Eminent name in the literary landscape, poet, theatre practitioner, photographer and Seagull Books publisher, Naveen Kishore will be joining Ananke’s distinguished roster of guest speakers at the fourth edition of Women in Literature Festival 2024.
Seagull Books publishes world literature in English translation, serious non-fiction, culture studies, performance studies, art and cinema.
Naveen is the recipient of the Goethe Medal, a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature and more recently in 2022 the Cesare di Michelis. He lives and works in Calcutta.
Naveen’s two books of poetry, Knotted Grief and Mother Muse Quintet, have been published by Speaking Tiger. The latter, Mother Muse Quintet, will be the focus of the AnankeWLF2024 session titled: Ode To Remembrance: Mother Muse. The session will unpack Naveen’s meditations that open doorways and walks the reader down memory lane, bound with remembrances, reminiscences, loss and more.
During the planned session, Naveen will also share reflections on “language as a tool for the colonizer the dictator sovereign the all powerful leader who uses force and violence to dehumanize and erase your claim to humanity?”
Ruminating about Language and Erasure – AnankeWLF2024’s theme, Naveen meditated: “The first thing he did was to put the languages under arrest. All of them. That’s not all. He even put the dialects in jail. So as to reduce the agitated babble to silence. He isolated them. Solitary confinement. Then he proceeded to strip them naked. Men. Women. Children. No one was spared. Thus, reducing them into bare flesh and bones. Over time. Through a controlled starvation diet. Meanwhile his men in saffron gathered all the name tags that the prisoners had worn and went about the task of mixing the one with the other. Causing immense confusion. In a bizarre revelry of a ritual reminiscent of a lottery. An incoherent alphabet unable to find its way home.”
Talking about hope in today’s difficult-to-negotiate world, Naveen mused: “I am a non-believer with a strong sense of belief in the possible. The possible allows us to inhabit-translate our ‘wish’ in a way that hope fails to achieve. Or to explore this differently the possible allows us to arrive at an intuitive state of Doing.”
The fourth edition of Ananke’s Women in Literature Festival is set to take place on April 23rd, 2024. Happening in the month of World Book Day, the three-day event strives to create a space, a collective, where a diverse set of voices – especially from the Global South – can come together to share their thoughts, vision, and lived experiences with agency.
Ananke’s Women in Literature Festival will showcase a plethora of conversations that spark impact and mobilize change. The festival aims to initiate discussions and dialogue that give rise to positive narratives. The digital festival is a flagship event of Ananke’s Women in Literature Foundation – An Ananke initiative.
A monologue… provocation… prelude to Ode To Remembrance: Mother Muse
Image: Pixabay
What is it like? At the edge.
The edge?
The edge, yes.
I don’t know.
It must be. Unpredictable?
Yes.
Understandably so. You can see things as far as your hands if you promise not to let the elbows stray too far. For fear of blinding the stretched fingertips. Its dark. You see. Don’t you? Besides don’t forget the rising fog. The haze. The mist. I mean there is just so much you can rely on the braille of your intuition. Your ability to survive change. The way in which you adapt to circumstance. The way you look at life. Live it. Your own sense of what it is you want. Out. Of the dailyness. Of what you do. What counts as success. The priorities you relish. The clothes you wear. The cars you drive. The houses you wish to live in. The food you eat. The drinking and the merry making. The buying and the selling and the relationships. Don’t forget the relationships.
The dark can be comforting. Or at least reassuring.
It can? Doesn’t sound convincing. That.
No? Thing is.
Yes?
Yes. Thing is.
Ah I see.
You do? Oh.
Yes I do see. The attraction. The lure of the dark. The unforeseen. Makes the blood rush. To one’s head. Wanting to plunge. It can be a high. Oh yes. The sense of having gambled. Stuck one’s neck out. Walked out on a limb. And come up trumps. Each time. And yet the risking of everything you have. Inviting chance to a game. Always the dice. The single throw of dice. And only one opportunity to get it right. Losing is not an option. Or at least till you do. Lose. That is. Then it is an embrace. A welcome one. A different kind of high. One that starts off as a low. Deep decent into the well. And then the climb. The sheer effort to get back. Climb out of the pit. Or at least enough. To be able to start again. To recoup. Regroup. Brush one’s clothes as it were. And do the whole thing again. Refusing to learn. That in itself is a high. Correct? Have I got it right? I am sure I have. I usually do. Get it right. Do I not?
Thing I meant to say. I like that by the way. Embrace.
Embrace? What do you want to embrace?
Loss.
Lost?
Lost. Yes. You said embrace the loss. Anyway. Thing is. I meant to say.
Thank you. I know what you meant to say. I always do. Don’t I? That’s the thing. Is it not? That and the fact that I sense it. Long before you say it. I mean I do get there faster. I find the words. Put them in order. Make something out of them. Yes. String them into sentences. Pearls of wisdom. And everlasting truth. Making sense of life. And philosophy. Culture. High Art. And ofcourse the sciences. Both social and the physical ones. I mean like Physics. Statics. Dynamics. Mechanics. Don’t forget History and Geography. Even the moral sciences. Religion. You start a thought. I complete it. I just know. Don’t I? Don’t I? Don’t I get it right? Each time? I know I do. It’s just the way it is. Not just a question of self-importance. Or liking the sound of my own voice. Both of which by the way I do. I mean I do feel a sense of importance. And listening to what I have to say. Because it makes sense. That’s the way I am you see. You do. See. Don’t you? You do get it? What I mean? Yes?
Yes.
Yes?
You do?
Yes.
I see. I mean. The fact is. What I mean to say. You see. This thing. I mean. You mustn’t. I mean you can’t. Not. See. I know you said you do. See. That is. I mean you must not get me wrong. It’s just that I am taken aback. This in itself is confusing. Is it not? No? Yes. It is difficult. That I should stumble. Suddenly. Lacking in words. Just because you said you see. Your saying yes is important. But it is also a surprise you see. You do see that don’t you. I mean that this is so befuddling for me. Your able to see. It shouldn’t be. After all that is what I have spent my years trying to do. Trying. To make you see. To understand.
I do.
Do? What? I mean what do you do?
I simply. Do.
I don’t understand.
I do.
What? Tell me. What is it that you do.
Understand.
Understand? Understand what?
I understand. I do.
I see. Yes. I see. I see what you mean. Meant. All along. How could I not? I mean I saw it all from the beginning. Its’ just that I didn’t. Understand. That you did. You know. Understand. That is.
Yes.
Yes?
Yes, I do understand. Always have. Every single thing. Every little bit of every single thing. Every tiny particle of every single thing of everything. Always. Have understood.
Oh.
Yes. That too.
Ah.
—–
xxx
—–
Image: Pixabay
one evening he
stepped back into the shadows
so as to be able
to watch life go by in the fading light
in your fathers house there is silence now
i heard your mother say that ‘everything is so normal’
outside in the garden
the birdsong uninterrupted
‘Satyajit Ray even shot a scene here with the birds singing madly in the
background’, she continued
then she sat looking at that sofa chair in the verandah for the longest time
‘tight within her silence,
she waits.’
i sense his absence in these spaces so familiar with his presence
i first met your father after he was gone
in fact it was your mother who took me to him
‘he’s breathing’, she said
i didn’t know what to say
that was in the hospital
later i helped carry him into his own home so that he could be made ready for
one final parting
they bathed him and clothed him in the manner prescribed by their priests
all this happened in the small room with the tv set
i waited outside and tended the wreaths that had begun to multiply in the
corridor
then i helped carry his shrouded body into the living room so that the all those
that had gathered there could place their flowers around him
i remember thinking ‘how tall he looks in his sleep’
so many came to see him
he did his duty by his fellow men
he had time for all kinds of people
he was a good friend
he was my best friend
he was one of my three best friends
so how does one lifetime spawn so many friendships?
i have four distinct images of him
or rather three plus one
all of them have something to do with colour
blueblazered in his mangoe lane office admist a lot of tennisobilia
i think he was organizing some tournament at the south club
and i was there trying to get him on the ifa board
redsweatered in the porch
half in the drivers seat
mildly impatient
waiting for your mother
not in the frame
whiteshawled on the sofa in the verandah
mercilessly teasing ayesha das at vikram seth’s dinner
he enjoyed teasing people he liked
i found my way into yesterday’s loo
undisturbed from the evening before
specially noticed the array of brown combs,
the cigarette butt in a tiny blue tray
and what looked like a gray jogging suit
hanging behind the white door
i couldn’t get myself to use the bathroom
it did not seem right
i have tried my friend
to capture stillness
stillness that holds memories
of your dear father
in its thrall
i need you to complete this ‘gift’
of a loss
that has to be borne by you
and you alone
