& Conversation | with
Ashwin Sanghi
Myriad Musings on the Metaphor!
[Part – 6]
Today’s post
would be a continuation on our humble sojourn into the rich world of metaphor,
with a discussion on Peter Carey’s
Illywhacker!
As such, it also
has a wonderful sync and quite an interesting connect with our last past post on Flaubert’s Parrot!
The word ‘illywhacker’
in Australian slang, refers to a con man, a liar or a trickster!
Badgery, Herbert
Badgery is the ‘illywhacker’ and the protagonist of the novel, who sets out to
narrate his ‘picaresque’ life in Australia.
And Badgery is
139 years old!
‘Carey can spin a
yarn with the best of them…. Illywhacker is a big, garrulous, funny novel…. If
you haven’t been to Australia, read Illywhacker. It will give you the feel of
it like nothing else I know’, says The New York Times Book Review on the novel.
Like Carey is his creation, Badgery!
Badgery is adept
in the art of lying! In fact Carey wields the weapon of ‘lying’ as a metaphor for the art of writing fiction! Something akin to Atwood, who in her Handmaid’s Tale employs ‘birth’ as a metaphor
for artistic creation!
In this context, before
delving deep into Carey and his Badgery, on an aside, I’m so spontaneously reminded
of a lovely rendezvous we had with Ashwin Sanghi on the occasion of the tenth anniversary
celebration of his first book, The Rozabal
Line, in the year 2018 at Bangalore!
To one question from
the interlocutor, on the place and function of mythology, history and science
in our everyday lives, he had this to say –
Well, to everyone
of us, the delicious question is, ‘what if’?
‘What if this
were true?’
I can tell you,
my growing up years, my skills in storytelling, came fully from my
grandfather! And naanaji was a
consummate liar and a good story teller also! And I think the two go
hand-in-hand! Really!
Added, I had no
qualification to write fiction. When people used to ask, ‘What is your
qualification to be this writer?’ And I reply, ‘Well, my mother used to say, I was
a good story teller, and I was a big liar!’And this is what I’ve continued doing
even now. I tell lies!...’
He was asked then
a question on his 2010 novel titled Chanakya’s
Chant.
You have developed
the character of Vishnu Gupta from the beginning, about whom,
nothing is really known! In the middle of the book you see him as Chanakya, the
king-maker. So what is it that fascinated you about this persona, about whom very
little is actually known!?
Ashwin replied,
I love characters that are grey! Because it is
difficult to pin them down, as to whether they are good or bad! Chanakya fits into
that category beautifully. It is very possible that Vishnu Gupta was the Ashwin
Sanghi of his time, liberally mixing fiction and fact together. In other words,
what we now consider as de facto history, may not be de facto history…
When he was asked
on how he does his research for his books, Ashwin Sanghi said that he usually
starts hunting first for an idea! … Says he –
I do a ton of reading while writing a book! I have a
separate, personal gmail account which is my ‘idea bank’! Over the years I’ve
mailed myself 15000 times! So my research material is all there! I’ve just got
to go to it!
Another young man
asked him,
‘Sir, you said you believe more in mythology than in history. Even
mythology has many different perspectives to it. So how do you consider
mythology better than history?
Ashwin replied,
At least with
mythology we know that there are multiple perspectives. But the problem with
history is that, we keep one particular perspective and we treat that as fact!
In that sense, mythology is more truthful. We say, ‘Hey, listen, this is just
one version! There may be other versions too!’
One of the very
interesting things that happened to me when I was attending a student seminar
in Kolkata, was visiting a temple. Surprise of surprises I found out for
myself when I entered the temple, that the deity that was being worshipped was actually
Amitabh Bachchan! I didn’t realize that it was an Amitabh temple that I had
gone into! And when I came outside the temple there was this young man who was
selling all the stuff needed for a pooja,
and amongst them all was a little prayer book, known as the Amitabh chalisa!
I thought to
myself at that moment, isn’t it possible that at this very point of time,
standing at this road crossing, a car comes at high speed and knocks me down, I
die on the spot, and I am reborn a thousand years later, and the cult of
Amitabh worship has really caught on, and there is not one lakh temples but ten
lakh temples to him!
And that’s precisely
what’s happened to a lot of our mythological figures or our theological
figures! Probably they are rooted in some kernel of history but everyone has
presented their own version of events, around that.
And of course, we
in India, our food tends to be spicy, and we love putting spice into our everything.
And that’s what we did with our stories also. For the longest time we did not
have a written record of many of these stories.
So it’s like a
game of Chinese whispers. What goes on at one end isn’t what comes out at the
other end of the circle.
But that doesn’t imply
that it didn’t start out with a kernel of truth! And that’s the truth we are
searching for! On what and where exactly is that kernel of truth!
Hence, what I essentially
end up doing is, I take up two words, myth and history! And consider that you
put them both into a particle collider, as in Quantum Physics, crashing one on
the another at phenomenal speed, so that they fuse; and then myth and history
come together and then, my answer would be -
Myth + history =
mystery
Because both are,
and will remain a mystery always!
This memorable conversation we had with Ashwin Sanghi, would then form the launchpad and our background for more
on Carey and his Badgery!
To be continued…
image:
amazondotcom
live transcription
of conversation: this blogger’s
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