'Being in awe is not an attitude conducive to criticism'
You shared a very special relationship with (the late poet) Arun Kolatkar. I still find it hard to believe that his work, like Jejuri, is respected mainly by students of literature alone. Does that bother you -- the fact that his work ought to have had a wider audience, or that his obituary ought to have been on the front page, not page 6?
I am much given to ranting about it. And I use the word ranting deliberately. There has been much written about him now that he is dead, but we really don't know how amazing Arun Kolatkar was.
First of all, he was truly a reader and he had almost total recall. He would immerse himself in the most astonishing, strange documents. I was always drawn to Kabir, for instance, but whenever I felt the need to get excited about him, I would go to Arun. He had an 'unselfconsciousness' about him. He never took himself solemnly, whereas most authors do. Because I began working with him when I was very young, I was not in awe of him. What I had was infinitely better -- I had respect.
I do not think we appreciated the fact that Arun was truly multi-faceted. That his knowledge was far more infectious than HIV. If you have knowledge, and you can make it infectious and inspiring, you can't ask for anything more from an individual.
Sadly, we have a history of lionising the wrong people and forgetting about the right ones.
I can't deny that at all. Which is why I am trying to create a sense of him here. We were both interested in music, for instance, but he would get really into it. He began playing the clarinet, moved to the guitar, then wanted to become a pop star. He even cut an album! He also had a terrific sense of humour. He could do a Laurel & Hardy impression, for instance, and the pleasure he got out of mimicking Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton was immense (laughs).
Eventually, he was surrounded by people who did look up to him. But what that does is, in a way, like what the Shiv Sena does when it talks about Shivaji. I think it is so unfair to Shivaji, and to Arun, that one's critical faculties are kept in abeyance.
Being in awe is not an attitude conducive to criticism. How are you going to interpret Arun Kolatkar? You had better do a close reading and then do it ten times more. Jejuri, for instance, can be taken so lightly...
And, at the same time, there are so many ways of looking at it.
Absolutely. And that is what I mean when I say we really don't know the beginnings of what criticism can do. How it can light up an area, open up vast spaces. Just go back to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and what different critics have to say about it. They have conveyed to us that the great thing about symbols is they are never perfect fits. They can take on layer after layer of interpretation. But you need to unravel them carefully, and that requires not solemnity but humour, lightness of touch, and an intense focusing, which I find lacking. That is what Arun had in such ample measure.
It is a shame that I am not with Arun anymore. I think he deserves more critical attention. Who are the jokers here who are doing any justice to him?
So it does bother you that he has been completely marginalised.
It does. Look at Gandhi, for instance. You know what we have done to him, but the question is -- what is it we have to do about him? We have to make him into a story. It must become an infection that festers in our minds. That is what we need to do with Gandhi and Nehru, and Kabir and Tukaram. And we need to do that with Arun, too. The poetry must be recreated.