'Flying Shirts and Pink Bottoms'

Posted April 16, 2008

It’s a malady with me: I regularly fall in love with dead people. Right now, it's Melville. Last year there was Graves and Bulgakov; before that it was Kipling, Ismat Chugtai, Parker and Mohammed Vaikom Basheer. But that’s giving away too much.

In the farming community to which I belong (growing rice in the foothills of the western ghats of India), books were as sparse as motorcars were on its mud roads. But we were not deprived of literature. Every adult had a hoard of stories to tell and my mother used to sing lyric ballads like Punyakoti (the story of a virtuous cow whose life is spared by a tiger) in her sweet, untrained voice. The school texts offered exciting tales of Tennali Rama, Sindbad the Sailor, Chanakya and Helen of Troy.

As a young girl I fed on songs and tales that opened many worlds. The only books at home were the unabridged volumes of the two most popular Indian epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata. Having heard them told and retold at home and in school it was natural to read and understand them as literature, by the time I was six or seven.  These 3,500-year-old epics are replete with character, conflict, plot and high adventure but central to the story is the incarnation of a Hindu God (Lord Vishnu as the Prince Rama in Ramayana and as Krishna in Mahabharata). He comes in human form to fight evil and at times reveals very human frailties. These epics have aided the natural flow of literature through the generations. Now kitschy comic-book versions, and horrendously bad television serials (with maximum viewers' ratings) have replaced the tradition of reading the original volumes.

Around that time an older cousin who stayed with us for some days brought a book of Krishna Leela and read out the stories to us. Krishna Leela is the tale of Krishna’s remarkable childhood when he slayed demons, and his effervescent youth in which, as a cowherd playing the flute, he broke the hearts of gopis (young maidens) of Vrindaban. Krishna Leela forms the essence of many forms of traditional Indian dance and music. The day he was to leave, he searched for the book in vain, a search in which all of us helped. When he had gone, it reappeared mysteriously and there was nothing to do but wait till he visited again. My sneaky act of hiding it beneath a mattress provided me with hours of reading pleasure. Then I chanced upon a book of Kannada short stories, which this good cousin had lent to someone older in our large family. I do not remember the name of the author or its literary quality but lustful those stories were, and I read them with the limitless curiosity of a 10-year-old. The author describing a love scene wrote: “They sank to the floor and made love.” My mind dwelt on this phrase for a long while: What did they do? What did they do?

Later when my father had to move to Delhi I found myself engulfed in two new languages, English and Hindi. The words sounded strange in my ears. In school, the teacher talking to us about rehearsing for a play–in which I was to be a fairy who did not have to speak–said something that bothered me. I came home and told my mother that the teacher had asked each of us to take some ice cream for her next day. “She said it many times,” I implored. “She said, ‘don’t forget…bring me some ice cream.’ And all the students agreed.” My mother told me to stop babbling and get on with my homework. Next day my bench-mate saved my life when she said, “So do you have your copy of Mid Summer’s Night’s Dream? Remember, the teacher asked us to bring it today to rehearse the play.”

I longed to read. My parents, struggling to educate four kids, wisely let me make do with what was available. I read the biographies of General Montgomery of the British Army and General Thimmayya who was one of India’s great Generals, essays of Gandhi and Vivekananda, novels of A.J. Cronin, short stories by Premchand and Tolstoy, borrowed comics and mushy love stories. I read Doctor Zhivago with earnest zeal but little comprehension. One line, about homeless young boys who slept on the streets in winter with “flying shirts and pink bottoms,” has somehow stayed with me. My heart went out to them.

Medical College robbed my mind for six years. I read books to learn everything that a doctor must know. It was another matter altogether. The mind takes over, comprehends, compiles and stores information. It was essential to my advancement as a professional. I enjoyed most of what I read but I did not read for enjoyment. Then in England where I was training to be a surgeon, I discovered that every hospital had a library of its own. Weekly raids yielded lovely books and I was happy.

I read for entertainment, information and thrills; for curiosity, and as spiritual food. I'm not a prolific reader. I don't like to be told what the book is about, nor do I read the blurb which is either false or gives away too much of what's inside. For the last few weeks I have been delighting in Moby Dick. I read a few pages every night, savouring slowly, like an indulgence. It is a story of dint, daring and humour, not to be hurried through. When a book–a good one–is finished, I weep quietly to myself, out of happiness. I dream.

Dreaming is time wasted, perhaps, but it feeds the imagination. I am grateful for the hours I had as a child when nothing was expected of me, and when idle dreaming was as natural as study-hours and tutorials are for today's kids. About writing, people ask the strangest questions: It must be easier than surgery? Well, you study for years, pass exams, watch other surgeons, assist at operations, start to do them yourself, obtain degrees and you become a surgeon.

One never becomes a writer. I’m unhappy when I'm writing because what I do is not good enough; I'm unhappy when not writing because writing is what I must do. Reading and writing are my means of trying to comprehend life. Writing is life on paper. Can our words express the anguish, the celebration? The obvious essentials–integrity, sensitivity and felicity–do not necessarily mean that you have found your true voice. Conveying thoughts in words is complex and difficult. I believe that too many of us calling ourselves writers are in fact impostors, unknowingly so perhaps, struggling to peel off masks that will not come off easily.

Meanwhile books are the weapons with which I can fight unhappiness, confusion and injustice. And there's the premium of falling in love with no complications whatsoever.

What more would I want from words?

Ms. Nambisan, a novelist and essayist, is a surgeon who practices medicine mainly in rural India. She currently runs a medical center for workers in Maharashtra, and a learning center for their children. She has authored five novels, most recently The Hills of Angheri (Penguin India, 2005), and several children's books. Among her honors is a UNICEF-CBT Award for her children's novel, Once Upon a Forest. She is a regular contributor to India's national journals on health-care issues and literature.