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`Oral tradition was virtuality'
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Author Irwin Allan Sealy and actor Dhritiman Chaterji discuss films, books and more
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PHOTO: R. RAGU
COFFEE AND CONVERSATION Dhiritiman Chaterji and Allan Sealy
Dehradun-based novelist Irwin Allan Sealy, who is participating in the Anglo-Scapes Festival, is known for his reserve — though he did make his "Trotternama" and "Red" leap out of the page in vibrant readings. After all, he did have an elocution teacher for mother. Actor Dhritiman Chaterji, unforgettable in classic films like Satyajit Ray's "Pratidwandi" and Aparna Sen's "36,Chowringhee Lane", now also part of mainstream movies like Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Black" and Mani Ratnam's forthcoming "Guru", is best described as laconic
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN follows them down several lanes.
Chaterji: The thing about shy people is that it doesn't show.
Sealy: You've a facade... You're sheltering behind it, hiding what's precious.
Chaterji: For an actor, the necessity to observe people is not the same as interacting with them. In the early years, my work was realistic, naturalistic. A lot had to come from within. What I do now involves building characters from scratch. In 15, Park Avenue, I had to start with nuts and bolts to make up the psychiatrist I played.
Sealy: When you have to enter a multiplicity of characters, how can you give yourself totally to any one? You're bound to carry masks... A writer too will never totally inhabit any single character. He has to go in so many directions.
Chaterji: For a writer, the requirements come from within. The actor has to deal with screenplay and director. Anthony Hopkins once said he liked acting best when he was in disguise. Now I find that more interesting.
Sealy: Hmm... Jekyll and Hyde! Creating another persona, and drawing from what you know best — the self. You do your best work when you come closest to either of them.
Chaterji: I envy writers for their productivity. Is it a daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. discipline? Amitav (Ghosh) once said the journey to the desk in the morning was the important thing.
Sealy: You'll do a hundred things to avoid that particular journey. The rest comes more easily... Who has godlike freedom? Nobody. The writer who seizes freedom within the imposed limits succeeds.
Chaterji: An actor is tempted to play to the audience...
Sealy: Shakespeare has more than one eye on the audience. He's making concessions all the time.
Chaterji: (Slowly) What is creativity? Is it thinking the thought, or expressing the thought? What about those who have the thought but lack the skills to express it?
Sealy: A lot of the thinking actually occurs on the page. The pen begins to move on its own accord. The first sentence determines what comes next. But it didn't exist until a minute ago. So it's not coming fully-formed from your head. The best parts appear when you follow the pen. That doesn't happen in the mind, but on the page.
Chaterji: I've worked in advertising where only people who write or visualise copy to persuade others are considered creative. I don't agree. But since I'm attracted to fiction where the style has resonance, I feel a lot of writing is neither unconscious nor wholly spontaneous.
Sealy: We use rhetoric! We're just as hell-bent on persuasion as that copywriter. But the writer has nothing to sell. I'm constantly rewriting — not to get this person to buy the book, but to enfold him into my view of things.
Chaterji: Yes, and when I believe you I wonder why I wasn't able to express it like that.
Sealy: That's the professional's job, whether tightrope walking or fire eating. The gymnast has done it so often. The technique is part of him now. But you can't get grace no matter how often you tumble, it just comes. Inspiration, truth... they must fuse with the fancy stuff.
Chaterji: I remember a radio interview of film celebrities where the polished diction I attributed to a British director turned out to belong to Satyajit Ray. The inarticulate voice was Marlon Brando!
Sealy: (Laughing) Brando's stardom is in his personal appeal, not articulation! Actresses especially, can never be plain Janes. Even Fellini had to have them beautiful. Fortunately, the writer's physicality is of no interest to the audience.
Chaterji: (Mischievously) I like Zadie Smith's book but a lot of the time I am staring at her picture.
Sealy: Arundhati (Roy)... the early posters had her — one white the other black — as if she were Ash... A beautiful author has an advantage in selling the book, but that by itself is not going to carry the text, the literary object. Even a fragment of Sappho speaks directly to your heart. We hope at least one or two lines in our novels will have that power. Who knows how Sappho looked? Or cares? A 100 Years of Solitude looks better than Garcia Marquez.
Chaterji: For years, I could write my thoughts only by hand. Now it happens only on the keyboard.
Sealy: I had the same prejudice. Now I've seen the light on the road to Damascus! Red doesn't exist on paper. No manuscript. So there's nothing at all to show that I've written this book. Sometimes I miss those balloons on the page, those arrows streaking out everywhere.
Chaterji: Tagore's painting started with doodling.
Sealy: Characters too are born on the margins. Who knows where these things happen! At least, on paper, you can keep track of them.
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