In an exclusive interview with TOI Books, Gulzar gets candid about his novel, and appeals prejudices against neighbours to be kicked out.
1.You have become a novelist at the age of 84. Was it a very conscious decision or the result of an impulse?
I did not write a novel ( Two ) for the sake of writing a novel. I had lots of memories of partition and they keep on budging out. I kept writing poems and short stories on the subject. There was still so much more left inside to say. When the 70th year arrived, I made an effort and sat down to write a total impression. So once and for all, it should get out of my system.
2. Did the current social scenario somehow set you off to get this book out now?
All day long I keep wishing, let partition be a past now. It should only remain a part of history. We’ve talked and written about the World War so much that it has almost been purged off. The bitterness is gone. The drama came to an end and it is history. Whereas partition is still going on. The splinters of that 1947 volcano are still burning. I wanted to do the same, to purge it off. And so, I chose the form of a novel to talk about the different eras I chronicle in the story – the partition and then 70 years after partition. A refugee from Pakistan became our Prime Minster. A refugee who went from here, became their Prime Minister. So, the circle of shrishti should have been completed by now. There should have been a one-on-one between the heads of the two countries and we should have been friends by now. It must be over now! The prejudices must be kicked. But it still goes on and that bothers me.
3. How was writing a novel different from writing short stories or poetry?
Short stories and poems are an intense burst of emotions. When you have a sudden impulse, you write a poem. Novel requires a lot of patience. I had to find a medium.Two is not written in the usual style of a novel. It’s a straightforward, linear narrative of my times, as I observed partition, and is told through multiple characters.
4. Would you say it was somehow cathartic for you to put your experience and thoughts to paper?
Exactly. One important thing is, the characters in Two are not really fictitious. But I can’t call them real too. In one person, I meet many characters, and they find many voices in my writing. So when I represent a certain period in my writing, it merges into each other’s experiences. Each character carries my experience with so many others. So it is fiction, yet very much real.
5. Two does not end in 1947. It goes further down to 1984 to chronicle the violent riots against Sikhs, and then the Kargil war. Time and again, your writings, by describing hate, propagate the importance of peace. How would you draw a parallel between all those times with today’s fanatic regime?
This is a result that generates from 1947. It is but a repercussion. ’47 is the epicentre of the tumultuous time we are facing now. We are still vibrating and there will be more shakeups. And cracks have appeared all over that have not been mended.
6. We have known you as the bard of modern times. Now you have emerged as a successful novelist showing us that art is everflowing, ever growing. What is your next project?
I went to Bangladesh. I went to the museum and to the house of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. I read and learned about him, how he became the father of the nation. I came to realise how very eventful his life was and how crucial he was during the partition. He was a man to be parted twice. First, he was parted from India to Pakistan. Then from Pakistan to Bangladesh during the Bangladesh Mukti War. I want to write a full-fledged play on him, his life. It might not be a novel, but is still an extended writing of prose which I want to dedicate to Mujibur, a man with absolutely no pretensions.
7. Do you believe today’s socio-political situation is putting a stern restriction on artists to express themselves properly? If so, what must a conscious artist do, to make himself/herself heard?
I think the mediums have increased. And they are being heard. Publications have increased. Television has become a very big source to voice somebody’s ideas. In my time, we couldn’t have made the films which are being made today – a film like Talwar that my daughter made, where the focus is not on the murderer, but on the judicial system. Artists who are daring to do such things must continue this thrust. The generation of politics is certainly on a change in India. But it must be checked if people in power are still carrying on the prejudices that partition brought about. That is what is important. Start moving forward with time, to treat one another with respect, and let partition be a part of history, not our present.
8. Translating your own work must have been hassling, if not tormenting. Tell us a little about your experience.I am no authority in English. I have sufficient knowledge of both the languages to do a proper translation. Tagore did the same. I can translate from Urdu and from Bangla. From Bangla to Hindustani is easier for me since I’m familiar with both. I can feel the words and the nuances each word carries and hence can do a proper translation. For the first time, I have translated my work in English, which is a colloquial English, not scholarly. English is not my language and hence my friends helped me. But I wasn’t happy since they could not translate the diction, the feeling. I feel now that the English may be weak, but the impact is harder, and the sentiment stronger.
9. Could you share some words of encouragement for our Write India participants?
Yeh karte ki vidya hai, yeh karne se aati hai. Karte raho.
Only by doing what you want to do is how you learn. There is no formula for writing. You learn as you do it. You need to keep writing.