Interview with Satis Shroff
Interview with Satis Shroff
When did you
first start writing?
I really started
writing when I went to Kathmandu to do my BSc in Zoology and Botany. I used to
write articles and stories in The Rising Nepal, an Engish daily. The day
Satchmo died I had the urge to write something about this great trumpet player.
After college I joined the newspaper and wrote a science column of my own
(mostly conservation of wildlife in Nepal) and about cultural events, now and
then about a yeti-expedition or about glaciers in the Himalayas.
What's the story
behind your latest book?
It's a memoir
about a young writer who goes west to study, meets interesting people, travels
to fascinating countries, tries out different cuisine and gets to know about
the Germanfolk as a student, as a lecturer, singer in a men's choire. He also
visits his former home-country and is interested in the literature of the two
countries, as well as English literature. Nepal's lingua franca is Nepali but
since his parents sent him to an Irish school his first language remains
English. A big tectonic quake causes a lot of suffering in the small
mountainous country but the reason why the writer goes to Nepal is to bid
farewell to his past for he's incurably ill--he's a tumor patient. On his way
back to Nepal he recalls his life in the East and the West.
What motivated
you to become an indie author?
The lack of time
to search for publishers and the easiness with which a book can be published in
the e-media.
What is the
greatest joy of writing for you?
The joy is being
able to write something that a reader in far-off Australia or the USA finds
your poems or other writing interesting and takes the time to comment about
your pieces. It gives you the feeling that there is someone out there in the
wide world who shares the same thoughts as you and appreciates it. This is the
greatest joy of writing.
What do your
fans mean to you?
Fans are a great
source of inspiration, especially fans who care to give feedback, which also
mean a lot to the author. There's also the commercial aspect but readers who
respond with emotional words because they have been touched by a piece of
writing is priceless for a writer's soul.
What are you
working on next?
Collected poems
with the title 'The Rhododendron Song,' a story about a Nepalese minstrel and
other projects.
The person Satis Shroff has
various faces, of a singer, author, poet, medical lecturer, artist. Which face
is near to your heart?
I like writing which means
sitting down and typing what you’ve thought about. Writing is a solitary
performance but when I sing with my croonies of the MGV-Kappel it is sharing
our joy and sadness and it’s a collective song that we produce and that makes our
hearts beat higher during concerts. When an idea moves me for days I have the
craving to pen it. I get ideas when I’m ironing clothes and listening to Nepali
songs or Bollywood ones.
When I don’t have time, I make
a poem out of it, for poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity. When I
prepare my medical lectures I’m transferring knowledge from my university past
and bringing them together verbally, and I realise it’s great fun to attain
topicality by connecting the medical themes with what’s topical thereby
creating a bridge between the two. That makes a lecture interesting, which is
like a performance, a recital in which you interact with the audience.
At school I was taught art by
a lean, bearded Scottish teacher named Mr. Mc Cormack, who loved to pain
landscapes with water-colours. Whenever I travel during holidays, I keep an
ArtJournal with my sketches and drawings, and try to capture the feelings,
impressions of the place and people I meet, and it’s great fun to turn the
pages years later and be reminded how it was then. I like doing all these
things and they’re all near to my heart.
2. What does literature mean
to you ?
Literature is translating
emotions and facts from truth to fiction. It’s like a borderline syndrome;
between sanity and insanity there’s fine dividing line. Similarly, non-fiction
can be transformed into fiction. Virginia Woolf said, ‘There must be great
freedom from reality.’ For Goethe, art was art because it was not nature.
That’s what I like about fiction, this ability of transforming mundane things
in life to jewels through the use of words. Rilke mentioned one ought to
describe beauty with inner, quiet, humble righteousness. Approach nature and
show what you see and experienced, loved and lost.
3. Normally a scientific mind
and literary heart do not go together. How do you manage that? (since you were
student of zoology, botany and medicine)
At school I used to read
P.G.Wodehouse (about how silly aristocrats are and how wise the butler Jeeves
is) and Richard Gordon (a physician who gave up practicing Medicine and started
writing funny books). For me Richard Gordon was a living example of someone who
could connect literature with bio-medical sciences. Desmond Morris, zoologist
(The Naked Ape, The Human Zoo) was another example for me. He has also written
a book about how modern soccer players do tribal dances on the football-field,
with all those screaming spectators, when their team scores a goal. That’s
ethnological rituals that are being carried out by European footballers. Since
I went to a British school I was fed with EngLit and was acquainted with the
works of English writers like Milton, Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy, Walter
Scott, RL Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, HG Wells, Victor Hugo, Poe, Defoe,
Hemingway, and poets like Burns, Keats, Yeats, Dante, Goldsmith. Since we had
Nepali in our curriculum it was delightful to read Bhanu Bhakta, Mainali, Shiva
Kumar Rai and other Nepali authors. At home I used to pray and perform the
pujas with my Mom, who was a great story teller and that was how I learned
about the fantastic stories of Hindu mythology. At school we also did Roman and
Greek mythology. My head was full of heroes. I was also an avid comicstrip
reader and there were Classics Illustrated comic with English literature. I
used to walk miles to swap comic-books in Nepal. It was mostly friends from the
British Gurkhas who had assess to such comics, gadgets, musical instruments
they’d bought in Hong Kong, since it was a British enclave then. Science can be
interesting and there is a genre which makes scientific literature very
interesting for those who are curious and hungry for more knowledge.
In Kathmandu I worked as a
journalist with an English newspaper The Rising Nepal. I enjoyed writing a
Science Spot column.
One day Navin Chandra Joshi, an Indian
economist who was working for the Indian Cooperative Mission asked a senior
editor and me: ‘Accha, can you please tell me who Satis Shroff is?’ Mana Ranjan
gave a sheepish smile and said, ‘You’ve been talking with him all the time.’
The elderly Mr. Joshi was plainly surprised
and said, ‘Judging from his writing, I thought he was a wise old man.’ I was 25
then and I turned red and was amused.
As I grew older, I discovered
the works of Virginia Woolf, DH Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Authur Miller, Henry
Miller, Doris Lessing and James Joyce. The lecturers from the English
Department and the Literary Supplements were all revering his works: A Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake.
His works appealed to be
because I was also educated by the Christian Brothers of Ireland in the
foothills of the Himalayas, with the same strictness and heavy hand. God is
watching you..
Since my college friends left for Moscow
University and Lumumba Friendship University after college, I started taking
interest in Russian literature and borrowed books from the Soviet library and
read: Tolstoi, Dostojewskije, Chekov and later even Solzinitzyn’s Archipel
Gulag. I spent a lot of time in the well-stocked American Library in Katmandu’s
New Road and read Henry Miller, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Thoreau, Whitman.
Favourite books and authors:
Bhanu Bhakta Acharya’s
‘Ramayana,’ Devkota’s ‘Muna Madan,’ Guru Prasad Mainali’s ‘Machha-ko Mol,’
Shiva Kumar Rai’s ‘Dak Bungalow,’ Hemingway’s Fiesta, For Whom the Bells Toll,
Günter Grass ‘Blechtrommel,’ Zunge zeigen, Marcel Reich Ranicki’s ‘Mein
Leben,’VS Naipaul’s ‘ ‘Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness,’ James Joyce’s
‘Ulysses, Stephan Hero, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Faust I, Faust
II’, Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace,’ Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘Briefe an einen
jungen Dichter’ Goethe’s ‘Die Leiden des jungen Werther,’The Diaries of Franz
Kafka’ Carl Gustav Jung’s ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections,’ Patrick Süskind’s ‘Perfume,’
John Updike’s ‘The Witches of Eastwick,’ ‘Couples,’ Peter Matthiessen’s ‘The
Snow Leopard,’ Mark Twain ‘A Tramp Abroad,’John Steinbeck’s ‘The Pearl,’
Rushdie’s ‘Midnight Children,’ Jonathan Franzen’s ‘The Corrections,’ John
Irving’s Last Night in Twisted River.
Position of Nepali as world
literature in terms of standard:
Nepali literature has had a
Cinderella or Aschenputtel-existence and it was only through Michael Hutt, who
prefers to work closely with Nepalese authors and publishes with them, under
the aegis of SOAS that literature from Nepal is trying to catch the attention
of the world. We have to differentiate between Nepalese writing in the
vernacular and those writing in English. Translating is a big job and a lot of
essence of a language gets lost in translation. What did the author mean when
he or she said that? Can I translate it literally? Or do I have to translate it
figuratively? If the author is near you, you can ask him or her what the
meaning of a sentence, certain words or expression is. This isn’t the case
always. So what you translate is your thought of what the writer or poet had
said. I used to rollick with laughter when I read books by PG Wodehouse and
Richard Gordon. I bought German editions and found the translations good. But
the translated books didn’t bring me to laugh.
Tribhuvan University has been
educating hundreds of teachers at the Master’s Level but the teacher’s haven’t
made a big impression on the world literary stage because most of them teach,
and don’t write. Our neighbour India is different and there are more educated people
who read and write. The demand for books is immense. Writing in English is a
luxury for people who belong to the upper strata of the Nepalese society. Most
can’t even afford books and have a tough time trying to make ends meet. The
colleges and universities don’t teach Creative Writing. They teach the works of
English poets and writers from colonial times, and not post-colonial. There are
a good many writers in Nepal but their works have to be edited and promoted by
publishers on a standard basis. If it’s a good story and has universal appeal
then it’ll make it to the international scene. Rabindra Nath Tagore is a writer
who has been forgotten. It was the English translation that made the world, and
Stockholm, take notice. Manjushree Thapa and Samrat Upadhya have caught the
attention of western media because they write in English. One studied and lived
in the USA and the other is settled there. Moreover, the American publishing
world does more for its migrant authors than other countries. There are prizes
in which only USA-educated migrants are allowed to apply to be nominated, a
certain protectionism for their US-migrants.
(The lecturer with his
Creative Writing students in Freiburg)
Motivation to write: The main motivation is to share my thoughts with the reader and to try out
different genres. Since I know a lot of school-friends who dropped out and
joined the British Gurkhas to see the world, it was disgusting to see how the
British government treated their comrade-in-arms from the hills of Nepal. On
the one hand, they said they are our best allies, part of the British Army and
on the other hand I got letters from Gurkhas showing how low their salaries are
in the Gurkha Brigade. A Johnny Gurkha gets only half the pay that a British
Tommy is paid. Colonialism? Master-and –Servant relationship? They were
treating them like guest-workers from Nepal and hiring and firing them at will,
depending upon whether the Brits needed cannon-fodder. All they had to do was
to recruit more Brigades in Nepal. This injustice motivated me to write a
series on the Gurkhas and the Brits. I like NatureJournaling too and it’s
wonderful to take long walks in the Black Forest countryside and in
Switzerland. As a Nepalese I’m always fascinated and awed by the Alps and the Himalayas. A Specific writing
style?
(Satis Shroff with his
Creative Writing students from the University of Freiburg)
Every writer in his journey
towards literature discovers his own style. Here’s what Heidi Poudel says about
my style: 'Brilliant, I enjoyed your poems thoroughly. I can hear the
underlying German and Nepali thoughts within your English language. The
strictness of the German form mixed with the vividness of your Nepalese mother
tongue. An interesting mix. Nepal is a jewel on the Earths surface, her majesty
and charm should be protected, and yet exposed with dignity through words. You
do your country justice and I find your bicultural understanding so unique and
a marvel to read.' Reviewed by Heide Poudel in WritersDen.com.
 |
| Satis Shroff with the Bundespräsident Dr. Gauck & the Landesvater Kretschmann |
My suggestions to readers:
I might sound old fashioned but there’s lot of wisdom in these two small
words: Carpe diem. Use your time. It can also mean ‘seize the job’ as in the
case of Keating in the book ‘Dead Poets Society.’ When I was in Katmandu a
friend named Bindu Dhoj who was doing MBA in Delhi said, ‘Satish, you have to
assert yourself in life.’ That was a good piece of advice. In the Nepalese
society we have a lot of chakari and afnu manchay caused by the caste-and-jaat
system. But in Europe even if you are well-qualified, you do have to learn to
assert and ‘sell’ and market yourself through good public relations. That’s why
it’s also important to have a serious web-presence. Germany is a great,
tolerant country despite the Nazi past, and it’s an economic and military power.
If you have chosen Germany, then make it a point to ‘do in Germany as the
Germans do.’ Get a circle of German friends, interact with them, lose your
shyness, get in touch with German families and speak, read, write and dream in
German. If you like singing then join a choir (like me), if you like art join a
Kunstverein, if you like sport then be a member of a Sportverein. If you’re a
physician, join the Marburger or Hartmann Bund. Don’t think about it. Do it.
It’s like swimming. You have to jump into the water. Dry swimming or thinking
alone won’t help you. Cultural exchange can be amusing and rewarding for your
own development.
Current and future projects: I always have writing projects
in my mind and you’ll catch me scribbling notices at different times of the
day. I feel like a kid in a department store when I think about the internet.
No haggling with editors, no waiting for a piece of writing to be published. I
find blogs fantastic. Imagine the agonies a writer had to go through in the old
days after having submitted a poem or a novel. Now, it’s child’s play. Even
Elfriede Jelenek uses her blog to write directly for the reading pleasure of
her readers. The idea has caught on. In a life time you do write a lot and I’m
out to string all my past writings in a book in the Ich-Form, that is, first
person singular and am interested in memoir writing, spiritual writing,
medical-ethno writing and, of course, my Zeitgeistlyrik . Georg F. Will said: A
powerful teacher is a benevolent contagion, an infectious spirit, an emulable
stance toward life. I like the idea of being an ‘infectious spirit’ as far as
my Creative Writing lectures are concerned, and it does your soul good when a
young female student comes up to you after the lecture and says: ‘Thank you
very much for the lecture. You’ve ignited the fire in me with your words.’ I
love to make Creative Writing a benevolent contagion and infect young minds
with words.
To my Readers: Be proud of yourself, talk with yourself as you talk
with a good friend, with respect and have goals in mind. If your goal is too
high you must readjust it. My Mom used to say, ‘Chora bhayey pachi ik rakhna
parchha. When you’re a son you have to strive for higher goals in life. I’d say
a daughter can also adopt this. Like the proverbial Gurkha, keep a stiff upper
lip and don’t give up. Keep on marching along your route and you’ll reach your
destination in life. But on the other hand, be happy and contended with small
successes and things. We Nepalese are attributed with ‘Die Heiterkeit der Seele’
because we are contented with small things which is a quality we should never
lose. Keep that friendly Nepali smile on your face, for it will bring you miles
and miles of smiles; and life’s worthwhile because you smile.
On literature: When you read a novel or short-story, you can feel the
excitement, you discover with the writer new terrain. You’re surprised. You’re
in a reading-trance and the purpose of literature is to give you reading
experience and pleasure. Literature is not the birth-right of the lecturers of
English departments in universities where every author of merit is analysed,
taken apart, mixing the fictive tale with the writer’s personal problems in
reality. The authors are bestowed with literary prizes, feted at literary
festivals and invited to literary conferences and public readings. Literature
belongs to the folk of a culture, but the academicians have made it their own
pride possession. Would like to hear Hemingway telling you a story he had
written or an academician hold a lecture about what Hemingway wrote? I’d prefer
the former because it belongs to the people, the readers, the listeners.
In India and Nepal we have story-tellers who go from village to village and
tell stories from the Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita. Story-telling has always
appealed to simple people and the high-brows alike, and has remained an
important cultural heritage. The same holds for the Gaineys, those wandering
minstrels from Nepal and Northern India, with their crude violins called
sarangis. They tell stories of former kings, princes and princesses, battles,
fairy tales, village stories, ballads accompanied by the whining, sad sound of
the sarangi. Literature has always flown into history, religion, sociology,
ethnology and is a heritage of mankind, and you can find all these wonderful
stories in your local library or your e-archive.
My first contact with a good library was the American Library in Katmandu.
A new world of knowledge opened to me. I could read the Scientific American,
Time, Newsweek, the Economist, The New York Times, National Geographic, the
Smithsonian, the Christian Science Monitor. The most fascinating thing about it
was , you only had to be a member and you could take the precious books home.
OMG! It was unbelievable for a Nepalese who came from a small town in the
foothills of the Himalayas.
Nobody bothered about what you were
reading: stories, history, new and old ideas, inventions, theories, general and
specific knowledge. The sky was the limit. I had a voracious appetite, and it
was like the opening of a Bildungsroman. Historical novels tell us about how it
was to live in former days, the forms of society involved that the writer
evokes in his or her pages. In ‘A Year in Provence’ Peter Mayle makes you
almost taste the excellent French food and wine, and the search for truffles
with a swine in hilarious, as well as the game of bol.
On the other hand, James Joyce
evokes a life-changing experience with his protagonists Leopold Bloom and
Stephan Daedalus in Dublin on June 16, 1904. Ulysses is a modern interpretation
of Homer’s Odyssey, an inner monologue recalled as memories of places, people,
smells, tastes and thoughts of the protagonist .
The Bhagawad Gita is a luminous and priceless gem in the literary world,
possesses world history character, and teaches us the unity in diversity. It is
a dialogue between the hero Arjuna and Krishna, who is the chariot-driver.
Krishna is an incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu. The Mahabharata alone has 18
chapters and the epic has 18 books with legends, episodes and didactic pieces
that are connected with the main story. It is a fascinating reading about the
war between relatives, written in the 4th and 3rd centuries before the birth of
Christ. He who reads knows better than to be indoctrinated, for he or she
learns to think, opening new worlds and lines of thought.
In my school-days I read Charles
Dickens’ ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and it became alive when I went to the Bastille
Museum in Paris with a fellow medical student. My memory of A Tale of Two
Cities took shape there, as I peered at the old, historical exhibits and the
guillotine. Later in the evening my friend Peter’s sister, who was married to a
Parisian said, ‘Oh, Satish, there are so many things to see in Paris than a
museum the entire afternoon.’ For me it was like time-travelling to the times
of the French Revolution, because I’d soaked up the story in my school days.
I could see Madame Defarge knitting the names of the noblemen and women to
be executed. Dickens was a great master of fabulation. I was ripe for those
stories and was as curious as a Siamese cat I had named Sirikit, reading,
turning page for page, absolutely absorbed in the unfolding stories. Time and
space and my personal demands were unimportant. It was the story that had to be
read, even with a midnight candle when the local hydroelectric power supply
failed.
That happened to me when I read ‘The Godfather’ (Der Pate) while visiting a
friend from Iceland. I couldn’t put the book down.
I felt sad when a 14 year old
computer-crazy school-kid said: ‘Who reads books these days? Everything’s in
the internet.’ The question is: do kids read books on their laptops and
eReaders? School websites, Facebook and You Tube and their apps have added new
hobbies for children who’re growing up. Does the cyberspace-generation have
only time for games? I tell them they should use: Google Scholar, Pubmed etc.
to gather knowledge and learn to transfer it.
* * *
Satis Shroff & MGV-Kappel sing: Blue Spanish Eyes
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