It was at the back of a run-down palace beside a pond. He was sitting on a bench placed among plants of varied hues, a branch above his head hung with golden yellow guavas. The air was thick with a divine smell—a pregnant hush. Unnoticed by anyone of his clan, and partly hidden among the …
It often strikes me how a certain strand of memory is triggered by a particular sight or scene or scent or sound. Recently, while running an errand to purchase a tuft of Chandra Mallika flowers (Chrysanthemum), I ran into a gentleman sitting on an elevated spot by the side of a public pool, feeding a …
A year or so ago, we were invited to a marriage ceremony at Brahmapur in South Kolkata. Due to a lack of space at the relative’s house, I was placed in a rented one-room flat at an apartment located fifteen-twenty minutes away by auto. Usually I stick out like a sore thumb in a crowded …
What kind of feeling do you get when you finish a piece of writing and it goes out into the world? It feels great when I physically come to the end of a book and write the final sentence in a fury of passion. Afterwards, it’s gone. When the book comes back to me months …
Two Questions with Nature Writer, Poet & Essayist GRETEL EHRLICH Read More »
Of all the wild places you visited, which one, according to you, was the most interesting? The most amazing experience, I’d say, would be Antarctica, for sure. It’s so inhospitable. You feel your own pulse, because there’s that quiet space and harshness in everything there. You feel your life much more acutely. But the scariest …
Two Questions with the Canadian Explorer, Nature Writer and Photographer Kate Harris Read More »
Your music reflects a free flow of divine feeling. Some listeners say that they feel a sort of stirring of God in them when they listen to your music. How do you create this sublime effect on the mind of the audience? When you visit a temple, and stand in front of the deity, some …
Two Questions with Tabla Maestro Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri Read More »
My acquaintance with kash phool (Kans Grass) deepened when as an adolescent I read the novel Pather Panchali (first published in 1929) by Bibhutibhusan Bandyopadhyay. His other novel, Aranyak happens to be my all-time favourite mainly because of its evocative depiction of the wonders of nature in places like Lobtulia and its surroundings which sadly do not exist anymore. I still vividly recall the scene where Durga and Apu run with great excitement to see a train passing through their village; the majesty and marvel of the steam engine hauling the train, smoke drifting out from it and curling back in the air, glimpsed through the banks of flowering kash phool grown wild all along the track. Of course the image of this spectacle got further imprinted in the subconscious when I saw the film of the same name (first released in 1955) by the great Satyajit Ray.
Was there any harrowing experience finding a publisher?
My book of plays I took to many publishers. Everybody said there was no market for children’s plays which I thought was really rubbish because every school—and there’re so many schools—needs to do plays …
Did you feel a sense of release each time you successfully completed a poem?
The joy is over once you complete a poem. You know you have to sit down and start the whole thing all over again. So the struggle begins anew, for a new flash perhaps.
Your cosy cottage in Mussoorie remains mostly enveloped in profound silence all through the year as its some distance away from the hub of the town. I guess this suits you perfectly.
A lot of people don’t like Mussoorie because it’s silent! In my book Footloose in the Himalaya I said that I have known several people who have aspired and sweated to get a house on the hills in an isolated locale where they can enjoy the silence. Once having got it and stayed there for three weeks, they say “Bhago!”
