“When my cousin Indira was the Prime Minister, I had to step out, especially during the Emergency"

Well, yes... Yet another glorious chapter in literature unfolded today at 9.40 am at Harrington Road, Chetpet, Chennai. 

Nayantara Sahgal, one of the most venerated and renowned post-Independence Novelists in English -inaugurated the fifth edition of The Hindu Lit for Life 2015.

Speaking on the occasion, Nayantara gave out a strongly-worded message in support of freedom of expression - 

“Let me just endorse what Nirmala has just said. If this kind of intimidation and bullying goes on there will be no more literary festivals of this caliber”. 

“Firstly I would like to see the formation of a union  or  common platform for writers and concerned citizens to come together to speak in support of writers who are in danger and have been intimidated by fringe groups, as in the recent case of Murugan Perumal”.

Eleanor Catton, Winner of the Booker in conversation...

The first session of the fest saw Eleanor Catton, the youngest recipient of the Booker Prize in conversation with Parvathi Nayar.

Introducing Eleanor as an outstanding writer who weaves complex, divergent and experimental themes in every strand of her writing, Parvathi Nayar set the ball rolling by asking her about how life had changed after becoming an acknowledged celebrity author, and how she felt being catapulted to the limelight all of a sudden, and what’s really changed after the Booker. 

Eleanor said -

“Well, it was indeed a curious thing to suddenly be in the public eye for which I was unprepared for!”

Reading out a passage from her first novel The Rehearsal, the youngest Booker Prize winner said that, 

“The novel is thoroughly experimental by nature, and as someone who’s working on the fringes, dealing with the extraordinary was something I thoroughly enjoyed!” 

Narrating the birth of the novel, and how it was originally meant out to be a play, she said that, it started as a monologue for a saxophone player, a friend of hers, and later, as life got in the way, she thought it would be much interesting as a piece of fiction than as a play. 

The feminist performance theory that makes up the gamut of the novel was something she came across as a result of her first introduction to feminism in University. She said -

Nayantara Sahgal in conversation 

“After I finished the book I could see that, the book became a kinda theatre of its own. Moreover, issues dealt with, in the book, are concerns that affected me as an individual.” 

“For example, when you reach puberty, you become your own audience, self-conscious, and the experience of being a teen was absolutely enigmatic. I always wanted to be somebody outside of my own skin, and always conscious of being watched!”

On being asked if the book was being made into a movie, Eleanor nodded in the affirmative and added, saying -

“One of the curious things about being a writer is that, you grow older, but your book doesn’t. So the distance between you and your book also grows!”

Talking about The Luminaries, (the longest book & the youngest author ever to win the Booker), Eleanor said that, each of the twelve characters in the book is associated with one of the twelve zodiac signs, and yet another set of characters is modelled on one of the heavenly bodies in the solar system. 

In this regard, she said that she discovered a computer programme online wherein, if you enter any date or time of any year, you can see how exactly the skies will look. 

So I keyed in the date when gold was first discovered, watched the sky revolve and took note on it. I sat with all the data, and soon realised that I wanted to write a novel based on it.

On quizzed about one of the most debatable points about The Luminaries, - the concept of structure, she said that, structure to her was more of a liberating one than a constraining one! Citing an instance to relate to her point, she added - 

“When, I as a teacher, taught UG Classes in the US to a class of 20 students, at least four or five will be absolutely identical – like using their adjectives, idioms, etc.“ 

“But when I asked them to write a poem from today’s front page of a newspaper, with a ridiculous number of constraints, then their imagination gets fired and they are quite unique”!

Stressing on the importance of reading, which does 90% of the job of a writer’s life, she quipped -

“There’s a beautiful native plant out there in New Zealand that changes its physical dimensions halfway through its life. This is exactly the metaphor for reading! We begin defensively and change towards the end of our lives.”

“Moreover, Reading shapes our impressions and perceptions of the world, and hence, we should read, more so, for the power of transformation this exercise can give us!” 

she signed off.

A section of the audience

The second session of the day witnessed Nayantara Sahgal in conversation with Geeta Doctor and Ritu Menon.

Sahgal said that the title of her memoir Prison and Chocolate Cake, was suggested by her publisher, and not by her grandmother as misquoted by some! 

“In my childhood, I was taught that going to prison was a privilege.”  

“When my father was first arrested, I was two years old. So my mother didn’t want us to be unhappy. So whenever dad went to prison, she would make us chocolate cakes and give us, and that explains the title.”

Speaking out, yet again, on the issue of freedom of expression, Nayantara said -

“Ever since Aubrey Menen, whose book happens to be the first book ever to be proscribed in India, there have been rising instances of unrest over artists and their creations”. 

“There’s a definite trend that cannot be ignored. Artists have been threatened. Paintings have been vandalised. Hence, we need a forum where writers and concerned citizens should come together to join in unison against the highhanded moral policing of some of these fringe outfits, who destabilise the right to freedom of expression, and thereby take the law into their own hands!”

On asked, about the political and the personal in her life, Sahgal said - 

“To me, there’s no difference between the two in my life. Politics is not something out there because it intimately connected us in the home”. 

“I belonged to a political family. [She is the cousin of Smt. Indira Gandhi, and the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru’s sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit]. So, I had to go to jail, and everything that happened in the country influenced my family and me personally”. 

“So it came naturally to me when I began to write that politics is my material and it just became the background in my novels. Hence, almost all my novels are political and they are connected with the atmosphere of the time. I was very much concerned with the making of modern India, and hence, my novels also exhibit this concern in them”.

“Writing makes one to step out of one’s family or even one’s own country. Both in my fiction as well as in my non-fiction I came up heavily against situations which I couldn’t support”. 

“When my cousin Indira was the Prime Minister, I had to step out, especially during the Emergency. When people asked me how can you go against your own family, I said, I’m defending my own family, but Indira was the one who went against the family”. 

“It was very very painful during the Emergency because I had to face a lot of very difficult situations! Like for example, my fifteen years’ of writing for the Sunday Standard was stopped abruptly”. 

“Even a film based on one of my novels was stopped, because the woman who did the film didn’t want to associate with me! Even a publisher of my novel dropped out. So, it was a difficult and painful time. But I had to do it!”

“Because, it was important for me to protest what the government then was doing! When a country was going wrong, its citizens had to put it right!” 

she quipped, to thunderous applause from the audience.

On asked if she could have been a bit more diplomatic, Sahgal said -

“Rather than being more diplomatic, I could have been less confrontational! One does things in the passion of the moment, frankly and without fear, and later when you think about it, you have your own reservations about it! But, I have no regrets for what I wrote or said!.”

Saying that she was the favourite of all the cousins to Indira Gandhi, who was ten years her senior, Sahgal said -

“We both got along very well, and hence, it was very painful for me to oppose her!” 

But quite soon she added to say that, 

“This is what power does to people! She changed once she came to power! Nehru was not a dynast. He didn’t choose his successor! His party chose! But Indira chose her successor and couldn’t tolerate opposition especially from her own kith and kin!! My sisters and I grew up in Panditji’s house”. 

“He was my third parent. So there was no difference in treatment. We were all one family. Indira was educated in England and Switzerland. So she was away for most of the time. It was only when I began to write political columns, that Indira became very insecure personally, since she was vulnerable to any kind of opposition…!”

Here, Ritu Menon, her biographer added that, 

“Not many can live their personal lives politically. The condition itself is predicated on a painful recognition of who you are, and what you want to be! It was Indira Gandhi’s intention to separate the personal from the political that actually, in a way, incensed her about her cousin’s political commentaries!”.

When asked about her own favourites among all her novels, she said -

“I don’t like all my works. I’ve got my favourites too: Rich Like Us, & Mistaken Identity.”

On freedom of expression, Sahgal reiterated, saying -

“As a new Dark Age descends upon us, it is the collective responsibility of individuals to speak powerfully about the idea of India that we believe in, before it is destroyed before our eyes”!

Justice K. Chandru on Free Speech

The parallel session on “Free Speech in Peril: The Issues at Stake” had the most number of votaries, to a packed audience in the pavilion, where, for want of seats, delegates were even found squatting on the front rows to listen to ardent votaries and champions of freedom of expression. 

The session was moderated by eminent Professor A. R. Venkatachalapathy, and the panelists were: N. Ram, Justice K. Chandru and Sashi Kumar. 

Nirmala Lakshman, [the festival’s curator, and the brain behind the founding of ‘The Hindu’’s Literary Review] deserves special kudos from the blogging fraternity for endorsing, in her welcome address, the extensive coverage of the event by passionate and avid bloggers].