Twitter
Advertisement

Kiran Nagarkar on the challenges of penning regional literature

One of India's most prolific postcolonial writers on the challenges of penning regional literature

Latest News
article-main
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

Most authors wouldn't stop talking about their work if it had turned 40 and was still up there considered as a milestone in literature. But then novelist, playwright, film and drama critic and screenwriter Kiran Nagarkar has always been different. Despite being celebrated as one of the most significant writers of post-colonial India, he resorts to self-effacing sarcasm when asked to react to his first book Saat Sakkam Trechalis (SST) turning 40. "The Guinness Book record-worthy success of Saat Saakam Trechalis (Seven Sixes Are Forty-Three), which sold a record 1,000 copies is what comes to mind," laughs the septuagenarian Mumbai resident whose books are a target of ideological critique due to the hybrid nature of his version of postcolonialism, involving irreverence alongside seriousness.

He wrote SST (1974) in his mother tongue, Marathi. His bitter and burlesque description of the young Bombayite Kunshank – achieved by means of a fragmented form and rendered in innovative language – is considered to be a milestone in Marathi literature. He revisited the book, which came out in its English avatar as Seven Sixes are Forty Three, six years later.

Did the poor response to his maiden Marathi book put him off writing in his mother tongue? "You tell me, does anyone want to read me in Marathi? The author can only build half a bridge, the other half has to come from the reader. I've already told you how fantastically SST did. What really bothers me was that there is an equation in some minds that if you write in regional languages you are authentic; if not, you're a fraud."

He cites the instance of his partner Arun Kolatkar who he worked with in advertising together for 20 years. "Arun too was bilingual. So when we wrote in Marathi we were authentic, and when we didn't, we weren't? I've never been able to resolve this, and I don't think Arun could either. If we were so valuable as Marathi writers, where was the recognition? And he is one of our best poets. When I got the Sahitya Akademi award for Cuckold, the Marathi papers came to interview me. All they could ask was, "Why have you stopped writing in Marathi?" They never asked me, "How come you only write in two languages?" Since I'm from India, it should be possible to write in four languages at least. And they never got around to the real question of how I began writing in a language (Marathi) in which I studied only for four years!"

Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement