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says Pritish Nandy, an icon in poetry, journalism and film industry in conversation with Varsha Verma of All About Book Publishing.
Pritish Nandy, the man who redefined Indian poetry is a man with various feathers in his cap. He is one of India’s most celebrated names, whose books, record albums, readings drew an iconic following and won him the Padma Shri and the EM Forster Literary Award. Alongside being a famous and award-winning journalist and editor, he is also well remembered as the host of India’s first signature TV show, The Pritish Nandy Show. The show also helped launch Pritish Nandy Communication, a company that has made over 25 films in the past decade, including Kante, Chameli, Jhankar Beats, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi and Pyar ke Side Effects.
More recently, Pritish Nandy launched his new book Stuck on 1/Forty. Here, Pritish Nandy tells more about his new book and his varied experiences, in an exclusive interview with All About Book Publishing.
Varsha: Tell us something about your new book Stuck on 1/Forty?
Pritish Nandy: You can call it a book of poems if you want. You can call it notes to oneself, a quick look at the mirror. You can call it a conversation that I hope will be picked up across different media to create a new insight into the poetry of our times. It can be read, looked at, experienced. It can be shared across platforms, disseminated. It can be a dialogue with oneself. It all depends on how you find your own response to the book, to the work. I believe the nature of poetry is itself undergoing change today. Like everything else, it is becoming visual and interactive.
Varsha: Who would be the target audience for your new book?
Pritish Nandy: Anybody who loves any kind of new writing is its target audience, but especially those who love to read stuff that can touch their lives and change it. Young people would be the obvious answer. But that is not exactly true. Because lovers of traditional poetry and literature can also enjoy these poems, savour them, dip into them at will. This is about the magic of rediscovering the power of words. You can read the poems here in a way you want to. If you like them, you will keep going back to them and find new things out there. These are poems you can share with others or savour in absolute solitude.
Varsha: As a writer, what do you aim to achieve when you start writing?
Pritish Nandy: As a writer I have only one purpose: to push back boundaries of the literary experience and bring more readers into the fold. The audiovisual experience is drawing away everyone today and the only way literature and poetry can survive is by enriching the experience through greater sensory power. You cannot expect the iambic pentameter or the classic sonnet to impress readers today. You have to find new formats, new interactive experiences. You have to uncover the veil and look in. You will find poetry is as much a sensual experience as a song or a movie. That is how it was always meant to be; way beyond the pedantic and the purely literary that we have reduced it to.
Varsha: When did you "know" you wanted to write professionally?
Pritish Nandy: I wrote and published my first serious bit of writing in The Statesman, Calcutta when I was 13. At 16, I wrote my first book of poems. It was published when I was 17 and I have never looked back. I wrote over forty books before I left Calcutta and came to Mumbai in the winter of 1982 to head The Times of India Group. That was when I stopped writing books and became a full time journalist and editor. It is only now, after so many years, that I have returned to writing poetry. But I realise that a poet writing in the 70s and a poet writing today are pursuing entirely different courses. Language has changed. Form has changed. Idiom has changed. Readers have changed. And so have reading habits. This book attempts to address these concerns and yet be true to what we have traditionally seen as literature and poetry. That is its inherent challenge, the contradictions it contends with.
Varsha: You are a man of different facets. Which role is the most challenging and which role you like the best?
Pritish Nandy: Everything I do, whether I write or paint or take pictures or make movies, it is all about talking to others and trying to begin a conversation. That is what all creativity is finally about. It's the magic of reaching out to unknown, often unseen people and sharing your most private thoughts with them. It's a slow, sexy strip tease.
Varsha: In your opinion, what is the hardest part of writing a book? Why?
Pritish Nandy: There is no hardest part in writing a book. I enjoy every part of it. I struggle with words at times but that is a delightful experience fraught with both pain and pleasure. I struggle with images. That too is wonderful. And, finally, I struggle with the way we put the book together. That's the ultimate challenge. And with Sanjana and Amaryllis there this time, I have had the easiest, most wonderful time of my life. No sweat at all.
Varsha: What writing/publishing advice do you give to aspiring writers of any age?
Pritish Nandy: I give no advice to anyone. Not even my children. I let them discover their lives. That is as it should be. Writers are a proud race. Why should they seek anyone's advice? They must each create their own road, their own track. That is how they will eventually reach their own goals. But yes, confidence is the key to good writing. If you are not confident about what you have written, don't publish it. Work on it till you are. You will know when you are ready to publish it. Your heart will tell you.
Varsha: Tell us something about your reading habits and any authors that you would name as influences?
Pritish Nandy: My problem is that I am a disgustingly eclectic reader. I read any trash that comes my way: Swedish thrillers, Latin American poetry, Political history, Woody Allen screenplays, even 50 Shades of Grey! I read what catches my attention. That is why you will often find me lurking in a corner of a bookshop when everyone is desperately searching for me. When I start reading something, no one can tear me away. As for influences, at different times in my life, different writers have taught me many things. But I unlearn them easily and casually. Influence is too strong a word. I have been grabbed by authors, yes. But I have weathered it and journeyed on. Every day is a new discovery, a new experience, a new learning.
Pritish Nandy, the man who redefined Indian poetry is a man with various feathers in his cap. He is one of India’s most celebrated names, whose books, record albums, readings drew an iconic following and won him the Padma Shri and the EM Forster Literary Award. Alongside being a famous and award-winning journalist and editor, he is also well remembered as the host of India’s first signature TV show, The Pritish Nandy Show. The show also helped launch Pritish Nandy Communication, a company that has made over 25 films in the past decade, including Kante, Chameli, Jhankar Beats, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi and Pyar ke Side Effects.
More recently, Pritish Nandy launched his new book Stuck on 1/Forty. Here, Pritish Nandy tells more about his new book and his varied experiences, in an exclusive interview with All About Book Publishing.
Varsha: Tell us something about your new book Stuck on 1/Forty?
Pritish Nandy: You can call it a book of poems if you want. You can call it notes to oneself, a quick look at the mirror. You can call it a conversation that I hope will be picked up across different media to create a new insight into the poetry of our times. It can be read, looked at, experienced. It can be shared across platforms, disseminated. It can be a dialogue with oneself. It all depends on how you find your own response to the book, to the work. I believe the nature of poetry is itself undergoing change today. Like everything else, it is becoming visual and interactive.
Varsha: Who would be the target audience for your new book?
Pritish Nandy: Anybody who loves any kind of new writing is its target audience, but especially those who love to read stuff that can touch their lives and change it. Young people would be the obvious answer. But that is not exactly true. Because lovers of traditional poetry and literature can also enjoy these poems, savour them, dip into them at will. This is about the magic of rediscovering the power of words. You can read the poems here in a way you want to. If you like them, you will keep going back to them and find new things out there. These are poems you can share with others or savour in absolute solitude.
Varsha: As a writer, what do you aim to achieve when you start writing?
Pritish Nandy: As a writer I have only one purpose: to push back boundaries of the literary experience and bring more readers into the fold. The audiovisual experience is drawing away everyone today and the only way literature and poetry can survive is by enriching the experience through greater sensory power. You cannot expect the iambic pentameter or the classic sonnet to impress readers today. You have to find new formats, new interactive experiences. You have to uncover the veil and look in. You will find poetry is as much a sensual experience as a song or a movie. That is how it was always meant to be; way beyond the pedantic and the purely literary that we have reduced it to.
Varsha: When did you "know" you wanted to write professionally?
Pritish Nandy: I wrote and published my first serious bit of writing in The Statesman, Calcutta when I was 13. At 16, I wrote my first book of poems. It was published when I was 17 and I have never looked back. I wrote over forty books before I left Calcutta and came to Mumbai in the winter of 1982 to head The Times of India Group. That was when I stopped writing books and became a full time journalist and editor. It is only now, after so many years, that I have returned to writing poetry. But I realise that a poet writing in the 70s and a poet writing today are pursuing entirely different courses. Language has changed. Form has changed. Idiom has changed. Readers have changed. And so have reading habits. This book attempts to address these concerns and yet be true to what we have traditionally seen as literature and poetry. That is its inherent challenge, the contradictions it contends with.
Varsha: You are a man of different facets. Which role is the most challenging and which role you like the best?
Pritish Nandy: Everything I do, whether I write or paint or take pictures or make movies, it is all about talking to others and trying to begin a conversation. That is what all creativity is finally about. It's the magic of reaching out to unknown, often unseen people and sharing your most private thoughts with them. It's a slow, sexy strip tease.
Varsha: In your opinion, what is the hardest part of writing a book? Why?
Pritish Nandy: There is no hardest part in writing a book. I enjoy every part of it. I struggle with words at times but that is a delightful experience fraught with both pain and pleasure. I struggle with images. That too is wonderful. And, finally, I struggle with the way we put the book together. That's the ultimate challenge. And with Sanjana and Amaryllis there this time, I have had the easiest, most wonderful time of my life. No sweat at all.
Varsha: What writing/publishing advice do you give to aspiring writers of any age?
Pritish Nandy: I give no advice to anyone. Not even my children. I let them discover their lives. That is as it should be. Writers are a proud race. Why should they seek anyone's advice? They must each create their own road, their own track. That is how they will eventually reach their own goals. But yes, confidence is the key to good writing. If you are not confident about what you have written, don't publish it. Work on it till you are. You will know when you are ready to publish it. Your heart will tell you.
Varsha: Tell us something about your reading habits and any authors that you would name as influences?
Pritish Nandy: My problem is that I am a disgustingly eclectic reader. I read any trash that comes my way: Swedish thrillers, Latin American poetry, Political history, Woody Allen screenplays, even 50 Shades of Grey! I read what catches my attention. That is why you will often find me lurking in a corner of a bookshop when everyone is desperately searching for me. When I start reading something, no one can tear me away. As for influences, at different times in my life, different writers have taught me many things. But I unlearn them easily and casually. Influence is too strong a word. I have been grabbed by authors, yes. But I have weathered it and journeyed on. Every day is a new discovery, a new experience, a new learning.
Varsha: What was the book that most influenced your life — and why?
Pritish Nandy: It was not a book. It was a couple of lines from a poem that Life magazine once carried many years ago: Si muero, dejad elbalcón abierto (English translation: If I die, leave the balcony open). I was a school boy that time and was so moved by it that I learnt Spanish to read Lorca and it not only opened up his poetry to me but also the amazing gamut of Latin American verse. I read about love and adultery, a magnificent continent coming alive through its words and images. I found Neruda's first sheaf of love poems and a song of despair. Then there was Howl by Ginsberg, a completely difference experience. Poetry of the Beatnik generation. Unforgettable times that threw up unforgettable writing! Books are where my life began.
Varsha: We live in a time when young people have numerous choices for entertainment. What would you like to say to people who may be hesitant about reading a book for "fun”?
Pritish Nandy: There is nothing more magical than opening a book and getting drawn into it, word by word. It's like discovering God. Or love. It never stops. Try it and it will change your life forever.
Varsha: What message would you like to give to your readers?
Pritish Nandy: Love. Live. Read. Do them all in excess. You will find joy, fulfilment and the realisation of all your dreams. Never hold yourself back. Enjoy every excess. That is what I believe in. The celebration of excess. The outrageous dream. It always comes true.
Varsha: What next can the readers expect from you?
Pritish Nandy: My three next books are a collection of my casual writing for The Times of India called Nothing in Particular (I have been writing a weekly column there for thirty years), a new version of the Isha Upanishad and a collection of 10th and 11th century erotic Sanskrit poetry in a wildly contemporary translation. Yes, I am having fun. Lots of it!
