TRIBUTE
Writer well loved
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`She liked life, and respected the span of time that was hers'. SUSAN VISVANATHAN on writer Shama Futehally who died last week.
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THE National School of Drama held a memorial on December 3, 2004, for their well-loved colleague and teacher Shama Futehally. The auditorium was packed with those who had been touched by Shama's life and work. It was, like all mortuary ceremonies, devastating in its sense of tragic loss for someone that the people gathered had known and loved. As one of the speakers said, "Try as we might, it is doubtful that anyone can say anything about Shama which is anything but how wonderful she was as a person." I think that is possibly true.
A listener
I had met Shama twice. The first time, was at the Commonwealth Awards held in Delhi, when Malashree Lal introduced us, and Shama looking fabulous in thick white silk, said "My friend Geeta Doctor likes your work very much." There was something so warm and grand about Shama, who wore her jewels and her happiness with such abandon.
I would have liked to speak with her, but the Commonwealth Awards function was a riotous affair, with Salman Rushdie mobbed by photographers and, in the end, drumming the table furiously, because he had been bypassed. Shama would have laughed at it all, particularly since the crush was so great that hands holding wine glasses were jostled, and one of our friends had red wine flooded down her blouse, and was livid, more so because it was winter. I rarely go to launches and somewhere those of us who live in Delhi know that being considered the "creamy layer", actually means that people think we are scum risen to the top.
No one would ever allege that Shama was in the writers' game for the grabs and the publicity. Shama was part of the work world of writing, and I think she will be remembered for that, if the gathering of writers (alongside her students and colleagues, and the IAS families of whom she was a core member as a supportive and loving wife to Javed Chaudhary) was any indication. Geetha Hariharan communicated how much she enjoyed collaborating with Shama and spoke of Shama as being a "Listener". Yes, that's how I would remember Shama — she immediately gave me the feeling that she was my friend.
On the second occasion, three years ago, Tapan Basu had invited Shama, Mukul Kesavan, Manju Kapur, Urvashi Bhutalia and me to speak at a College seminar. After we had finished our readings and were about to leave, Shama asked if she could drop me somewhere. I had to go to Connaught Place to buy a chocolate cake from Wengers, which I had to carry on a flight to Bangalore en route to Thiruvannamalai the next day since my brother-in-law (who is still very impressed with my sister though 35 years have passed since they first met,) wanted it for her 50th birthday.
I suppose I must have looked a little puzzled about how to get the cake, and be back in JNU in time for my daughter's school bus. Shama insisted it was on her way, and we talked for an hour in the car. Traffic in Delhi is such, that anywhere you go, whatever the mode of transport, it takes an hour, a bit like Shaw's five-shilling dentist! I remember talking to her about children and schools and the joys and shocks of living in Delhi, and had the sense of being with someone whom privilege had not destroyed. It will be hard for her family, and I suspect boring, not to have her around, but then as she told friends, all of whom she had met before leaving, "The children are settled."
Link with Shama
I was grateful to my colleague Geetha Nambisan, who was Shama's friend and neighbour, for having been a link between Shama and me. I saw the children at the ceremony, and thought how assured they were that their mother was safe wherever she was, and probably making friends and easing someone's journey somewhere! Vidya Rao sang the most beautiful Meera bhajan in a strong confident voice, and one knows that whatever Shama stood for, people who knew her, wherever they are, will carry on those traditions. A student of the NSD where she taught Literature said, "Madame made everything so saral for us and she made us laugh." Travel, books, arguments ... Shama liked life, and respected the span of time that was hers.
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