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Views of past in present
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On the eve of the Jaipur Literary Fest, William Dalrymple tells AYESHA MATTHAN that history must be looked at differently, while Namita Gokhale feels there must be an attempt to recast mythology and religion into the contemporary world
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PHOTOS: T K. PICHUMANI
WORD WORLD William Dalrymple and Namita Gokhale are both directors of the Jaipur Literature Festival kicking off on January 23
When it comes to the literary focus of Indian writers living abroad, both William Dalrymple and Namita Gokhale feel that there is place for everyone in writing. Director of Yatra books, Gokhale says: “I do always try to bring attention to real
and valid voices out of India that may not always have the apparatus to be heard.” Historian Dalrymple feels: “There are many different Indias and many ways of writing about the country – the quality of a book is not decided by an author’s post code or home address.”
He adds: “I think Indian writers living abroad are in an especially good position to mediate India to a western audience, but as Arundhati Roy shows, if you live here you can produce works of arguably greater authenticity that are no less popular and accessible to a foreign audience. In the end though, it’s the quality of the writing that is important – not where it was written, or the passport of the person who wrote it.”
Gokhale and Dalrymple are both directors of the coming DS Constructions Jaipur Literature Festival 2008 to be held from January 23 to 27, which will see a plethora of artists across boundaries – from Gore Vidal to Kamila Shamsie.
It’s the third edition of the literary festival and Gokhale says: “I have seen the Jaipur Literature Festival grow from an intimate community of engaged readers and writers into an incredible outreach of national and international writers and audiences, with huge support from the publishing industry.”
Dalrymple finds there needs to be no contradiction between researching professionally, critically and exhaustively, and then writing up what one finds in good, clear and attractive English. He says: “In the UK and US, many historians in and out of academia are writing for the same sort of intelligent, general non-academic audience that might read a Rushdie or a Pamuk, but there is remarkably little of this in India, which is one reason why so few people here seem interested in history.”
He feels, “It is certainly true that I am writing in a quite different historiographical tradition from most Indian historians, and happen to admire historians like Simon Schama, Emanuelle Le Roy Ladurie and Steven Runciman’s way of writing and presenting history, recreating real human lives from the past in good, accessible prose, and with a strong narrative backbone. If my two history books had a model, it was Runciman’s Fall of Constantinople, 1453 and Schama’s Citizens.”
SANDEEP SAXENA
Namita Gokhale
Gokhale finds that as a writer, she is situated in a moment of accelerated change. “As an Indian, religion and mythology are primal source material, and there are many other writers grappling with the same material and metaphors and the attempt to cast these within a contemporary mould.”
While Dalrymple enjoys well-written literary non-fiction, Gokhale feels that she doesn’t have any style she relates to as a reader. Says Dalrymple, “In recent years one of my favourite books was ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil’ and I am thrilled John Berendt is coming to Jaipur. I know him quite well now, but have never heard him perform.” Gokhale feels that Muriel Spark has always been her favourite writer and finds humour and irony stimulating.
When Dalrymple wrote an essay about India and Pakistan’s 60th year of Independence, he expanded the fact that the media largely focused on India’s ‘success’, leaving Pakistan out. Says the writer, “First time visitors to Pakistan are almost always surprised by the country’s visible prosperity. There is far less poverty on show in Pakistan than in India, and the infrastructure is in many respects more advanced: there are better motorways and airports, and more reliable electricity for example.”
He finds, “Yet despite the economic boom, there is no question that Pakistan now finds itself in a major existential crisis, at the heart of which lies the central question as to what sort of country Pakistanis want.
Do they want a western-style liberal democracy, as envisaged by Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah? An Islamic republic like Mullah Omar’s Afghanistan? A military-ruled junta of the sort created by Generals Ayyub Khan, Zia and Musharraf?”
Dalrymple hopes that his books have shown people a different way of writing history here, and explore the possibilities of historical biography and narrative history and that his historical discoveries would lead to alter history text books. He finds, “It’s always nice when people appreciate your work enough to want to adapt it. I liked the Djinns adaptation - for all that it was very different from how I thought of the book, and I am much looking forward to Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of White Mughals.”
Gokhale who is working on a novel “in spurts, and not rushing it beyond its natural momentum” is also co-editing an anthology on Sita, “a very stimulating project which should be out soon”.
Dalrymple, when researching on ‘White Mughals’ “I was enormously pleased when I found I was partly Indian – it seemed to explain to some extent why I have always felt so much at home here..”
He is working on a book about popular religion and syncretism in India, researching in Tamil Nadu, Goa, Karnataka and most recently Kerala. he says, “It’s the early days, and I am not sure how the book will turn out, and what form it will take, but it’s lovely to be on the road again, travelling, and not be locked away in some archive or library...”
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