Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Just in genes

Namrita Bachchan speaks on `Deliverance' a `gift book', where word and image combine

PHOTO SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

WRITE STUFF Namrita Bachchan on painting, poetry and books

The book might begin with a Socratic disclaimer but debut author Namrita A. Bachchan asserts, Deliverance is "My book; there was no red tape, there were no restrictions and I did it exactly the way I wanted it."

Written, illustrated and designed by her, it is yet to be made public. With painting exhibitions to her name, in her book, she combines and combats words with images. While her surname opens doors for her she is insistent on establishing her own identity. The camera is not her friend and she emphasises, "I am not a film person. Take photos with my book." At 30 years, she has spent much of her life abroad but says, "After I had my first show in India, I just felt I had come home."

Namrita wrote her first poem Playground, at the age of five. Her mother signed it at the bottom to ensure there were no spelling mistakes. A "closet poetry writer", she confesses, "Suddenly, word and image came together coherently as a book."

As a mixed media painter she has previously explored the associative relationship between word and images. She explains her own work, "We are conditioned to understand words through images in a certain way. But it is a far more elastic association. It is not that strict and regimented."

She `mixes and marries' uncommon elements in her work. Her figures speak in geometric patterns. They are adorned with exotic headgear. Internal organ parts become visible. About poetry she says, "In poetry you can put words side by side that might not actually exist." Disconsolate mirth, gallows in space, patience in a hurry from her poem Architectural confetti, are examples of unusual juxtapositions. Her pen ink and paint sketches are as extravagant as her poetry is skeletal. Her paintings scream with colour and texture.

"Each visual artist has a language. When I returned to India I was a sponger. I picked up a lot of the symbolism I saw around me," she says explaining the chilli imagery in her paintings.

In her verse she seems to follow the principle of `Omit, omit, omit', leaving out even punctuation. "Punctuation spaces out rhythms. My poetry is very staccato. It's very clear. There is nothing superfluous. I like to think of it as a seamless flow.

Sucking on tamarind sweets she is quick to mention her favourites. "Rilke, Eliot, Auden," and she adds shyly, "My grandfather." She says, "The essence of him (Harivansh Rai Bachchan) being a poet has made a difference." She hopes however to one day read and completely understand him in the original Hindi.

"Platforms are created for artists," she says of the Indian art scene, "The interest and scope are burgeoning. Boundaries are being pushed." Petite and innately friendly she is emphatic, "I've never thought of acting." Of her work she says, "I wrote poetry because that's what came out. If there was a novel in my stomach that's what would have come out."

NANDINI NAIR

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail