A Conversation with Kiran Nagarkar
Arnab Chakladar: Since we're on the subject of Kosla, let me ask you: You've said that Marathi isn't really your first language, that it is only an accident that you wrote your first novel in Marathi. Nonetheless, you seem to be someone who is very well-read in Marathi...
Kiran Nagarkar: Comparatively. I want to read stuff that is going to hold my interest...but I'm told recently some books are okay. But with Kosla it grabs you... and I'm horrified that Nemade himself has become so narrow-minded in his outlook and stance on these matters. And, of course, he too wants to write the Great Indian Novel...but I'm sorry-you were asking...
As you start growing up you think about the things you've read and you try to rework the tradition and canon according to your own lights
Arnab Chakladar: I was going to ask what sort of relationship you have and have had with a sense of a tradition of Marathi literature.
Kiran Nagarkar: Because one is of course selective, I would want to trace my lineage to two points: One of course is Tukaram and Dnyaneshwar, and the Bhakti poets-I mean if you talk about Kabir I am already on my knees! And people like Basavanna keep one on a tight leash.
Arnab Chakladar: So were these people you were already well-versed in when you started writing?
Kiran Nagarkar: Well, up to a point I was well-versed. As you start growing up you think about the things you've read and you try to rework the tradition and canon according to your own lights. Don't forget, I was with Arun, who was also crazy about these people and a fine interpreter of their work. I don't know what happened with Bengali and other languages but in Marathi there was this tremendous rigour and robustness that seems to have died out after Tukaram and people. And then the Marathi novel came into being in the 19th century and for a long time they were mostly either didactic or dreadful, and the plays were terrible--the language was rarely contemporary.
Arnab Chakladar: Because of the power and hold of the earlier tradition, perhaps?
Kiran Nagarkar: No, I don't know if that is true. But what I don't understand is why despite the fact that the writers were reading English novels--not just people like Dickens, James but also later, someone like Greene--the writing here remained stuck in a superficial or laboured mode.
Arnab Chakladar: Are you referring to the first half of the twentieth century?
Kiran Nagarkar: Yes, and also after independence.
Now we've knocked the Tamasha out of our cultural life. First we diluted it and then completely wiped it out
Arnab Chakladar: Am i right in thinking that Kosla was one of the first novels to break new ground in a sense?
Kiran Nagarkar: Absolutely, and some people would say Bedekar's Ranangan also. Though poetry was doing much better thanks to Mardhekar, Karandikar, Chitre, Kolatkar, and a few others. But you're right. People like Professor Rege have said that they thought that when Nemade's and my book came out (Kosla and Saat Sakkam Trechalis,) now there will be a real burst of energy. But nothing of the kind happened. They remained isolated cases. But getting back to the question of lineage, the other stream that I would trace my lineage to is the Tamasha tradition. And that I would say was a predilection that grew stronger as I grew up. I have always veered towards the ribald. Over the years the only Tamasha I saw was called Ghadvacha Lagna (The Donkey's Wedding). It was after Saat Sakkam Trechalis...it was so amazingly rich; its humor was so broadbased; its political commentary was fantastic; its sexuality was completely out there. Now we've knocked the Tamasha out of our cultural life. First we diluted it and then completely wiped it out. But I was lucky. Never mind if it was just once, I had glimpsed it. I had found a kindred soul in Tamasha. Apart from Rabelais, I can also say that I am going back to my own unseen roots. I would like to think that I have inherited something vastly enriching from my own tradition.
Arnab Chakladar: If we could go back a little to something you said earlier about the generation that came of age after independence, and this divided sense of self that many had which resulted in people going back to learn their "mother" tongues and so on. You referred to it sort of as part of a zeitgeist...
Kiran Nagarkar: Yes. You know there was 200 years of British rule and then for the 50 years before 1947 there was a strong sense of idealism. And then when we got our independence, and I'm now exaggerating of course, this idealism got lost very fast. After that we were responsible for ourselves, we couldn't point a finger at anyone else. For people from pre-independence and those who were born on the cusp of independence, there was a sense of two different traditions, the British or western one and our own which had been denigrated and we ourselves did not know how to react to it. Now suddenly the younger people had to come to term with a new reality, an Indian reality. It was tough for a while. It still is at times. We had very little self-esteem. You can see it even today. We mostly embrace only that which the west approves in our literature and other arts. The only exception is the cinema.
Arnab Chakladar: So I'm wondering what you make of these issues in our contemporary moment. India is as multilingual now as it was then...
Maharashtrians scream their heads off about how English is taking over all the space but at the same time they are making sure their children learn mainly English
Kiran Nagarkar: People from the generation after mine and after that are in a sense fortunate in that they are very simply from India and are Indian, but sadly they are mostly one language people. Bombay is probably the only capital of an Indian state where for many people it is really beneath their dignity to talk in Marathi. In Calcutta Marwaris will talk fluent Bengali; here people will say it is the language of servants. English is moving more and more from the periphery to the center. And I think it is happening everywhere, not just in Bombay.
Arnab Chakladar: Perhaps we can connect this back to the issues some writers in other languages have with writing in English--perhaps there is a sense of their audiences dwindling...
Kiran Nagarkar: Yes, which they are. But the problem is also that they are the very ones who are leading this push towards an exclusion of all but their own mother-tongue. It's not just English. The regional languages are not interested in each other either. We all send our children to English medium schools. I'm not saying we shouldn't learn English, but there is no parallel status for the regional languages. They are subordinate languages, and that is the tragedy of it. So on the one hand Maharashtrians scream their heads off about how English is taking over all the space but at the same time they are making sure their children learn mainly English.
Arnab Chakladar: It sounds like you are quite pessimistic about the possibility of the regeneration of Marathi literature...
Kiran Nagarkar: Or regional literature generally. I think it is very, very grim. I am not saying it is going to die out so soon. But for a language to be really living, you have to have people thinking in that language, exercising their minds in that language. And if you're not going to be open to things like Kosla or Saat Sakkam Trechalis, and to other languages, how will it happen? How can you ever converse with the world, pick up the best from everywhere if you have trained yourself to be deaf and are not greedy for the whole world?
Arnab Chakladar: Do you think there is any way out?
Kiran Nagarkar: First of all, there is no respect for your neighbour's language. People have to accept that all languages are amazing. We are so fond of the west, but why don't we emulate Switzerland where all children learn 4 languages. Why can't we learn 4?
Arnab Chakladar: Or even 2-to have full fluency/literacy in 2...
Kiran Nagarkar: (laughs) Yes, these days even 2 would be something.
No one will even need to burn books here because TOI has seen to it that books, reading, thinking are totally obsolete and irrelevant
Arnab Chakladar: Let me in this context ask about translation. Do you think a serious project of translation is one way in which these sorts of exclusivities can be bridged to some extent.
Kiran Nagarkar: Yes, but also the elders' attitude must change. There has to be a feeling that when you are talking about Tamil or whatever literature, you are, in a sense, touching the feet of the language, respecting it. But most Maharashtrians just caricature and ridicule the sounds of South Indian languages. We ignore the fact that Tamil is one of the oldest languages in the world. Instead of dismissing it, why don't we want to learn it instead? And we don't have to be hypocritical about it--most of the writing being done in Marathi or Bengali and other languages I'm sure is foul. But so is most of the work being done in English or French or German!
Arnab Chakladar: Let me ask you a sort of apocalyptic question, one that as a writer you may be ambivalent about: do you think many of these questions we've been discussing about writing in English vs. in other languages etc. are now somewhat moot because literature as a whole is becoming more and more irrelevant, that the business of representing and imagining our culture has actually shifted to film and television?
Kiran Nagarkar: Yes, and let me add a rider to that. I've been planning to write an article for a long time about this subject, the title was "Fahrenheit 451, Part Two". The idea is that we no longer need to even burn books because the Times of India and the culture it has promoted has made writing irrelevant. No one will even need to burn books here because TOI has seen to it that books, reading, thinking are totally obsolete and irrelevant. It is movies, it is television and it is models -- the mind has no space for thought. I want to reiterate that the role of the newspaper cannot be minimized. Unfortunately in India and across the world the shift is towards page 3. Politics, art, culture, science, sports everything is veering towards personalities and a common page 3 attitude and point of view.
Arnab Chakladar: Do you think in a sense this can almost become a liberation for serious writers?
Kiran Nagarkar: I don't see it that way. A major part of writing has always been connecting with people, and we are losing that. The other thing I find extremely dangerous and which obtrudes on the space of the artist or any thinking person is moral policing. That the Shiv Sena can tell me what I can write about. Tomorrow if I want to write about Shivaji, do I have a chance in heaven? Despite the fact that I am one of the few authors who takes risks, real risks, not the variety where showing an extra-marital affair is considered breaking new ground, I am already censoring myself. I am a ribald author...I like to be ribald but I am always terrified. Some of Arun's poems were part of a BA course, and he got in terrible trouble. I was lucky with Ravan and Eddie that these people did not read it. So you see I have to be grateful that they're not great readers. But one is always conscious of the asinine storm that would break out if one wrote about Bose, Mrs. Gandhi or Nehru.
Arnab Chakladar: Well, on that cheerful note: thank you very much for your time.
Kiran Nagarkar: Thank you.