Anita Nair has been one of my favourite
writers of all time, for any many reasons!
One reason why we at the Department of
English decided to personally invite her over to MCC, to talk to our students at the Department of English, over a ‘Book Review Event’ on 06 April 2016!
And so nice of her, she gladly
accepted to grace the occasion.
The rest, as y’all know, is history, and is also on our YouTube page HERE! ;-)
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| Ms. Anita Nair with our PG Final Years, 06 April 2016 |
The rest, as y’all know, is history, and is also on our YouTube page HERE! ;-)
At MCC, Ms Anita Nair motivated students to read good books of all hues, and also spoke at length on the
writing process.
Says Ms Anita Nair -
When you look back on your life, and you ask yourself, ‘Did I
write all by myself?’, or ‘Did I write because the world expected me to write
in a certain way?’
And well, given the
choice
between individual worth and societal worth, I have always maintained that
individual worth is more important than collective worth and it has always been
the leitmotif of most of my works. That’s because I've always believed that in
the contest between individual and the society the individual always prevails!
Now fast forward to a TedX talk given my
Ms Anita Nair in November 2017 titled, ‘A Story about a Story-teller’, where
she talks again on a similar theme! And with such apt and able
illustrations!
To Ms Anita Nair, then, artistic success
takes place only when one moves out of one's comfort zone to create an impact
on those around as well as on oneself.
Says Ms Anita Nair –
After publishing my
first
two novels, and tasting success, I was constantly being invited to dinner
parties and speaking engagements, world tours, etc.
But at some point in
my life, I took a
step back and asked myself, “Is this artistic success, all this fame, is this
truly a measure of artistic success?”
Or…
“Is artistic success
something
when an artist raises the bar or pushes himself or herself beyond the limits?”
You tell yourself that you'll pushed yourself out of your
comfort zone. And that’s when you feel
you’ve made an impact not just on the world around you but also on
yourself.
So this was a question that was troubling me.
I was asking myself
this
question over and over again. Am I going to play to the gallery?
Am I going to keep
writing the same kind of things that have
got me success or am I going to push the barrier higher?
So that’s when I
remember something
significant that happened in my life.
I was working in
advertising
in Bangalore. These were the pre-internet days.
It was a little agency
and so I had to
climb up the steps and in the reception, there was a Kathakali dancer standing
in his full costume. He was there to do an ad for a rate card. I soon found out
that he was a figure of ridicule. For one minute of stage time, the Kathakali
dancer practices for almost a record 100 hours! But all his practice of nine
years goes for contempt and scorn in a moment like this!
It was then that I
wanted
to write a book on artistic success.
To me artistic success is about pushing the barriers.
Taking it to the next
level to
be able to tell myself at the end of it all that this was worth it.
What is the
significance
of Art in everyday life?
It's probably a work
of painting
that hangs on the wall or a piece of music that you listen to when you walk up
the stairs in the reception area, and then you forget all about it.
Or probably a book that you’d read never to look at again.
But somewhere somebody is working endlessly on it and toiling
endlessly for it.
And for what Joy???
Yesterday I was having dinner with my publisher and she was
telling me about a cricketer who was writing his biography.
And once the economics of publishing was explained to him, he
was shocked and he turned around and said, ‘Why do writers write? There seems
to be no profit of it!’
Indeed! There's no
money
in it. Writers write because we can't help ourselves. We have to write.
Every artist writes or
creates
because they can't help it.
So yes, there is serendipity!
Self-examination!
That's one of the
things
I need to remember as a storyteller. I need to be able to create my stories.
At the end of it all
when
I look back and ask myself, ‘Why do I write?’
‘To lead from ignorance to the beginnings of knowledge’.
‘From prejudice to a
better
understanding and to reaffirm in these time, wreaked with discrimination and
terror, that there is still hope!’
‘And that we need to
be as much Humane
as we are human’.
‘Nothing else matters. Nothing else is of consequence!’
So beautifully, straight from the
heart, she’s summed it all up!
W. B. Yeats in his ‘Irish Airman’ poem,
says something on a similar vein –
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering
crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
Chinua Achebe also has a delightful
take that runs on similar lines –
Says Achebe, Chinua Achebe –
For me there are three reasons for becoming a writer.
The first is that you have an overpowering urge to
tell a story.
The second is you have the information for a unique
story waiting to come out, and
The third is that you consider the whole project
worth the considerable trouble.
I have sometimes called it terms of imprisonment you have to
endure to bring it to fruition…
So yup! From Anita Nair, to Chinua
Achebe to W. B. Yeats, they all have one motivational liner for us all –
literary souls -
When you have an overpowering
urge to tell something, just express it!
Jot them down! Put
them on a canvas! Yes! Without bothering about anything else – I repeat – anything
else! - like the public man, or cheering crowds!
Just write…!
Write-a-way!
Rightaway!
And the rest will fall in place!
Straightaway! ;-)