché, it is about conveying the letter and, perhaps more importantly, the spirit of the original. The translated text, I feel, must itself be a literary work, a work imbued with the beauty of the original. Additionally, readability is fundamental. Therefore, I asked family members and friends to read the draft translation for lucidity and fluency. For this reason, I am immensely gratified by your observation about Blood that, “It has been a long time since I managed to read a translation effortlessly and not having to wonder about the original language. There is no awkwardness in the English translation”.
10. Can the art of translating be taught? If so, what are the significant landmarks one should be aware of as a translator?
It is difficult for me to say since I never received any formal training in translation-work. To me, translation is more than just an academic exercise, it is an act of love — love for the text itself, love of the language, and the love of reading. For me the best preparation was reading, and reading widely, even indiscriminately. While my love of reading was nurtured from early childhood by my mother, I had the privilege of being exposed to some of the finest works of world literature through my training in comparative literature at Jadavpur University in Calcutta and, later, in literature departments in America.
11. Do you think there is a paradox of faithfulness to the source text versus readability in the new language?
The translator walks a tightrope between the two, where tipping towards either side is perilous. A translation is, by definition, derivative, so fidelity to the original text is essential. Yet, a translation of a literary work is much more than a stringing together of words in another language. It is itself a literary work. And it is incumbent upon the translator not only to make the work accurate and readable but also literary in a way that is faithful to the literary qualities of the original.
12. What are the translated texts you uphold as the gold standard in translations? Who are the translators you admire?
Gregory Rabassa’s translation of Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude; J.M. Cohen’s translation of Cervantes’ Don Quixote; and A.K. Ramanujan’s translation of Ananthamurthy’s Samskara.
More recently, Supriya Chaudhuri, Daisy Rockwell, and Arunava Sinha have produced quality translations from Indian languages.
Blood is published by Juggernaut Books ( 2020).
3 May 2020
Historical fiction is always such a joy to read. If deftly created by an author with an informed imagination, then the pleasure of reading big fat tomes increases manifold. Two of the greatly anticipated books of this year arrived together — Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light and Kate Mosse’s The City of Tears. While Mantel’s book has already been released to great acclaim, Kate Mosse’s novel is due to be released at the end of May 2020. As expected The Mirror and the Light has been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020. ( The winner will be announced on 9 Sept 2020.)
Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light is the last in the trilogy about Thomas Cromwell. It is also the “fattest” volume of the three and was nearly eight years in the making. During the time Mantel was writing this particular novel, Wolf Hall ( the first in the trilogy) had been adapted for television.
The Mirror and The Light focusses on the final years of Thomas Cromwell. It begins with the execution of Anne Boleyn and concludes with Cromwell’s own execution. Many of these incidents are widely known even beyond the British Isles. It is a story that has gripped peoples imagination for centuries. But it is the manner of telling that is always new. Hilary Mantel’s interpretation of the incidents is entertaining as much has has to be imagined especially the conversations in private. It is a well-known fact that much of Thomas Cromwell’s papers were burnt at his request after his arrest. There are only snatches of correspondence and contemporary accounts that survive in different libraries and private collections. These have survived primarily because they belonged to others at the time of Cromwell’s death. To be historically accurate is a difficult proposition and this is where Hilary Mantel is able to exercise the creative freedom that a writer has to imagine scenarios. It is obvious that the author did spend a lot of time trying to be historically accurate as far as possible in terms of incidents, locations and other contemporary details. She makes a reference to it in this fabulous conversation with Pat Barker. Yet there were many moments while reading the novel that it made a lot of sense to dip in Revd. Prof. Diarmaid MacCulloch’s incredible biography called Thomas Cromwell: A Life ( 2019). As an English historian and academic in Oxford University, specialising in ecclesiastical history and the history of Christianity, Diarmaid MacCulloch spent more than six years researching and putting together details to recreate an astounding biography of Cromwell. So much so that even Mantel endorsed it saying “This is the biography we have been awaiting for 400 years”. For Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Thomas Cromwell’s role as an ally of Henry VIII who facilitated the split in the church to create the sects of Protestants and Catholics is fundamentally a religious action guided by political motivation. The inextricable link between Church and State cannot be ignored in MacCulloch’s account and it seeps through the telling of the history as well. (Here is a fascinating The British Academy 10-minute talk he gave on Thomas Cromwell.) Mantel too cannot ignore this link as it is the premise upon which Cromwell’s reputation as a powerful statesman and a member of the Royal Court resides. But it is her telling of the story that blurs these lines. Increasingly it seems with every page of this story that Mantel is very aware of two facts — 1) that she is writing this story for a modern secular audience for whom faith is only one aspect of a story and 2) her writing style is heavily influenced by different forms of storytelling. There are incidents in the descriptions of the crowds that gather in the streets for parades, to welcome the newest Queen or to watch a hanging, or in the conversations recounted, that always seem to be one step away from a script ready to be converted for a screen adaptation. Clearly Mantel’s loyalties lie more towards her readers than to the historical characters who have inspired her to write this award-winning trilogy. Her description of Cromwell’s execution is superb but the ghosts in the story make absolutely no sense. Diarmaid MacCulloch admits that Hilary Mantel and he may be writing about the same man but the differences are apparent — primarily because he is a historian and Mantel is a novelist. Even so a renowned critic as Daniel Mendelsohn was moved to say in his New Yorker review of the book that he had “started to wonder—a thought unimaginable during my reading of the first two books—whether this particular historical figure really merits nearly two thousand pages of fiction.” Daniel Mendelsohn “Hubris and Delusion at the end of Hilary Mantel’s Tudor Trilogy” ( 20 March 2020, The New Yorker)
Interestingly the founder of the Women’s Prize, Kate Mosse, has also released a historical fiction novel called The City of Tears. ( It is slated for release on 28 May 2020.) It is the second part of a family saga that is set in France, a little after Mantel’s Tudor trilogy, during the Wars of Religion. Mosse’s historical fiction series is going to be spanning three centuries detailing the lives of the Huguenots (Protestants) and the Royal family (Catholics) in France. According to Mosse it will travel from sixteenth-century France and Amsterdam to the Cape of Good Hope in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The City of Tears is set at the time of the St. Bartholomew Massacre of 23 August 1572. It is an immensely readable account of the conflict between the two factions. The main characters whose story is narrated in this series are purely fictional but are a means to enter the period and recount the horrific events of the time. Many of the details would resonate with the modern reader for the sectarian violence and the refugees created. As Mosse states in her note that the “characters and families are imagined though inspired by the kind of people who might have lived ordinary men and women, struggling to live, love and survive against a backdrop of religious war and displacement. Then, as now.” It is a pleasure to read The City of Tears for it may be classified as commercial fiction and tells a fantastic tale of a family, love and tears with some swashbuckling action thrown in for good measure but through it all Kate Mosse is very clear that the events detailed are because of religious differences. The violence and the misery it brought in its wake was wholly unnecessary then as it is now. The City of Tears is a gripping tale that can easily be adapted to screen but none of it intrudes in the telling of the story as happens in The Mirror and the Light.
Nevertheless it has been a pleasure to read both the novels in quick succession. And I am glad I did!
3 May 2020
Retelling of Indian mythology by Indian novelists is proving to be quite an interesting exercise as it is allows the modern storyteller to choose and stress upon different aspects of the epics. Aditya Iyengar is one such writer. He writes Indian mythological and historical tales through the eyes of often unexplored and peripheral characters. His works include – The Thirteenth Day, Palace of Assassins, A Broken Sun, The Conqueror and Bhumika. His novel Bhumika was longlisted for the Mathrubhumi Book of the Year 2020. He lives in Mumbai.
I’ve always been a voracious reader. But I think somewhere in my mid-twenties, I decided I wanted to attempt to write a novel. I think the confidence came after reading Arun Kolatkar’s poetry and Kiran Nagarkar’s seminal Cuckold. Somehow these made me feel that I could express myself through the English language but in an Indian idiom in a manner that felt entirely natural.
I’ve always been fond of mythology, historical and science fiction, so I knew I wanted to attempt one of these genres. I don’t remember why I decided to write a mythological retelling over the other genres. Perhaps because the story I had for my first novel (The Thirteenth Day) was the clearest in my head. Anyway, it took me a few years to actually develop it into something resembling a coherent narrative.
I don’t write for a living. I have a day job that doesn’t involve creative writing (though creative writing as a skill comes in handy in virtually every trade). It’s a conscious call I’ve taken to take the pressure off my writing. Also, the writing life is a lonely one, and natural introverts like me would never meet people if they decided to stay at home and write all day.
2. What appeals to you in telling the kind of stories that you choose to tell? Stories that are based in myth?
I’m a huge fan of mythological retellings and historical fiction. The past, whether it’s historical or epic, is strange and exciting territory There’s something about reading about characters from the past or from epic fiction and feeling a human kinship with them. In a way it reminds one that we are all connected, and through the years have had the same motivations.
3. How did you develop a passion for mythology? Are there any favourite retellings of the mythological tales that appeal to you?
Growing up, I was very fascinated by historical and mythological stories. I’m not sure why. I’ve certainly never analysed it. Some kids are interested in sports, some find science projects fun – I just really enjoyed reading history and mythology. My childhood fascination for the past (both historical and epic), I think, came out through my novels. Some of my favourite mythological retellings have been K.M. Munshi’s wonderful Krishnavatara, C Rajagopalachari and Kamala Subramaniam’s retellings of the Mahabharata, and Colleen McCullough’s The Song of Troy (which is based on the Illiad).
4. How do you plan your novels?
I used to be a rigorous planner. I made notes for chapters, listed out characters, motivations, and tried to find what Vince Gilligan, the head writer of Breaking Bad calls “where the character’s head is at”.
I’ve written five novels. My preparatory notes have reduced for each novel to the point that I wrote Bhumika with only a broad story in mind, and no chapter-wise road map.
I’ve come to the conclusion that every novel requires a different process of planning. But if you have a broad story in your head, the details can be worked out as you write the novel. One doesn’t necessarily need to work out details before they start the novel, though it can be helpful even if one does.
5. What is your daily discipline to write?
I don’t write every day. I only write when I’m working on a project. Mostly, I get up early, work on my book for a little while, then head for work. Sometimes, I come back from the office and work for a bit too. On weekends, I wake up early and work till about 5 pm, after which I turn off my laptop.
I sit on a rocking chair, and balance my laptop on my lap and type. I don’t eat or drink anything except at meal times, and I end up eating very little if I’m absorbed in my work. I don’t read or watch anything on the telly during these times too. It’s a fairly hermit-like existence. Write, Go to Office, Return, Eat, Sleep and Repeat. Of course, such a lifestyle is unsustainable, so I normally write and finish novels within a few months. I have a healthy respect for deadlines, so I set myself a schedule and try hard to stick to it.
6. How much research does a book entail?
The level of research really depends on the novel. For my historical fiction novel – The Conqueror, I needed to read up on the Chola kingdom and the Srivijaya empire in Indonesia. I read a number of books and many academic papers and articles before I began writing the novel. A lot of my research was also shaped by the elements I wanted to include in the novel – for example, I wanted to write about one of the characters getting heavily drunk so I did research on the kinds of liquors that were available in those times.
For my Mahabharata and Ramayana novels, the research is limited since I already know most of the events through childhood retellings (Thanks, Mom!). Though I have also read some incredible translations that have helped shape my perspective. My mytho-fantasy series on Ashwatthama starts after the events of the Mahabharata and is entirely fictional.
7. What has changed in your writing style from the first book to the present one?
I’d like to believe my style is now more compact. I can express myself with fewer words. Also, I’m more confident using the full toolkit of punctuation marks. When I began, I would only use full-stops and abhorred any use of exclamation marks or colons and semi-colons. While I’m still very, very judicious about how I sprinkle those exclamations, I’ve learned how they can be used appropriately, for maximum effect.
8. Are there any particular darlings in your writing that you have had to kill off knowing it is for the good of the manuscript? Does it hurt to take these decisions?
Oh no, I absolutely couldn’t kill any of my darlings. Take some meat off them, yes – but what is the point of writing for pleasure if you have to kill your darlings?
9. Why create Bhumika in the way you did when the trend seems to be to retell stories in the way we have inherited the narratives?
I think our ideas of the purity of inherited narratives are not accurate. There have been several retellings and re-interpretations of the epics over the years and across different regions all over the country. I’d like to believe I’m following in a grand tradition of re-interpreting stories to make them more contemporary, like so many writers better than me have done before.
10. When do you find the time to read?
I don’t really read anymore. Not like I used to at any rate. I’m currently plodding through Richard Eaton’s A Social History of The Deccan, which is a tragedy because it is such a lovely book that I would finish it in a few days under normal circumstances. These days, between the job and daily chores, I find all my time going in the business of the day. I try reading in snatches of time – before going to bed or after finishing my work or before breakfast – and hastily devour as much of the book as possible. It’s almost become like having a clandestine lover. You meet with great difficulty, away from the eyes of the world, and cherish every moment together.
11. How many more novels have you drafted?
I’ve written a novel set in the film industry – it’s a dark comedy, but it’s languishing on my desktop because I haven’t had the time to do a FINAL FINAL.doc edit. Other than that, I have a few ideas for novels (two historical and one mythological) that I have yet to begin working on.
23 April 2020