LIVE with Shashi Tharoor...

LIVE with Shashi Tharoor! | Delhi: A Soliloquy

DC Books and Westland Publications organized a LIVE MEET on the occasion of the launch of the English translation of M Mukundan's Delhi Gathakal by Dr Shashi Tharoor.

The conversation was moderated by literary critic Resh Susan (The Book Satchel)

with Shashi Tharoor, 

Maniyambath Mukundan, (Author)

Fathima EV & Nandakumar K (Translators)

LIVE on Thursday, 29 October, 7 PM

But before that, the blurb to Delhi: A Soliloquy

It is the 1960s.

Delhi is a city of refugees and dire poverty.

The Malayali community is just beginning to lay down roots, and the government offices at Central Secretariat, as well as hospitals across the city, are infused with Malayali-ness.

This is the Delhi young Sahadevan makes his home, with the help of Shreedharanunni, committed trade union leader and lover of all things Chinese.

Then, unexpectedly, China declares war on India.

In a moment, all is split asunder, including Shreedharanunni’s family.

Their battle to survive is mirrored in the lives of many others: firebrand journalist Kunhikrishnan and his wife Lalitha; maverick artist Vasu; call girl and inveterate romantic Rosily;

JNU student and activist Janakikutty.

As India tumbles from one crisis to another - the Indo-Pak War, the refugee influx of the 1970s, the Emergency and its excesses, the riots of 1984 - Sahadevan is everywhere, walking, soliloquising and aching to capture it all, the adversities and the happiness.

Writer Mukundan observed…

There are no tragic events I won’t write about.

So these tragic events I particularly wanted to write about.

But usually I don’t respond immediately. That’s my nature.

This novel I’ve been thinking for more than 15 years.

So I got up at 4 o clock in the morning, had black tea and started writing till 8 am.

This is a little advice I’m sharing with you.

I wanted to talk about the Malayali migrants.

In the 60s very few Malayalis made it to the top. They were struggling.

There is a rosy image of the city of Delhi especially of Kerala.

But there is another side of Delhi, and I wanted to talk about this also.

The Malayali migration and the dark somber side of Delhi…

Fathima and Nandan came to my help. And a wonderful translation is there.

Sashi Tharoor then commented on author Mukundan and the book –

I’m delighted to launch this book.

He is a writer of considerable distinction.

For his amazing writings about Bahrain.

Now he has abandoned the lush green streets of Bahrain for the streets of Delhi.

It is, as he himself as revealed, very reflective of his own experiences, coming as a 20 year old in 1959. So the experiences his characters go through are similar with his own experiences.

The story is very much that of an observer of the city and its turbulent decades.

It’s striking that Mukundan is interested in the unfortunates and not in the success stories...

Sashi Tharoor continues…

Mukundan feelingly portrays the struggles and travails of the working class.

There is a lot of seamy side of the city as well.

And that’s what makes it unsparingly important.

Anchor says –

The food descriptions of Delhi really interested me. Through the food being cooked and shared.

Through this trivial incidents of cooking, there is a small subtext as well.

Vidhya is a young girl, who sees her friends having food but she is too poor to eat them.

Another passage on cooking dry fish.

Dr. Fathima –

In fact, when we decided to translate, I thought a lot of it was Malayali nostalgia living in Delhi. The book is also big.

Mukundan also agreed with me that we could cut a part of the book, so that more readers would buy it.

But Nandan was against it, and even Karthiga was against it…

Sashi Tharoor says -

There’s a lot about the book that’s anchored in a particular time and place. Historical events and personal drama of the characters merged together in the historical details of the book.

I prefer not to see echoes from today.

For example, there is very little in terms of rise of Hindutva in the book.

Because the character’s experience of Delhi has a host of other episodes.

For me, to look at the book, I would remember much more the individual characters, their struggles, the footwear, the worn out shirts of office goers, the young widow in poverty, these are some of the human insights that would stay with the reader.

There are no major melodramatic flourishes there.

Even the grissly endings are omitted. I remember the scene of the end of the anti-Sikh riots which is heart-rending.

It says,

“Delhi appeared to them like a huge painting made with blood”

Anatomising of historical detail as such!

Dr. Fathima -

Mukundan and Nandan are familiar with Delhi.

But since I’ve had such brief stays in Delhi,… as Tharoor pointed out, history is refracted through fiction.

People who are victims, on the margins, someone who is conscious of becoming a writer, feigned urgency, and the pulse of the crowd. He is an observer too!

So it was a learning curve for me as well.

Anchor observes –

25 to 30 characters, with a proper function each. All of them have very distinct voices. There’s a prostitute, a painter, a widow, a journalist… do you have a favourite character that stays in your mind…

Shashi Tharoor remarks -

All characters stay in my mind… The principal character is like an invisible man, nothing like the Malayalis I’ve known – who have been go-getters and shrewd!

Sahadevan’s early disillusionment – he is drifting across – there was poverty there was cleanliness and hygiene in Kerala, but in Delhi you have none of them.

According to Mukundan, he has spent many years, breathed it, lived it and so I appreciate him.

But the only character that I find difficult to relate to is Sahadevan, the protagonist.

Mukundan Sir remarks –

Sahadevan is my ideal Mukundan! My ideal character!

A word about the narration –

So many events, so many characters,…

And I didn’t want to write for intellectuals. I wanted to write for ordinary people, to make the story stay in the hearts of the readers.

I wanted to write in simple language, because I wanted the common laypeson also to read and appreciate it well.

Dr. Fathima says –

My favourite character is Rosily, because she is resilient and puts up with all the odds in her life…

Shashi Tharoor says –

Credit to the creator for having created such characters who are so true to life, and expressing the reality of their lives in the kind of detail that makes it credible.

I mean, very distinct concerns… it’s more their life experiences!

Every reader brings something of their own prejudices and sensibilities into the books that they read!

The artist’s character is a totally different experience for the reader!

Author Mukundan says -

One of my favourite characters is the painter –

Dr. Fathima observes -

My personal challenge was time. I was hard pressed for time. The biggest challenge was definitely to bring Mahe (I’m also from Mahe says Dr. Fathima) to recreate the Malayaliness which is there in Mahe. The dialect, the colloquial words, for me it was easy to relate, looking at the tone and the rhythm – because if you don’t get it right, you don’t simply get it right in the literary translation as well.

Shashi Tharoor on the Habit of Reading –

Reading is a habit which needs to be an art.

Reading is a source of pleasure. For me, the pleasure that reading gives is actually to lend meaning and magic to every word. Whether you are watching a cricket match, or watching a cinema, the purpose is that, it should be a meaningful endeavor.

What Walter Pater, says, to that degree reading is Art.

You read for your own pleasure. As we get older and busier, with family and work responsibilities, reading becomes difficult. But you should make a commitment to read!

Film is a passive form of entertainment. You can have the story unfold passively in front of you unlike in writing or reading!

Reading has been the pursuit of an elite minority.

But even today, in spite of the proliferation of technological distractions, there is a minority that still holds on to reading, that should spread ideas and values to the rest of society.

Dr. Fathima on the translation –

Mukundan uses a simple narrative, so our job was to make sure the simplicity is maintained throughout. As translators we have been helping each other for a long time....

Shashi Tharoor complimenting the translators -

It doesn’t read like a translation. Some translations are pretty clunky. This is a very fluid translation. All credit to the translators!

It reads very well in the translation and my compliments to both, winds up Tharoor!