A Chat with Siddhartha Gigoo

He casually lit a cigarette and enquired if I smoke. I refused, smiling and marveled at how comfortable he was at getting along with a perfect stranger. I must admit, when I was first asked to pick him up from Hotel Jawahar, Ulhasnagar, I was very nervous mostly because I hadn’t spoken to anyone of his stature yet. My assumptions of him being supercilious and rather too erudite were proved false when I started conversing with him.

Cover page of The Garden of Solitude

When I reached Hotel Jawahar, Siddhartha Gigoo was at the reception awaiting my arrival. I was to keep him occupied until some final arrangements were being made for his reception back at college. We shook hands and I introduced myself as I sat beside him on the couch. Mr. Gigoo is a compulsive talker and high on inquisitiveness. His initial interest was unsurprisingly about the town, its people and the small lanes and busy bazaars. Shortly after, I tilted the conversation towards literature and writing. As each minute ticked by, I was learning something new about him. Siddhartha Gigoo is a man who loves to write. Undoubtedly, for that is how any writer should be, one who takes utmost joy in the process as a whole but sees his writing as something that needs to be worked on carefully. He uses realist settings, might even write with the help of a few personal experiences, but eventually he writes to produce art. When I read his debut novel, The Garden of Solitude, I felt that his angst against injustice was reflected in his writing. I discovered upon talking to him that I was only partly right about my observation. Siddhartha Gigoo represents a community of Kashmiri Pandits who are not often spoken widely of these days. The camp settlements and the stories of migrants are being erased with the passage of time. However, Mr. Gigoo’s focus is to create an art to keep the voice and culture of this community alive. . this is clearly demonstrated in the passages of The Garden of Solitude; being “the last generation of Pandits to have lived in Kashmir” as Sridar, the protagonist of The Garden of Solitude puts it, Gigoo feels that the coming generation must know and read about the rivers, the valleys, the customs, the rituals, traditions and most importantly bear in mind the fact that they co-existed befriending a majority Muslim population for over a hundred years.

Our conversation invariably shifted from books to culture and to writing. In reply to my query about how writing was going on, Siddhartha Gigoo narrated an anecdote of Victor Hugo who was attempting to rewrite one of his published novels. Often, he felt the urge to rewrite The Garden of Solitude, but he would never get the time for it. He could relate to the tale I shared with him of Kafka writing to Max Brod about his despair at not finding sufficient time to write and added that it is in fact an inveterate tendency of every writer to be too involved in the task. Being a literature student himself, he was curious to know which authors I read and was pleased to hear that I shared an unequivocal passion for writing.

A personal note by Gigoo which reads "With Love, Siddhartha, Ulhasnagar. One day I shall read your novel"

On our way to college, we were discussing cinema. As it happens, Mr. Gigoo is trying to make his mark even on the visual medium. He talked to me about his debut novel, The Last Day and narrated to me of its making. Shot under two days, he told me it was a collective effort with lots of inputs from his friends who happened to be in the media. The Last Day unmistakably elucidates itself as another creation of art. A lot of shots, carefully constructed without dialogue and at times even without music at its background is left for the audience to fill in. It is artful naturally in this regard as it evokes a participation of the audience in the construction of meaning. When asked why the shift from literature to cinema, Gigoo confirmed my inference of him as a romantic at heart. He had just wanted to try something new; it was another venture in which he sought to exhibit his thoughts and feelings.

Siddhartha Gigoo was whisked away from my presence by the teachers and other dignitaries minutes after he stepped into the hall. Though the session he conducted later did not involve bombastic speeches about the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits or the politics of militant groups, it was more or less, a discovery and exploration of Gigoo’s venture in cinema and literature. When, at the end he signed my copy of The Garden of Solitude and added a personal note hoping to read my published novel one day, I was filled with warm, unspoken encomium for his gesture.

The Beauty of Simplicity

The anecdote Sanket narrated that rainy evening when I stood waiting for the bus to take me home made me smile hours later. It was a strange coincidence that I was thinking about people and relationships and to meet him then unexpectedly only continued my thoughts in the manner of speech. Only minutes before I could reach the bus stop, I had seen a young couple sharing a laugh. Having lived alone for nearly two years, I could feel the warmth of their affection reverberate inside me. So, I stood at the bus stop holding an umbrella and reflecting on the image I had just seen.

Sanket met Ketki through a common friend. He had begun narrating the tale after an enquiry of “Are you seeing someone?” They became friends instantly, began chatting daily and even went out a few times. When he got a job, they got together yet again and treated her. It was, however, when the next time they met that they raised the question of what was going on. I turned my head to look at him at this point, catch his expressions and possibly guess what he was feeling at that instant. He seemed cheerful and jumped forward to finish his tale in a hurry. “We realized we liked each other a lot. I'm falling in love with her each passing day.”

I smiled even hours after he had finished his tale. I was perhaps smiling even as I was in the bus on my way back home. Their relationship would complete a month in a few days and I was smiling at how easily they hit upon that realization. Not many people are lucky to fall in love quickly and as I believe, the complexity of most things actually lies in their simplicity. If one were to wonder how it is possible to fall in love this quickly, one would have to keep wondering in vain. Love is a simple thing which we complicate often with too many thoughts unnecessary.   

English, Not Latin

Me

(Absorbedly narrating and explaining the story of Lal Bahadur Shastri’s childhood to my ten-year-old student) …and little Shastri was only two months old when his mother lost him in a crowd during the mela.

Ten-Year-Old

(Nodding, apparently listening to the tale intently)

Me

So, how old was Shastri at the time?

Ten-Year-Old

(Continues nodding, eyes unblinking)

Me

How old was Shastri?

Ten-Year-Old (still nodding)

Me

No. That was a question.

Ten-Year-Old

Oh, a question? (Thinking. Looks up at the ceiling) Two years old? (Smiles sheepishly)

*

I knew when I started teaching children a couple of weeks back that it was going to be a challenge. And this instance I mentioned above was funnier if you were to be present at the moment when it happened. I wondered if it was really English I taught them or whether what I spoke to them sounded like Latin.

I teach students from standard five to nine and I handle minds from childish to maturing. Despite our colonial rule by the British for over a hundred and fifty years, communicating in English has been a problem. I am not really sure if that is a good thing or a bad one but I think as much as knowing our own culture and language, it becomes essential that we know some of the other languages, especially English, as it is, today, used as a standardized language at all institutions. As I see students grappling with words and meanings, I am compelled to do something to make them familiarized with the texts in their syllabus, their relevance and its use outside of their curriculum.

When teaching and learning become a difficult task

Schooling in Mumbai has changed rapidly over the last few years. I remember a decade ago when I was in school, we had fewer, thinner text books and were given enough writing assignments as homework apart from  encouraging interested students to take part in various written and spoken competitions. I was quite astonished to learn that students are instructed not to write more than a page for essays in their exams. It makes me wonder if teachers want students to be precise about their expressions or they do not want to read too much. Whatever the case, when students battle with the language and fail to even express their thoughts, I think that is the signal for teachers to be proactive and make the students involved in the process of teaching and learning.

Challenging the task may be, but the thought of guiding young minds and constructing efficient citizens out of them makes my job more meaningful. And although I realise that students may not entirely like the additional assignments I enforce them to work with, I know it will bear its fruits once they are out of school. And though other teachers and parents might wonder how my assignments help them score in their exams, I look at a bigger picture.

So when my ten year old student sheepishly smiles at me and answers my questions wrong, I simply grin at him and ask him to read his text aloud and narrate to me the story in his words. And when he does that, he looks at me with a look of epiphany and replies, “Oh, it is two months!” I heave a sigh of relief thanking God that I teach them English, not Latin.

My Thoughts as they are: The Absurdity of Togetherness

It was one of those rare lazy afternoons I could afford to lie on the couch with a hot cup of tea cooling off right beside on the table. Outside the window, it was raining quite heavily and the imagery might have become a cliché now with frequent online posts about people watching the rain with a cup of tea or coffee. It was, however, how it was and I was contemplating over what I had read for an hour and a half. If Thoreau’s Walden spoke about the joyous solitude in the woods, then Albee’s plays talked about the misery of loneliness and the vain efforts to seek contact. And I could understand best and relate to both, loneliness and self solicited solitude, as I lay down on that couch thinking about the year I had celebrated Christmas with a group of strangers. This was something I would never have done, say, a few years back. I am sure most of you would agree that after a certain period of time of silence, conversation becomes necessary. Like water after a long jog in the morning.

What if I have to say something?

Albee elucidates a similar theme in his plays The Zoo Story and The Death of Bessie Smith. In The Zoo Story, two strangers start talking at a park and as the play progresses, we realise that the two people hardly have anything in common, yet they are trying to seek some connection, linking each line of their speech to something or another. This reminded me of nothing but the Christmas episode when I was in the train on my way back from Kerala. So you see, even this story follows a similar route. We were about eight of us in that small compartment and within a span of twenty four hours, we had celebrated Christmas, shared a cake and enjoyed a movie together. It is quite something if you ask me, yet not at all unbelievable and if you were to wonder how this was possible, you would not find a logical explanation to it. That is the absurd nature by which we communicate.

Carver, in his short story Viewfinder, describes a stranger visiting the protagonist with a photograph he had clicked of the character’s house. The story centers around the conversations of these two characters. And throughout the story, the characters do everything except talk about the sale or purchase of the photograph in question. And what were they trying to achieve by prolonging the talk of business? Nothing. They probably wanted to break spells of long silence.

Mundaneness ought to be obliterated and what comprises of our existence is the rest. We find a little joy in the brief conversations we have while commuting or while travelling alone somewhere. My “viewfinder” is this screen you are peering into and just in case you find the entire idea absurd, think about whether you know me. Of all the things we read, or speak, or write, what do we really do? And if not for this absurdity of communication and togetherness, what would we possibly share?