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Book Review by Somdatta Mandal

Title: The Tree Within: The Mexican Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz’s Years in India

Author: Indranil Chakravarty

Publisher: Penguin Random House India

‘For me, India was an accident.’ – Octavio Paz

The Mexican Nobel laureate poet and essayist Octavio Paz (1914-1998) was a writer of lightening insights and electric intelligence. His impassioned poetry is meditative, with a precision of language that is imbued with a strangely sensuous quality. In fact, language and poetry per se were some of his key thematic concerns. The announcement on the cover of this book states that The Tree Within is the enchanting story of Octavio Paz’s passionate love-affair with India where he served as Mexico’s ambassador in the 1960s but reading through this very detailed 518 pages well-researched biography of the Nobel Laureate poet one realises that it is a lot more.

Immersing himself in India’s rich cultural life and contemplative traditions, Paz travelled widely, forged deep friendships with some of India’s finest minds, and produced several of his most inspired poetry and essays. It was here that he met the love of his life and until the day he died, he continued to refer to India as the place where he experienced what he called his ‘second birth’. It is difficult to find similar cases in our history when a major creative figure from abroad drew inspiration from India’s culture for one’s own works over such an extended period. His writings became a bridge between continents, blending Eastern and Western sensibilities in ways that enriched the literary landscapes of both. In India, where the erotic and the sacred blend in ecstatic union – unlike in the West, where the two are scrupulously kept apart – he saw the possibility of a new synthesis through the dissolution of dualities. Interestingly, Mexico belongs to the western hemisphere but is generally considered non-West, like India. Blending biography, cultural history, and literary criticism, The Tree Within is a luminous testament to the enduring alchemy between India and the world through one of the greatest writers of the 20^th century.

The book is divided into ten stand-alone chapters, and one can move to the topic of one’s choice. The first two chapters entitled ‘Family and Nation’ (1914-36) and ‘Paz Before India’ (1936-1951) serve as the background of Paz’s lineage, his growing up, and his passionate engagement with India can be understood in terms of the seeds planted early in his life through his family as well as the national cultural ambience where the idea of India was inscribed. All of them played a role in reinforcing his attraction towards the country. Unlike T.S.Eliot, Paz became politically active from an early age, with an initial inclination towards anarchism and Marxism and a subsequent rejection of Communism. He witnessed the Spanish Civil War firsthand, and he also had a close relationship with the surrealists in France.

It is only in the third chapter, ‘The First Sojourn’ (1951-52), that India is physically present when in 1951 Paz, then 37-years old, was assigned the task of opening a new embassy in New Delhi. It recounts his long sea-journey to India and his experiences and poetic output during that brief period of six months. To some extent, he externalised his inner unhappiness on India during his first trip. India of that time had little to offer him by way of intellectual excitement or fulfilling companionship. Things were in disarray when under Nehru as the new nation-state had just been born a few years ago. In New Delhi, Paz stayed at the Imperial Hotel, which became his residence during his entire stay. He also carried a lot of baggage in terms of Western cultural prejudices towards India. India not only smothered his senses; the grinding poverty and rigid mores of life left him disgusted.

In Chapter Four, ‘Paz and Satish Gujral: In Light of Mexico’ describes the personal friendship between Paz and Satish Gujral, one of India’s leading painters and how Paz shaped his development as an artist by inserting Gujral among the maestros of the Mexican mural movement. In fact, the influence of the Mexican mural movement on modern Indian art through Gujral would not have been possible without Octavio Paz’s decision to send him to Mexico. The meeting with Nehru and Indira Gandhi through Satish’s brother I.K. Gujral also offers interesting information. The following chapter, ‘Coming Home, Going Away’ (1953 -62) traces Paz’s life and creative evolution from the time he left India to the time he was sent to India as Mexico’s ambassador in 1962. This ten-year period between his first sojourn in India in 1952 and his return as the Mexican ambassador in 1962 involved many defining moments in his personal and professional life which shaped his creative evolution as a writer. The extent to which he had already immersed himself in Indian philosophy is evident from the ways he assimilated his experiences and insights of his first stay in the writings of the next decade even when their themes had little to do with India.

‘Making Poetry, Making Love’ (1962 -68) is an account of Paz’s travels through the Indian subcontinent (he was given additional charge of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Ceylon), his relationship with Bona Tibertelli with whom he spent an idyllic vacation across the Indian subcontinent, his unhappy marriage with Elena Garro, his meeting and eventual marriage with his second wife, Marie-Jose Tramini, and the poetry that grew out of that amorous experience – all find ample space in this chapter. The way in which their love affair unfolded is wrapped in secrecy. It is also said that he developed some unsavoury practices for a man of his position. Nevertheless, it was the most bountiful period of an unimaginably productive life.

Chapter Seven named, ‘The Poet as Diplomat (962-68), recounts his role as a diplomat and his pioneering bridge-building efforts. His life stands as a shining example of how the advantages of diplomatic life can be used for maximizing literary output. The title of the next chapter ‘Paz’s Indian Friends: Surrounded by Infinity’ is self-explanatory. It recounts Paz’s close personal friendships with major Indian painters, musicians, writers and thinkers. We are given details of the close relationship with Indira Gandhi, and Paz throws interesting light on Indira by contrasting her with Nehru: “Indira was concrete and sober. She never forgot the old maxim that politics was the art of the possible…”

Among the literary figures, mention is made of Santha Rama Rau, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, Satchidananda H. Vatsyayan, and many others. The story of Paz’s dramatic resignation in October 1968 over his own government’s massacre of students at the Plaza de Tlateloco is explained by the author through studying archival documents. The next chapter ‘Under Western Eyes: Visiting Writers and Artists’ tells the story of famous international writers, musicians and painters who met Paz in India and forged lifelong bonds and collaborations based on their common love for India.

The final chapter ‘Paz After India’ (1968 -98), traces the continued presence of India-related themes in Paz’s body of work, particularly his prose, ever since his departure from the country. Leaving India was not easy for Paz and Marie-Jose. Over the next three years, he would drift around the world, accepting fellowships, residencies and lecture assignments. Though Indian themes gradually faded out of his poetry, in prose it continued to engage him till his last days, thirty years after leaving India. Even in old age, Paz continued to maintain epistolary contact with his Indian friends and welcomed distinguished Indian visitors to Mexico with his characteristic Latin American warmth. ‘Cantata’ tells the knotty story of Paz’s legacy in Mexico and how India has periodically remembered him, one as late as February 2023, at a large international conference held in IIC[1], New Delhi, on the cultural links between India and Latin America. There was unanimity in the acknowledgement that the Mexican poet had created a permanent, direct bridge between India and Latin America that no state-led enterprise could have done.

Before concluding, a few words need to be said about the author of this book. An academic and a filmmaker by profession, Indranil Chakravarty’s interest in Hispanic literature and culture comes out clearly through the translations he made of Paz’s poems. His enormous labour to bring out this volume comes out in the manner he reconstructs the inner journey of the poet by delving into multilingual archives, declassified diplomatic files, personal letters, and intimate interviews. The labour that has gone into selecting the innumerable photographs that don almost every page of the book, many borrowed from the website zonaoctaviopaz.com (an ongoing repository of photographic and news material on Paz put together by a group of Mexican scholars) clearly exemplifies the author’s emphasis on visual imagery too. In Acknowledgements, he clearly mentions that he has merely tried to fill up the missing information on the poet’s India-years. He entirely agrees with Ramchandra Guha’s contention that an autobiography or memoir must be understood as a pre-emptive strike against a future biographer. The poet’s memoir of India elides most of the aspects that are interesting to us today.

[1] India International Centre

Somdatta Mandal, critic and translator, is a former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India.

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August in Kabul: America’s Last Days in Afghanistan and the Return of the Taliban is a real-life account of a journalist who returned to Kabul from Dubai to be with his “friends”, to let them know that their well-wishers had not abandoned them, even while the American forces withdrew and the Taliban took over. Most, including President Ghani, were flying out of Kabul while acclaimed photojournalist who had spent eight years there, Andrew Quilty, flew back from Dubai on 14th August, 2021.

His account traces the history of the takeover, the inception of the Taliban, the reactions of the people to their earlier regime dating from 1996 to 2001: “The Taliban were initially welcomed there, and many young, uneducated male residents, enamoured by the group’s piety, joined their ranks. But to Soviet-era communist officials, senior Hezb-i Islami figures and those with tertiary educations or financial means, the Taliban’s devoutness foretold merciless intolerance, and they left the country, travelling to the West through costly smuggling networks or to neighbouring Pakistan or Iran, joining the millions who had moved there during the Soviet war, as refugees.”

He is vocal about the Doha Agreement made by the Trump regime and executed by Biden, where the handing over left gaps which caused suffering not only among foreigners but also the local population of Afghanistan. Citizens died trying to find safety for themselves and their loved ones. Chaos prevailed and both Taliban forces and American soldiers killed innocents. With more than hundred interviews, Quilty brings the plight of these people to light. What touches the heart in this narrative is the human suffering caused by political games and beliefs. This has been captured well in the account.

That the current acknowledged rulers of Afghanistan, the Talibans, have reverted in certain senses to their past stance, especially pertaining to a major issue, the freedom of women has been acknowledged. But is this an issue that is related essentially to Taliban only or does it run deeper within the culture? Through the narrative of a young girl, Nadia, the author relates the equation for Afghani women: “Preserving the safety of women is a common sleight of hand used by Afghan men to keep those within their family under control. Neglecting such a duty and allowing a young woman the freedom to walk when they wish in the streets, to socialise with unrelated men, and to develop their understanding of the world outside the home and their ideas about their place therein, is deduced by many outside the immediate family to imply the woman is what Nadia refers to euphemistically as a ‘bad girl’. Boiled down, a ‘bad girl’ is one who cavorts and sleeps with men out of wedlock—a prostitute in Afghan terms, a great stain on a family’s honour. To avert such a possibility, rather than confront those who deliberately misinterpret the young woman’s ways and use it to undermine her family, instead, her brothers, father and male members of the extended family more often elect to restrain her behaviour.”

Women are not the only victims of a society that balks at liberal or out of the box thinking. The book is an eye-opener and reveals how the events of that August unfolded in 2021. It was an amazing coincidence that the takeover was completed on a date that coincided with the Independence Day celebrations of its neighbours, India (15th August) and Pakistan (14th August).

This account varies from an earlier account of Afghanistan written almost a century ago in its tone – that was humorous essays, a memoir by Syed Mujtaba Ali translated by Nazes Afroz from Bengali, called In a Land Far from Home: A Bengali in Afghanistan. This is a journalistic account. But one thing that runs through both the narratives is the bonding both these writers experienced with the locals, perhaps a bond born of friendship with people who have lived in oppressed communities and the need to get the world to hear their voices. The social norms still sound the same with wild gun shots marking celebrations. But what was not mentioned in the earlier were the scars left by Soviets and American weapons – because Mujtaba Ali’s account ended at the start of the civil war (1928-29), long before the superpowers intervened in a major way, even though the then-ruler Amanullah Khan (1892-1960) had abdicated and escaped to British India.

Andrew Quilty in Kabul. Photo provided by Quilty

Andrew Quilty who gives a splendid coverage of the current scenario, had been in Afghanistan since 2013. He is the recipient of nine Walkley Awards, including the Gold Walkley, for his work on Afghanistan. He has also received the George Polk Award, the World Press Photo Award and the Overseas Press Club of America award for his investigation into massacres committed by a CIA-backed Afghan militia. In this conversation, Quilty tells us more about the writing of the book and his own responses to the change in regime and the takeover, and most of all what made him return to a conflict zone.

What made you return to Kabul, when others were fleeing from a Taliban takeover?

There were two things: as a journalist and photographer, the days ahead of when I decided to return to Afghanistan were going to be the country’s most pivotal since the US invasion in 2001. Having covered the country for eight years at that point, despite the risk, I really wanted to be present to cover the period that was to follow. But more than that, at the time I really just wanted to be with my friends, both foreign and Afghan, with whom I had experienced so much with in the country over the years leading up to August 2021. While many of my Afghan friends felt the international community was abandoning them, I didn’t want them to feel their friends had as well.

In your ‘Epilogue’, you tell us that the book turned out to be different from what you had thought it would be at the start. What was it that you had wanted to start with and how has it departed from the way you had visualised it earlier?

I had envisaged writing a book about the way international military special forces had, through their tactics of night raids and air strikes, turned much of the rural Afghan population against the central government and the US-led military coalition.

You are a well-known photo-journalist and yet your book is written only in words. Why did you opt to use words instead of photographs this time?

I am currently working on a photo book that will cover the entire time I spent in Afghanistan (2013 – 2022). But my photos of the events of 2021 alone wouldn’t have been sufficient to tell the story of what happened in the detail the way words can.

In the twentieth century, a book had been written by Syed Mujtaba Ali in Bengali and translated by a journalist who was in Afghanistan, Nazes Afroz, talks of the dislodging of Amanullah by Bacha-ye-Saqao (Habibullah Kalakani) during the civil war. Can Bachai-ye-Saquao be seen as some kind of a precursor to the making of Taliban? Please elaborate.

Not really. He was of Tajik descent and so didn’t have the support of the majority Pashtuns. Also, his rule didn’t even last a year. The Taliban that took control of Afghanistan in 1996 are a closer replica of the Taliban that took control of the country in 2021 than Kalakani.

Afghanistan seems to be a country torn by the politics induced by Cold War, which of course is said to have concluded now. How would you compare the Soviet intrusion from 1979 to 1989 with the recent American intrusion which concluded with the Taliban takeover? You have mentioned how bio warfare by Soviets ruined the countryside. Please elaborate.

There are a lot of comparisons that could be made. Both the Soviets and the US-led coalition had superior technology, equipment and training. The Mujahedin and the Taliban (whose fighters call themselves Mujahedin) had poor quality weapons, funding and training, but they had a motive to fight that invading nations could never match. The nature of the style of warfare they used also made them very hard to defeat — ie. an insurgency that lives among the population, whose fighters are very difficult to distinguish from the local non-combatants.

Reading some of the case stories that you have taken up in your non-fiction, the oppression of women seems to be an accepted social norm in Afghanistan and persisted before the current invasion of the Taliban. Can you please comment on this?

While there were improvements for women in Afghanistan after the Taliban were ousted in 2001 — education was once again permitted, they were allowed to work in all sectors of the workforce and allowed to own property etc. — across much of the country, especially in rural areas, many women’s lives were still highly restricted by conservative cultural norms. Despite the constitution giving women many more rights than they had previously, culture often overrode the law. That said, the Taliban have now enshrined the most conservative interpretation of cultural norms in law, and so for those families who had permitted women to live under the more permissive post-2001 laws, the choice is no longer theirs to make.

One of the major issues one gathers from various narratives as well as yours in Afghanistan is not only the lack of freedom to women but also extends to freethinkers. Is this a cultural issue, religious issue or Taliban induced?

I think this is more about stamping out dissent as well as ideas that don’t conform to the Taliban’s worldview, like communism or democracy for example. So, it’s both religious as well as a means for the Taliban to enforce those under their control to follow their very strict worldview.

The Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddha. Have they changed since then to become more accepting of diverse thought?

I had hope that they might be. Most Afghans cautioned my optimism, and they seem to have been proven vindicated. While the Taliban haven’t yet destroyed any cultural heritage like the Buddhas, it took them five years in control to do that in 2001. The way they have rolled back rights in the 18 months they have been in control, it doesn’t bode well for what the next few years will bring. So far, however, they don’t seem to have been targeting ethnic minorities specifically or systematically.

The Taliban had taken control once earlier to be driven out by Americans in 2001. Can you tell us a bit about the origin of Talibans? Are they the same as Mujahedins?

The Taliban emerged from several groups that, combined, were known internationally as the Mujahedin. Once the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, the seven Mujahedin factions fought for control of the country. The Taliban, whose fighters were mostly drawn from religious madrasas, and known to be better-disciplined than the other lawless factions, promised to bring order to the country. Initially they were welcomed.

You had moved to Afghanistan in 2013. Would you think of returning there now? Why?

I hadn’t planned to live in Afghanistan. Initially I went for two weeks to photograph the Afghan cricket team for an Australian magazine. I only planned to stay two weeks but quickly fell in love with the country and my work there and stayed nearly a decade. I have no plans to return as yet, but it will always be close to my heart, and I would love to return one day when it feels right.

Are you planning more books in the future? On Afghanistan?

Yes. As I mentioned, I will publish a photo book on Afghanistan later this year with Melbourne University Press. After that, let’s see.

Thank you for your time.

(This review and the online interview conducted through emails are by Mitali Chakravarty)

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