 |
||
|
||
|
||
His mornings are devoted to writing. That might explain the
reflective strain in Nirmal Verma's oeuvre. It is there in his
short stories, Parinde, Jalti Jhaari, Pichhli Garmiyon Mein, Beech
Bahas Mein. It pervades his novels Vey Din, Lal Teen ki Chhat, Ek
Chithda Sukh, Raat Ka Reporter. It is the stuff his essays are made
of, be it Har Barish Mein, Dhalan Se Utartey Huey, Shatabdi Ke
Dhalte Varshon Mein or Europe Aur America: Pratishruti Ke Kshetra,
the collection of essays that fetched him the Moortidevi award for
1995.
His daily routine includes reading "three or four books" -an
anthology of poems, fiction, a dissertation on culture and yes, one
on philosophy. He and Gagan, his wife, might attend a
concert-classical, generally- and "when the day ends, dreams
begin".
On the day he received the Moortidevi Award, Nirmal Verma put aside
his routine of reading and made time for a conversation with
Ratnottama Sengupta on his own writings and those of others.
Excerpts:
What inspired you to write Bharat Aur Europe?
It is an appraisal of the encounter between India and Europe, at
both civilisational and cultural levels, to measure and evaluate
the insights and understanding received from Europe through
Britain. The British years played an important role in the life of
India. Never had an entire intelligentsia gone through such close
introspection. Ram Mohun Roy, Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Gandhi: the
entire intellectual ferment was an exercise in self- interrogation.
How do you see distinctions between the Indian and European
civilisations?
On the basis of three sets of relationships: those of time, nature
and self (atman). We were under a severe negative attack from
Western civilisation. Nature for them is an object to be
appropriated, because man is at the centre of the universe. And
Time is measured by them in fragments of past, present and future.
The past is overcome by the present, which in turn takes you to the
future. Even for Max Mueller, India's "past was glorious" but its
present merely a ghostly remnant of the past, and the future
depended on its Europeanising itself.
But in Indian tradition, from the very beginning, man was part of a
larger system, of the universe. The self is seen as a miniature of
the Viraat, or Brahman, Almighty or whatever, and therefore, a
bearer of divinity. He becomes responsible for the entire
universe, including the inanimate world. It is not accidental that
our mythology teems with animals and trees.
What bearing did this have on secular or civic life?
Because of this concept of Dharma, there was no divide between the
religious or spiritual, and the secular or civic life. This
division began in Europe with the rupture with divinity during the
Renaissance. The divine stayed with the church, and the civic with
the society, which placed man centrestage. That may have led to
the glory of the Renaissance but its ultimate consequence was also
the ego-centred view of man in Nazi ideology.
I am fully aware of the ongoing debate on the secular versus the
spiritual. But Indian civilisation had an integrated approach to
sansara or lok (this world) and the spiritual, parlok (the other
world). Dharma is the harbinger of all our transactions in both,
this world and beyond. This was the most important concept of
Gandhism. Gandhi never used the word secular when talking of
Hindu-Muslim unity. The religious and the secular were not separate
but a confluence that nourished Indian civilisation.
Why, then, are we faced with this crisis today?
Because our civilisation was uprooted from those nourishing
sources. The Bhakti movement in North India, Bengal, Maharashtra,
Karnataka, was not a dissident movement as the communists tried to
describe it. It took the points of the Vedas and re-integrated
them into the warp and woof of everyday life. Similarly, in the
18th and 19th centuries, the galaxy of great thinkers-from Ram
Mohun Roy to Aurobindo, the Tagores to Vivekananda-were trying to
come to terms with an acquisitive western civilisation, not in
terms of revivalism but of rejuvenation.
The Indian national movement was a national effort to offer an
alternative civilisational model, in terms of both the secular and
inner spheres of existence. It was a civilisation quest, trying to
answer 'Who am 1?', not as an individual but as an Indian.
Hasn't the crisis deepened with the process of globalisation?
Yes, we are passing through a dangerous period. That we are swamped
by the Pepsi and KFC culture shows the magnitude of our
uprootedness. We are left incapable of choosing from the global
field what is important for our existence in the 20th century.
Perhaps the most important gift of Indian culture is atmabodh
(self-identity). Unless we know ourselves, we cannot make a
meaningful relationship with the outside world. If we forget this,
any invasion -economic or cultural-will find us swaying like leaves
in the wind.
Have these thoughts found expression in your short stories and
novels?
Something of the emptiness of our relationship in urban life does
come in these. It has become difficult for men and women to
communicate because of the absence in our life of a sanctioning
authority like God. It is not a question of whether God exists or
not, but it highlights the vacuum, the loneliness this has left in
our life. In my creative writings I transform some of these
concerns into a field of existential choices with which man is
faced in everyday life.
Who are your favourite authors?
The French essayist Simone Weil has been an abiding favourite,
illuminating as she does the ills of present existence. I admire
Camus for the courageous stand he took against the Left. Orwell,
with his lucid prose and very critical intelligence, also fathomed
the duplicities of Communists in Europe. I greatly admire Vaclav
Havel's Letters To Olga, especially in the light of my experience
of spending several years in Czechoslovakia.
In fiction, the Russian writers of the 19th century showed that
spiritual anguish and existential dilemmas can become a part of
imaginative writing. In India, writers like Bibhuti Bhushan
Bandopadhyay (Pather Panchali), Tarashankar (Ganadevata), Jainendra
Kumar and Agyeya showed me the importance of the Indian experience.
In my early years, I was much impressed by Virginia Woolf who
taught 'a new mode of writing. In recent years I admire Toni
Morrison for bringing to me in an overwhelming way the experience
of the Black American.
What are you working on at the moment?
For the last two years, I have been working on a novel about six or
seven retired people living in a hill station. Except for the
occasional visit by a son or daughter, they are completely cut off
from their earlier life. Yet their past is, for them, very real.
Each one is a sounding board for the other, and often events that
they have suppressed for years come out into the open.
In a way it is a collective introspection. Facing death, they try
to re-interpret the life which will not come back but might yield
some meaning that will help them face death with equanimity.
|
||
|
||
|
||