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.