English is an Indian language: Upamanyu Chatterjee
Upamanyu Chatterjee talks about his double life as author and babu, the problems of ageing Agastya and why he believes in unhappily ever after.
At a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seen to be recasting the role of the bureaucracy , author-bureaucrat Upamanyu Chatterjee says it's a pity that more bureaucrats don't pursue their creative interests. More than 25 years after his first novel, English August, about the adventures of an anglicized IAS officer in small town-India was published and hailed as a comic masterpiece, Chatterjee, alumnus of St Stephen's College and now Joint SecretaryPetroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), says even though he's led a schizophrenic life for the last 30 years — bureaucrat by day and author after office — the government has been very good to him. At 55, Chatterjee is as droll and candid as ever. He wears a Kullu cap to office, lives a floor down from former CM Sheila Dikshit in Delhi's leafy Nizamuddin, and despite being awarded the Sahitya Akademi award for his book The Mammaries of the Welfare State doesn't think of himself as a literary celebrity , just someone who loves writing.
"I suppose English August has begun to be seen as something a little permanent because of the themes which you can keep returning to such as dislocation and self-discovery but the book is a deliberate selection of stories to belittle the civil servant's work. It shows that the civil servant's life is about doing absolutely nothing but that's not the case. Bureaucrats do a lot of work." He says being a novel ist is a personal choice he never regrets making. "It's a pity when bureaucrats say they like to paint or write but don't have the time." Yet his "schizophrenic identity" of author and babu sometimes leads to being misunderstood. "People think you are not a serious writer because you are a civil servant and not a serious civil servant because you are a writer.
Arre woh to kitaab likhta hai, is said about me often. I once got a Confidential Report which said, he is a very good officer etc but he also writes books and has very nice handwriting! Had I known about this at the time, I would have objected." But by and large the government has been nice about his books, even English August which was a send up of babdudom.
So almost three decades after English August, has gravitas kicked in? Chatterjee says he's sadder and wiser, although he hasn't become solemn. "I am toying with the idea of writing a swansong about Agastya Sen, Agastya when he retires. The challenge is to capture his wit 30 years later. He can't be cracking the same jokes. There was a franticness to the humour, a frenetic need for wit, with no woman in his life, there was only masturbation, getting stoned and reading Marcus Aurelius in Madna. I don't feel quite the same now." He grins.
Chatterjee's sixth and latest book is about to hit the stands. Entitled "Fairy Tales at Fifty", it's a magical, wildly imaginative — and often violent — black comedy, drawing from myth and fable, swarming with serial killers, ogres, voluptuous men-women combinations, and hauntingly surreal imagery and a privileged, cynical and rather unheroic Stephanian hero, the impotent prince who exemplifies the apathy of those living in a decaying immoral world. "Fiction distracts one from ageing. Fiction is precious, life is precious only in fiction.Life, as it is, is horrible."
His authorial persona being the perennial young man is ageing difficult? "Yes, the dominant theme in the book is growing old. Fifty is the new sixty as far as I'm concerned. I can't lunge after shuttlecocks in badminton anymore. I acknowledge that there are things I can't do anymore." And why such a bleak outlook? "My outlook on life has always been bleak, we all live unhappily ever after. That's why it's all so hilarious. It's our unhappiness," he explains, "which makes it all very funny ."
Is the macabre fable a comment on the state of the nation? In a cricket match in the book, players end up shooting and killing each other. "Yes cricket in India is venal but no, I wasn't making a comment on the BCCI!" He says he's not optimistic about India because he's not optimistic about anything. "People should stop watching TV and read. I seriously mean that. If people read more they wouldn't shoot one another. We need to slow down and enjoy life's gentler pleasures."
With his book drawing a great deal on Buddhist and Hindu myths, has Chatterjee turned to an exploration of religion? "Religion is fascinating as part of myth making.There is a sense of Christian Redemption in my book, I suppose. But I assert the right not to have a religion. Everyone should follow ethical and moral precepts, but the active practice of religion to me is extremely boring and a waste of time." And is he still a proud member of the St Stephen's school of English literature as it is called? "I speak in English and write in English and am totally comfortable with that." In a forthcoming Granta issue, he's written an article entitled "Othello Sucks", a self parody about studying Shakespeare in India where nobody knows English and even the teacher can't speak English. "Othello is a terrible play anyway. I don't think Shakespeare understood what it is to be Black since he was white." He says the campaign of English versus bhasha is utterly phony. "There is no 'versus' in the so-called English-Bhasha rivalry. I think people just get pissed off because Vikram Seth makes so much money.
At a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seen to be recasting the role of the bureaucracy , author-bureaucrat Upamanyu Chatterjee says it's a pity that more bureaucrats don't pursue their creative interests. More than 25 years after his first novel, English August, about the adventures of an anglicized IAS officer in small town-India was published and hailed as a comic masterpiece, Chatterjee, alumnus of St Stephen's College and now Joint SecretaryPetroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), says even though he's led a schizophrenic life for the last 30 years — bureaucrat by day and author after office — the government has been very good to him. At 55, Chatterjee is as droll and candid as ever. He wears a Kullu cap to office, lives a floor down from former CM Sheila Dikshit in Delhi's leafy Nizamuddin, and despite being awarded the Sahitya Akademi award for his book The Mammaries of the Welfare State doesn't think of himself as a literary celebrity , just someone who loves writing.
"I suppose English August has begun to be seen as something a little permanent because of the themes which you can keep returning to such as dislocation and self-discovery but the book is a deliberate selection of stories to belittle the civil servant's work. It shows that the civil servant's life is about doing absolutely nothing but that's not the case. Bureaucrats do a lot of work." He says being a novel ist is a personal choice he never regrets making. "It's a pity when bureaucrats say they like to paint or write but don't have the time." Yet his "schizophrenic identity" of author and babu sometimes leads to being misunderstood. "People think you are not a serious writer because you are a civil servant and not a serious civil servant because you are a writer.
Arre woh to kitaab likhta hai, is said about me often. I once got a Confidential Report which said, he is a very good officer etc but he also writes books and has very nice handwriting! Had I known about this at the time, I would have objected." But by and large the government has been nice about his books, even English August which was a send up of babdudom.
So almost three decades after English August, has gravitas kicked in? Chatterjee says he's sadder and wiser, although he hasn't become solemn. "I am toying with the idea of writing a swansong about Agastya Sen, Agastya when he retires. The challenge is to capture his wit 30 years later. He can't be cracking the same jokes. There was a franticness to the humour, a frenetic need for wit, with no woman in his life, there was only masturbation, getting stoned and reading Marcus Aurelius in Madna. I don't feel quite the same now." He grins.
Chatterjee's sixth and latest book is about to hit the stands. Entitled "Fairy Tales at Fifty", it's a magical, wildly imaginative — and often violent — black comedy, drawing from myth and fable, swarming with serial killers, ogres, voluptuous men-women combinations, and hauntingly surreal imagery and a privileged, cynical and rather unheroic Stephanian hero, the impotent prince who exemplifies the apathy of those living in a decaying immoral world. "Fiction distracts one from ageing. Fiction is precious, life is precious only in fiction.Life, as it is, is horrible."
His authorial persona being the perennial young man is ageing difficult? "Yes, the dominant theme in the book is growing old. Fifty is the new sixty as far as I'm concerned. I can't lunge after shuttlecocks in badminton anymore. I acknowledge that there are things I can't do anymore." And why such a bleak outlook? "My outlook on life has always been bleak, we all live unhappily ever after. That's why it's all so hilarious. It's our unhappiness," he explains, "which makes it all very funny ."
Is the macabre fable a comment on the state of the nation? In a cricket match in the book, players end up shooting and killing each other. "Yes cricket in India is venal but no, I wasn't making a comment on the BCCI!" He says he's not optimistic about India because he's not optimistic about anything. "People should stop watching TV and read. I seriously mean that. If people read more they wouldn't shoot one another. We need to slow down and enjoy life's gentler pleasures."
With his book drawing a great deal on Buddhist and Hindu myths, has Chatterjee turned to an exploration of religion? "Religion is fascinating as part of myth making.There is a sense of Christian Redemption in my book, I suppose. But I assert the right not to have a religion. Everyone should follow ethical and moral precepts, but the active practice of religion to me is extremely boring and a waste of time." And is he still a proud member of the St Stephen's school of English literature as it is called? "I speak in English and write in English and am totally comfortable with that." In a forthcoming Granta issue, he's written an article entitled "Othello Sucks", a self parody about studying Shakespeare in India where nobody knows English and even the teacher can't speak English. "Othello is a terrible play anyway. I don't think Shakespeare understood what it is to be Black since he was white." He says the campaign of English versus bhasha is utterly phony. "There is no 'versus' in the so-called English-Bhasha rivalry. I think people just get pissed off because Vikram Seth makes so much money.
English is an Indian language, we should just let it be. English versus bhasha is a dead and boring issue. Having said that I must say Rabindranath Tagore in English is dreadful, in the original very, very nice." He's upset at the attacks on writers, particularly Wendy Doniger. "What happened with Wendy Doniger was really unfortunate. A book is a book. Something on a shelf, which you can read if you want to, not read if you don't want to. It's not a bomb that's killing people." So from marijuana in Madna to serial killers in Mumbai, what's been his philosophical take-away? "My book ends on the symbol of the lotus: life is a lotus because it grows out of crap. The serial killer in the book lives in keechar but he still thinks life is worth it despite all the shit." Twenty-five years and six books later, Upamanyu Chatterjee's comic darkness is still enticing.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/stoi/deep-focus/English-is-an-Indian-language-Upamanyu-Chatterjee/articleshow/45163793.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/stoi/deep-focus/English-is-an-Indian-language-Upamanyu-Chatterjee/articleshow/45163793.cms