एक थे गुलशन नंदा
राजकुमार केसवानी

एक थे गुलशन नंदा. हिन्दी में पल्प फिक्शन उर्फ लुगदी साहित्य के सबसे ज़्यादा बिकने वाले लेखक. अपने दौर, 60 से लेकर 80 के दशक तक, की दर्जनों सिल्वर जुबिली, गोल्डन जुबिली फिल्मों के लेखक. हिन्दी साहित्यकारों के बीच एक घृणित नाम और उस दौर की युवा पीढ़ी के आराध्य देव.

यह वह दौर था जब एक तरफ फिल्म ‘मुग़ल-ए-आज़म’(1960) की हीरोइन अनारकली सीना ठोक कर ज़माने के सामने ‘जब प्यार किया तो डरना क्या’ गाकर अपनी मोहब्बत का इज़हार अकेले में आशिक के सामने करती थी और किसी दिन गुलशन नंदा के किसी उपन्यास की हीरोइन की तरह चुपके से उसके साथ भाग भी जाती थी. उस वक़्त के अखबार ऐसी कहानियों से भरे रहते थे. ऐसी ही एक स्टोरी मुझे अब तक याद है. इस खबर में कहा गया था कि जाते समय उसके तेवर थे ‘प्यार किया तो डरना क्या’ और अब लौटकर गा रही है – ‘मोह्ब्बत की झूठी कहाने पे रोये’. दोनो ही गीत फिल्म ‘मुग़ल-ए-आज़म’ के हैं.

खैर साहब, किस्सा कोत्ताह यह कि नाचीज़ ने भी अपने लड़कपन में गुलशन नंदा की कम से कम दो-एक किताबें तो ज़रूर पढ़ी हैं. इतनी कम इसलिए नहीं कि मुझे उसी उम्र में अछे-बुरे की तमीज़ आ गई और सिर्फ महान लेखकों को ही पढ़ता था बल्कि इसलिए कि मुझे इस नाम से ही खुन्नस थी. उस वक़्त किताबें खरीदकर पढ़ने की हैसियत न थी सो गली-मोहल्ले की छोटी-छोटी लाइब्रेरी से किराये पर लेकर पढ़ते थे. इन लाइब्रेरियों में जिसे देखो गुलशन नंदा की किताब मांगता था. बस इसी बात पर खुन्नस थी. मेरे पसंदीदा लेखक 60 के उस शुरूआती दौर में मुंशी प्रेमचन्द, आचार्य चतुरसेन, गुरुदत्त, कृश्न चंदर, कुश्वाहा कांत, इब्ने सफी बी.ए., वेदप्रकाश काम्बोज वग़ैरह हुआ करते थे. 1967 में हिन्द पाकेट बुक्स की घरेलू लाइब्रेरी योजना और पत्रिका ‘सारिका’ ने इस धारा को पलट दिया. देश-विदेश के महान लेखकों से परिचय हुआ और थोड़ा सा मानसिक विकास भी हुआ. मगर मेरे इस तथाकथित विकास से गुलशन नंदा की सेहत पर ज़रा भी असर न पड़ा. उसकी किताबें पहले से भी ज़्यादा बिक रही थीं. बल्कि इसी वक़्त इन उपन्यासों पर फिल्में भी बनना शुरू हो गई और किताबों की ही तरह हिट भी होने लगी थीं.

आप इन फिल्मों की सूची पर नज़र डालिये. ‘काजल’ (1965), सावन की घटा’ (1966), ‘पत्थर के सनम’(1967), ‘नील कमल’ (1968), ‘खिलोना’ (1970), ‘कटी पतंग’ (1970), ‘शर्मीली’ (1970), ‘नया ज़माना’ (1971), ‘दाग़’ (1973), ‘झील के उस पार’ (1973), ‘जुगनू’ (1973), ‘जोशीला’ (1973), ‘अजनबी’ (1974), ‘भंवर’ (1976), ‘महबूबा’ (1976) वगैरह-वग़ैरह. 1987 में रिलीज़ हुई राजेश खन्ना, श्री देवी की फिल्म ‘नज़राना’ शायद उनकी अखिरी फिल्म थी. 16 नवम्बर 1985 को गुलशन नंदा की मृत्यु हो चुकी थी.

वो भी इक दौर था

एक लम्बे समय तक देश भक्ति की प्रबल भावनाओं से ओत-प्रोत स्वतंत्रता संग्राम में जुटे भारतीय समाज को 1947 में आज़ादी नसीब हुई. यह एक ऐसी भावुकता का दौर था जो आज़ादी के बाद भी एक लम्बे अरसे तक कायम रहा. बल्कि कहा जाए तो 1991 में शुरू हुई उदारीकरण के दौर तक यह कायम रहा. 1991 के बाद से भावुकता घोषित रूप से मूर्खता है. बाज़ार द्वारा स्थापित व्यवहारिकता ‘आर्डर आफ द डे’ बन गया है.

ख़ैर, मैं यह बता रहा था कि आज़ादी की लड़ाई के दौरान और आज़ादे के कोई 40-45 साल तक समाज के अधिकांश संस्कार भावुकता से भरे थे. इसी दौर में मद्रास के जेमिनी, ए.वी.एम., प्रसाद प्रोडक्शंस, जैसे फिल्म निर्माण कम्पनियों ने इस देश के लोगों को सिनेमा घरो में रुला-रुला कर इतना पैसा कमाया है कि यह अन्दाज़ लगाना मुश्किल है कि हर आंसूं की कीमत क्या थी.

इसी दौर में हिन्दी के कुछ लेखक सामने आए जिन्होने जमकर आंसुओं का कारोबार किया. इन लेखकों में दत्त भारती, प्रेमशंकर बाजपेयी, कुशवाहा कांत, राजवंश, रानू के नाम याद किये जाते हैं लेकिन इन सबका सरताज था गुलशन नंदा. यह लेखक बकौल उसके पढ़ने वालों के ‘बहुत रुलाता था’. मगर मुझे लगता है कि उनके पास पूरा ‘मसाला फार्मूला’ था जिसमें बहुत ही सरल भाषा में संयमित सेक्स वार्ता, संस्कार की दुहाई, अमीरी-ग़रीबी, न्याय-अन्याय और प्रेम की सर्वोचता का भाव समिलित था.

अब मिसाल के तौर अर उनकी एक पुस्ताक ‘जलत्ती चट्टान’ का यह अंश देखिये, जिसे पुस्तक बेचने को प्रकाशक ने विज्ञापित किया है. ‘नदी के शीतल जल में दोनो बेसुध खड़े एक-दूसरे के दिल की धड़कने सुन रहे थे. पार्वती का शरीर आग के समान तप रहा था. ज्यों-ज्यों नदी की लहरें शरीर से टकरातीं भीगी साड़ी उसके शरीर से और भी लिपटती जाती, राजन को इन लहरों पर क्रोध आ रहा था.’.

अब ज़रा एक और मिसाल देखिये. इस बार पुस्तक का नाम है ‘नीलकंठ’.

‘ संध्या और बेला दोनों रायसाहब की बेटियां…संध्या शांत स्वभाव वाली, जबकि बेला शोख, रंगीन मिजाज। बेला बम्बई में पढ़कर वापस लौटती है तो पाती है कि संध्या और आनन्द एक दूसरे से प्यार करते हैं। लेकिन बेला भी आनन्द को चाहती है। एक दिन बेला को पता चलता है कि संध्या राय साहब की गोद ली हुई पुत्री है तो वह क्रोधित हो यह सब संध्या को बता देती है। संध्या को जब अपनी माँ का पता चलता है तो वह उनसे मिलने गांव पहुँचती है जो कि गरीबों की बस्ती है और संध्या की मां उस गांव में चायखाना चलाती है। इस बीच धोखे से, अपने मोहजाल में फंसाकर बेला आनन्द से विवाह कर बंबई चली जाती है। बंबई में बेला को फिल्मों में काम करने का मौका मिलता है लेकिन आनन्द को यह सब पसन्द नहीं और उसकी हालत पागलों जैसी हो जाती है।

क्या आनन्द का पागलपन दूर हुआ ? क्या बेला एक फिल्म अभिनेत्री के रूप में सफल हो सकी ? क्या संध्या के जीवन में कोई और पुरुष आया ? इन सब जिज्ञासा भरे प्रश्नों का उत्तर आप इस उपन्यास में पा सकते हैं जो कि कलम के जादूगर गुलशन नंदा द्वारा लिखा गया है।‘.

तो साहब ऐसे थे गुलशन नंदा. उनकी पैदाइश की सही तारीख तो मालूम नहीं पर तीस के दशक में उनकी पैदाइश मानी जाती है. 60 के दशक में बतौर लेखक दिल्ली के प्रकाशक एन.डी.सहगल एण्ड संस के ज़रिये सामने आए. कहते हैं उस समय उन्हें एक पुस्तक के मात्र 100-200 रुपए ही मिलते थे. मगर उनकी पुस्तकों की कामयाबी के साथ-साथ उनकी कीमत भी बड़ती गई. एक दौर ऐसा आया कि उनके प्रकाशक उनको मुंहमांगे पैसे पेशगी देने लगे.

सहगल के बाद इनका सम्बंध बना स्टार पाकेट बुक्स के अमरनाथ वर्मा से और उनकी 1 रुपए और 2 रुपए वाली पाकेट बूक्स ने धूम मचा दी. प्रकाशक और लेखक दोनो खुश. 6.5 प्रतिशत की दर से बनने वाली हज़ार की रायल्टी लाखों में जा पहुंची. रिश्ते को एक ठोस आधार देने अमरनाथ जी ने गुलशन नंदा से उनकी बेटी का हाथ अपने बेटे के लिए मांग लिया. दोनो समधी हो गए और रिश्ता सदा के लिए पक्का हो गया.

यह गुलशन नंदा का युग था. फिल्म वालों ने भी उन्हें हाथों-हाथ लिया. राम माहेश्वरी और पन्नालाल माहेश्वरी की फिल्म ‘काजल’ से हिट फिल्मों का ऐसा सिलसिला चला कि रुकता ही न था. गुलशन नंदा का नाम फिल्म की हिट होने की ज़मानत बन गया. 20 साल तक चले इस रिश्ते में फिल्मी दुनिया के सारे दिगज निर्माता-निदेशकों ने इनकी कहानियों और पटकथाओं पर सफल फिल्में बनाईं.इनमें शामिल हैं यश चौपड़ा, शक्ति सामंत, प्रमोद चक्रवर्ती, एल.वी.प्रसाद, रामानन्द सागर.

इस सबके बावजूद गुलशन नंदा के मन में एक टीस थी. वह थी हिन्दी साहित्य में अस्वीकृति की. तमाम सामाजिक स्वीकृति के बावजूद वहां उन्हें स्वीकार नहीं किया गया. और तो और हिन्दी की प्रतिष्ठित प्रकाशन संस्था हिन्द पाकेट बुक्स ने उन्हे अपने स्तरीय प्रकाशनो के बीच स्थान देने से इंकार की पालिसी बना रखी थी.

70 के दशक में आखिर यह दीवार भी टूटी. हिन्द पाकेट बुक्स ने अपनी हार मानते हुए पाठकों के फैसले का समान करते हुए गुलशन नंदा से प्रकाशन के लिए पुस्तक मांगी. इस बार गुलशन नंदा ने प्रसताव अपनी शर्तों पर ही स्वीकार किया. मुंहमागी अग्रिम राशि ली. पुस्तक के प्रचार की शर्ते मनवाईं. मतलब उनकी हर चीज़ मानी और ‘झील के उस पार’ नामक उपन्यास प्रकाशित किया. इसी पुस्तक पर लगभग पुस्तक के रिलीज़ के आसपास ही 1973 में भप्पी सोनी निदेशित, धर्मेन्द्र-मुमताज़ और योगिता बाली के साथ इसी नाम की फिल्म भी रिलीज़ हुई.

हिन्दी पुस्तक प्रकाशन के इतिहास शायद ही इससे पहले या फिर इसके बाद में इस तरह का प्रोमोशन किसी किताब का हुआ हो. देश भर के अखबारों,पत्रिकाओं,रेडियो पर प्रचार के अलावा होटल,पान की दुकान से लेकर सिनेमाघरों तक बड़े-बड़े प्रचार पोस्टर और खास तौर डिज़ाईन किए गए टांगने वाले बाक्स लगाए गए. इन सब में इस बात पर ज़ोर था कि पहली बार हिन्दी में किसी पुस्तक का पहला एडीशन ही 5 लाख रिपीट पांच लाख कापी का छापा गया है.

अब इस सचाई को तो लेखक और प्रकाशक जाने कि सच में कितनी छपीं मगर इतना ज़रूर सच है कि इस प्रचार के नतीजे में यह पुस्तक जिस क़दर बिकी, उसके बाद शायद ही कोई दूसरी हिन्दी किताब बिकी हो. यह गुलशन नंदा की जीवन का शिखर काल था.

यही वह समय था जब उनकी पुस्तकें अन्य भारतीय भाषाओं में अनुवाद होकर उसी धड़ले से बिक रहीं थी. अंग्रेज़ी और अन्य विदेशी भाषाओं में धूम मच गई थी. ‘कटी पतंग’ के चीनी भाषा के अनुवाद ने तो वहां बिक्री के रिकार्ड ही कायम कर दिए.

अछा एक और मज़े की बात बताता हूं. गुलशन नंदा को हमेशा हिन्दी का लेखक कहा और माना जाता है लेकिन सचाई यह है कि नंदा साहब को हिन्दी आती ही नहीं थी. वे तो लिखते ही उर्दू में थे. उनके लिखे को हिन्दी में उनके बहनोई बृजेन्द्र  स्याल बदलते थे.

और…

और आखिरी बात यह कि दिल्ली में एक चाय बेचने वाला गुलशन नंदा की प्रेरणा से ही खुद भी लेखक बन गया. अब तक उसकी एक दर्जन से ज़्यादा पुस्तकें प्रकाशित हुई हैं और बाकयदा बिकी हैं. इस लेखक का नाम है – लक्ष्मण राव.

मूलत अमरावती रहने वाला 55 वर्षीय लक्ष्मण राव मराठी भाषी है. काम की तलाश में दिल्ली पहुंचा और अब भी दिल्ली में आई.टी.ओ के पास चाय बेचता है. गुलशन नंदा के लेखन से बहुत प्रभावित रहा और 1979 में खुद भी लेखक बन गया. नदी पर नहाने गए एक बचे की डूब जाने से हुई मौत से विचलित इस व्यक्ति ने लेखन को अपनी अभिव्यक्ति का ज़रिया बनाया. जब सारे प्रकाशकों ने पुस्तक छापने से इंकार कर दिया तो खुद ही अपनी प्रकाशन संस्था भारतीय साहित्य कला प्रकाशन के नाम से स्थापित की. अपनी पुस्तकें बेचने वह स्कूल-कालेज में जाता है और उसकी किताबें लोग खरीदते और पढ़ते भी हैं. सो बस लगातार लिखे जा रहा है. इस जज़्बे को सलाम.

अब सच बताऊं चाय का ज़िक्र करते-करते मुझे भी चाय की तलब हो आई है. बहुत देर से नहीं पी. और फिर अपनी बात भी तो पूरी होईच गई न. तो बस फिर क्या है. बोलो बात में बात,हो गई आपस की बात. अगले हफ्ते फिर से होगी, आपस की बात. तब तक.

जय-जय.

(दैनिक भास्कर के रविवारीय परिशिष्ट ‘रसरंग’ में पूर्व प्रकाशित)

ANTON CHEKHOV’S DIARY

Anton Chekhov

1896

My neighbor V.N.S. told me that his uncle Fet-Shenshin, the famous poet, when driving through the Mokhovaia Street, would invariably let down the window of his carriage and spit at the University. He would expectorate and spit: Bah! His coachman got so used to this that every time he drove past the University, he would stop.

In January I was in Petersburg and stayed with Souvorin. I often saw Potapenko. Met Korolenko. I often went to the Maly Theatre. As Alexander [Chekhov's brother] came downstairs one day, B.V.G. simultaneously came out of the editorial office of the _Novoye Vremya_ and said to me indignantly: “Why do you set the old man (i.e. Souvorin) against Burenin?” I have never spoken ill of the contributors to the _Novoye Vremya_ in Souvorin’s presence, although I have the deepest disrespect for the majority of them.

In February, passing through Moscow, I went to see L.N. Tolstoi. He was irritated, made stinging remarks about the _décadents_, and for an hour and a half argued with B. Tchitcherin, who, I thought, talked nonsense all the time. Tatyana and Mary [Tolstoi's daughters] laid out a patience; they both wished, and asked me to pick a card out; I picked out the ace of spades separately for each of them, and that annoyed them. By accident there were two aces of spades in the pack. Both of them are extraordinarily sympathetic, and their attitude to their father is touching. The countess denounced the painter Gé all the evening. She too was irritated.

May 5

The sexton Ivan Nicolayevitch brought my portrait, which he has painted from a photograph. In the evening V.N.S. brought his friend N.He is director of the Foreign Department … editor of a magazine …and doctor of medicine. He gives the impression of being an unusually stupid person and a reptile. He said: “There’s nothing more pernicious on earth than a rascally liberal paper,” and told us that, apparently, the peasants whom he doctors, having got his advice and medicine free of charge, ask him for a tip. He and S. speak of the peasants with exasperation and loathing.

June 1

I was at the Vagankov Cemetery and saw the graves there of the victims of the Khodinka. [During the coronation of Nicholas II in Moscow hundreds of people were crushed to death in the Khodinka Fields.] I. Pavlovsky, the Paris correspondent of the _Novoye Vremya_, came with me to Melikhovo.

August 4

Opening of the school in Talezh. The peasants of Talezh, Bershov, Doubechnia and Sholkovo presented me with four loaves, an icon and two silver salt-cellars. The Sholkovo peasant Postnov made a speech. N. stayed with me from the 15th to the 18th August. He has been forbidden [by the authorities] to publish anything: he speaks contemptuously now of the younger G., who said to the new Chief of  the Central Press Bureau that he was not going to sacrifice his weekly _Nedelya_ for N.’s sake and that “We have always anticipated the wishes of the Censorship.” In fine weather N. walks in goloshes, and carries an umbrella, so as not to die of sunstroke; he is afraid to wash in cold water, and complains of  palpitations of the heart. From  me he went on to L.N. Tolstoi.

I left Taganrog on August 24. In Rostov I had supper with a school-friend, L. Volkenstein, the barrister, who has already a house in town and a villa in Kislovodsk [in the Caucasus]. I was in Nakhichevan–what a change! All the streets are lit by electric light. In Kislovodsk, at the funeral of General Safonov, I met A.I. Tchouprov [a famous economist], later I met A.N. Vesselovsky [littérateur] in the park. On the 28th I went on a hunting party with Baron Steingel, passed the night in Bermamut. It was cold with a violent wind.

2 September in Novorissisk. Steamer _Alexander II_. On the 3rd I arrived at Feodossia and stopped with Souvorin. I saw I.K. Aivasovsky [famous painter] who said to me: “You no longer come to see me, an old man.” In his opinion I ought to have paid him a visit. On the 16th in Kharkov, I was in the theatre at the performance of “The Dangers of Intelligence.” 17th at home: wonderful weather.

Vladimir Sloviov [famous philosopher] told me that he always carried an oak-gall in his trouser pocket,–in his opinion, it is a radical cure for piles.

October 17

Performance of my “Seagull” at the Alexandrinsky Theatre. It was not a success.

29th. I was at a meeting of the Zemstvo Council at Sezpukhovo.

On the 10th November I had a letter from A.F. Koni who says he liked my “Seagull” very much.

November 26th.

A fire broke out in our house. Count S.I. Shakhovsky helped to put it out. When it was over, Sh. related that once, when a fire broke out in his house at night, he lifted a tank of water weighing 4-1/2 cwt. and poured the water on the flames.

December 4

For the performance [of the "Seagull"] on the 17th October see “Theatral,” No. 95, page 75. It is true that I fled from the theatre, but only when the play was over. In L.’s dressing-room during two or three acts. During the intervals there came to her officials of the State Theatres in uniform, wearing their orders, P.–with a Star; a handsome young official of the Department of the State Police also came to her. If a man takes up work which is alien to him, art for instance, then, since it is impossible for him to become an artist, he becomes an official. What a lot of people thus play the parasite round science, the theatre, the painting,–by putting on a uniform! Likewise the man to whom life is alien, who is incapable of living, nothing else remains for him, but to become an official. The fat actresses, who were in the dressing-room, made themselves pleasant to the officials–respectfully and flatteringly. (L. expressed her delight that P., so young, had already got the Star.) They were old, respectable house-keepers, serf-women, whom the masters honored with their presence.

December 21

Levitan suffers from dilation of the aorta. He carries clay on his chest. He has superb studies for pictures, and a passionate thirst for life.

December 31

P.I. Seryogin, the landscape painter, came.

1897

From January 10 to February 3 busy with the census. I am enumerator of the 16th district, and have to instruct the other (fifteen) enumerators of our Bavykin Section. They all work superbly, except the priest of the Starospassky parish and the Government official, appointed to the Zemstvo, G., (who is in charge of the census district); he is away nearly all the time in Serpukhovo, spends every evening at the Club and keeps on wiring that he is not well. All the rest of the Government officials of our district are also said to do nothing.

With such critics as we have, authors like N.S. Lyeskov and S.V. Maximov cannot be a success.

Between “there is a God” and “there is no God” lies a whole vast tract, which the really wise man crosses with great effort. A Russian knows one or other of these two extremes, and the middle tract between them does not interest him; and therefore he usually knows nothing, or very little.

The ease with which Jews change their religion is justified by many on the ground of indifference. But this is not a justification. One has to respect even one’s indifference, and not change it for anything, since indifference in a decent man is also a religion.

February 13

Dinner at Mme. Morosov’s. Tchouprov, Sololevsky, Blaramberg, Sablin and myself were present.

February 15

Pancakes at Soldatienkov’s [a Moscow publisher]. Only Golziev [editor of _Russian Thought_] and myself were present. Many fine pictures, nearly all badly hung. After the pancakes we drove to Levitan, from whom Soldatienkov bought a picture and two studies for 1,100 roubles. Met Polyenov [famous painter]. In the evening I was at professor Ostroumov’s; he says that Levitan “can’t help dying.” O. himself is ill and obviously frightened.

February 16

Several of us met in the evening in the offices of _Russian Thought_ to discuss the People’s Theatre. Every one liked Shekhtel’s plan.

February 19

Dinner at the “Continental” to commemorate the great reform [the abolition of the serfdom in 1861]. Tedious and incongruous. To dine, drink champagne, make a racket, and deliver speeches about national consciousness, the conscience of the people, freedom, and such things, while slaves in tail-coats are running round your tables, veritable serfs, and your coachmen wait outside in the street, in the bitter cold–that is lying to the Holy Ghost.

February 22

I went to Serpukhovo to an amateur performance in aid of  the school at Novossiolki. As far as Zarizin I was accompanied by … a little queen in exile,–an actress who imagines herself great; uneducated and a bit vulgar.

From March 25 till April 10 I was laid up in Ostroumov’s clinic. Hæmorrhage. Creaking, moisture in the apices of both my lungs; congestion in the apex of the right.

On March 28 L.N. Tolstoi came to see me. We spoke of immortality. I told him the gist of Nossilov’s story “The Theatre of the Voguls,” and he evidently listened with great pleasure.

May 1

N. arrived. He is always thanking you for tea and dinner, apologizing, afraid of being late for the train; he talks a great deal, keeps mentioning his wife, like Gogol’s Mijniev, pushes the proofs of his play over to you, first one sheet then another, giggles, attacks Menshikov, whom Tolstoi has “swallowed”; assures you that he would shoot Stassiulevitch, if the latter were to show himself at a review, as President of the Russian Republic; giggles again, wets his mustaches with the soup, eats hardly anything, and yet is quite a nice man after all.

May 4

The monks from the monastery paid us a visit. Dasha Moussin-Poushkin, the wife of the engineer Gliebov, who has been killed hunting, was there. She sang a great deal.

May 24

I was present at the examination of two schools in Tchirkov. [The Tchirkov and Mikhailovo schools.]

July 13

Opening of the school at Novossiolki which I have had built. The peasants gave me an icon with an inscription. The Zemstvo people were absent.  Braz [painter] does my portrait (for the Tretiakov Gallery). Two sittings a day.

July 22

I received a medal for my work on the census.

July 23

In Petersburg. Stopped at Souvorin’s, in the drawing-room. Met VI. T…. who complained of his hysteria and praised his own books. I saw P. Gnyeditch and E. Karpov, who imitated Leykin showing off as a Spanish grandee.

July 27

At Leykin’s at Ivanovsk. 28th in Moscow. In the editorial offices of _Russian Thought_, bugs in the sofa.

September 4

Arrived in Paris. “Moulin Rouge,” danse du ventre, Café du Néon with Coffins, Café du Ciel, etc.

September 8

In Biarritz. V.M. Sobolevsky and Mme. V.A. Morosov are here. Every Russian in Biarritz complains of the number of Russians here.

September 14

Bayonne. Grande course landoise. Bull-fight.

September 22

From Biarritz to Nice via Toulouse.

September 23

Nice. I settled into the Pension Russe. Met Maxim Kovalevsky; lunched at his house at Beaulieu, with N.I. Yurassov and Yakobi, the artist. In Monte Carlo.

October 7

Confession of a spy.

October 9

I saw B.’s mother playing roulette. Unpleasant sight.

November 15

Monte Carlo. I saw how the croupier stole a louis d’or.

1898

April 16

In Paris. Acquaintance with M.M. Antokolsky [sculptor] and negotiations for a statue of Peter the Great.

May 5.

Returned home.

May 26

Sobolevsky came to Melikhovo. Must put down the fact that, in Paris, in spite of the rain and cold, I spent two or three weeks without being bored. Arrived here with M. Kovalevsky. Many interesting acquaintances: Paul Boyer, Art Roë, Bonnie, M. Dreyfus, De Roberti, Waliczewsky, Onieguin. Luncheons and dinners, at I.I. Schoukin’s house. Left by Nord-express for Petersburg, whence to Moscow. At home, found wonderful weather.

An example of clerical boorishness. At a dinner party the critic Protopopov came up to M. Kovalevsky, clinked glasses and said: “I drink to science, so long as it does no harm to the people.”

1901.

September 12.

I was at L. Tolstoi’s.

December 7

Talked to L. Tolstoi over the telephone.

1903.

January 8

“Istorichesky Vestnik,” November 1902, “The Artistic Life of Moscow in the Seventies,” by I.N. Zakharin. It is said in that article that I sent in my “Three Sisters” to the Theatrical and Literary Committee. It is not true.

Gogol : Magic Realism

Chinghiz Aitmatov

The influence of Gogol on the artistic development of mankind is enormous and all-pervading.

It is very difficult to imagine now what an extraordinary revelation his writings were for the first readers, how difficult it was for many of them to accept his vision of life, which suddenly emerged before them in grotesque, fantastic forms and characters.

At the same time I am confident that no one filled better than Gogol man’s hidden need for perceiving the world in a new way, for the social and moral progress of society is inconceivable without new vision, without discovering the infinite mystery of being, which encourages us to search for the highest meaning of the existence of mankind as a whole and of the individual in particular.

A longing for the ideal is one of the strongest and noblest feelings which move genuine art. It is prompted by a warm and passionate love for man, faith in his purpose and in his enormous potential. Gogol was tormented by the great injustice whereby this potential remained uncalled-for unfulfilled, buried alive, and tried to discover the cause of this. At the same time, however, as a great man and artist, he endeavored to overcome suffering and tears, trying to find a way out of gloom of the surrounding reality, and created a prototype image of the future which, as he perceived it, could and had to grow out of the fine human thoughts and feelings which he discovered in real people.

Let us consider the cornerstone of Russian realism, Dead Souls. Is it not a diving feast of symbolism, of hyperbole, and an all-embracing conflagration of poetic imagination?

The Kukrynisky

Gogol, whose realism I would describe as magic, hypnotizes the reader, compelling him to believe in the breath-taking, fantastic and allegorical image of the “troika flying like a bird”.

The question arises here: what should we believe in, the reality of fantasy?

No. We should believe in fantastic reality, the reality of ideas, thoughts and emotions that he embodied in living, specific characters, in an integral presentation of a picture of the world, aspiring to show it in its completeness and infinity.

What is one of the main lessons Gogol taught us? A true writer creates or discovers a new artistic reality on the basis of his personal and mankind’s spiritual experience-philosophical, moral, and aesthetic, using all the necessary artistic techniques accessible to him.

Gogol’s consonance with the present epoch, and his influence on modern literature, are quite apparent.

The fantastic is a metaphor of life permitting one to see it from a new and unexpected angle.

In conclusion, I would like to quote Samuel Marsha’s notable words: “In reading and re-reading Gogol, one sees again and again that true realism demands the boldest poetic imagination from both author and reader, and the lightning flashes of fantasy show reality much clearer and more incisively than the dim lighting of naturalist writers.”

Gogol is like lightning illumining life. The light of his creative work is immortal.

(Originally published in now defunct Soviet Literature 1984)

Oviedo

PARA QUE YO ME LLAME ÁNGEL GONZÁLEZ

Para que yo me llame Ángel González,
para que mi ser pese sobre el suelo,
fue necesario un ancho espacio
y un largo tiempo:
hombres de todo el mar y toda tierra,
fértiles vientres de mujer, y cuerpos
y más cuerpos, fundiéndose incesantes
n otro cuerpo nuevo.
Solsticios y equinoccios alumbraron
con su cambiante luz, su vario cielo,
el viaje milenario de mi carne
trepando por los siglos y los huesos.
De su pasaje lento y doloroso
de su huida hasta el fin, sobreviviendo
naufragios, aferrándose
al último suspiro de los muertos,
yo no soy más que el resultado, el fruto,
lo que queda, podrido, entre los restos;
esto que veis aquí,
tan sólo esto:
un escombro tenaz, que se resiste
a su ruina, que lucha contra el viento,
que avanza por caminos que no llevan
a ningún sitio. El éxito
de todos los fracasos. La enloquecida
fuerza del desaliento…

Translation:

Before I Could Call Myself Ángel González

Before I could call myself Ángel González,
before the earth could support the weight of my body,
a long time
and a great space were necessary:
men from all the seas and all the lands,
fertile wombs of women, and bodies
and more bodies, incessantly fusing
into another new body.
Solstices and equinoxes illuminated
with their changing lights, and variegated skies,
the millenary trip of my flesh
as it climbed over centuries and bones.
Of its slow and painful journey,
of its escape to the end, surviving
shipwrecks, anchoring itself
to the last sigh of the dead,
I am only the result, the fruit,
what’s left, rotting, among the remains;
what you see here,
is just that:
tenacious trash resisting
its ruin, fighting against wind,
walking streets that go
nowhere. The success
of all failures. The insane
force of dismay…

Translated by Steven Ford Brown from sixteentons(dot)wordpress(dot)com

Ángel González (1925-2008), Spanish poet is featured here to commemorate Spain’s first ever World Cup win at FIFA 2010 in South Africa.

Listen to the poet read this poem here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKm22WyGHGs

Picture Santa Maria del Naranco, Oviedo, Spain from commons(dot)wikimedia(dot)org

A Short story from Morocco

The Monster

Mustafa Yaali

I escaped from the city’s mad streets with their iron swarms and wandering ants, and climbed the marble steps slowly. The narrow waiting room was a square tomb, but the eye became aware that it was a Pharaonic tomb. One’s eyes turned from plastic décor to leather armchairs, a square table in which colored mask flickered, from the wall covered with fine ornamental paper to the polished intervening doors and windows and the dimmed lighting whose source one could not see. I withdrew more into myself. The funereal silence prevailing over the room was heavy on my ears. None of the skeletons beside me spoke, as if they had spat out their tongues a long time ago. They were sunk in painful shells of dull-wittedness. I sighed as I imagined that they had weights of lead on their heads. The emaciated nurse, from whose drained eyes a jungle of huts and the course of high process gazed out, was the only one who spoke, insisting on speaking French to the patients. She did not stop coming in and going out through a grim grey door, in the middle of which was a protruding red eye. She ignored everybody, spat into the plastic basket placed in the corner on my right.

Finally the nurse came out of the door, whose mouth yawned towards me. She called over a speaker:

“Number eighty….eighty…Mr. Al Maskini….Al Maskini, Ahmed.”

The shiny metal signboard fixed above the grim door changed into a large screen, which I perused with concentrated attention. An X-ray check-up. Skeletons were staring at me. I felt that the planet earth was worlds apart from me.

“Come.”

I followed her, penetrating the moisture of silence. The corridor stretched ahead like a road, causing me to shudder. Where was the doctor? Where was the hell of wires, tubes and darkness? The drops of sweat poured from under my armpits, stinging.

“Take your clothes off and lie down here.”

“Here?”

“Yes”

A truly horrifying monster surprised me: a solid square head, a flat glass face with a mouth whose teeth were numerals, two short but strong horns, thick, bulging jugular veins, a long giraffe-like neck whose rubber veins protruded from its flesh, a noticeably prominent chest, a large long flat belly, and the monster had no lower half below the belly.

I stretched out naked on my back, submissively over the long cold bench, my eyes pregnant with questions. A sudden cold overwhelmed my whole body, and a dense silence covered the whole world. My eyes stared at the ceiling aimlessly. They said this monster worked miracles and blessings. So let it do what it wished with me, although I felt no friendliness towards it. Let me endure numerous pains, let me suffer a storm of agony at one go, but the important thing was that I should be freed, forever, of the recurrence of torment which rolled over my intestines continually, at their sharpest when I was faced with something unpleasant.

The doctor stormed into the room with tense steps tall and broad. He had the face of a mummy with harsh features, and his mouth was filled with a fat cigar. I reached out my hand to shake his, but he ignored it.

“You need to concentrate the X-ray on the left side, Doctor,” I told him pleadingly.

“The pain there is more troublesome.”

He looked down on me, and raged in my face:

“In know my job well. Your duty is to be quiet and do what I tell you.”

The attack of pain surged on my right side and left side with the speed of electricity. I imagined the angel of death Azrail was in front of me. I heard the groan escape from my mouth wearily. A rigid scowl was set up between myself and the doctor. The doctor put out the light. Things became dark except for a small red lamp which hardly showed itself. The doctor operated keys and buttons. The monster wheezed, rumbled and growled. His bulging veins quivered. It emitted from its mouth a flame like a legendary serpent towards my stomach. The nurse filled my mouth with a sticky substance that tasted like soap, which slipped heavily and revoltingly down to my stomach, while two threads of it trickled from the corners of my mouth. Everything was steeped in silence, except the monster which rumbled and muttered. The doctor pulled at my naked body like a fish, shook me roughly so I would assume the right posture. I almost made the mistake of explaining again and telling him about my pain:

“This is how the thing started, Doctor:

In those misty years, I was an ant which did not stop creeping day and night, and the cockroaches used to advise me that it was foolish to wear oneself out as a sacrifice to emptiness……it is insane not to gather the fruits of one’s death… It is accursed not to die in the toilet… and success, success lies in chirping, wheezing and leaping over ears of grain.

The pain became excessive in this way. Doctor:

The first manifestations of pain began when the accursed habit of spitting overcame me. I would spit more or less without stopping. All day I would spit with indigestion. I even discovered that I did not stop spitting increased in certain conditions; as if I saw two skeletons wrestling in the middle of the road as in films, while others were watching rapturously. Or I would see another skeleton insulting its wife and hitting its child. Or fearful boxes would go past me, hunting down dogs which said that they were mad. It was if I heard the radio station lying to its esteemed listeners from the sea of oil to the sea of darkness. Or the road would be closed before me by a masked creature from a strange world, long and broad, his mouth filled with a cigar, staggering on the narrow sidewalk, a clean little dog at his side. Pursue this, Doctor, add to it, so you may be aware how much I endured. I was almost convinced that I was not weaned on milk from my mother’s breast, but spittle.

I wish the business had stopped there, Doctor. My supply of spittle dried up without the habit of spitting leaving me. So I began spitting out blood, skin arteries. It became certain that I would soon spit out my tongue, throat, lungs, heart and liver, until I exhausted all my insides…did I say my insides? Ah, this is the essence of the matter, Doctor, as our ancient masters used to say, may God make their bones beneficial to us. Later, the pain became fierce. I felt that a huge, rumbling expectoration was forming inside my belly, that it would burst forth at one go, and my suffering would end with my death. For it is not logical, Doctor, and you are the best one to know, for a human being to live without a tongue, without a throat, heart or liver or any other of the vital organs, which distinguish a living being from an inanimate body. But I hate this spitting which decided to settle in my stomach and was not willing to leave me one way or another. So there is now no way to cleanse me of it except to my stomach opens. What torment, Doctor, what torment…Sometimes, Doctor, my despair becomes so intense that I wish my mother had never born me, or that my farthest ancestor had been impotent. By the way, Doctor, don’t you think that boys in this age grow old too early? What’s the reason in your opinion, Doctor? It is either malnutrition, or idleness, or exhausting their minds for nothing, or the enormity of impossible dreams?”

I remained stretched out like a dead man, not moving. The nurse moved slightly, carrying out some tasks like a robot. The doctor took hold of the monster’s horns with his fat hands and brought it near my stomach, the monster’s chest pressed on my belly without ceasing its wheezing and muttering.

“Stop breathing,” the doctor ordered me.

I did no, my eyes always to the ceiling. The ceiling split and a black ghost descended slowly from it, two short horns and a tapering tail, grasping a long winnowing fork in its claws. It headed straight for me.

“Good night….are you ready?”

What? Was this logical? This was illogical. Could it be feasible? Who are you? I am 25 years old and I do not know you. Images flocked together, attitudes, events, fragments, trivialities, intertwined entangled dreams. Fierce demons assaulted me, as I was confused between the logical and the illogical, between question marks. They started pouring water on my corpse, rubbing me as I were a rubber doll, guffawing and talking to each other about sex and parties. They placed me in a coffin, closed it securely on me, carried me and buried me in a crevice in the ground. Immediately, silent skeletons which I did not know lined up, and began offering me their condolences one after the other. At the end of the line, I approached my shadow, embraced it, and gave my condolences, weeping. Within me swelled an overwhelming desire to chat with the grocery, to climb the stairs of my home, to kiss my wife. I longed warmly for the hour for the cradle to enclose me, to embrace my mother, to converse with friends, give a party for the neighbours, visit my father’s forgotten grave which I had stopped visiting for years which flashed by like a fantasy, I cried out, as I had not done before, “How beautiful life is.”

“Breathe,” the doctor called out. “Don’t breathe…Breathe…..

Stop breathing…..Breathe.”

I would breathe, then stop, breathe, then stop, and breathe again. I found myself becoming nearly incapable of continuing the process, and almost collapsed. I wished I could tell the doctor, “I can’t go on, particularly interrupting my breathing. I must rest a bit.

“Stop breathing,” he ordered me, scowling.

The ghost gave a boisterous laugh, uglier than anything I had seen or heard. “Come on, here you are ready at last,” it said to me with a false friendliness.

“No.”

“Breathe.”

“Come on, the end is near.”

The coldness, the sweating, the shivering redoubled. The pressure on my stomach and on my breathing doubles. Finally I was able to say weakly to the doctor, “I can’t stand more.”

“It’s finished.”

“What?”

“Get up and put our clothes on.”

The room blazed with light. The ghost went away. The metal monster was silent. The doctor went out, whistling and dusting off his hands. The nurse followed him like a tail. As for me, my mouth filled with spittle.

(originally published in LOTUS, 1983)

The  Head of Hadji Murat

Rasul Gamzatov

I look upon the severed head before me,

I hear somewhere the distant battle’s roar,

And blood runs freely over the bare stones

Through villages at peace no more.

And sabres that have seen much action, whirl,

Honed razor-sharp upon the rocks,

And hillmen loyal t the Caucasus

Gallop along the mountain tracks

Then to that gory head I put this question:

“Were you once famous in these lands,

And whose were you, to meet with such a fate

And come to gried in alien hands?”

“Hadji Murat’s was I.”

came the head’s answer,

“And I am not ashamed to say,

That I tumbles off his shoulders simply

Because I went too far astray.”

The path I chose indeed was not the best one,

Vanity brought me to this plight…”

Sadly I contemplate the erring head

Cut off in the unequal fight.

By paths that reach far out into the distance

As men up in the mountains born,

Dead of alive, back to those summits

It is our duty to return.

Translated by Alex Miller

To My Friends

Alexander Blok

We’re inwardly seething with envy
We’re hostile and deaf to each other,
If we could but banish this hatred
That goes on for ever and ever!

But what can we do? Each has poisoned
His house till it’s beyond human aid.
The walls are all dripping with venom,
There’s nowhere to lay down one’s head.

So what can we do? Disenchanted,
We laugh till our sanity is gone,
And, drunk, in the street, we stand watching
Our houses crash down to the ground.

We’re traitors in life and in friendship,
We squander our words without sense,
But what can we do? For we’re clearing
The way for our yet unborn sons.

When, under some fence in the nettles,
My own wretched bones lie a-rotting,
Some future historian will accomplish
A prodigious exploit of writing…

And all to inflict cruel torments
On kids who’ve not done any harm
With dates (birth and death) and revolting
Quotations as long as your arm.

A pitiful fate – all one’s lifetime
To experience heaven and hell,
Then be a dull lecturer’s victim
And spawn other critics as well…

Plunge into fresh weeds by the wayside,
Let total oblivion fall ;
Be silent, you volumes, confound you –
I just didn’t write you at all !

Alexander Blok

24 July 1908

Translated by Alex Miller (1981)

Saramago: Prophet of our Times

-Brian Mendonça

Portuguese writer José Saramago is considered today one of the most outstanding writers in the world. Not only for his commitment to his art but also because of his espousal of social causes and of the amelioration of the condition of the human being in this world.

Awarded the Nobel prize for Literature – the first writer in Portuguese to do so — Saramago has been undeterred by fame or fortune and remains the person he always was. He says -‘I am the same person I was before receiving the Nobel Prize. I work with the same regularity, I have not modified my habits, I have the same friends.’

This nonchalance was however not shared by his Portuguese editor Zeferino Coelho. When the Nobel announcement came in October 1998 Saramago was just about to board a plane out of Germany after the Frankfurt Book Fair. With his characteristic wryness he said, ‘I was not born for all this glory.’ Zeferino however replied brightly ‘You may not have been made for this glory, but I was!’ Since then Saramago’s work has been translated widely from the Portuguese into English and several other languages giving him a globalized following.

Born in 1922 in the village of Azinhaga in the province of Ribatejo about 60 miles north-east of Lisbon, Saramago had to abandon his high-school studies to earn a living as a mechanic. But he never forgot his land, his roots, nor, sometimes on hot summer nights, after supper, sleeping under the fig tree with his grandfather. ‘With sleep delayed, night was peopled with the stories . . . my grandfather told: legends, apparitions, terrors, unique episodes, old deaths, scuffles with sticks and stones, the words of our forefathers, an untiring rumour of memories that would keep me awake while at the same time gently lulling me.’

In his Nobel lecture he says, ‘If my grandfather had been a rich landowner and not an illiterate pig breeder, I wouldn’t be the man I am today. If I could choose my own background – even with the cold of the winters, the heat of the summers, sometimes going hungry – I wouldn’t change a thing.’

It is difficult to define Saramago’s work – because he is so polyvalent, ‘playful’ and creative. He has published plays, short stories, novels, poems, libretti, diaries, and travelogues. Almost always, the backdrop is Portugal.

Saramago’s first book was a collection of poems Os Poemas Possiveis / Possible Poems (1966) when he was 44. His first novel was published 11 years later. In this novel, Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia /Manual of Painting and Calligraphy (1977) he spans the canvas of a painter as well as a writer, unfolding the genesis of art.

Italian composer Azio Corghi based his opera Blimunda on Saramago’s novel Memorial do Convento / Baltasar and Blimunda (1982). With sounds from Domenico Scarlatti’s harpsichord, the story is about ‘three Portuguese fools from the 18th century in a time and country where superstition and the fires of the Inquisition flourished.’

In O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis / The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (1984) he resurrects the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) and uses the aliases of Pessoa to comment on historical events of the time, viz. Franco’s crushing of Spain’s Republican government, Mussolini’s conquest of Abyssinia, Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia —all this while under the dictatorship of Antonio Salazar in Portugal, a regime which lasted 48 years since 1926.

Portugal’s exclusion from Europe is the subject of Saramago’s next novel A Jaganda de Pedra / A Stone Raft (1986). A series of supernatural events results in the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal) breaking free so that it starts to float into the Atlantic initially heading for the Azores. Saramago is not bound by traditional conventions of the novel as one can see, ‘The novel is not so much a literary genre,’ he says, ‘but a literary space, like a sea filled by many rivers.’

Saramago’s writing is sometimes referred to as magic realism. This is because he has combined in his work, myths, the history of Portugal and a surrealistic imagination. Consider his delightfully bizarre opening of Viagem a Portugal / Journey to Portugal (1990). Almost in the mock-heroic vein of Cervantes Don Quixote, Saramago stands exactly on the Spanish-Portuguese border over the river Douro, to address the fish beneath, and – he, being atheist – asks for their blessings for his travels:

‘This was the first traveler ever to pull up in his car, with the engine already in Portugal but the petrol tank still in Spain . . . Then across the deep dark waters . . . the traveler’s voice could be heard preaching to the fish in the river:
“Gather round, fishes, those of you to the right still in the River Douro and those of you to the left in the River Duero, come closer all of you and advise me what language you speak when you cross the watery frontiers beneath, and whether down there you also produce passports and visas as you enter and depart”’

The subtitle of the novel Journey to Portugal is ‘A Pursuit of Portugal’s History and Culture.’ It was nevertheless a curious turn of fate that forced Saramago to leave Portugal in protest in 1992 and settle in the Canary Islands of Spain. This when the Portuguese government, apparently under pressure from the Catholic Church, scuttled attempts to nominate his controversial novel The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991) for a European literary prize. Some feel his exile has made him less relevant, but to others he is now the voice of a more universal conscience.
He does have a foothold in Portugal, so to speak — an apartment lined with the books he has written — in Lisbon, which he visits occasionally with his Spanish wife, and official Spanish translator, Pilar del Rio. 30 years younger than Saramago they married in 1988. Ilda Reis was his first wife. Their only child, Violante, was born in 1947.

Saramago has always been in the forefront of political struggles, be it Spain, Portugal or Latin America. ‘I can’t imagine myself outside any kind of social or political involvement’ – he said. A member of Portugal’s communist Party since 1969, he has been an impassioned espouser of the Palestinian cause and sees eye to eye with the views of Venezulean President Hugo Chavez.

In a speech in Paris entitled ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ (2002) he castigated the ‘bureaucratised trade unionism’ which he said ‘is largely responsible for the social torpor that has accompanied economic globalisation.’ ‘Unless we intervene in time,’ he continued, ‘and that time is now – the cat of economic globalisation will inevitably devour the mouse of human rights.’ Saramago believes, ‘As citizens, we all have an obligation to intervene and become involved – it’s the citizen who changes things.’ Even some of his poetry espouses this cause, inspite of a streak of the surreal:

Poema À Boca Fechada

Não direi:
Que o silêncio me sufoca- e amordaça.
Calado estou, calado ficarei,
Pois que a língua que falo é de outra raça.

Palavras consumidas se acumulam,
Se represam, cisterna de águas mortas,
Ácidas mágoas em limos transformadas,
Vaza de fundo em que há raízes tortas.

Não direi:
Que nem sequer o esforço de as dizer merecem,
Palavras que não digam quanto sei
Neste retiro em que me não conhecem.

Nem só lodos se arrastam, nem só lamas,
Nem só animais bóiam, mortos, medos,
Túrgidos frutos em cachos se entrelaçam
No negro poço de onde sobem dedos.

Só direi,
Crispadamente recolhido e mudo,
Que quem se cala quando me calei
Não poderá morrer sem dizer tudo.

Poem to the Shut Mouth

I shall not say:
That the silence suffocates me — and gags.
Silent I am, silent I shall be
Because the language I speak is of another kind.

Words consumed, accumulate,
They stagnate, a cistern of dead waters,
Acid anguish turns to lime
Leaks below where crooked roots lie.

I shall not say:
That it deserves the effort to name them,
Words that do not say how much I know
In this retreat where no one knows me.

Not only mud is dragged, also sludge
Not only animals float, dead, fears
Turgid fruits in branches entwine themselves
In the dark well where fingers climb.

I shall only say
Crisply, secluded and mute
that whoever keeps silent when I was silent
Cannotdie without saying everything.

(Translated from the original Portuguese by Blanche Mendonca)

Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles has made a film of Saramago’s novel Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira / Blindness (1995). An epidemic of blindness starts to spread in a nameless city. People are forced to rely on each other when their natural faculties have left them. The ensuing experience of quarantine and the subsequent degradation leads the reader to a concept of blindness, allegorical, if not misleading.

This slow elliptical style of Saramago’s narrative sucks the reader into the vortex of the novel. It demands much from the reader. Long sentences often with no punctuation or paragraphs stretch into pages. The process of the making of meaning is as important as where the narrative leads us. This self-referentiality makes the novels many-layered, and virtually an exercise in epistemology or the theory of knowledge. In both form and content this is a master at work.

In a weekend interview last year Saramago (84) angered the Portuguese by predicting that Portugal would become Spain’s 18th semi-autonomous region. There was, he felt, ‘everything to gain from a territorial, administrative and structural integration.’ Portuguese poet and Socialist Party founder Manuel Alegre said Saramago had won the 1998 Nobel Prize by writing in the Portuguese language ‘which is part of our soul and will never be integrated into Spain.’ The issue has been resolved thanks to the European Union, wrote Pedro on a Spanish website.

The Portuguese government is now considering a standardization of the Portuguese language which would require hundreds of words to be spelled the simpler Brazilian way. The debate has been passionate between the erstwhile colonizer (Portugal) and the erstwhile colonized (Brazil), but Saramago (85) nimbly commented ‘We have to get over this idea that we own the language. The language is owned by those who speak it, for better or for worse.’ For a person who preached the ‘sermon of the fishes’ on the river Douro this was unremarkably astute.

At 84 Saramago was planning his next novel. ‘Maybe it is my last book’ he had said. ‘When I wrote Pequenas Memorias (2006) I wondered if the cycle was now complete. I had for the first time in my life a sense of finitude, and it was not a pleasant feeling. Everything seemed little, insifignicant. I’m 84. I could perhaps live another three, four years. The worst that death has is that you were here and now you are not.’ And later ‘I can’t complain. The things you think are a big deal are not so big. I’ve won the Nobel prize. And so?’

In autobiographical mode, in his last novel Pequenas Memorias / Little Memories Saramago returns to his childhood. ‘I have written memoirs of my youth,’ he says, ‘and I felt young as I was writing them; I wanted readers to know where the man I am today came from. So, I focused on the years from four to fifteen.’

Almost 10 years before that Saramago, in his Nobel Laureate speech recalled his childhood and the final moments with his grandmother and grandfather who were dying. It used to be so cold that they used to sleep with the piglets to keep them warm. It is a world which redeemed itself – simply because ‘in it lived people who could sleep with piglets as if they were their own children, people who were sorry to leave life just because the world was beautiful; and this Jeronimo, my grandfather, swineherd and story-teller, feeling death about to arrive and take him, went and said goodbye to the trees in the yard, one by one, embracing them and crying because he wouldn’t see them again.’

Throughout his life Saramago looked to see that vision of humanity in the world. There were many times when he had to open his mouth against what he felt was wrong. It could have been a still small voice in the wilderness but it is the voice of the prophet for our times ‘who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality’ (Nobel Prize citation).
————————————————————————————-

(Saramago passed away on Friday, 18 June 2010 at his home on the Spanish Canary island of Lanzarote.)

All India Radio, New Delhi broadcast as an illustrated talk on the Rajdhani channel of AIR on 21 May 2008.

(Brian Mendonça, is a poet. He has a collection to his credit  Last Bus to Vasco:Poems from Goa (2006). He is working on a sheaf of poems called ‘A Peace of India -Poems in Transit’.)