Category: Conversation

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Conversation

Exploring the Stars in their Skies

Ratnottama Sengupta, an eminent senior film journalist, converses with Divya Dutta, an award-winning actress, who has authored two books recently, Stars in my Sky and Me and Ma at a litfest in Odisha. Sengupta directs us with her questions to a galaxy littered with Bollywood snippets and emotional stories about life.

Divya you are in this literature festival organised by Shiksa O Anusandhan (SOA)[1], Bhubaneswar with your second book, Stars in My Sky[2]. But your life as an author started with Me and Ma[3]. So your first book was on your personal life. Didn’t your publishers want to know more about your professional life first? 

l never had any motive to become an author, you know! My life has been very organic. Things have just happened. Me and Ma wasn’t planned either. My biggest fear was, l didn’t want to lose my mother. Life teaches us that we don’t lose anyone. They may stop living outside of us but they stay on inside us. In our heart. And we have the security that they won’t go away from there. But l wanted to celebrate my parents.

Many a times our dreams don’t match our parents’. Some 25 years back, it was impossible in a doctor’s family to imagine that l would be an actor. There are many parents who force their children to do what they want, they don’t care to understand their children’s dreams or interests. But my mother did. 

I would often flip through the pages of Stardust, a magazine which was very popular then. One day an advertisement for a talent hunt caught my eyes. l applied with two amateurish photographs clicked by my brother and never expected to get selected. Much to my surprise, l got selected. So I told my mother, l have to go to Mumbai for an audition. 

Both, my brother and I were standing in front of her, our eyes downcast, pin drop silence in the room. My mother said, “You have your second year exams…” And l said, “l promise l will work very hard.” She said, “Look at me.” I looked up. She asked, “Are you sure?” There was a few seconds’ pause. And in those few seconds l realised that this is what l want to do in life. 

My mother said, “Okay fine, I am with you.” At that moment happiness filled my heart. And l knew l can never let down this parent because she has believed in me and stood by me, come what may. When she was in the hospital l thought to myself, “Shall l cry or shall l celebrate her?” And l realised l wanted to celebrate her. 

So I called Penguin and told them l wanted to write about my mother. They said, “It sounds beautiful, please go ahead. What do you call it?” Till then I had not even thought about what to call it! The title that came out of my heart was Me and Ma because it is the story of a mother and a daughter.

As you said, The Stars in My Sky is commercially attractive but nothing can be more fetching, more precious than your mother. So to me Me and Ma was a bestseller from the outset. I could connect with the readers through the book, through the audio book and now the Hindi version is also out.

Words from the heart!

 You see, we don’t build friendship with our parents – neither do our parents. This book is about diminishing those gaps. Children, talk to your parents. And parents, don’t think that you are older, your children should listen to you. Parents too should listen to their children though they may think differently.

I was very fortunate to have outstanding parents. So whenever people told me they had read the book l would call my mother to say, “Mamma l love you.” Many a times we do not say that. We take our parents for granted, and perhaps rightly so — other than our parents, whom can we take for granted? But having said that, I will repeat: We certainly need to convey our love.

The same way parents should convey their love to their children?

Everything in life is mutual but parents, especially a mother’s love is unconditional. Many times when we are in a rush we tell them to “hang up”. Now, when she’s no more, l think, “Whom do l call up when l want her to pick up the phone!”

You touched the core of my heart. When my mother passed away, the first thought that crossed my mind was, “l can never call her again!”

I do call her, and we talk. The bell rings from my heart and we have fun talking, bade majje ki baat hoti hain.[4]

You wrote for your school and college magazines but at which point did you realise that expressing with words rather than emoting is what you want to do? Of course younger years are more about being in front of the camera – later, with your pen dipped in experience, you turn reflective.

All these things are gifts from the universe. When l was writing in my school and college magazines, those were not coming out of experience but were full of sincerity, from my heart. My first love always was to face the camera –- perhaps because l am an ardent fan of Mr Bachchan[5]. I saw him on the screen when l was four or five and was mesmerised. I wanted to belong where he was, which world is it? l wanted to go there.

Remember the song, Khaike paan Banaraswala? [6] I would tear my mother’s dupatta or sari and wrap it around my waist over my kurti. Paan wasn’t allowed, so I would stain my lips with maa’s lipstick. I would invite the neighbourhood kids and tell them that, if they clapped louder after my performance, they would get sweets-and-savoury and rooh afzah [7]too. I loved the claps, the appreciation, the acknowledgment but above all the performance was what l loved most. 

As a student too I loved to entertain my class between two periods. I was the head girl but l was the naughtiest in the classroom. My friends would ask me to perform and l performed. So performance is what l always enjoyed. Alongside I wrote. Perhaps I had been experiencing the magic of words.

Emoting beautiful words penned by others is an actor’s job. Beautiful words always touch our hearts. I experienced the magic of words as an actor. When l started writing it wasn’t for a film, it was for me. And it was to find a different world that resonates with me. So, both go parallelly.

Both writing and acting are based on lived experiences. You write about experiences in your life; you also portray a character from your life experience. Let’s hear how your life moulded your characters.

Sure! Let me tell you about Isri Kaur in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag[8].

My mother was a Doctor in a rural area. If the ladies who came for treatment were asked, “How are you?” They would cry. “You are fine?” and they could cry. They’d cry for everything. After school l used to sit in my mother’s clinic and watch everything. I would wonder why these ladies wouldn’t speak but only cry!

Cut to Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. When Rakeysh Omprakash Mehraji cast me he said, “You don’t have much of dialogue. But you must speak through your eyes.”

“No problem,” I replied.

Now let me tell you about the power of costume. I had gone in jeans for a rehearsal of the scene where I’m washing the utensils, but things were not going right, there was a gap somewhere. Then Rakeyshji asked me to wear my costume.

I said, “l’m absolutely comfortable Sir!”

He said, “I insist.”

I changed into a salwar kameez, draped the dupatta behind my ears and then wrapped it around myself — and magic happened. I was washing as if l were a pro! The Director later told me l’d put my hand on burning coal and got burnt, but l don’t have any recollection of that.

Suddenly, l recognised Isri Kaur! She could be the lady who’d come to see my mother. She was there in my subconscious, and tears just trickled down my eyes. 

Scenes from Bhag Milkha Bhag. Photo provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

At the end of the scene, l was hugging Milkha. Rakeyshji said, “Give it your end.” So l thought to myself, “Should the end be so clichéd! Brother and sister hug each other, and that’s it?!” All of a sudden l realised that the roles we play, the characters, also have subconscious memories. I remembered Isri Kaur had, as a child, seen Milkha saluting his father, “so do it!” I don’t know where the voice came from but it did. I left that embrace and saluted him just like he did. The entire set fell silent. Every person in the team was crying and that became a cherished moment. This is the power of the subconscious!

Now my eyes are moist! But just as ocean gives back what it takes, so does the ocean that’s life.

Beautiful. So aptly said!

Divya you have two books to your credit. Me and Ma is so personal, and The Stars in My Sky probes your connection with the outer world. What was the difference in writing these two books?

There’s a big difference between writing and acting. Each has a different feel altogether. In acting you part with yourself and allow the character to come in.

 You internalise an outsider.

You have put it beautifully. Yes, writing is extremely personal — as personal as my experience with my mother. But  Stars in My Sky is my experience with the people l have encountered on the sets. People l shared my movie journey with:  Amitabh Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, Irrfan Khan, Javed Akhtar, Gulzar, Shahrukh, Salman… 

In the course of making a movie we meet so many people. We cannot say, ‘This person has given me this character,’ or ‘this person has made me a star’.  But each of them did something beautiful which l will always remember. Something that brought a smile to my face at that moment. So l thought, l should write about those moments — and you cannot capture those without being personal. 

And when you write something on a director or a writer you need to share it with them. These were my personalised accounts. But I’ve had the most overwhelming experience sharing the chapters with them. I saw actors and directors alike cry on reading their chapters. One person l was sharing with over the phone fell silent. He did not speak, nor did I. And l realised that, many a times we don’t say, ‘l like this thing of yours’ or ‘what you did for me made a big difference in my life, thank you.’ So this silence was most rewarding.

It’s so very important to let people know they’ve made such an impact! Now, since we are in a lit fest – which is a celebration of words – l’d like to ask you: what is the thrill in holding a printed book in your hands? Let me elaborate: Today so many things are online. We type or key-in more than we write with pen on paper. Yet I always want to touch the book. After retiring from The Times of India, much of my writing got published online. Some of these got published as an anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles[9]. I was thrilled to hold a copy of that book. Why?

l can certainly tell you about scripts. These days many directors and producers say, “Shall l mail you the script?” I tell them, “Please send me a bound script.” It imparts a sense of belonging, like the power of hugging. When we hug our book, we can feel the power of touch. So I hug my script, my copy, with my name written over it… It’s fun turning the pages rather than scrolling with your finger. The smell of paper, the sound of flipping the pages, maybe reading while eating had left a spot of turmeric… All these give me the feeling, it’s mine. The touch, the smell, of a new book will always remain my first love. 

You just said you’ll write stories. Will you also write scripts, and direct them?

I’m in love with acting. And, people who write good screenplays should do that. At the same time, we should be open to life. I never knew l would be an actor, I never knew l would be an author, l don’t know what l will be in future. So l say ‘Yes!’ to what life offers us.

Right – Life is a journey, not a destination.

I will go back a little bit to Stars in My Sky. You have mentioned and we also know that Rakeysh Omprakaash Mehra, Yash Chopra, Shyam Benegal, Shabana Azmi who has written the Foreword, are important parts of your career. Can we peep into that world?

I have been fortunate to work with some brilliant and legendary directors. Let me tell you some stories.

Shyam Benegal is one of the most approachable and humble directors ever. When l came to Mumbai from Punjab, no one said ‘No’ in this industry. Who knows when you will require whom? So when l visited production houses they all said, Yes, they will work with me. And i believed them all. And l called Ma to say l was doing 22 films. Of these, 20 never happened and two were made with other heroines, not me. So I was heartbroken.

During that time l met Shyam Benegal at the premier of Train to Pakistan. I said, “Sir l want to meet you.” He said, “Okay. This is my number, call me.” By then I had become cynical, I thought, ‘Is it that simple?’ But I went to Shyam ji’s office – and he was truly honest. “My film’s casting is done,” he said, “but there is one sequence of folk dance. Will you do that?” I said, “Of course Sir.” The film was Samar. He said, “l will need seven days.” Seven days? Then l will have to learn dance and a lot of things, I thought. 

On the very first day he asked me, “What’s your hobby?” I said, “Cooking Sir, l love cooking.” “Okay,” he said, “go to the kitchen, with your co-stars, and make something you like.” I was surprised – when will the dance rehearsal start? But l went to the kitchen, there were Seema Biswas, Rajat Kapoor and others. I used to call Seema Biswas Ma’am. In the process of cooking the formality gave way to familiarity and warmth. Suddenly I found myself saying, “Didi pass me the salt, the paratha is getting burnt!” So Ma’am turned to Didi — and that translated into my chemistry with them in front of the camera. Unassumingly it moulds you into the character, without you being aware of it!

Then he told me, “Go to the folk dancers and watch them dancing.” I went, I saw them dancing, and came back. “Now listen to the song,” he told me. I listened, and responded, “The song is beautiful Sir!” “So choreograph it,” he said. “Me Sir!” I squeaked. Here was Shyam Benegal, who could get any choreographer to do it, but he asked me, all of 18, to do that. Was I nervous! I couldn’t sleep that whole night. But more than nervousness or excitement was the feeling of responsibility: none other than Mr Benegal had asked me to choreograph the song. And when I did it, he asked me to teach it to the dancers. The next day went by in teaching them their dance only!

In Welcome to Sajanpur directed by Shyam Benegal
In Irada (Intention) directed by Aparnaa Singh
Divya Dutta in various roles. Photos provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

 What a wonderful way to groom a talent!

The day after was the shoot. A night shoot. The entire crew, cast and the villagers were there to cheer me up. There was a 7-camera setup shooting the dance at one go but l was looking at one person alone – Mr Benegal: he was telling me, “Do it, do it.”

I did it to loud cheer. l was scooped up by my co-stars. I felt so beautiful, and so confident. With gratitude l turned around to thank Shyam Babu, but he had left for the next shot! Nothing mattered to him, but he had left behind a girl who had learnt how to take responsibility. A girl who now knew she had it inside her.

Fabulous! This is what make them icons!

Divya Dutta (born 25 September 1977) is an Indian actress and model. She has appeared in Hindi and Punjabi cinema, in addition to Malayalam and English-language films. She has received many awards including a National Film Award, a Filmfare OTT Award and 2 IIFA Awards.

Highlights in Acting:
1) *Shaheed-e-Mohabbat Buta Singh*/ Punjabi/ 1999
2) *Welcome to Sajjanpur*/ 2008/ Director: Shyam Benegal 
3) *Delhi-6*/ 2009/Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra 
4) *Stanley Ka Dabba*/ 2011/ Director: Amole Gupte
5) *Bhaag Milkha Bhaag*/2013/ Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra 
6)*Irada*/ 2017/ Director: Aparnaa Singh
*Divya Dutta got National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress in Irada*

-- (Compiled by Ratnottama Sengupta)

[1] Studies and Research (translation from Hindi). SOA is a deemed University in Bhuwaneswar.

[2] Stars in My Sky: Those Who Brightened My Film Journey (2022)

[3] Me and Ma (2017)

[4] We really have fun.

[5] Legnedary actor Amitabh Bachchan

[6] Literal translation, ‘Eating a paan (betel leaaf) from Benares’, song from Bollywood blockbuster, Don (1978)

[7] A rose flavoured drink

[8] Run, Milkha, Run, 2013, Hindi film

[9] Monalisa No Longer Smiles: An Anthology of Writings from across the World (2022), Om Books International

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Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of  The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself been the recepient of a National Award. 

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

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Conversation

An Officer and a Gentleman: Vijay Raman in Focus

Ratnottama Sengupta, introduces the late Vijay Raman and converses with Veena Raman, the widow of this IPS[1] officer, about his book, Did I Really Do All This: Memoirs of a Gentleman Cop Who Dared to be Different. The memoir was recently launched by Sengupta and brought out posthumously by Rupa Publications.

Vijay Raman (1951-2023)
Vijay Raman receiving the President’s Police Medal for Gallantary in 1985
Photos provided by Veena Raman

Vijay Raman’s success as a police officer was not merely a personal triumph. The career of this IPS officer traced the changes in the history of India’s security measures. India’s police organisation in 1947 — the Intelligence Bureau, Assam Rifles and CRPF[2]  — were legacies from the British Raj. The 1962 Indo-China War led to the creation of the ITBP[3]; the 1965 war with Pakistan formed the BSF[4]. Investments in the Public Sector Undertakings led to the establishment of CISF[5]. Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1985 led to crafting of SPG[6]. The sabotaged crash of Air India’s Kanishka[7] and the Operation Blue Star prompted the formation of NSG[8], and the 2008 terror attack on Mumbai was followed by NIA[9]. Vijay Raman’s life was intertwined with these organisations. He was also responsible for bringing in a number of terrorists and dacoits, including the notorious women dacoit, Phoolan Devi[10] (1963-2001)…He died last year.

In this conversation, Veena Raman[11] reflects on his life and his memoir, Did I Really Do All This: Memoirs of a Gentleman Cop Who Dared to be Different.

Veena this book is a tribute to a police officer who brought honour to his uniform. Having met Vijay Raman I know how wonderful a person he was – deeply loved by not only his family and friends but also many VIPs he interacted with in his professional life. Is this your way of mourning his sudden demise?

When Vijay passed away we — my son Vikram, daughter-in-law Divya, grandson Shaurya and I — were devastated. The cruel illness was swift and relentless: within months he grew weaker before our eyes, and before we were ready to accept the loss. We had no choice but to face it. While we tried to console each other Vikram said, “Mamma we should be grateful that we had him for all these years. After all, Papa was that proverbial cat with nine lives!”

Really?

Absolutely. And why nine? I can give you 19 instances in our years together when his life was in danger and he miraculously escaped. 

I am all ears Veena!

At the very outset, in November 1978, when Vijay was in his first posting as assistant superintendent of police (ASP) in Dabra, Madhya Pradesh, a country-made bomb was flung at his jeep by agitating students in Gwalior. It fell and exploded nearby. Fortunately, no one was harmed.

In 1981, based as he was in the Chambal, notorious for dacoits who stalked the nooks and crannies of the ravines, my illustrious husband had already faced dacoit encounters. The most dramatic of these took place in October, when he led the team that wiped out Paan Singh Tomar who, with his gang, had terrorised the region for years. As he describes in the book, bullets had rained on the encounter team from all sides, caught in the crossfire between the dacoits and the police.

The Pan Singh Tomar gang after a dusk to dawn encounter submits to the police: Photo provided by Veena Raman

He was superintendent of police (SP), Special Branch in Bhopal when the world’s worst industrial disaster took place. On the night of 3 December 1984, more than 40 tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from the Union Carbide pesticide plant. At exactly that time Vijay was driving to the railway station. “Why inconvenience the driver to stay up late when I want to receive my parents myself?” he had argued. 

Within minutes the gas had created havoc. He was shocked to see hundreds killed and untold hundreds maimed. Somehow he and his parents, so close to the scene of destruction, were spared.

In 1998, as inspector-general of police (IGP) Security, Jammu and Kashmir, while Vijay was in Srinagar, a bomb blast took place on the route during the hour he routinely travelled to office. He was saved that day because his driver had taken an alternative route!

In 2000, as IG-Border Security Force (BSF), Jammu, Vijay was responsible for erecting a much-needed part of the fence between Pakistan and India under highly adverse conditions. Enemy bullets rained down from across the border throughout the operation. That forced him to take some daring and potentially controversial decisions. How very relieved and thankful we were when he came home safe!

Vijay was appointed IG, BSF, Kashmir, in 2003 with the secret mandate to get Ghazi Baba, the mastermind of the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. Along with an informer, he had gone on an undercover exploration of the site where the encounter eventually took place. Most unexpectedly the informer pointed out the man himself! Vijay instinctively tried to open the car door and rush out to apprehend the terrorist. The informer roughly pulled him back and screamed to the driver to step on the accelerator and escape immediately. Later the informer explained that Ghazi Baba never left his lair unless he was strapped with explosives, and an attack would have spelled explosions that would have been the end of everyone in the vicinity. 

Did he ever face a situation that he regretted? 

One of the most dangerous situations Vijay ever faced in his risk-fraught career was as Special Director General (DG), Anti-Naxal Operations of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). In April of 2010, many of his men were massacred in Dantewada by Naxalites. The loss weighed so heavily on him that his health declined: he neglected his meals and even forgot to take his medicines. He had moved from the headquarters in Chhattisgarh to Kolkata; Vikram and I were in Delhi. We understood the intensity of what he was going through only later, when he suffered a stroke.

Did your angst-ridden years end with his retirement?

Not really. For, four years after he retired, in 2015, Vijay was handpicked to be a member of a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate the Vyapam (Vyavasayik Pariksha Mandal[12]) examination scam. This was a challenging assignment because the entrance examination admission and recruitment had been going on since the 1990s and had come to light only in 2013.

Did he do anything that was not challenging? What got him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records?

Vijay came close to death even in the personal adventure he undertook with a friend. Together they circumnavigated the globe in an Indian-made car in the last 39 days of 1992. Don’t forget, that was an era when Indian manufacturing was just coming of age. Though this tremendous feat earned him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, he was exposed to danger of a different kind. For 39 days, they drove at very high speeds, in different countries, different terrains, and different political climates. Let alone sleep on a bed, many a night they could not even catch 40 winks. And still they had only one accident! Yes, it left him badly injured, but he found the strength to complete the challenge and beat the record.

Doesn’t every policeman court danger — even death — in the course of duty? What made him stand apart from other men with stripes?

True, every policeman faces bullets in the course of duty. And Vijay, throughout his career, was inviting them, to see what they could do to him. His faith in the divine, in his own destiny, made him fearless. How very fortunate we were that, time and again, they were deflected.

Another thing that made him stand out was his sheer artlessness. In a field of work steeped in the dregs of humanity, he stood unwavering by the principles of human rights and democracy. Again, fortunately, he came out unscathed, retaining faith in humanity all through life.

This dream run surely merited documenting. And Vijay had a flair for writing. So why did he not pick up the pen until the last hours of his life?

It was indeed a dream run. And that was precisely why I urged Vijay for years to write a book. Yes, many people have achievements, but his narrative was different. Winning without challenges is victory, but winning after overcoming challenges is history! 

I remember that, when you visited us in Pune in 2019, you had said that the range and scope of what he had done, deserved to be recorded. I myself maintained that the consistently straightforward way in which he had done it, had to be recorded for posterity. But whenever this was suggested Vijay would say, “Who would be interested in such a book!” 

None of us agreed with him. We read books by many other police officers which made it clear that Vijay’s experiences were unique. While the others excelled in certain areas of policing, Vijay’s was a whole range of spectacular achievement! 

He may be the only police officer in the country who has dealt with all the aspects of policing — and been successful at each. He was at the forefront of dealing with the changing nature of crime in the country and also at the epicentre of varied policing challenges. 

Doesn’t he write about how his actions led to change in tackling crime and criminals?

Yes, his successes invariably led to major changes in the law-n-order situation in the region. In Bhind, removing the Paan Singh[13] gang led to the surrender of a large number of dacoits who previously considered themselves invincible. This list includes the most notorious Malkan Singh[14] and the celebrated Phoolan Devi. 

Surprise visitor Dacoit Malkhan Singh (right) with Vijay Raman Photo provided by Veena Raman

Similarly, when Vijay initiated the Indo-Pak border fencing, it was a major deterrent because most of the infiltration was from Jammu and there was a marked decline once the fence came up. Ghazi Baba too was seen as invincible, so the encounter destroyed a formidable opponent and also sent a clear message to enemies across the border.

Vijay’s success was not merely personal triumph. His career as an IPS officer traces the changes in the history of India’s security measures, right?

Indeed, his life and career were intertwined with an entire spectrum of events that enhanced the security of Indians. But let me point out that his daily life also contained an extraordinary range of experiences. He grew up in a village in Kerala, and later lived in villages among the most primitive of peoples in other Indian states. But he also lived in the cities, a privileged urban Indian. He had travelled in bullock carts on rutted roads and often walked 30 km in the course of an ordinary day through ravines. And he had also jetted across the world with the prime ministers he protected. 

Vijay exemplified the essential truth of India being one, from Kashmir to Kerala!

Without a spec of doubt Vijay was that quintessential Indian who was intimately connected in different ways to the length and breadth of India. He grew up in Kerala, the deepest south, and spent some of the most significant years of his career in Jammu and Kashmir, the farthest north. His higher education took place in Gujarat; when he retired, we came to live in Pune.

The western part of India was his beloved home as an impressionable youngster, and then again in his final years. There were formative experiences in the east when, as a probationer in the Police Academy, he was taken to explore and understand India’s verdant Northeast. And he was in Calcutta for induction training at the ordnance factory, and later during his stint as Special Director General, Anti-Naxal Operations of the CRPF.

With these influences of north, south, east and west, it was only fitting that Vijay should be allotted the Madhya Pradesh cadre, at the very heart of India.

And he met his darling wife – then a hockey champion – in Nagpur! How did you meet? And how did you sustain your enchantment when the miles kept you in different corners of the land?

Vijay was an excellent writer. Of late I’ve been reading his letters to me over the years, from before we were married as well as during the tenures of separation induced by our work and careers. I can only marvel at his intellectual ability. Even at a very young age, he articulated his thoughts and feelings beautifully, and the letters reflect his tendency to introspect often, and be constantly self-critical. 

I see a proud wife sitting before me.

I have always been extremely proud to be the wife of such an exceptional human being. But Vijay disliked being praised. At the peak of achievement, when his heroic deeds were earning him medals and he was surrounded by people singing his praises to the sky, when he was achieving success after success, he tried to ignore it all. Specifically he would tell me, “Please Veena, you don’t praise me. It’s all right that so many people are praising me. But if you start doing it, it’ll go to my head.” 

Stupidly, I took him at his word. Of course, I boasted to others that the outstanding police officer was also the best husband, and the best father, ever. Even in the 1970s, when so few women had careers, he supported my ambitions. He knew he was marrying a woman who had her own dreams, who wanted to see the world. And yes, he knew that I had not learnt to cook! 

I admired many other things about him. His commitment to perfection no matter how inconsequential the task. His commitment to service, to justice, to humanity. His love for reading. His wry sense of humour. His care for his parents and members of both our families. The deep respect he drew from whosoever knew him well — his family, his colleagues, his subordinates, his superiors, and even many criminals he came in contact with in the course of his duties. 

But because he stopped me from praising him, I could never convey to him in words how much I admired him. It was only when he grew weaker that we worked fast and furious to get down on paper all that he was telling us. And as we approached the final pages of this book he said to me, with some surprise and wonder, “Veena, did I really do all this?”

So this book is Vijay’s story in his words. When he became too weak to speak, and when we lost him, my memories continued to pour in and I took the liberty to fill a few gaps. 

May his legacy live on!

Vijay Raman at work with a kidnap victim. Photo provided by Veena Raman 
The A B C of Vijay Raman

Adventure: Awarded citation in Guinness Book of World Records and Limca Book of Records for his around the world tour in an Indian Contessa car in 39 days 7 hrs 55 minutes
Brains: Gold Medals in Law
Courage: Presidents Police Medal for Gallantry

Experience: Over 34 years of rich experience in General Administration, Policing, handled PM Security, CM Security, anti-dacoity operation in Chambal, anti- terrorist operations in Jammu & Kashmir , anti-Naxalite operation, Investigated Vyapam Scam.

Awards
•	Presidents Police Medal for Gallantry. 
•	Presidents Police Medal for Distinguished Service 
•	Presidents Police Medal for Meritorious Service. 
•	Gold medals in Law

Click here to read an excerpt from I Really Do All This: Memoirs of a Gentleman Cop Who Dared to be Different

[1] Indian Police Service

[2] Central Reserve Police Force

[3] Indo Tibetan Border Police

[4] Border Security Force

[5] Central Industrial Security Force

[6] Special Protection Group

[7] 1985 crash of AI 182 to London

[8] National Security Guards

[9] National Investigation Agency

[10] Phoolan Devi (1963-2001) was married at the age of eleven and sexually assaulted before she became a dacoit. She was jailed for eleven years and then joined politics till she was assassinated.

[11] Veena Raman retired as General Manager Marketing, Madhya Pradesh Tourism, after serving for 29 years. After retirement, she joined two NGO organisations, University Women’s Association Pune and Pune Women’s Council working towards empowerment of women. She was part of the national hockey team of India in 1975.

[12] Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board

[13] Paan Singh Tomar (1932-1981) was an Indian athlete and soldier who became a dacoit due to family feud.

[14] Malkan Singh (born 1943) is a former dacoit who has turned to politics

.

Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of  The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

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Categories
Conversation

Peregrinations of a Diplomat’s Wife

Ratnottama Sengupta converses with Reba Som

Reba Som

“If Washington goes to Dhaka, there’s a chance that Paris might make it to Stockholm. And of course Moscow would be moved to Geneva!?”

Sounds like gibberish? But this is a piece of the speculative conversation on transfers and postings that is regular in the drawing rooms of embassies and consulates, Dr Reba Som found out on her very first posting after her marriage with Himachal Som.

Both were Presidency graduates pursuing higher careers — he in Foreign Service, she on the threshold of a doctorate. But life as the wife of an ambassador wasn’t only about glamour postings, fancy holidays and brush with celebrities. It was a mixed bag of blessings, as the woman who had grown up in Kolkata with a grounding in Tagore’s music would soon conclude. For, there were the dark clouds of life away from ageing parents and school going children; from the comfort of familiar food and mastered language; from developing your potential and crafting your own identity in the world out there.

In recent years we have read accounts of retired ambassadors and career diplomats’ experiences in diplomatic life. In her memoirs, Hop, Skip and Jump; Peregrinations of a Diplomat’s Wife, Dr Som’s is a woman’s voice, abounding in stories and observations about how the spouses keep a brave front in alien surroundings to hold up the best image of her country. In this conversation, she voices outmore about her encounters with racism, with political emergencies and exigencies. In short, about her lessons in a borderless world of multicoloured humanity.

You went to Brazil (1972), then to Denmark (1974), then Delhi (1976), Pakistan (1978), New York (1981), Dhaka (1984), then Ottawa (1991), Laos (1994), Italy (2002). Please share your gleanings from these lands.

The roller coaster ride was a saga of discovery. Travelling across expanses of the planet earth that we had seen only on the pages of geography books and atlases was a great learning experience. I gained an understanding of diverse cultures, imbibed social customs, became proficient in languages, and was exposed to exotic cuisines. At the same time I faced homesickness. Each posting entailed the challenge of uprooting oneself, finding schools for children, and reinventing oneself every time.

A large part of this life was in the years that had no mobile phones, no video calls, no social media, no internet communication. What did you thrive on?

Continents and hemispheres away from home, the only link with family and friends then was the diplomatic bag. The weekly mail service ferried across oceans by the ministry in Delhi contained letters and parcels from home. We were asked to judiciously use the weight allowed to bring spices, tea, condiments, clothing and other necessities. It became a ritual to write long letters and send them weekly by the diplomatic bag to Delhi from where they would be posted to respective destinations throughout India.

Along with letters would come bundles of magazines and newspapers. These brought us news of home from which we were truly cut off. With no television or internet or phone calls, we were in the dark about all news, be it political, social or entertainment. Every week on the bag day we waited anxiously to receive the newspapers – and the letters, which had instructions, news, recipes, advice, gossip. All of these were crucial for nurturing our souls.

One telegram from my father in 1973 carried the cryptic message: ‘Reba, solitary First class.’ These were the MA results of Calcutta University which were out after a delay of two years.

I was most taken up by the understated humour of some of your encounters in your memoir. Please recount some of them.

On our very first posting, to Brazil, not only our unaccompanied baggage but also our accompanied baggage did not arrive. Eventually when the lost luggage showed up, Himachal’s ceremonial bandhgala[1]was steeped brown — in the colour of the gur[2] my mother had lovingly packed in!

In Brazil, we found the people to be fun loving but too flamboyant. They made tall claims that their institutions were the biggest in the world. But reality often proved the claims to be hollow. Such was the Presidential bid to make the tallest flag pole in the world in Brazil’s new capital, Brasilia. A very tall flag mast was indeed built but the huge flag atop it was torn to shreds since the engineers had not factored in the wind speed at that height. Brazilians mirthfully called it the President’s erection!

And at Denmark. we were surprised by a sudden news of our posting to Mozambique. We had long realised that we were mere players on the chessboard of postings – we could be shunted off across continents at the whims of the powers that be. By the same token, a couple of phone calls by the newly arrived ambassador undid the mischief. We were happy to unpack and settle down again. The only guilt I felt was when I met the owner of Anthony Berg chocolates: I had in no time demolished the entire carton of chocolates he had sent as farewell gift!

You are among the few I know who have mothered in different continents. So how different is it to become a mother away from India?

I always felt that the best way to get to know certain nuances of a country’s cultural tradition was to have babies in them. My elder son, Vishnu was born in Copenhagen and Abhishek, the younger one, in New York — and my experiences each time couldn’t be more different.

In Copenhagen, a social democrat country, hospital visits for full term pregnant women were fixed on a certain day of the week. On the preceding day they had to collect their urine in a jerry can and present it for lab examination. I was confounded and not a little embarrassed to meet other mothers-to-be, swinging their jerry cans like designer bags without fail on the appointed day. I learnt only later that, from the urine examination doctors would note the condition of the placenta and not unnecessarily rush patients into childbirth with caesarean and surgical intervention!

In NY, on the day of my discharge, the hospital staff were highly excited because Elizabeth Taylor had come in for one of her facelifts. I could not forgive them their magnificent obsession when, along with a goodbye hamper, they wheeled in a bassinet with a different baby. On my protestation the nurse rudely shouted, “Can’t you read… the tag says Som Junior?” Shocked by the implication I said, I could not only read but also see! And it was not my child. While everyone was looking on in disbelief another nurse wheeled in my little one. The babies had their diapers changed and were put back in the wrong bassinet.

Years later, we discovered in an informal meeting with an American ambassador that Abhishek was indeed an American citizen. Because, at the time of the child’s birth Himachal was posted not to the embassy in Washington but to the consulate in New York. Only consulate children were given the privilege. This discovery, rechecked by State Department Records, gave our son the US passport. It was a windfall as Abhishek went on to graduate summa cum laude from a prestigious management school in the US and enter Wall Street as an investment banker.

I must also share another truth about birthing away from India. Before Vishnu’s birth, my parents had come to Copenhagen. When I was discharged from the hospital I received their care and being fed Ma’s cuisine was the best gift I could have. So, when phone calls came from hospital, followed by visits enquiring about my state of depression, I was totally confused. I realised how many mothers suffered from postpartum depression in a society bereft of nurturing family care.

How could you master languages as removed as Portuguese from Lao and Italian from Urdu? Is a flair for languages the key to this proficiency or the training imparted before each posting?

 I enjoy learning languages. My stint at learning French at Ramakrishna Mission Golpark stood me in good stead in grasping Portuguese in Brazil, French in Ottawa and Italian in Rome — all Latin languages. But there was also the hazard of mixing up some phrases and words, so similar yet so different! Like Bon Appetit in French and Bueno Appetito in Italian. Or Amor in Portuguese; amore in Italian and amour in French.

Sometimes though, I accidentally learnt how language travels. My mother had packed in many petticoats to match with my saris but without their cord. We went to a store that promised to hold all we need but all my sign language did not bring what I needed. “Phita is obviously not available here,” I told Himachal, preparing to leave. Suddenly the storekeeper perked up. ‘Fita, si senhora!” he said and produced bundles of cord.

In due time I found out that janala, kedara and chabi – Bengali for window, chair and keys – had travelled from India to become janela, cadeira and chavi.

What did Dhaka mean to one raised in West Bengal – per se the Ghoti-Bangal[3]divide, your roots  or the cultural side with Firoza Begum and Nazrul Geeti?

Dhaka was a great posting in so many ways. It was a hop, skip and jump away from my home town Kolkata, with the same language and culture and yet was a foreign posting with foreign allowances!

As you know, there’s a subtle cultural difference in East and West Bengal. Both speak Bengali but in East Bengal, it’s a colloquial rustic dialect while West Bengal speaks its refined cultural form. This formed the infamous ‘Ghoti-Bangal’ divide: Urban Calcuttans looked askance at their country cousins from the East.

The difference extended to the palate. East Bengalis flavoured their dishes with more chillies and West Bengalis, with a pinch of sugar. For the fish loving people, the two iconic symbols are Hilsa and Prawns, for East and West. Emotions soared high in Kolkata when the supporters of the football teams, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, clashed, after intensely fought matches that spurred deadly arguments and bets.

Given this background, Himachal created a minor storm by announcing to his parents from Chinsurah, Hooghly in West Bengal that he would marry a girl whose parents were from Dhaka and Faridpur in East Bengal.  Ghoti-Bangal feud remained the subject of much friendly banter between Himachal and me until we were posted in Dhaka. There, in a diplomatic turnaround, Himachal played down his Ghoti background to announce that his mother’s family was from Chittagong and he was born in the principal’s bungalow in Daulatpur, Khulna, where his grandfather was posted.

To give a bit of Himachal’s family background: Dr Pramod Kumar Biswas, the first Indian doctorate in Agricultural Sciences from Hokkaido University in Japan, had settled in Dhaka as principal of the Agricultural College. His charming daughter Kana won the heart of Dr Rabindranath Som, a veterinarian who weathered the predictable Ghoti Bangal storm to win her hand in marriage. 

When my parents Jyotsnamay and Manashi Ray visited us, we couldn’t visit Patishwar in Rajshahi district, where my maternal grandfather Atul Sen had worked with Rabindranath Tagore before he was arrested for revolutionary activities with Anushilan Samiti, and exiled to Kutubdia, an isolated island in the Bay of Bengal. As a headmaster, he had given shelter to Jatirindranath Mukherji, popularly known as Bagha Jatin[4].

It was a breezy day when my octogenarian father revisited Faridpur Zilla School. The colonial bungalow had acquired a fresh coat of terracotta paint. Finding his way to the headmaster’s room, he announced with a lump in his throat that history had been rewritten, boundaries redefined and new national identities forged since 1923, the year he had matriculated.

The headmaster, delving through yellowing files, fished out the matriculation results for that year. My father’s face was that of an excited school boy impatient to show off his prowess: “Look at my maths marks! Oh yes, my English scores were a trifle lower than expected because I had a touch of fever, but look at Jasimuddin’s marks in English! Thank God, he passed it.” We looked around in hushed surprise. This isn’t The Jasimuddin, the beloved poet of Bangladesh? “But of course,” my father responded. “Jasim’s weakness in English was my strength!”

Dhaka was also personally fulfilling as my doctoral studies, which I had carried across three continents, found fruition at last! On another front, I met with success in gaining the confidence and blessings of Firoza Begum, the legendary exponent of Nazrul Geeti.

The songs of Kazi Nazrul Islam were a great favourite of my father. He often hummed those made famous by Firoza Begum. Since I had trained in Tagore songs from age five, I never aspired to master the distinctly different style of rendition. A chance encounter with the golden voice revived this desire. Firoza Begum bluntly refused. When I persisted, she wanted to hear me sing a few Tagore songs.

One morning I mounted three flights of steps, harmonium on my driver’s shoulder, to enter her flat with apprehension. At her bidding, I sang four songs of Tagore. She heard me without any comment, then she asked why I hadn’t been singing for Bangladesh television. My relief was palpable! I had passed her test.

Over the next two years, my weekly classes with her extended well beyond the music lessons to serious discussions on life itself and the meaning of religion. What began as a guru-shishya[5]relationship, transcended to deep friendship. She declined any remuneration and dearly wished that I should cut a disc. This wish of hers came true only when Debojyoti Mishra heard me and decided to record my Nazrul-songs for Times Music in 2016.

Food is perhaps the first face of culture. So please share with us some of your culinary adventures. Or should I say ‘fishy’ stories?

Adventures? I could talk about the chapli kebabs in Pakistan, or about putting samosas in Bake Sales. I could tell you about making rasgullas from powder milk. I could even tell you about our gardener in Laos who merrily collected every scorpion and caterpillar that came his way, “for snacks,” he told me. But let me focus on fish.

The very first party I hosted at home in Brazil led me to seek substitutes for Indian ingredients. Fish of course had to be on the menu, mustard fish at that. I had already learnt from the Brazilian ambassador in Delhi that surubim, being boneless, was the most suited for curries. So surubim it was for months until the day I had to go to the fishmongers – and found it was a monster of a whale!

In Pakistan, traversing the arid countryside of Sind, the train would stop at stations where fillets of pala were being shallow fried on large skillets. Savouring its delicate flavour we went into a discussion on the merits of pala versus hilsa. Both have a shiny silver body with thin bones, both swim upstream against current. The taste of hilsa steam-cooked in mustard sauce is a super delight in both Dhaka and Kolkata. There of course the discussions are on the merits of the hilsa from Padma and Ganga respectively.

In Laos I once called the plumber to ease the draining of the bathtub since the pipe had got clogged. He arrived with a live fish in a plastic bag and promptly emptied it into the pipe. It would eat through the slush as it travelled through the pipe, he assured me!

Post retirement, Himachal settled to honing his culinary skills. Cooking, which he had started in Ottawa, became his lasting hobby. He would shop for fish in C R Park or INA Market[6]. He would pore over cookbooks and plot innovative recipes. “Cooking,” he was quoted in Outlook magazine, “is art thought out with palate.” And his piece de resistance was the salmon baked whole.

Which was your most cherished, or striking, brush with celebrities in world history?

At one of the finest dinners in Copenhagen I found myself seated next to a countess. She invited me to visit her since she lived in the neighbourhood. The next day a liveried man arrived to escort us to an imposing manor house. We were welcomed with sherry and we had to select a card from a silver salver with the name of our partner for the dinner. I was escorted by a handsome young man who floored me when we exchanged names. He was the descendent of Count Leo Tolstoy!

Another memorable encounter was with a person straight out of the history books. I was strolling in a forested park outside Copenhagen. I noticed with a shock that I was looking into a glass topped coffin. The aristocratic face inside had an aquiline nose and a goatee that lent a refinement to the visage that still sported a faint smile. The starched lace collar was held in place by a jewelled button that showed impeccable taste. But the elegant hands tapered off to skeletal fingers, and the feet too had become skeletal.

The plaque at the bottom of the coffin informed us that this was James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, with whom Mary, Queen of Scots had fallen in love. It was a fatal attraction since both were married. But soon her husband, Lord Darnley, the father of her son James, the future king of Scotland and England, was mysteriously burnt down in a manor, and Bothwell was granted a divorce. However, their marriage incensed Catholic Europe, so Mary gave herself up to buy the release of Bothwell, who fled to Denmark.

‘Whoever marries your mother is your father’: this dictum defines the acceptance of whatever political dispensation you are forced to live with, at home or abroad. So how did you cope with a turmoil like Emergency or antagonism in Islamabad? 

We had returned to Delhi in the midst of Emergency. We felt some relief to see trains running on time and punctuality being maintained in government offices. Corrupt officers were being hauled up and over-population being addressed. But the atmosphere was sombre and conversations hushed. The deep scar left by the Emergency saw Indira Gandhi being swept out of power the following year.

In Islamabad tension had mounted when I arrived over the imminent execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto[7]. Our residence had become the favourite watering hole for Indian and international journalists who knew Himachal from his Delhi days. Animated discussions over drinks were followed by quick despatches typed out on my rickety typewriter. Unending speculations on the unfolding drama had kept us on tenterhooks. Then one morning in April 1979, the phone rang to say, “It’s done.” [8]

How did Italy change your life?

Italy was easily the best posting of my life in embassies, not only because of its rich history. There I found Italian artists painting inspired by Tagore’s lyrics, and singers like Francesca Cassio singing Alain Danielou’s translations. What made them take it on? The question led me to rediscover Tagore.

My singing of Rabindra Sangeet also found recognition in Rome. My first CD album was released there. I was in many concerts. It was so fulfilling when my translation of Tagore’s lyrics into English found appreciation. Tagore himself believed that his songs were ‘real songs’ with emotions that speak to all people. I began translation in earnest. And that led me to write Rabindranath Tagore: The Singer and his Song (Penguin 2009). The book, with my translation of 50 Tagore songs, was considered very useful to many performing artistes who could understand and represent Tagore better in their art forms.

Please tell us about growing up with Tagore.

Like many girls in Kolkata I began learning Rabindra Sangeet from the age of five. Over the years the songs grew on me. The unique lyrics conveying a gamut of emotions spoke to me when I was far away on postings abroad. I continued my practice of the music through the years and felt vindicated when I got the opportunity to perform to appreciative audiences abroad and back in India.

Why did you work on his songs rather than his poems or stories?

There’s something compelling about Tagore songs. Remember that Gitanjali, which won him the Nobel, was a collection of ‘Song Offerings.’ Songs had given Tagore the strength to ride over the tragedies that had beset his life. They not only helped him express his grief over the deaths and suicides in his family, they were also his mode of expressing his frustration over the political situation that obtained then. And he felt his songs would help others too. “You can forget me but not my songs,” he had written.

Did you ever feel the need to jazz up the songs for Western audiences?

Tagore’s songs are like the Ardhanariswar[9] – the lyrics and the music are inseparable. The copyright restrictions that prevailed after this death did not allow translations. And that was a handicap since his music cannot be appreciated without comprehending his lyrics which are an expression of his creative thoughts.

I would say his songs have near-perfect balance between evocative lyrics, matching melody and rhythmic structure. And the incredible variety of his musical oeuvre touches every emotion felt by any human soul, without jazzing up.

Tagore’s songs are the national anthem of India and Bangladesh, and have also inspired that of Sri Lanka. But will his internationalism hold up with the change of order indicated by the recent developments on the subcontinent?

Tagore was known to be anti-nationalistic. He believed no man-made divisions can keep people segregated. He did not agree with the Western concept of ‘nation,’ he was an internationalist who accepted the ideals of democracy – ‘aamra sabai raja’[10], of gender equality – ‘aami naari, aami mohiyoshi’[11]; indeed, in equality of humans. What he wrote in lucid Bengali suited every mood. Georges Clemenceau, who was the Prime Minister of France for a second time from 1917 to 1920, had turned to Gitanjali when he heard that World War I had broken out. Even today people can relate to what he wrote.

How did all the hop skip and jump shape the feminist within Reba Som?

The wives of Foreign Service officers are often seen as decorative extensions of their spouses. People only saw the glamour we enjoyed on postings abroad, not the heartbreaks and disappointments we battled. Despite their qualifications the wives were not allowed to work abroad. Instead they had to be perfect hostesses: clad in colourful Kanjeevarams they had to prepare mounds of samosas and gulab jamuns.

But there was little recognition, appreciation or compensation by the Ministry of External Affairs of all the hard work and struggle they put in. To settle down in different postings in rapid succession. To host representational parties where they had to conjure Indian delicacies with improvised ingredients. To raise disgruntled children on paltry allowances.

Once, as the Editor of our in-house magazine, I had floated a questionnaire to all the missions abroad asking about the changing perceptions of the Foreign Service wives. That had opened a Pandora’s Box. Eventually in response to our requests the Ministry relaxed service conditions and allowed the wives to work abroad if they had the professional qualifications and received the host country’s permission. This was a veritable coup!

My own act of rebellion was accepting the Directorship of the Tagore Centre ICCR Kolkata (2008-13) after we returned to Delhi on Himachal’s retirement. It became a challenge for me to try and get the Tagore Centre on the cultural map of Kolkata, proving to myself and my disbelieving family in Delhi that it was possible!

[1] Somewhat like a Chinese collared coat

[2] Molasses

[3] Ghoti – People from West Bengal state in India
Bangal – People from Bangladesh

[4] Bagha Jatin or Joyotinadranth Mukherjee (1879-1915) was a famous name in the Indian Independence struggle

[5] Teacher-student

[6] Markets in Delhi

[7] Zulfikar Ali Bhutto(1928-1979) was the fourth president of Pakistan and later he served as the Prime Minister too.

[8] Bhutto was executed on 4th April 1979

[9] Half man half woman

[10] We are all kings

[11] I am a woman, noble and great

Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of  The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Conversation

‘Home has been a Process of Lifelong Search’

In Conversation with Kirpal Singh

Dr Kirpal Singh

 “Singapore is intimately linked with home and, yet for me, home has always been a process of lifelong search. Partly because of the early months of my birth. The record says I was born in March 1949, but the time was not certain as I do not have a birth certificate. My father forgot to register my birth,” reminisces Dr Kirpal Singh, an internationally recognised scholar. Born in the Straits Settlement of Singapore, before the island emerged as an independent entity, he has lived through much of history. He tells a story of multi-racial, multi-cultural growth that the island afforded him.  

His father, he tells us, was “well known throughout Malaya — Jeswant Singh nicknamed as ‘Just One’ — a boxer who would knock people down with his left hook. In 1954, he left boxing when he killed someone during a match.” His mother, a Jewish Scot who he cannot recollect, he tells us, “ might have been David Marshall’s sister according to my stepsister but no one else has said that.”  Marshall[1] was the first Chief Minister of Singapore from 1955 to 1956 and then Singapore’s Ambassador to France, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland 1978 to 1993. He is the founder of the Worker’s Party. His parents had emigrated from Baghdad to Singapore in 1908 according to current resources.

How did Singh’s parents come to be in Singapore? Were they immigrants or colonials?

He responds with what he knows: “My grandfather and grandmother came to Singapore on board a ship in 1900. They left Jullunder, Punjab, in 1899. By the time they reached Singapore, it was the end of 1900. They left to seek their fortune. They were from the farming community. My grandfather was only sixteen and my grandmother was about twelve. They were in transit in Penang for six months. They came to Singapore in 1901. Actually, it was all Malaya — Singapore was part of the Straits Settlement. They came to Singapore by train. Trains were just starting out. It was around August 1901.

Trains in Malaya

“My uncle was conceived during this journey. They halted in Singapore for only two or three weeks. My grandfather’s cousin was in Perak[2], in Malaya. So, he wanted to be with his cousin. His cousin had cattle. Most of the Sikhs were cattle farmers. They settled in Pahang[3], an area which eventually became a nuclear dump[4] for Australia. It is closed to public now. There was a stone that proclaimed the land was a nuclear dump when I went with my son a few years ago.

“My father moved to Singapore as his prospects were better here as a boxer. This is where he met my mother. I was born here. He actually met mum because my mother’s two brothers had invited her to come from Glasgow. My mother is Scottish, from an industrial background. Her brothers came to the Far East to make money.  She finished her school leaving exams and came to visit her brothers during her vacation. She would go with her bothers to watch boxing, where she saw my father, the champ. She was only fifteen or sixteen. The next thing the brothers knew was she was pregnant with me.”

Jeswant Singh was popular with colonials. Kirpal Singh tells us: “Some Europeans saw him box and offered him a job then in the Base Ordinance Depot. This was the British Military camps in the Far East. There were three bases in Singapore: the naval base, Kranji and one in the South. He worked there for thirty years and retired after that. In 1972[5], after the final British withdrawal from Singapore, dad’s formal employment status ended. After that he just did odd jobs, ending up as a security guard, looking after the factories in Jurong, earning about two to three hundred dollars a month.”

Kirpal Singh spent his childhood with his grandmother and uncle. Before he started schooling, his father left him with his grandmother and divorced his mother in favour of a new bride. Dr Singh tells us the story of how he returned to Singapore: “I was basically in Perak with my grandmother. My uncle, who was the first Sikh to become a Christian in Southeast Asia, left home because his father gave him a beating for changing his religion. My uncle was an Anglican. His conversion saved him from the Great Depression as the clergy was very well looked after. From 1929 to 1933, the church looked after him because he was the priest in Seramban. My father was still young. My uncle was born in 1911 and my dad in 1923. My grandmother bore eighteen children. Five of the infants passed away before they were one month old. But thirteen survived. She passed away at 95… I knew when I left for my doctorate programme in Adelaide that that was the last time I would see her. I had a hunch and was crying on the plane. Six weeks later, I got a letter with the news of her death.”

He adds: “Dad was in not in a position to look after me. The responsibility fell on his brother William. His full name was William Massa Singh s/o Deva Singh. He had studied at the Ipoh Chinese school, topped the school, eventually worked as an insurance agent. He was very good in English. The principal of his school, a New Zealander, arranged for my uncle to move to Singapore. Then my father moved there too. Singapore was the metropolis even then. It was the centre of English education. Penang was the other one. In 1956, I was sent to Singapore from Perak on a train — a one-and-a-half-day journey to my uncle.”

His grandmother joined them within a few months as his uncle was, he says, “more interested in aiding Lee Kuan Yew get rid of the colonials. Lee Kuan Yew was a self-made man. He met Goh Keng Swee[6] and Rajaratnam[7] as students in England. They became buddies and wanted to move out of colonial rule and be independent.”

Then, how did a young child survive? Dr Singh tells us: “I used to earn my pocket money from age five six by watering gardens. I have had very interesting experiences. When I was in primary two, I used to give tuition to primary one students. With enough gumption, you can survive in this world.”

Kampongs in Singapore’s past

“I grew up with my uncle’s wards, who were brought home to be educated. There was even one who was a Chinese-Japanese mix. So, I grew up being familiar cross-cultural marriages and in a multicultural home. I grew up in the kampong with a Chinese boy and we became friends from the age of seven-and-a-half when we were in primary two. His name is Tan Jwee Song — I call him Jwee, ‘my good saint’.  He told me after O-levels he would support me to study further and took to teaching. At that time, you could become a teacher after completing your O level. I joined Raffles late during my time in high school because it was too expensive for me. I taught in night classes started by Lee Kuan Yew and studied. I owed Jwee $80,000 dollars and I wanted to pay his widow back — but she would not accept it. When I graduated in 1973 with an honours’ degree, I was $44 thousand in debt. Then, I was given a scholarship.”

And slowly, Kirpal Singh came to his own. When television came into being, he tells us: “I was often on TV in 1970s — days of early television — debates and interviews as a guest.” Kirpal Singh grew into an intellectual of repute as he worked and studied with the support of the many races and many people who, often like him, were migrants to Singapore.

As time moves forward, these stories — that are almost as natural as the sand, the wind and the sea — ask to be caught in words and stored for posterity, stories from life that show how narrow borders drawn by human constructs cannot come in the way of those with ‘gumption’.

(Written by Mitali Chakravarty based on a face to face conversation with Kirpal Singh. Published with permission of Kirpal Singh)

[1] https://www.roots.gov.sg/stories-landing/stories/david-marshall/story

[2] Now in Malaysia

[3] Now in Malaysia

[4] https://buletinonlines.net/v7/index.php/lynas-radioactive-waste-to-be-dumped-in-pahang-tax-free-while-australia-gets-a18-million-in-taxes-2/

[5] The British armed forces were scheduled to withdraw from Singapore by 1971. https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1001_2009-02-10.html#:~:text=On%2018%20July%201967%2C%20Britain,Singapore%27s%20defence%20and%20economic%20security.

[6] Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, 1973-1980, one of the founding members of the ruling PAP (People’s Action Party) https://www.roots.gov.sg/stories-landing/stories/goh-keng-swee/story

[7] Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore from 1980 to 1985, one of the founding members of the ruling PAP https://www.roots.gov.sg/stories-landing/stories/sinnathamby-rajaratnam/story

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Conversation

Rings on Her Fingers and Bells on Her Toes…

Ratnottama Sengupta in conversation with Sohini Roychowdhury, who uses dancing to build bridges across cultures

“Meet my daughter Sohini,” Uma Di was introducing the dancer who then lived in Madrid. And my first response was, “Why isn’t she in the movies?!”

Sohini Roy Chowdhury. Courtesy: Sohini Roy Chowdhury

Tall, fair, lissome, agile, Sohini Roychowdhury is the stuff beauty queens and show stoppers are made of. That wasn’t surprising: after all, Uma Roychowdhury herself is the picture of perfection in aesthetics.

It didn’t take me long to realise that, much like the well regarded sculptor’s bronzes, her daughter too was made of enduring stuff. One day she was teaching Bharatanatyam to French, Spanish, and Italian enthusiasts. The next day she was lecturing on mythology in New York. One day she was dancing to ‘Jai Ho![1]’ for the director of the Oscar winning Hollywood movie[2]. Another day she was delineating Durga in an Anthropology Museum…

None of these saw her run out of breath. Nor does she, ever, run out of time. When she’s not holding her fingers in a dance mudra, she is holding a metaphoric pen. This month she unveiled her second book, Dance of Goddess Kali. Yes, she has rings on her fingers and bells on her toes — and wherever she goes, there’s dance on the cards!

Here is what she had to say when I spoke to her:

The Dance of Kali follows Dancing with the Gods. How are the two books different?

Dancing With the Gods and The Dance of Kali are two distinct works, each focusing on different aspects of my artistic and spiritual journey. 

Conceived by Monideepa Mukherjee and Sutapa Sengupta, featuring photos from Sohinimoksha

Dancing With the Gods is a pictorial, coffee-table book stemming from my journey as a classical Indian dancer with a multinational dance troupe. Its vivid visuals showcase my onstage performances and behind-the-scenes moments. These are highlights of my career as a dancer, both solo and with Sohinimoksha World Dance and Communications[3]. 

This visually captivating book focuses on imagery and aesthetics. It offers glimpses into my artistic expression through dance, celebrates my journey around the world, and highlights my life-mantra of connecting civilisations through my craft. This tracing of Sohinimoksha’s journey is for a broader audience: Indian dance enthusiasts, art lovers, and individuals interested in my achievements. The aim is to inspire through visually compelling storytelling.

In contrast, The Dance of Kali is a treatise on the ethos of Goddess Kali and Shaktism. It delves into the deeper spiritual and philosophical aspects associated with the goddess, exploring Kali’s symbolism, mythology, and significance within the context of Shaktism, a Hindu tradition of worshiping the divine feminine energy. The tone of this work is contemplative, as it delves into the profound symbolism and the spiritual aspects associated with the Goddess. It incorporates scholarly research, analysis, and interpretations from various perspectives. Hopefully it offers readers a deeper understanding of Kali’s significance in Hindu spirituality.

May I point out here that The Dance of Kali is not a religious book. It is for readers with a specific interest in Hindu mythology, spirituality, or the myths and legends around the resident Goddess of Kolkata. Those seeking a deeper understanding of Kali’s symbolism and philosophical underpinnings within the context of Shaktism, will find this book dispels disrespectful misrepresentations and unfounded Western misconceptions  surrounding the images of Kali as a demonic goddess. 

To sum up: both the books reflect different facets of my artistic and spiritual journey. However, they differ significantly in their subject matter, focus, tone, and intended audience. One celebrates my achievements as a dancer through captivating visuals. The other is an academic tome exploring the profound symbolism and spirituality associated with Goddess Kali.

What prompted you, an international dancer, to pick such a rooted in mythology subject?

I have always had a personal affinity with or inclination towards Goddess Kali. Many artistes draw inspiration from their own beliefs, experiences, and cultural backgrounds when choosing subjects for their work. I am no different. For me the depiction of the Goddess is an opportunity for artistic exploration. Kali, with her complex symbolism and multifaceted persona, offers rich material for creative interpretation through the arts, be it dance, literature or visual arts. 

This book also celebrates India’s rich mythological heritage and the way it connects to other ancient cultures, in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Spain and France. Kali, with her global soul sisters Ishtar or Sara La Kali, holds significant cultural and religious importance, not just in Hinduism, but other cultures as well, particularly within the contexts of worshipping Mother Goddesses. I delve into Kali’s mythology and symbolism to honour this aspect of Indian life, and its universal resonance. 

Yes, Goddess Kali is rooted in Indian mythology. But the themes she embodies — feminine power, transformation, and liberation —transcend cultural boundaries. I hope this book will serve to explore universal themes of empowerment and spirituality. It also aims to provide a deeper understanding of Hindu mythology, and the symbolism associated with the Dark Goddess. Effectively I seek to promote intercultural dialogue and foster greater appreciation for diverse religious traditions. Most significantly, I hope to dispel the uneducated interpretations of Kali as a horrific, savage, demonic goddess. How often she is typecast as a symbol of evil — in popular Western films, books and even as Halloween costumes for disrespectful celebrities like Heidi Klum! 

I have witnessed your performance as Durga in an anthropology museum in Madrid. I have noted your commitment to meaningful, even profound themes in your endeavours. What has been your grooming in dance?

I started dancing at a young age under  renowned Bharatanatyam Guru, Thankamany Kutty. Later I learnt from Kalamandalam Venkitt in Kolkata. I received rigorous training in Bharatanatyam, the dance  that originated in the temples of Tamil Nadu. My dedication to classical art led me to delve deep into its nuances. I mastered intricate footwork, expressions, and storytelling techniques. Over the years, I refined my technique and expression through consistent practice and performance and came to embody the essence of Bharatanatyam.

Your father was a renowned sitarist living in Germany. Your mother is a reputed sculptor of Kolkata. Why did you, an only child, not take to any of these streams of creative expression?

Indeed I was born into a family of accomplished artists. My father, Pandit Subroto Roychowdhury was a renowned sitarist, and my mother, Uma Roychowdhury, is a reputed sculptor. But I chose a different path for myself. 

As an only child, I was exposed to various forms of creative expression. But my passion for dance was ignited after watching a riveting performance by Yamini Krishnamurthy when I was about four years old. While I deeply respect my family’s artistic legacy, I followed my own calling and embarked on a journey to carve my niche in the world of dance.

What are the values you have imbibed from them individually?

My father’s sitar schools in Germany have produced hundreds of students — including distinguished sitar players. From him I imbibed a profound appreciation for music and rhythm. I learned discipline, dedication, and the importance of perseverance in mastering an art form. From my sculptor mother I inherited a keen love for aesthetics and eye for details. I learned the importance of expressing emotions and stories through visual and performing arts. 

Together these values have steered me towards excellence and innovation in my journey as a dancer and communicator.

Mixed genre performance by Sohini Roychowdhury. Courtesy: Sohini Roy Chowdhury

You have lived in Moscow and Madrid. You are guest professor in far-flung Universities, in America and Columbia. You have danced Bharatanatyam and you have danced to Jai ho! at the premiere of Slumdog Millionaire. What have you gained through your international exposure?

My international exposure has enriched me both personally and professionally. Living in cultural environments as diverse as Moscow and Madrid have broadened my perspectives and deepened my understanding of global arts and communication. 

More than 2000 students have ‘graduated’ through my two dance schools in Spain — Casa Asia and Sohinimoksha Artes de la India. In Moscow, more than 80 Russian students performed with me on stage at the Embassy of India and Nehru Centre at the end of their course. As a guest professor in universities across Europe, USA and Latin America, teaching dance, Natyashastra [theory of dance] and Indology, I have not only shared my expertise — I have learnt from students, artistes and scholars from different backgrounds. 

Through my performances of Bharatanatyam, and collaborations with international artists, have bridged cultural divides. My dancing to Jai Ho! at the European premiere of Slumdog Millionaire showcased the universal appeal of Indian dance and music. It  highlighted its ability to connect with people across borders. Today I can confidently claim to have promoted cross-cultural exchange globally.

Coming from an aristocratic, old Calcutta background, what merit do you see in Bollywood dancing?

Despite coming from an aristocratic background rooted in old Calcutta, I recognise the merit in Bollywood dancing which has become a global phenomenon. Not surprising. For, characterised by vibrant energy, expressive movements, and fusion of multiple dance styles — from Salsa to Tango, Twist to ChaChaCha – Bollywood dancing holds mass appeal. It serves as a platform for artists to showcase their talents to diverse audiences and has contributed to the popularization of Indian culture worldwide. It is rooted in traditional Indian dance forms, yet embraces modern influences. And it reflects the evolving tastes of contemporary audiences. 

Since the 1960s, Bollywood has drawn inspiration from various musical traditions across the world. This imparted its films a rich tapestry of global influences. This fusion of world music and dance enriched the aesthetic of Bollywood — and in turn contributed to its cultural significance and global appeal.

In the 1960s, Indian cinema underwent a transformation with the emergence of filmmakers like Guru Dutt and Raj Kapoor, who infused their films with elements of Western music and dance. The most iconic example of this is seen in the song Mera joota hai Japani [my shoes are Japanese] from Shree 420 (1955): here Raj Kapoor’s character sings about wearing Japanese shoes, English pantaloons, and Russian caps — all of which symbolised the growing influence of the West in post-colonial India. And yet, as the song stresses, at core these films are Hindustani — Indian.

Throughout the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, the industry witnessed the rise of dance and music directors who played a pivotal role in incorporating world music and dance forms into Hindi cinema. Composers like OP Nayyar, Shankar Jaikishan, SD Burman, C Ramachandran, Kalyanji Anandji, RD Burman, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, and Bappi Lahiri experimented with disparate musical styles. These ranged from rock-n-roll, rumba, flamenco to disco, reggae and jazz. This infused their compositions with international flavours. 

Similarly, choreographers Sohanlal,  PL Raj, Herman Benjamin, Suresh Bhatt, Saroj Khan, Chinni and Rekha Prakash, Shiamak Davar, Farah Khan, Remo D’Souza, Terence Lewis, Vaibhavi Merchant, and Prabhu Deva have blended Indian classical dance with Western styles. This has created the unique dance style that is now identified as Bollywood dancing. It has homogenised movements from hip-hop to salsa and contemporary dance.

Soon stars like Shammi Kapoor, Helen, Asha Parekh, Hema Malini, Rishi Kapoor, Mithun Chakraborty, Jeetendra, Govinda, Hrithik Roshan, Madhuri Dixit, and Sridevi became synonymous with Bollywood’s larger-than-life dance numbers. For, it showcased their versatility and flair for different dance steps. Embracing the twist and turn era of the ’60s to the disco craze of ’70s and the hip-hop-inspired moves of the 2000s, Bollywood stars captivated audiences with their energy and charisma.

Along with Western influences, Bollywood also drew from traditional Indian dances. Its choreography incorporated elements of Bharatanatyam, Kathak, and Odissi. Dance sequences like Dola Re Dola from Devdas (2002) and Pinga from Bajirao Mastani (2015) exemplify the fusion of classical and contemporary dances, blending intricate footwork with dynamic movements and expressions.

In recent years, Bollywood has continued to evolve, reflecting the changing tastes and preferences of global audiences. Directors, like Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Farah Khan, have pushed the boundaries of traditional filmmaking, creating visually stunning spectacles that showcase the diversity of world music and dance. Stars like Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, and Ranveer Singh have embraced this eclectic mix of styles, bringing their own unique interpretations to the screen.

Spanish, Bulgarian and other European dancers from my own troupe, Sohinimoksha World Dance, have performed specially choreographed fusion dance items set to popular Bollywood tracks. Kristina Veselinova danced to Mere Dholna from Bhool Bhulaiya; Violeta Perez and Lola Martin to Senorita! from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Maria Sanz on Padmavat’s Ghoomer on stages across India and the world. So I readily acknowledge the significance of Bollywood dance in preserving India’s cultural heritage while adapting to changing times.

Would you say our films are taking our dance traditions to votaries abroad? Just as Indian musicians of the 1960s had taken our ragas to the West?

In the 1960s, Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan and other maestros played a crucial role in initiating the West in the rich notes of Indian classical music — and that had enriched the global cultural landscape. My own father, Pandit Subroto Roychowdhury, spent more than 40 years in Germany and other European countries, spreading and popularising Indian classical music through concerts and classes. Today Indian films, particularly Bollywood, are carrying forward this legacy. They are showcasing the wealth that is Indian dance — often fused with world dance influences. Just as our musicians shared the wealth of ragas with the West, Bollywood films are spreading the infectious exuberance of Indian dance to enthusiasts around the globe. This is fostering cultural exchange on an international scale. Small wonder that Bollywood is now acknowledged as India’s most potent soft power. 

What, in your opinion, is needed to make GenNext learn from our past traditions?

If we want GenNext to learn from our past traditions, we must provide them with comprehensive exposure to our rich cultural heritage. For this, we must integrate our arts and cultural practices into educational curricula. We must foster appreciation through interactive experiences — workshops, performances, cultural events. Additionally we must leverage modern technologies and platforms to disseminate information. Let’s make traditional arts more accessible and engaging for the young. Let’s cultivate mentorship programs and intergenerational exchanges. For, we must bridge the gap between past traditions and contemporary lifestyles, to ensure their relevance and continuity for the generations to come.

Sohini I have seen you at close quarters, as a mother, wife, daughter, and daughter-in-law even as you criss-cross the world for your dance. How do you still find time to write, which is such a demanding, reflective expression?

I am fortunate to be able to balance my roles as a mother, wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, and a performing artiste. My experience as much as my dedication to my craft honed my time-management skills. Despite crisscrossing the world for performances, lecture tours, and other professional commitments, I carve out time to write, for I recognise its significance as a reflective form of expression. 

To effectively manage my time, I set priorities, create schedules, and maximize productivity during the available windows of time. I designate specific periods for writing, be it early mornings, late evenings, or during travel downtime. I try to integrate writing into my daily routine, seizing moments of inspiration and reflection to jot down ideas or draft passages.

My passion for writing is a driving force — it motivates me to make time for it amidst my busy schedule. Writing provides a creative outlet for introspection, and intellectual exploration. It complements my artistic endeavours and enriches my personal and professional growth.

I am grateful for the support I receive from the network of my family, friends, and collaborators. They play a crucial role in facilitating my writing pursuits. My latest book, The Dance of Kali, was co-written with my son Rishi Dasgupta, an Economics MSc from the University of St Andrews, UK. 

However, at the end of the day, that I find time to write amidst my multifaceted life, reflects my passion for engaging in reflective expression. Because? It contributes to my holistic development as an artist and an individual.

[1] A song from the 2008 Bollywood movie, Slumdog Millionaire

[2] Danny Boyle

[3] A dance troop started by Sohini Roychowdhury with presence in Madrid, Berlin and Kolkata

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Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Categories
Conversation

Dance to Express Immigrant Angst

Ratnottama Sengupta in conversation about Kitareba, a contemporary dance performance on immigrants, with Sudarshan Chakravorty, a choreographer, and founder of the Sapphire Dance Company.

Photo provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

“Ankita! Rohan! Dipak! Mamta! Manish!”

A stentorian voice was calling out the names, just as they do during roll calls in jails. And in answer to every name a hand went up in the air — on stage, or in the auditorium. This was from a cast of dancers who had lived the lives of immigrants. “And me?” suddenly Sudarshan Chakravorty broke out in an anguished cry, “What about me? I am nobody!”

That’s when the tragedy of these uprooted souls hits you. And you ask yourself, “What is their identity? Before August 1947 they were Indians. Before March 1971 they were Pakistanis. Today they are Bangladeshis. Likewise so many passports and so many borders have changed. So many have left Punjab or gone from Kerala, so many have left Spain or sailed from Syria, so many trudged from Mexico or flown from China…”

But is the number of immigrants rising? And in the age of internet, what is eroding our identity? I decided to discuss the issue with Sudarshan Chakravorty as I walked out, deep in thought, after a performance of Kitareba by the contemporary dance group, Sapphire Creations Dance Company.

Ratnottama Sengupta (RS): Why did you think of doing Kitareba, a contemporary dance production on immigrants? Are you inspired by a movie? Or any news item? Or perhaps some incident in your own life? Or did all all three combine to spur you on?

Sudarshan Chakravorty (SC): Various personal events and conversations in recent years have triggered me to use the word ‘kitareba’, a Sylheti greeting. My father could speak no language other than Sylheti — and he would unapologetically speak the tongue with one and all, even those who couldn’t understand. I saw a pride in my father about his language, his culture and Sylheti roots. 

I was at times embarrassed when, in local grocery stores, he would ask for a brand like ‘Maagi’ – which loosely translated means wench. Or ‘Keo Karpin’ – the hair oil in complete Sylheti accent. But gradually I realised that it was part of his being. My cousins in Shillong would always complain of how tiresome it was when they had to speak with me only in ‘Calcuttian’ — read, pure deshaj Bangla. For them, it was a ‘foreign’ tongue. That was the seed of thoughts about shared language, culture, ritual and more. I wondered how the districts of Meghalaya and Assam, particularly Cachar, speak the same language, sport the same lifestyle, eat the same food, practice the same rituals, and have the same attitude. I became aware of this ‘oneness’ much later, in 2018, when I got to make a road trip to Sylhet via Guwahati, Shillong and Dawki. Migrants had perhaps trudged the same route in 1947 and then in 1971! Speaking this  language that was a binding factor regardless of the differences in their religion or caste. 

I was born in Shillong and had innumerable relatives there. And if I heard their dialect, even if I was standing in the Circuit House in the middle of Sylhet, I felt a strong kinship that made me emotional. This is what prompted me to ask, what is it that makes a new set of people — or a place — so familiar or ‘known’.

This production stems from my core interest to share this story which I carry in my DNA. I am not directly impacted by the Partition or any war, but the stories shared by my parents have influenced me – as have the movies I have seen over the years. These include films from both sides of the border – Ashani Sanket, (Children of War) , Ora Egarojon (Those Eleven People, Bangladesh) – as well as Schindlers List. I have also stored up conversations and anecdotes overheard in crowded bus or public spaces, both in India and abroad. There, when you are alone and isolated, the unexpected murmur of a known language comforts you. A sudden hug by a stranger saying ‘kitareba’  changes everything and transforms that space into ‘home’.

The Nazi atrocities as seen in films built around the holocaust acquired more vivid contours when I visited Poland and the Silesian museum to see for myself how the galleries use photos and installations to depict the concentration camps in Poland. It firmed my determination to recount my story since it is no longer about me or my country alone. Now it is a global narrative.

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RS: What are the other productions of Sapphire Creations that focus on social issues? What were the issues – Environment? Gender equality? Gender fluidity? Apartheid? Any other?

SC: It has always been important for Sapphire Creations, which turns 32 this year, to use messaging as the spine of our dance. This form of creative expression, I strongly believe, can be a potent vehicle of raising social consciousness. So we have designed several productions on taboo subjects.  This has defined our position, not only as a Dance Company – we as dancers too have come to understand the true power of the arts.

Sample these. The Alien Flower (1996) explored the theme of same sex love nearly 20 years before India decriminalised homosexuality. Indian Erotica : Vedas To Millennium (2000) spoke about changing the power equation that existed between men and women, from the Vedic period to the times of AIDS. Positive Lives (2004) built on people living with HIV. Ekonama  (2016) contextualised global warming and climate change using Purulia Chhau dancers. Ekaharya (Losing Oneself, 2018) explored gender fluidity using the technique in classical dance where the same body, without changing anything, portrays different characters and even changing gender. Now we bring you Kitareba about the loss of identity of uprooted lives.

RS: How developed is Indian contemporary dance to deal with such serious content?

SC: Indian dance in particular builds on gender fluidity and role reversal adapting mythical stories of Gods. These stories are part of our traditional texts, used even by established gurus. However, eyebrows are raised by puritans when we apply the same inferences to daily life and talk about the real life of common people.

In 1996, I was cornered by my city’s dance fraternity after a production on same gender love. I was accused of importing Western influences into our cultural scene. It made me retaliate with  Indian Erotica — sexuality discourses in Indian history, literature, architecture, and religion through my lens.

Times have changed, yes, but it is still taboo to depict many topics openly. Fortunately  media and audience supported us immensely, for they understood that only such discourses can make the arts truly ‘educational’ and it need not remain mere ‘entertainment’. That, indeed, was the basic premise of the arts in India, as defined by the Natyashastra.

And now discourses on health, sex, and gender are becoming compulsory and applicable in schools and universities too, for the physical and mental wellbeing of the students.

I realise that we take lot of time to realise the immensity of any reality. In the process we lose lives! It was only when HIV became a reality in Delhi’s Tihar Jail — where only men were kept — that the authorities woke up to the reality of homosexuality and started distributing condoms!

For me it is important to voice my opinion through actual performances and not just discuss the issues in conferences and seminars. So I continue to do this through Sapphire, despite resistances!

RS: Form or content – what is more important in Contemporary Dance? And what is your foremost concern?

SC: I have been doing Contemporary Dance since 1990. Our generation was self-made. We were desperate to find a voice, our own personal vocabulary. In 1992-93, I started describing my form as ‘Electric Dance’ as I didn’t find a suitable nomenclature to define my form: the existing ones defined the traditional dances while the Western Modern or Contemporary was not what I was deriving from. I was inspired by people like Manjushree Chaki Sarkar (1934-1999), Narendra Sharma (1924-2008) and Astad Deboo (1947-2020), to imbibe a lexicon that is rooted in my DNA and craft my identity as an Indian dancer.

There was no internet then, so all our influences emanated from the immediate experiences of watching these Gurus – in their studios, homes, or on stage. These resonated with my urge to take Sapphire down a path  that was not a derivation but my own destination. 

Although we opened several windows of the West, through collaborations, to update our radar. But more than the form, these collaborations stressed a deep understanding of what is in our roots. For only our sensibilities and identities will give a ‘face‘ to Indian contemporary dance without stamping it a homogenous global form!

So, in my view, content and form must be equally balanced. One must not confuse them as two are independent identities. Sometimes the challenge is to find ‘newness’ in form to convey an ‘old’ content. At other times one must find a ‘form’ that is accessible for all to understand a new content. 

It remains a challenge for me after all these years…

RS: Tell me about your journey in dance. What led you to dance – which was even in 1980s considered a feminine art expression?

SC: My father was an engineer working in Nagaland of the 70s. He was posted in Kohima, Mokukchung, Tuensang, Dimpaur… During the Durga Pujas my mother would gather the neighbourhood children and put up a dance programme. I would quietly watch the rehearsals as a four-year-old but one day, I cried in desperation because I wanted to be on the stage. This was during a Durga puja in Tuensang — I got up on the stage and never came down!

I was quite a ’star’ kid as the only male dancer performing in schools and colleges. My tryst as a director too started in grade 3, at the age of nine. Visiting my father during the annual summer vacation, I made all my friends,  children of our neighbours and of father’s staff, to toil for a month and put up a variety show in our quarters. This community show built up my confidence as director, a team leader. And we put up dance, skits, Boney M. songs. That seeded my desire to lead my own dance team one day.

In Kolkata, Ma would always take my sister for dance and music lessons, never me. But I ended up getting major roles in the para[1] programmes as I accompanied my sister for drop and pick up and  never shied from demonstrating my skill – to the utter surprise of the organisers. So my sister remained a ‘sakhi[2]’ dancing at the back while her male brother assumed the lead role and became a ‘star’ attraction in the shows.

Soon I started getting offers to perform for clubs, and local newspapers carried my interviews. Meanwhile I was noticed by my dance teacher, Bandana Dasgupta in school — Julien Day in Ganganagar. Later Principal Sheila Broughton encouraged me to pursue dance. Ms Dasgupta started teaching me Bharatanatyam which remains in my muscle memory, making it an ardently core pedagogy of my own style in Sapphire productions.

After university, I started to take lessons in Kathakali from Govindan Kutty. This, most notably, influenced my dance vocabulary. But I was always restless to find new combinations and to see how I can change it a little and personalise it. 

I showed the same zest in my studies as I combined material/content to make my ‘answers’ completely different from others!

This attempt to be ‘me’ and not blend with others made me the centre of attention. On the other hand my not so deep voice, my femininity, was drawing flak. But I countered them all…

During a sports day in school there were separate lines for boys and girls. It was naturally assumed that all the boys will  play sports. I was left with no option but to join the girls since I was in the cultural/dance group. The sport teachers repeatedly cautioned me that I was in the wrong line. I smiled and said, “No sir, I am in the correct line…” 

And I chose to stay in that line forever!

RS: Did you learn from a traditional guru? Who? What is the merit of being rooted in a classical dance form/ tradition?

I started Sapphire with my own understanding of cultural dances and the Tagore dance dramas. Then I wanted to break barriers. I deviated from tradition to find my personal path away from the influences of my ‘old’ learning. I told my students, too, to  erase what they have learnt before in order to find their own language.

However now, in my early 50s, I realise that I was saved from the deadly impact of ‘globalisation’ which makes everything the ‘same’, because culture code cannot be same everywhere. And it is this uniqueness that makes your craft, your skill, your form — your own and contextual.

The dancers and choreographers who emerged in the 70s, 80s and 90s came from tradition. I was the only one amongst them who found my own way. Not just in my senses or intellect, physically too, I could keep my dance grounded. It helped me to recognise what I have received as body aesthetics in mandala, tribhanga and charis.

My exposure to various dance forms — from Uday Shankar style to traditional forms including poetries and songs of Bankimchandra, Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul — gave me the lens to look at my ‘modernity’ and the ‘global’ perspective of my art without being bereft of my roots. Without disowning the cultural context of being a dancer from Bengal, from India. 

That, now more than ever before, I hold like a litmus! So today, the growing trend in the independent dance scenario to ape the West — that is completely uprooted from its soil — makes me nervous. I feel they can’t sustain this journey without knowing from where it all began. Most are not aware of the roots. And we need to help them look at those pages.

RS: So why had you felt the need to break away from tradition – the trodden on Indian forms — and go international?

SC: I think it had started with the feel of isolation.

In mid-90s, when we did Alien Flower and dancers and critics started saying we are an aberration, we wanted to counter that. We brought in dancers, choreographers and dance companies to find solidarity. We started INTERFACE, Eastern India’s First International Dance Biennial, in 2002 to share the work of fellow contemporary dancers in India and abroad. We shared the context with the audience and critics who loved my dance. And they started to accept our point of view. We built upon the gains with INCRES – International Choreographers Residency.

INTERFACE and INCRES were started to cue not just us but also the media and audience about the changing trends of contemporary dance worldwide. This found a community which, I am proud to say, we have sustained to date.

RS: Tell me how these collaborations with dancers, choreographers and musicians — from Israel, Poland, Malaysia, Croatia — have enriched you? And have they helped Indian Contemporary Dance?

The most important achievement of Sapphire was to keep these collaborations and relationships alive over 20 years. Many choreographers came as strangers but became friends for life!

It all started when our leading dancers and a couple of ‘new’ Contemporary dancers started to find faults in our technique and process of fusing improvisation as a tool. The first regiment of International choreographers who came for INCRES in 2006, patted us saying they had not seen such freedom in other dance companies in India. There, everything was driven by technique, in order to forge a homogeneous ‘global dance’ form. Some of these choreographers like Michel Casanovas from France, Christopher Lechner from Germany came back again and again. Marc Rossier from Switzerland collaborated with us in our production Parivahitam (2010) with live music that travelled to eleven cities in India. Such collaborations immensely impacted us, artistically, emotionally and spiritually. Their humility and surrender was  difficult to find in Indian collaborators. Selcuk Goldere, a Turkish choreographer from Ankara, helped with us mount   Ekonama.

Recently we celebrated 20 years of our association with Jacek Luminski. With this Polish choreographer, we have mounted several projects like Roots Of Dance. And this year we have co-produced What I Have Not Seen Before  for the Kolkata Literary Meet 2024.

We also have a strong connection with Joseph Gonzales from Ask Dance Company of Malaysia. Ever since we met during our first ever international tour in 1999, we have remained associates!

These associations have forced us to view contemporary dance through several lens. We have examined threadbare the context of practicing contemporary dance. Most of them encouraged us to build upon our roots. They showed this by using theirs. For instance, Jacek uses Polish folk dances as his take off point while Ask Dance Company integrates traditions in their lexicon. 

But none of them believe in a ‘copy-paste’ approach. They sniff the core aesthetics of tradition and use that to enliven their dance idiom. 

It can be inter cultural, or inter interdisciplinary. It might use songs, like we have in Kitareba, and musical instrument. These impart a viewpoint to me and my dancers and broaden our perspective.

RS: Who would you identify as the progenitor of Contemporary Dance in India? Has Uday Shankar been given his due as the father of this distinct dance style?

SC: Many a leader has carved out a new path and given new direction to Contemporary dance in India. In 2020, we could have celebrated 100 years of contemporary dance In India. This might sound childish when compared to our traditional dance streams which have a 3000 year old history! However, this is a reason why contemporary dance was not taken seriously. Both, the form and its practitioners were a ‘minority’, and they were side-lined by the mainstream dance fraternity. This included critics, festival organisers, policy makers as well as Government cultural agencies.

The problem started with the very nomenclature and it continues till date.

So if Uday Shankar was the Father of Indian Modern dance, it was practitioners like Astad Deboo, Daksha Seth, Jaychandran, Navtej Johar and Padmini Chettur who gave post-colonial meanders to the stream. It was only in 1990s,  when the cultural wing of German Embassy in India started the East West Encounter as  a conference, that a discourse was set in motion to define the intersections and destination of contemporary or experimental dance form as an ‘offshoot’ or an ‘independent’ form.

It is also to be seen that, since most contemporary dance practitioners originally came from tradition, they had a ‘hangover’. They were reluctant to come out of its clout and demand acknowledgement for their own form. That weakened our journey for many decades. So Uday Shankar was lost at a Pan India level where the very basis of his hybridity was questioned by puritans. The irony of it is that here, now, contemporary dance discourse is all about being intercultural, mixed media  and interdisciplinary!

The confusion remained and expanded. We find it difficult to decide ‘What is the contemporary dance practice?’ Be it in terms of form or idiom, philosophy or vision, now everything is ‘contemporary’. And it is ‘fashionable’ to practice across India.

RS: Does Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA) — the national body for performing arts in India — recognise it? Did you have to struggle to get grants from the Ministry of Culture? Is your art being taught in any Indian university?

SC: SNA started recognising it as ballet, and from 2000 as experimental dance. It was apportioned slots in Young Dancers Festival and Nritya Sanrachna, where Sapphire performed several times.

As far as I know, to date, no university in India offers contemporary dance in its course. Worse: it does not figure even in ‘gradation’ for television or for government scholarships and fellowships. This further disqualifies the form, making it difficult for the young generations to keep faith and  pursue it at an academic level.

RS: You have choreographed dance for Bollywood movies as well as for Bengali films. Are choreographers being given as much recognition as a traditional dance guru? Or, are Bollywood choreographers given greater recognition than a dancer?

A difficult question!

On one hand, if a serious dancer is associated with films, he loses all his ‘points’. He may draw flak for diluting his form, for commercial gains. Funny, isn’t it, this accusation? We enjoy little patronage and less support. So where will these practitioners go? And if they find acceptance in the small window of such work, that shows their vitality, adaptability and skill set. Shouldn’t this  be lauded?

Contrast this with the life of legendary Gurus like Birju Maharaj — they found both money and fame in choreographing for films!

The irony of it is that songs and dances abound in Indian movies, in every region. More so in Bollywood, which is now an internationally recognised nomenclature. But not a single academy or university teaches film-choreography. So we are all self-taught and that makes it all the more difficult. 

Bollywood dancers and choreographers have an edge since they have had four to five generations of film choreographers.  Many have worked under them as assistants and that has enhanced their skill set to handle film choreography. This has made them a more desirable choice than us, self-taught choreographers.

RS: Why do Indian films (read, Bollywood) — which thrive on ‘Bollywood dance’ — today have no dancing star of the stature of Vyjayantimala, Waheeda Rehman or Kamal Haasan? This, even though we now have reality shows on TV channels; we have films like Yeh Ballet[3], and documentaries on the dancers who featured in that film. We have documentaries on choreographers like Saroj Khan, and biographies on dancers like Zohra Segal and Madame Menaka.

SC: There are many reasons for this. These generations were much more invested in learning (taalim) and pratice (riyaaz). They did not connect the two with monetisation. Now the stars start learning a craft or skill just to portray a certain character. Surely this need based approach to learning and up-skilling can’t be compared to those who lived these arts. Theirs was a discipline, a ritual, a part of daily regime irrespective of what they got or lost.

Today the idea of perusing arts have changed — more so in cinema. So we have no Vyjayanthimala, Waheeda Rehman, or Jaya Pradha. These stars were tutored from a young age by traditional gurus not for film roles but to become artistes. 

Now the very definition of ‘artiste’ is jeopardised. I ask my students as a rhetoric, “Why do you learn dance?” So the stories of Saroj Khan and Madame Menaka will be archived while ours might get lost!

Art needs patience, perseverance, devotion, dedication, discipline and determination… And yes…. Surrender to the Supreme!

Photos provided by Ratnottama Sengupta

[1] colony

[2] Friend literally, but here it refers to being a part of a chorus

[3] This Ballet

Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award. 

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Roads Less Travelled

If he had stayed in his first job as a bank clerk, perhaps Tomaž Serafi would never have discovered new worlds beyond the borders of the small central European country he grew up in. But he ventured out to find both ancient wisdom and inner truths. He talks to an old friend Keith Lyons.

In Mahayana Buddhism, there is a term ‘Bodhisattva’ for those who reach the threshold of enlightenment, but choose instead to remain behind delaying personal liberation, to dedicate themselves to the benefit of others. To me, Tomaž Serafi is like a compassionate Bodhisattva, gently opening doors for others, and encouraging them to go through. 

But then, what do I know? I first met Tomaž more than 20 years ago, connected by a woman we loved. But when I recently scanned a map of Europe, one of the first things that came to mind was that in a modest apartment overlooking the Ljubljanica River near the heart of Slovenia’s capital, Tomaž was doing his thing, living his life to the fullest, letting his light shine. 

He doesn’t just feature in my own personal geography or spiritual map of the world. Over the last two decades when travelling in Asia or Australasia I’ve come across people from Ljubljana, and on too many occasions, it turns out they also know Tomaž. 

What can you tell us about where you live, in Ljubljana?

Ljubljana is located in the heart of Europe, nestled between Italy, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, and the Adriatic Sea. Slovenia’s capital city is neither large nor small, with a population of 300,000. It’s a delightful place to reside, featuring a vibrant community of young people, and hosting numerous cultural events.

Ljubljana. Courtesy: Creative Commons

I live in the city centre, right alongside the picturesque green river known as the Ljubljanica. From my window, I enjoy a spectacular view of Ljubljana’s castle perched atop a hill and the flowing river. If I wish to take a stroll in nature, there’s a forest just a 3-minute walk from my house in one direction and 15 minutes in the other. Even in the city centre, there are plenty of trees and green spaces.

Ljubljana is a hidden gem in Europe, and not many people know about its story. What can you say about the country and its people?

When I was born in 1962 Slovenia was a part of Yugoslavia, which was a non-aligned country, not affiliated with either the capitalist Western bloc or the communist Eastern bloc. Yugoslavia was a socialist country, somewhere between communism and capitalism. It was wealthier than communist countries but not as affluent as capitalist ones. Back then, we didn’t have much, but there were no truly impoverished people. Nobody was starving, and nobody was wealthy. 

Today, we have a significant number of very wealthy individuals alongside many who are extremely poor, struggling with hunger and homelessness. Presently, life in Slovenia is not significantly different from that in other European countries.

What was it like for you growing up in the 1960s and 1970s in Slovenia?

Back then, we didn’t have cell phones and computers, so we spent most of our time outdoors playing with friends. We played games like hide and seek and competed to see who could run the fastest, jump the highest, climb the highest tree, and so on. When I was a child, I either played outside with friends or read books. 

Where did reading books take you?

Books became my passion from the moment I learned how to read. Through books, I learned about other places on Earth and different cultures. I especially adored books about Native Americans. I read all of Karl May’s  books [1]– Apache chief Winnetou was my number one hero.

So your interest in the whole wide world came from books?

Yes, my love of books furthered my fascination with other cultures. I’ve always been an avid reader. When I recognised that our own culture was not faring well, that it was troubled and leading us toward a precipice, I became curious about other cultures, especially indigenous ones. I began to delve into literature about Native American, Aboriginal, Celtic, and other cultures, exploring their spirituality and beliefs.

What put you on a path of exploring spirituality?

When I was 15, I fell off a rock wall in a canyon while I was climbing, plummeting 15 meters to the ground. I lay there, unable to move, and had to be rescued and taken to the hospital. Fortunately, it turned out that nothing was broken, but that incident profoundly changed my life. I began to contemplate the concepts of life and death. Death came close, examined me, and decided to spare me for a while longer. 

Since that moment, I haven’t been afraid of death anymore. I also started pondering the meaning of life, which became the most significant question for me: What is the meaning of life? That question guided me towards spirituality and spiritual growth. Ever since, spirituality has been the most vital aspect of my life, (alongside, of course, the elements of sex, drugs, and rock and roll).

How were your first experiences venturing overseas?

My first journey took place when I was 15 years old, and I hitchhiked through Europe. I passed through Italy, and in Genoa, I attempted to buy marijuana. I gave money to a guy who entered a house but never returned. It was only then that I realised he had exited through another entrance at the back of the house.

Later in the Côte d’Azur, I purchased LSD, only to discover that I had received plain candy instead. In Nice, I was robbed by a group of 14-year-old Algerians. While hitchhiking on the highway outside of Paris, a large truck deliberately ran over my backpack, scattering all my belongings on the road. Moments later, the police arrived and informed me that hitchhiking on the highway was prohibited. When I showed them what had happened to my backpack, they simply shrugged and drove away.

In Brittany, a kind couple invited me to sleep in their house because it was raining, and I had intended to sleep outside in my sleeping bag. In Paris, a young man around 20-years-old invited me to stay in his apartment, but as we shared the same bed, he tried to put his hand into my underwear. 

From these experiences, I learned that I couldn’t trust everyone and that I needed to be cautious. I also discovered that some people are incredibly generous and trustworthy. Most importantly, I learned that I am the master of my life, and it’s best to rely on myself. I also realized that the world is vast, and not every place is the same as my small Slovenia. I encountered people of various nationalities and skin colours, broadening my horizons. I understood that a person’s nationality doesn’t matter; fundamentally, we are all the same. In every country, there are both good and not-so-nice people. But regardless of where they are, everyone shares the same desire: to find happiness.

Has your style of travel changed over time from those first adventures in Europe?

When I was younger, I was restless and eager to explore as many places as possible, often staying in one place for no more than a day or two. However, as time went on, I came to realise that the longer I remain in one location, the more fulfilling it becomes. I grow more peaceful and content, and it’s only then that I can truly savour and fully immerse myself in the experiences.

I also came to understand that the slower I travel, the more profoundly I connect with the landscapes I traverse. When I travel by car, it feels like I’m merely watching the scenery on a television screen. Travelling by bicycle is a much richer experience. Walking on foot is even better, as I absorb every step of the journey. Travelling by public transport has its own appeal. On a bus, I can keenly observe the locals, their personalities, and their customs, which offers a splendid perspective on the places I visit.

What has been a really memorable travel experience for you?

One of the most memorable places that I visited in Ghana was a village called Sonyon. I was travelling by bicycle, and wherever I went, I would tell the people that I wasn’t a tourist but a pilgrim who had come to bestow blessings upon them. You can only reach this village on foot or by bicycle. Later, I learned that it’s a spiritual village where people from all over come to heal or achieve specific goals. They perform offerings, and then conduct certain ceremonies, and they say it has a powerful effect. 

The houses in this village are single-story, made of mud, and have flat roofs. They are built close together, so in the evening, the villagers go up to the roofs, where it’s cooler due to a gentle breeze, and they walk around the village from house to house, like on a promenade. They even sleep there sometimes. I lay on the roof, and children came up and started touching me because they were curious about my white skin. I lay on my stomach, patted my back, and said, “You can touch me here,” and they began to stroke and massage me. It was a fantastic feeling, like being caressed and massaged by five or six children! 

And how about when travelling in my home country, New Zealand?

One of the most memorable experiences during my first trip to New Zealand’s North Island was while stopping for a short break near a magnificent coastline while hitchhiking. I wanted to stay there for a while. So, I headed towards the coast, found a suitable spot, and set up camp. I spent quite a few days there. I was truly enjoying myself. I remained naked throughout the experience, frequently leaping into the water, singing loudly, dancing, and engaging in meditation, among other activities. 

Then I was walking for a long time and eventually, I ran out of water and food. With my last bit of strength, I managed to reach the top of a hill. According to the information in my book, I should have soon come across the first settlement along the way. However, the path had disappeared. Tall grass had grown all around me. I climbed onto a rock and saw a belt of forest nearby, with a path beyond it. I headed towards the forest. Wild boars ran past me. The forest was so overgrown that it took me an hour to reach a path about a hundred meters away. I was dirty and scratched, my clothes were torn, and I was hungry and thirsty. It was Christmas Eve.

Soon, I heard human voices and saw a holiday trailer. People were having a picnic. I asked them if I was heading in the right direction towards the main road. They confirmed it and said, “Wait a minute. Are you thirsty, or hungry? Have a beer. It’s Christmas Eve.” I stayed with them. Soon, Māori friends joined them. We sat around the fire, ate and drank, talked, an elderly Māori woman shared stories of their spirituality and sang their songs, and I sang some of ours. I couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas gift.

Let’s go back to your earlier existence. What happened for you to give up a career working in a bank?

It all began with Illusions (1989) by Richard Bach. I was still employed at a bank when I came across this book – and it had a profound impact on me. It meant so much to me that I made a personal commitment to translate it, despite having no prior experience in translation. And so, I translated it. Subsequently, I submitted my translation to all the publishers in Slovenia, but unfortunately, none of them were interested (back then, the book didn’t align with the socialist Yugoslavia prevailing system). Undeterred, I took matters into my own hands. I photocopied 200 copies of my translation and sold them independently. With the proceeds from those sales, I was able to print an additional 500 copies. To my surprise, I found that I was earning more from these efforts than I would have if a publishing house had purchased my translation.

This realization led me to make a life-altering decision—I left my job at the bank and embarked on a journey of translating and publishing other books that I believed had the power to touch people’s hearts and were of great importance. Authors such as Kahlil Gibran, J.R.R. Tolkien, the Dalai Lama, Louise Hay, William Bloom, Paul Solomon, Dan Millman, and Lobsang Rampa were just a few of the writers whose works I translated and shared with the Slovenian audience.

What do you think is the purpose of your life?

When I was going through a very difficult period in my life and couldn’t sleep one night, I went to the balcony and suddenly heard a voice loudly asking me, “Tomaž, why are you here, why did you come to this world?” Suddenly, it dawned on me, and I replied, “I came here to be happy!” The voice replied, “That’s right, Tomaž. Now, take a look at yourself. Are you happy?”

That’s when I decided to be happy. Once I made that decision, I stuck to it, and I truly was happy.

Later, many years later, I realised that I didn’t just come to be happy. I discovered that I’m even happier and more fulfilled when I make someone else happy. Gradually, I realised that my mission is to help others. I help them in various ways. At one point, I helped by translating and publishing books that benefited them. Later, I assisted them with counselling at the New Age Information Centre, which I founded. Now, I help them with therapeutic massages, with conscious and loving touch.

So what’s your superpower?

My superpower is undoubtedly my touch. However, this transforms into true power only when I am fully aware of it and fill it with love. In fact, my superpower is the awareness that everything is one, that all that exists, the entire universe, and all the things and beings that fill it, both material and immaterial, are actually one vast super being or God.

What things do you do most days to keep you balanced?

For a long time now, I’ve had a morning routine that fulfils me and makes mornings the most beautiful part of my day. When I wake up, I first express gratitude for the night and greet the new day that lies ahead, even before I open my eyes. Then I engage in exercise. I limber up all my joints, perform tantric exercises, breathing exercises, practice yoga, tai chi, and chi gong. 

Afterwards, I sit down to meditate and spend some time in silence. Only then am I prepared for the day’s responsibilities. Similarly, in the evening, when I close my eyes, I give thanks for the day I’ve lived and bid goodnight to the night that approaches. 

How do you think you’ve made an impact on the lives of others?

When I was publishing books, I received a lot of feedback from my customers which made my heart sing. Some were praising my translations, and some were thankful that I decided to publish such beautiful and meaningful books. 

I receive even more grateful feedback from the people I massage. One client commented “I was led to the place where everything just is and exists.” And, Frida, gave me this wonderful endorsement, “For a moment you caught me in timelessness that lasted and lasted. My body was dancing under your loving hands and melted with your grace. Thank you for this magical experience. Your love for the work you are doing and for the people can be felt and it is healing.”

Recently I received this feedback, with the person saying “This was not an ordinary massage. Tomaž’s gentle presence made me feel safe, so I entrusted him with my process.” Another wrote “Tomaž, your creation is truly something special. You’ve given the world a wonderful gift, and I thank you for it.” I’m grateful to people like Medeja who thank me by saying “As if a flock of angels, completely devoted and determined angels, guided me through all possible processes — fears, pains, freedom, love, and beauty — and brought me to their home, where it is so beautiful and pleasant that there are no words to replace this feeling.”

What are the most important things you’ve learned?

I’ve learned that the most important thing for me is to live my soul.

I’ve also learned that no one is more important than another, that there is no good or bad, and that life isnot serious; rather, everything is like dust in the wind of the Universe, or as I like to say, “chickenshit.”

The most fulfilling action one can take is to help others because it brings genuine joy. As socialbeings, our connections with others are the most crucial aspects of life, far surpassing thesignificance of material possessions.

If you have a message or advice for others, what would it be?

Don’t worry; life is not so serious. Follow your heart and live your soul. Be yourself; you don’t have to be somebody else, you don’t have to pretend to be somebody else. Everything is changing; nothing is permanent; everything will end or transform. Live fully, live, and be aware of every moment of your life. That’s why we are here: to live our life fully, to experience everything from joy to sadness, from anger to love, from despair to fulfilment. And to be aware of all of this.

website: singingheart.weebly.com
Email: tomaz.serafi@gmail.com

[1] Karl May( 1842-1912) German author. Winnetou was a novel by him.

Keith Lyons (keithlyons.net) is an award-winning writer and creative writing mentor originally from New Zealand who has spent a quarter of his existence living and working in Asia including southwest China, Myanmar and Bali. His Venn diagram of happiness features the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee, the negative ions of the natural world including moving water, and connecting with others in meaningful ways. A Contributing Editor on Borderless journal’s Editorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL. 

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Better Roses for a Warming World and Other Garden Adventures

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri in conversation with M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan

M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan

In their new book Roses in the Fire of Spring: Better Roses for a Warming World and Other Garden Adventures (Running Head, 2023), world-renowned rose hybridisers, M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan, record their journey of over fifty years, creating more than a hundred new rose varieties, in a range of colours, shapes and types. The authors spoke to Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri on their lifelong passion for the rose.

The passion for roses goes back a long way – can you recall the first moments when you realised that this was a ‘calling’ you had to follow? Any epiphanic moment that leaps to the mind?

From quite a young age, Viraraghavan was fascinated with roses, but the epiphanic moment was really when his family spent summer vacations in Coonoor, staying at the government guesthouse within Sim’s Park, which overlooked a rose garden. Every morning, he would wander about this garden which was a blaze of colour of the new roses created from the golden rose of Persia, R. foetida by Pernet Ducher, a great French rose breeder. The brilliant, never-before-seen colours of these roses amazed him – from bright gold and apricot to dazzling oranges and reds. In particular, one of the golden roses took his breath away – ‘Julien Potin’, aptly named for a jeweller – its vivid colour was quite overwhelming for the boy of thirteen, already thrilled with roses. From this came the intoxicating thought: ‘If Pernet Ducher could do it, why not I?’

There’s a delightful little bit about Viraraghavan sir’s viva-voce for the IAS and how his knowledge of roses played an important part in him getting through that. Would you like to share that with our readers?

A difficult part of the IAS examination is the viva-voce, where a panel of senior administrators question the aspirant about various aspects of his or her life and ambitions. Viraraghavan was in the middle of this interview when the Chairman, by chance a learned rose grower, asked him what his hobbies were. ‘Growing roses,’ was the response. The next question was meant to be a googly to confuse a nervous candidate. ‘What roses can you grow in Madras City?’ But Viraraghavan had read the Complete Gardening in India by K.S. Gopalaswamiengar, well-known horticulturist of Bangalore, many times, so my answer was nearly verbatim from the chapter on various kinds of roses which do well in low-to-medium elevations, i.e., warm climates, so he reeled off the different rose classifications: Teas, Noisettes, Bourbons, Chinas, Hybrid Teas, Hybrid Perpetuals. The interview committee then decided it was prudent to go on to other questions rather than get a lecture from a young and seemingly unflurried candidate! But his capacity to master detailed information on various subjects had been noted, and he came through with flying colours (pun intended).

You mention making your presence on the world stage as late as 2000. Please give us a brief account of your work on roses before and after – a potted highlights package, if one can call it.

From the start, our rose breeding focused on creating better roses for warm climates based on the dictum of India’s pioneer rose breeder, B.S. Bhatcharji of Bengal and Bihar, who had stressed the need for a separate breeding line for warm climates as distinct from the Western focus on creating cold-hardy roses suitable for them. Thus, in the early years, our work was with those roses which, though Western, performed well in hot climates, and we had bred many which did well in Hyderabad where we lived. Then, after perusal of many books on roses, we realised the potential in two Indian rose species Rosa gigantea (from northeast India) and Rosa clinophylla (perhaps the world’s only tropical rose species). After getting them with great effort, we began to work with them. At every annual national rose convention in India we would present updates of our work. In 1999, at what happened to be a World Regional Rose Convention, in Jaipur, Viraraghavan’s talk, as always, focused on the breeding with the two rose species mentioned. After the talk, the World Federation of Rose Societies President, Helga Brichet, and Vice-President (South America), Mercedes Villar, came up to him and said they had never before heard of this kind of rose work or of these rose species and invited him to be a speaker at the next World Rose Convention to be held in May 2000 in Houston, Texas.

That was the start of a further phase of rose breeding with the realisation that other than India, several warm parts of the world were also looking for roses that would do well there. These two rose species had been personally collected by us from their native habitat. At Houston, and in other places, people were fascinated by this aspect, which no earlier breeder had undertaken, that is, personally collecting rose species in the wild, at great risk, growing them and using them in creating new roses; starting from scratch as it were. It made sense to them when Viraraghavan explained the dictum of that great German breeder Wilhelm Kordes I who said –‘The soup ladle will only bring out what is already in the tureen’, meaning that fresh genetic input was required if new and different roses are to be created. The enthusiastic response to his ideas strengthened his determination to go ahead with this new rose breeding line. There is nothing as intoxicating as the realisation that the rose world is watching our work with great interest.

One of the most fascinating sections of the book is the one titled ‘The Ones Who Came Before’. Please provide readers with a short account of these legendary influences.

Karrie’s Rose. Photo courtesy: M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan

We had noticed that invariably roses were named for famous people with often no connection to the world of roses. This made us think: why not name our roses for the intrepid plant-hunters who had discovered roses in the wild, on mountains and in forests, and botanists who had contributed to the knowledge on plants.

One wild Indian rose is R. gigantea, from our north-east, and Myanmar. Three great plant hunters were responsible for collecting this species in the wild – Sir George Watt, General Sir Henry Collett and Frank Kingdon Ward. We decided to name our rose hybrids for all three. Sir George was a medical doctor with an interest in botany, and worked as a surveyor with the British India government. During the course of his work, in the 1880s, he found Rosa gigantea growing on the slopes of Mt Sirohi, now in Manipur, and collected specimens. Almost simultaneously, so did Sir Henry Collett, except in the Shan Hills in what is now Myanmar. Both specimens were identified as being the same and named by the great Belgian taxonomist of the time, François Crepin. Climbing Mt Sirohi in 1990, we came across and collected plants from perhaps the precise location that Sir George had found Rosa gigantea. We named our first hybrid, a creamy yellow climbing rose, for him. We then felt it should be planted near his ancestral home in Scotland. With the help of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, we managed to get this new rose planted in the Logan Botanic Garden, very near Sir George’s birthplace. Some years later we embarked on a sentimental journey, along with his descendants and his associates’ descendants, visiting his grave and the hospital he had worked in after retiring from India, to see the rose blooming in Logan.

We named a second seedling we had bred from R. gigantea for General Sir Henry Collett, a rose with big creamy white blooms that has been planted in suitable areas in Britain as well, and, gratifyingly, being grown by some of his descendants. A third rose, a climber with blooms of yellow-suffused pink, was named for Frank Kingdon Ward, the legendary and intrepid plant hunter who collected innumerable new and wild Himalayan plants despite his surprising acrophobia! We then came across a piece by the then BBC 4 gardening anchor, Matthew Biggs, who had visited Kingdon Ward’s grave in Grantchester near Cambridge. He wrote about the neglected condition of the grave of one of the world’s greatest plant explorers. So we decided to make amends by planting ‘Frank Kingdon Ward’ by the wall nearest his grave in the churchyard in a moving ceremony organised by Matthew Biggs, and attended by a number of well-known British horticulturists, as also the family. An urn with the ashes of Sheila Macklin, Kingdon Ward’s wife, for whom he had named a Himalayan lily, and who had died just the previous year, was interred near his grave, and close to where the rose was planted.

We have also named a rose for Leschenault de la Tour, the great French plant explorer who found a beautiful new rose species, called Rosa leschenaultiana after him, in the Western Ghats in the early 1800s; our rose named for him is a climber with pure white blooms.

And of course we have a rose to celebrate the remarkable life and career of the great Indian botanist and cytogeneticist, E.K. Janaki Ammal, who co-wrote the Chromosome Atlas of All Cultivated Plants in 1945. She studied botany at Michigan State University in the 1920s on a full scholarship, later receiving a PhD and DSc honoris causa. Back in India, she played a vital role in creating the ‘Noble’ strain of sugarcane – an extraordinary hybrid of sugarcane and bamboo leading to varieties thick as a man’s arm in contrast to the pencil-thin traditional varieties. But credit was stolen by seniors at the research station, and so she went off to Britain. There she worked at famous institutes, including John Innes, Kew and the Royal Horticultural Society. Later, she met the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on a plane, and he put her in charge of reforming the Botanical Survey of India in Calcutta. But sadly she was a forgotten figure by the time of her death in 1984. Our rose named for her has the same colour hues as the saris she wore – orange yellow and saffron. A plant of this rose was planted in 2020 at the World Regional Rose Conference Kolkata, at the Botanical Survey of India garden. The rose has also been planted in the John Innes Institute, in Kew and the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden in Wisley in the UK.          

If one were to ask you of one moment each – one particular achievement in the journey and one abiding regret – what would these be and why?

There can be no doubt that the moment which was special in our rose breeding career was the moment described above, when Helga Brichet and Mercedes Villar came up to us in Jaipur in 1999, and said they had never heard such a new approach to breeding roses, pioneered by us, of using two Indian rose species to create a new line of warm-climate roses. It was their invitation to speak in Texas launched us on to the world stage of roses.

As for an abiding regret, that’s all too easy to answer. It’s the systematic neglect of Indian-bred roses by the rose-growing public of India, who remain fascinated by roses raised in Europe and the U.S. though they are utterly unsuited for Indian climates. This unreasonable preference for foreign rose varieties is part of the general craze for all things foreign. Fortunately, more recently, there has been a change, and young rose breeders and growers are realising that Indian bred roses do better in the heat and are slowly beginning to grow these.

Give us an insight into the challenges and pitfalls of growing and creating roses in India, as informed by your journey. Interesting story that highlighted these.

The main challenge was getting Indian roses accepted by the Indian rose growing public, as highlighted above. Indeed, now our roses are being grown in India, perhaps because they are being grown around the world! Another thing is one must learn patience. It takes us about eight to nine years to name and release a new rose. It is a long process, of the actual crossing of two roses, waiting for the fruit to ripen, then harvesting the fruit (rose hips), collecting the seeds, stratifying them in the refrigerator (if one lives on the hot plains), sowing the seed, waiting for the seedlings to sprout, growing the plant for a number of years to test its potential, and suitability, and only then finding a name and releasing it, by sending to a rose nursery to make more plants.

Our long career in rose breeding and our connected travels around the world has provided us with many interesting, even hilarious experiences. We were in Japan, at the Sakura Rose Garden. With us was a group of people including our friend, the well-known Japanese plant scientist, Dr Yuki Mikanagi. We were looking at a rose plant, with dark pinkish-red blooms with white on the reverse, bred by us and as yet unnamed. Yuki said she liked this rose very much. We immediately told her that we would name it for her. She said: ‘But this rose is red and white, whereas my name means “snow” in Japanese. Viru’s instant response was, ‘Then we will it name it Blushing Yuki,’ much to the delight of Yuki and everyone.

In his government service days, when we lived in Hyderabad, Viru would tend to his roses, watering and spraying them with fertilizers before leaving for office. There would be a number of telephone calls for him about some official matter. Girija would answer the phone (landline in those days), and when she told the callers he was busy spraying, they would hear it as ‘praying’ and immediately apologise: ‘Please do not disturb him when he is at his prayers’.

Both of us were hands-on gardeners, doing most of the work ourselves and you cannot garden without muddy hands and clothes. Very often visitors would mistake us for the garden help and request us to take them to the master or the mistress of the house. The looks on their faces when they realised who we were would make us laugh.

On one occasion, we were in California to receive the ‘Great Rosarians of the World’ Award. At the ceremony, we both first gave a talk on ‘Roses in India, Past Present and Future’. At the end of the ceremony, an earnest old lady came up to us and asked, in all seriousness, ‘Do roses grow in India?’

For most of us, roses are red and a Valentine’s Day Gift. Appendix 1 of your roses runs to 50 pages! Tell us briefly of some of the interesting ones, in particular the very evocative names you have, for example, Kindly Light, Meghamala/Wine-dark Sea, Twilight Secret. What goes into giving a name to a rose?

Apart from the roses we have named for friends, for other roses we like to give evocative names.

  • KINDLY LIGHT: we named this lovely white shading to soft pink rose after the hymn ‘Lead, Kindly Light’, a favourite of Mahatma Gandhi’s. We have the practice of giving two names to some of our roses, one better understood in India, if it is a Sanskrit word, and one for the West. This rose is named ‘Swami Vinayananda’ in India, for a monk of the Ramakrishna Mission order. He was great plantsman, his book on dahlias is a definitive work on all aspects of dahlia growing and he was very good rose grower.
  • MEGHAMALA/WINE-DARK SEA: One more example of two names for a rose. Meghamala translates as ‘garland of clouds’. The name for our rose was inspired by the purple garland-like pattern, reminiscent of clouds, on the petals of this rose, which otherwise are dark orange-red  in colour. ‘Meghamala’ is from a line by Devulapalli Krishna Sastri, beloved modern poet of the Telugu language, to whom the rose is a tribute. ‘Wine-Dark Sea’ derives from Homer’s epithet, in both the Iliad and Odyssey, of the purple shadows of approaching night on the orange-red waters reflecting the rays of a setting sun on the Aegean Sea.
  • ALLEGORY OF SPRING: We named a very special light-pink rose with intriguing pointed petals after the famous Botticelli painting La Primavera, also called ‘Allegory of Spring’.
  • INCENSE INDIGO: An indigo purple rose with an enticing fragrance was the inspiration for this name.
  • TWILIGHT SECRET and TWILIGHT TRYST: Two purple-hued roses that remind one of the late evening, shadowy light, romantic secrets and trysts.
  • AHIMSA: We gave this name to a golden yellow rose borne on a plant without any thorns (prickles), thinking of the Mahatma’s philosophy of non-violence.
  • KUSABUE’S GUARDIAN ANGELS: Kusabue is the name of a rose garden in Sakura City, Japan, entirely looked after by volunteers, all very senior citizens. This is our tribute to them.
Golden Threshold
Kanyakumari
Photo Courtesy: M.S. Viraraghavan and Girija Viraraghavan

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Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri is a film buff, editor, publisher, film critic and writer. Books commissioned and edited by him have won the National Award for Best Book on Cinema twice and the inaugural MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Images) Award for Best Writing on Cinema. In 2017, he was named Editor of the Year by the apex publishing body, Publishing Next. He has contributed to a number of magazines and websites like The Daily Eye, Cinemaazi, Film Companion, The Wire, Outlook, The Taj, and others. He is the author of two books: Whims – A Book of Poems(published by Writers Workshop) and Icons from Bollywood (published by Penguin/Puffin).

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Conversation

How Curiosity Opens Windows to New Worlds

Heidi North in conversation with Keith Lyons

Heidi North

When New Zealand author Heidi North won an international Irish Poetry Prize in 2007, and was told by the Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney, to keep writing, it made her realise that not everyone wrote the way she did. Further recognition and confirmation of her own unique voice came just before Covid hit, when the band U2 used one of her poems in their Joshua Tree Tour on a gigantic screen before audiences of thousands. The writer of poems and fiction has been published in anthologies, journals and magazines around the world, but underlying her writing is a fascination with the human condition and how out of grief we make parcels of light.  

When did you first start writing?

I’ve always been writing. I think I thought everyone just wrote poems and stories the way I did, when I was a kid. But as to when I started taking writing more seriously, that was when I won an Irish poetry prize in 2007 (The Feile Filiochta International Poetry), that’s when I realised that perhaps not everyone wrote quite the way I did.

What cultivated your love of words and storytelling?

My mother was a great storyteller and she often told me stories, especially family stories, growing up. In fact, a lot of those have made their way into an essay collection that I’m currently working on, a few decades later. My dad was an architect and artist, and my step mum is an artist, too so I grew up surrounded by creative people and books and a feeling that creativity was valued. 

What do you enjoy about the process of writing?

It can be a frustrating one at times, there’s the gap between what you want things to be and where they are and finding the way to work from that point to another can be a challenge. But the great joy comes from the flow state, when you’re in that state, time and space are nothing, there is just you and the page and it’s joyful. You have to hold onto that as a writer, because a lot of the time is spent berating yourself for not actually writing, feeling deep despair about your work, and the process of editing, which can be joyful and painful too.

What differences are there between writing poetry and writing short stories/novels? Do you have to put a different ‘hat’ on to create?

For me, it’s sort of instinctual, I just know when what form things I want to explore will take. I was a poet first, so I did have to go through a process of really learning to write fiction. John Cranna from The Creative Hub (Auckland, New Zealand) really taught me how to bolt my fiction writing down. I feel like fiction adheres to the rules of gravity whereas poetry doesn’t have to. But writing both has made each form stronger, my poetry has become more narrative and my fiction benefits from the stripping back you do in poetry.

I wrote my second poetry collection, We are tiny beneath the light, as a sort of side project while I was working on my bigger project for my Masters. And it’s more a narrative than my first collection, Possibility of flight, which I published in 2015, for that reason.

How do you go about your writing? With planning, spontaneous, inspiration or contemplation?

These days, between work and kids and the obligations of adulthood, the writing has to be planned and I have to give myself deadlines and hold myself accountable to them. But in terms of what I want to write, that still is fairly spontaneous. I have never felt like I choose what I write about, things just tug at me until I make something out of them.

Does being a writer make you more observant, mindful or aware, or does noticing details and recording them make you a writer?

What a chicken and egg! My dad always says I was fascinated by why people did things, so I think writing perhaps helps me make sense of the world.

What did you gain from studying creative writing at university?

Every time I’ve done any writing study, there have been two great gifts of it; one, it ringfences writing time and gives me deadlines, and a place to play with writing, to read and to really think hard about both. But the second, and perhaps the greater gift, is the cohort. I finished my Master of Creative Writing at Auckland University in 2017, and that cohort of writers, and our lecturer, Paula Morris, have been so valuable to me since. Plus, I still keep in contact with, and champion writers from other courses I’ve taken along the way. I’ve taken several short courses at the IIML at Victoria University of Wellington and those always gave me new inspiration and introduced me to new writers, many of whom have stayed friends.

What was your experience in China/Shanghai like?

Being in Shanghai for the International Writers Program in 2016 was just such a wonderful, stimulating creative time. I’d lived in China, in Huizhou, 12 years earlier for a year teaching English at a language school there, so I had a bit of an idea of what China was like, so while in some ways I was prepared, it was also so different. I loved spending two months there. I loved having the time dedicated to writing and to being in a different culture and to be being part of a group of 10 writers from around the world and to spend time with Chinese writers and particulate in many literary events. I feel so very lucky and thankful to the Michael King Centre in New Zealand for the exchange.

It was also hard and challenging and bizarre to be away from home. I had a small daughter at home and my marriage had recently broken up. So it was many things, all at once.  

How do you go about getting published?

Just sending things out and keep sending things out. Hopefully, you send things out that people like and they get published. I’ve had a lot of rejection letters, and I’ve also learnt that some people will love your work and some people won’t. It’s true what they say that everything is subjective. I’ve had work rejected by someplace that ends up winning a prize somewhere else.

How do you think writing can address difficult subjects, such as your ‘We are tiny beneath the light’?

Your hope as a writer, when you write about difficult subjects, such as I did in, ‘We are tiny beneath the light’, which is about the breakdown of my marriage and the process of rebuilding myself after that, is that it illuminates something for someone else. Maybe someone else going through a hard time reads my poems and it gives them a foothold into their own life, or a way to express their grief, or offers a sliver of hope. I go to hard writing in hard times, and it gives me great comfort. 

Does writing from your own experience mean being vulnerable on the page? If so, how do you live with that?

It would be easier to step back from your work and say it’s not you, and in ‘We are tiny beneath the light’, I could no longer do that. Was I scared of being vulnerable? Yes, I was terrified. My publisher and editor Mary McCallum was invaluable through that process and trusting in her careful guidance helped me get to the heart of the story I was telling.

The other thing is, that writing anything truthful always contains poetic license, and even if it’s not about you people will make assumptions anyway, so that’s freeing in a way. And you have to get past what you think people might think of you if you’re a writer, or you’ll never write anything.

Being vulnerable is something I find quite difficult, and yet, both of the projects I’m currently working on have memoir elements, so demand a level of vulnerability. In the end, I think all good writing is an act of vulnerability of some kind, and when I’m scaring myself that’s when I know I’m going in the right direction.

How do you make a bridge with the reader for them to get into your writing?

I think it’s vulnerability. You don’t have to agree with me or like me, but you have to know I’m telling some kind of truth – which is widely subjective, but that’s what the reader is here for, to see the writer tell the truth they have in the best way they can.

How useful are deadlines, goals, and writing groups to writing and improving your work?

They cannot be underestimated! It’s not an understatement that the process of getting to the desk is extraordinary hard. It would be such a relief not to want to write, because it’s so fraught just getting to the page. You have to really want to write to overcome that dread. It makes absolutely no sense that something you love is so intensely hard to do. This is where deadlines and writing groups, that come with deadlines come in. And it’s great to be able to talk about the craft with people who care about it as much as you do.

How rewarding does it feel seeing your work and name in print?

Holding the copy of your book in your hands for the first time is such a wonderful feeling. And when you get accepted for any kind of publication there is just this instant bubble of joy. And you have to hold onto that, because the slog is hard, and the rejections keep coming. It can be hard to savour the feeling of reward that comes with seeing your work published, but it is why we continue writing, so that someone will read it.

How has your writing ended up being shared to the wider world? Is it true that U2 used your poem ‘Piha Beach, two years on’ in its New Zealand concert screen images?

Yes! Isn’t that just wild? Having my poem picked up and used by U2 is one of the most unexpected and wonderful things that being a writer has led to. I wrote about it — the surreal joy of having my poem selected to play on the largest screen I’ve ever seen – may ever see – in my life, to a crowd of thousands here: When one of the biggest bands in the world bought my tiny poem

If you can’t make a living from writing poetry, what other benefits are there from publishing poetry?

You don’t write poetry or short stories in New Zealand for the money, but being a writer has lead me to some extraordinary experiences, like an all-expenses-paid trip to Bali when I won the Asia New Zealand Foundation Short Story Competition, going to the Shanghai Writers Programme and all the wonderful experiences I had there, meeting Seamus Heaney and having him tell 26-year-old me sternly to keep writing when I picked up the Feile Filiochta poetry award in Ireland, and spending the evening in the Friends and Family lounge before the U2 concert in Auckland.

So, it’s not bought me great monetary riches, but it’s bought me great dinner party stories. 

How important is winning awards, and getting feedback from readers in keeping your writing?

Really, really important. I’d like to say I don’t care what people think, but I do. I don’t mean in the way it stops me from writing hard things, but in the way that if I’d never had any positive feedback at all the doubt would have gotten the better of me and I would have stopped writing long ago.

How do you use your writing skills in your day job?

I work in strategic communications and engagement, which is all about how to communicate the bigger story and connect with people. It’s fulfilling to tell stories in different capacities.

How do you juggle your life and other responsibilities with making time to write?

I’ve learnt to write in snatches, when kids are playing noisily around me, when I don’t want to, when I’m too tired, when I’m feeling flat. There’s always something writing or writing-adjacent you can do, even when you may not be at your best and that way you keep a toe in the water. I do everything I can just to keep a toe in the water, and then sometimes that leads to full body immersion, but with kids and a job and a house there isn’t much glorious uninterrupted time these days.

What are you currently working on?

I always have multiple things on the go at the same time, so one project I’m working on is a personal essay collection about childhood, family politics, parenting and love. And the other is my Shanghai project, a hybrid novel memoir about a runaway bride who finds herself hiding in Shanghai – the last place she remembers being happy, and it’s also about me, on the Shanghai writers programme grappling with where I was in my life post-separation.

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Read, read, read. Do interesting things. Find your own voice. Allow yourself to write things without expectations or limits. Write into the things that make you scared. Then go deeper. Keep going.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Don’t agonise so much, and just keep going.

How does writing make you a global citizen better connected to the world?

Participating in literary events and publications and exchanges creates so much connection and empathy with different cultures and ideas. It’s so important.

New Zealand writer Heidi North has won awards for both her poems and short stories, including an international Irish Poetry Prize, and has been published in anthologies and magazines around the world. Heidi was the New Zealand fellow in the Shanghai International Writers Programme in 2016. The same year she was awarded the Hachette/ NZSA mentorship to work on her first novel. Heidi has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Auckland and lives in Auckland with her family. Her first poetry collection, Possibility of flight was published by Makaro Press in 2015. Her second collection, We are Tiny Beneath the light (The Cuba Press 2019), was launched by U2 when they used one of her poems from the collection in their 2019 Joshua Tree Tour.

‘Piha Beach, two years on’ by Heidi North

My feet punch bruises in the black sand
and I am back in the burn of childhood summers
 
the circle of sentinel gulls
their grey wings tipped to catch the light
 
warn me back
but I go down to the white foam edge
 
bluebottles bloated with their pretty poison
yield to the sharp edge of my stick
 
I go down to the place
where the wind kicks holes through my heart
 
and there is a child down there
too close to the ribbony horizon line
 
holding his blue kite
towards the updraft
 
still smiling as it lurches
against the wide white blaze of sky –

and I smile and laugh and I run with him because how can I tell him
all the brutal things are yet to come

(‘We are tiny beneath the light’ has been published with permission from The Cuba Press)

Keith Lyons (keithlyons.net) is an award-winning writer, author and creative writing mentor, who gave up learning to play bagpipes in a Scottish pipe band to focus on after-dark tabs of dark chocolate, early morning slow-lane swimming, and the perfect cup of masala chai tea. Find him@KeithLyonsNZ or blogging at Wandering in the World (http://wanderingintheworld.com).

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Conversation

Spanning Continental Narratives

He has translated Kalidasa’s Meghaduta and Ritusamhara from Sanskrit to English and then imbibed them to create Monsoon: A Poem of Love & Longing in a similar vein. Meet the poet, Abhay K, who also juggles multiple hats of diplomat, editor and translator. He tells us how he tries to raise awareness and create bonds through poetry. He is the author of a dozen poetry books and the editor of The Book of Bihari Literature (Harper Collins India). He has received the SAARC Literature Award for 2013. His ‘Earth Anthem’ has been translated into more than 150 languages and performed by Kavita Krishnamurthy, a well-known Indian voice.

Monsoon: A Poem of Love & Longing has 150 quartrains and is split into chapters. A passionate poem that yearns and sends love through the salubrious journey of the monsoon from its point of origin, Madagascar, to Kashmir, the verses caress various fauna, among them some endangered like indri indri, sifaka and more. Spanning the oceans, lands, nature and a large part of India, it reaches his beloved with his message from Madagascar.

Is it eco-poetry? Academia might be moving towards that decision. Monsoon: A Poem of Love & Longing has been chosen by a Harvard University’s assistant professor, Sarah Dimick, for a book project on Climate and Literature. In this exclusive, Abhay K describes not only how his passion for beauty, turned him, a diplomat, into an award-winning poet and translator but his subsequent journey.

Abhay K

What made you opt to translate Kalidasa’s poetry?

It was during the Covid-19 pandemic that I read a poem by the British poet laureate, Simon Armitage, titled ‘Lockdown’ which made a reference to Meghaduta. At that time, I was posted as India’s 21st Ambassador to Madagascar and Comoros and I thought of writing a poem on the lines of Kalidasa’s Meghaduta. This is when I decided to closely read Meghaduta and in the process I got inspired to translate it. However, later, I did write a book length poem titled Monsoon which was published by Sahitya Akademi in 2021. 

Did you translate both, Meghaduta and Ritusamhara, one after another? These are both books that have been translated before. Did you draw from those? Or is it your own original transcreation of the texts?

Yes, first I translated Meghaduta and after its publication, I decided to translate Ritusamhara. There are over 100 translations of Meghaduta available, I have read some of them, but none had been translated by a poet. Therefore, I decided to translate Meghaduta myself to give it a poetic rendition in contemporary English. I had studied Sanskrit in my high school, and it came handy while translating both Meghaduta and Ritusamhara. 

Your book, Monsoon, is based on Meghduta. Can you tell us a bit about it? Is it part autobiographical?

Monsoon is inspired from both Meghaduta and Ritusamhara. It begins near Madagascar where monsoon originates and travels along its path to Reunion, Mauritius, Seychelles, Comoros, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Andaman, and the Indian subcontinent. It carries a message of love and longing from Madagascar to Kashmir valley. It is purely work of imagination. 

Tell us a bit about Kalidasa’s Ritusamhara, which is supposed to be especially relevant in the current context of climate change.

I have not come across any other poet who describes the lives of diverse plants and animals in such detail and with such empathy. In Ritusamhara, Kalidasa delights us with these vivid descriptions of plants, insects and flowers in the rainy season. 

Like jade fragments, the green grass rises
spreading its blades to catch raindrops,
red Indragopaka insects perch on fresh
leaf-buds bursting forth from the Kandali plants
the earth smiles like an elegant lady
draped in nature’s colourful jewels. 2-5

Aroused by the sunrays at sunrise,
Pankaja opens up like glowing face
of a young woman, while the moon
turns pale, smile vanishes from Kumuda
like that of the young women,
after their lovers are gone far away.  3-23

The fields covered with ripened paddy
as far as eyes can see, their boundaries
full of herd of does, midlands filled with
sweet cries of graceful demoiselle cranes.
Ah! What passion they arouse in the heart!   4-8

Kalidasa’s genius lies in bringing together ecological and sensual to create sensual eco-poetry of everlasting relevance. Ritusamhara highlights this fundamental connection between seasons and sensuality. As we face the triple threat of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental pollution owing to our ever-growing greed and culture of consumerism, we face the challenge of losing what makes us human. It is in these unprecedented times, reading and re-reading Kalidasa’s Ritusamhara becomes essential.

True. Closer to our times Tagore also has written of the trends of which you speak. But there is a controversy about the authorship of Ritusamhara— it is supposed to have been written earlier. What is your opinion?

It is an early work of Kalidasa. There are many words from Ritusamhara that are used in Meghaduta. 

What were the challenges you faced translating Kalidasa’s poetry, especially in mapping the gaps created by the time span that has passed and their culture and ethos to modern times.

I think Kalidasa’s works bear strong relevance to the modern times. He can easily be our contemporary eco-poet. In fact, Ritusamhara is a fine work of eco-poetry because of the sensitivity shown by Kalidasa in handling the plight of animals in scorching summer, treating rivers, mountains and clouds as personas among other things. 

You have also translated Brazilian poets? Are these contemporary voices? Did these come before Kalidasa’s translation?

I translated poems of 60 contemporary Brazilian poets and compiled them in a poetry collection named New Brazilian Poems which was published in 2018 by Ibis Libris, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. My translation of Meghaduta and Ritusamhara was published in 2022. 

Your range of translations is wide. How many languages have you translated from? What has been the impact of translating both Kalidasa and other poets from various languages on your poetry?

I have mainly translated from Magahi, Hindi, Sanskrit, Russian, Portuguese, and Nepali. Translating the work of Kalidasa and other poets has enriched my own poetry writing. Translating poets whose works I love and admire, offers me the opportunity to read their work very closely and provided rich insights which in turn inspires my own poetic works. 

How as a diplomat did you get into poetry? Or has this been a passion?

I started writing poetry in Moscow where I started my career as a diplomat. It was the beauty and grandeur of Moscow that turned me into a poet. 

You are a polyglot. What made you pick up this many languages? Do you read poetry in all of them? You have already translated from Portuguese and Sanskrit. Do you want to translate from all these languages? What makes you pick a book for translation?

As a diplomat, I get posted to a new continent every three years and I have to pick up the local language to communicate more effectively. I try to translate from as many languages as possible as it helps in building literary bridges across continents. I translate books I truly love and admire. 

Do you have any more translations or your own work in the offing? What are your future plans as a poet?

I have translated the first Magahi novel Foolbahadur and Magahi short stories, which is likely to come out in the near future.

My new love poem of 100 rhyming couplets titled Celestial, which takes one on a roller coaster ride to all the 88 constellations visible from the Earth, will be published by Mapin India in 2023. My new poetry collection, In Light of Africa, a book of light and learning and unlearning the myths and stereotypes about Africa. The narrative spans the continent of humanity’s birth through time and space—from the ancient Egyptian pharaohs to modern bustling cities…introducing you to Africa’s rich history, culture, cuisine, philosophy, monuments, personalities—and its remarkable contribution in shaping our modern world. This collection is likely to be published this year or in 2024. 

Thank you for giving us your time.

(The interview has been conducted online by emails by Mitali Chakravarty)

Click here to read an excerpt from Monsoon

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