I participated in the University of Iowa's International Writing Program in 1975-76 when its founder, the American poet Paul Engle, was still at its helm with his Chinese-born novelist wife, Hua Ling Nieh. Paul has died since and Hua Ling retired. The IWP is now directed by the poet Christopher Merrill and, from what I gather, the nature of the program is altered.

When I was there, the IWP invited as its Fellows creative writers (and occasionally critics and translators) who were established as major writers of greater promise in their language and country of origin. Many of my contemporaries there have won greater exposure and recognition since. We did not take classes in creative writing. We presented our own work to the other Fellows, faculty and students of the Iowa Writers Workshop, and faculty and students of the Department of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies. It was then open for discussion. We were free to do our own thing and to interact with our international and American counterparts -- an unforgettable and enriching experience.

I wonder whether the generalized view you imply of 'such workshops' can be compared with the IWP, then the world's most unique writing program of its kind. It brought together writers from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern and Western Europe, Australasia, and North America who looked at one another's work as what Paul Engel memorably called a 'community of imagination'. It was an opportunity to discover deeper similarities that connected creative writing across apparently dissimilar cultures, traditions, societies, and political and economic conditions.

A writer creates herself or himself on the foundation of innate needs and capacities. Having said that, I must add that, like all fine artists, writers flourish in the right milieu. Today's painters, for instance, are not the prehistoric, self-taught artists of rock and cave paintings such as those of Bheembetka or Alta Mira. Even artists of tribal origin today enter the mainstream of civilization one way or the other. We see reproductions, visit museums and art galleries, attend concerts and listen to lectures and demonstrations of music from the world over, see cinema from other countries, read books in their original languages or in translation. All this is education; it is not something at the obviously pragmatic level of a refresher course, a coaching class, a workshop, or a seminar addressed by some celebrity.

Writing can be developed in a serious, structured manner, too; the crucial factor is the teacher and her or his ability to bring the best out of individual talent each student must already possess. You can't teach creative writing to a wrong bunch of students; you can start teaching how to read creative writing for a start. Listening and reading skills are indispensable in a creative writing course. You can train people to respond to language in new ways.

Image: Dilip and Ashay Chitre (Chief Assistant Cameraman to Govind Nihalani) on the sets of Godam, 1983; Ashay was Dilip and Viju Chitre's only son. Born in Addis Ababa in 1961, he died of accidental asphyxiation in 2003. He was a victim of the 1984 industrial catastrophe in Bhopal, that cut short his promising career in cinematography and filmmaking.

Also see: The tragedy of Bilkis Banu

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