Encounters in the life of a scribe that never got written

My friends often tell me that I am lucky to be a journalist, travelling to different places, interviewing achievers from diverse walks of life. “What were your most memorable moments?” they ask. Then I start thinking about experiences that did not get written or published.

Some of those encounters were exasperating. Think of struggling to get the legendary Isaac Asimov  to stop talking about his non-fiction and concentrate on his amazing fiction. Imagine listening spellbound to the reclusive Arthur C Clarke in Sri Lanka, describe how he visualises his futuristic fantasies — only to be barred from publishing anything. “I like to talk so I did. I don’t give interviews,” says he, and tries to cheer me up with an autographed photograph, where the huge smile beams at my discomfiture. And how do you keep a straight face when poet Allen Ginsberg belts out what he swears is a Kabir bhajan, at a gathering of avant-garde artistes in New York? You can’t recognise a single word or note but he begs you sotto voce not to let him down before friends who believe he is an “Indian” expert. 

The home country provides its own frustrations. The sitar maestro you go to interview from Chennai to Delhi snaps at you: “I don’t like journalists, they are ignorant … I will talk to you if you can sing a phrase distinguishing the two madhyams.” And when you do (somewhat tremulously), the man agrees to talk, but only if you “care” to visit him in his Dehradun hideout.

A year later, this encounter had a strange repercussion. After a wonderful interview with Pandit Ravi Shankar, I gave him the magazine he was going to be featured in, quite forgetting that the issue carried my exhaustive profile of his lifelong rival Vilayat Khan. Adding insult to injury, in that interview the ustad had said many unflattering things about the pandit.

A few days later, I recognised Pandit Ravi Shankar’s gentle voice on the phone, asking sharp questions about my story. Dismay turned to empathy as he recalled his early years of sheer angst as a newcomer, trying to break down prejudice. As a first generation debutant, how could he not be the alien among the proud gharanedar musicians, with nine generations behind them to authenticate their status? He ended wryly, “I married my guru’s daughter. I don’t know if it helped, because my guru Allauddin Khan himself did not inherit so much as to launch his own gharana tradition”.

Interviews can throw up surprises, Sometimes, a new perspective on life. I learnt how passion fuels achievement when a young cricketer responded to my question about why his talented brother did not become as serious a player as himself. Rahul Dravid smiled as he explained, “If it rained I’d still go for practice, hoping against hope that the skies would clear. My brother would decide to do something else.”

Finally, let me go back to a cutting edge Romanian play in London. The theatre manager invited me to join the cast and crew for a surprise “curry” party. Looking at the sumptuous spread, the actors sighed in bliss and pounced on pilaf and chicken tikka. When the last morsel was gone, the Romanian actors came straight to me, the only woman in a sari and bindi. I could not understand their excited babble, nor the overflowing goodwill as they bowed and kissed my hand.

Retaining his deadpan expression, the British translator explained why. “They think you are the master chef, and are thanking you for the fabulous Indian feast.”

The author is a playwright, theatre director, musician and journalist, writing on the performing arts, cinema and literature.