On an August morning in 2001, my phone rang. As I said “Hello”, a professorial voice came on the line “Swapan babu speaking”? “Yes please!” “I’m Manoj Das here, speaking from Sri Aurobindo Ashram opposite Kenilworth Hotel, Kolkata. Your letter addressed to my Pondicherry home has been redirected. I’ll be hem for a few more …
In Snow, a novel by Nobel prizing-winning author Orhan Pamuk, there’s this central character named Ka, a poet and a journalist, who unerringly senses when a poem dawns on him. Like the birth of a child, it may be not only at odd hours but at odd places too, and it has to be attended to. So wherever he is at that moment, he somehow makes a little room for himself, and scratches away on a piece of paper non-stop until the natural birth of the poem is complete.
After the imposition of the lockdown following the second wave of COVID-19, the streets of the towns now swarm with vendors selling all sorts of daily needs, particularly in the morning, as people have mostly gone indoors, stepping out only when it’s absolutely necessary.
Ruskin Bond, who turned eighty-six on May 19, 2020, is one of the few writers who never bothered abut fame. Putting his pen to paper, he narrates stories that are delightful and meaningful. He is one of India’s most prolific wirters, whose work has touched the lives of millions of people – children and adults alike.
Have you ever been in a bookshop looking for a title and ended up buying a different one? Or does it ever happen to you when you visit your favourite library that some books in particular stacked in open shelves placed at the far corners hidden from your immediate visual range silently beckon you to pick them up and carry them home and cohabit with them for a few weeks? Or, for that matter, you visit a book fair with an ardent love for books that have sustained you through a rather difficult time—having no idea what to expect?
It’s not humans alone you fall in love with at first sight. There are places-sometimes almost in your backyard – that could leave you similarly smitten. We recently visited the wondrous Kalimpong town, and were blown away by two of its state-run lodges and their unique environment.
In Madame Bovary, a novel by Gustave Flaubert, there is a conversation between Monsieur Leon and the eponymous heroine (Part Two, Ch-2) where Mme Bovary says: “Do you not feel that the mind drifts unfettered upon the immensity (sunset by the sea), where contemplation raises up the soul, and feeds a feeling of infinity, of the fabulous”, to which Leon replies: “Such sights as these (the poetry of lakes, the magic of waterfalls, the gigantic sight of glaciers) must be an inspiration, an incitement to prayer, to ecstasy!
I have been to Haridwar quite a few times drawn by the grace of the river Ganges particularly at the hour when dusk sets in and the pilgrims gather at Har-Ki-Pauri to watch the Ganga Aarti and make a beeline to the river bank to float boats made of fresh green banyan leaves with pink and red flower petals inside and a burning diya in the middle.
There’s one railway journey that I frequently undertook, that is, from Delhi to Dehradun. Mainly to meet the writers hailing from that region. Sometimes I did it twice.
Scores of books about writers and their works have been published in the form of interviews. People like to listen to, or read about, the opinions of others, especially when they happen to be well known personalities. It bridges the gap between fame and anonymity. Even in this fast moving world, it is well nigh impossible for readers to not be affected by interviews. But few writers have taken the trouble to talk to musicians, filmmakers, dancers and other artists, and jot down their thoughts for the benefit of their fans. People Who Meet People is about interviews with “stars” from diverse fields. These legends talk about their art, methods of work and philosophy.
