THE FACE NEARER TO MY HEART: SATIS SHROFF
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 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.
Publications: Satis Shroff on www.lulu.com/spotlight/satisle
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 access 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. My favourite American mags were:
the National Geographic, the Scientific American and the Smithsonian. And I
used to walk from Tahachal to The British Council Library to read the New
Scientist and the Times Literary Supplement.
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 ‘ A House for Mr. Biswas’ and
‘Half a Life.’ ‘Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness,’ James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses,
Stephan Hero, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Goethe’s 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 and Jhumpa Lahiri’s
‘The Lowland.’
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 at times the 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 and Indian publishers are like mushrooms after a monsoon
rain. 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. These two Nepalese
writers with American university backgrounds and privileges as far as prizes
are concerned are being sold as the first writers from the Himalayas to write
in English, which isn’t true. Just a publicity gag. 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.
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 young Nepalese for
the British Gurkha 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.
(Satis Shroff with his Creative Writing students from the University of
Freiburg)
A Specific writing style?
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
Earth’s 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.
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 fascinating and 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’s 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
you 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 Bhagwad 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 schoolkid 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.
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