Minakshi’s poetic epistle on love

By Dilshan Boange

[Part 1]

A soul devoted to the arts of melodious rhythm and textual expression is what I feel can best capture the image and essence of Minakshi Thakur. A poet who possesses talents and credentials of a trained classical singer she has now made her debut as a novelist with Lovers like You and I which was published recently. A bilingual fluent in Hindi and English, her first book was An Indian Evening, a collection of poems in English, published by Writers Workshop in 2002. Two collections of Hindi poems: Jab Utthi Yavanika (When the Curtains Rose) in 2003 and in 2010, Neend Ka Akhiri Pul (The Last Bridge of Sleep), followed; the latter being shortlisted for India’s ‘Sahitya Akademi Young Writers’ Prize, 2011.

Minakshi Thakur

It is surely Minakshi’s love for literature that has made her become a professional in the publishing industry. She is currently a senior commissioning editor with Harper Collins Publishers India. And as this talented New Delhi based writer now embarks on a new phase in her journey, she spoke to the Sunday Observer’s Montage about what shaped her initial steps along the path she now journeys on, her first novel, and what she sees taking form on her path in the days ahead. The first instalment of this two part interview gives insights about the formative factors that blossomed the novelist Minakshi Thakur.

Excerpts:

Q: Being born in the UK and brought up in India, how would you define the cultural influences that shaped your outlooks?

Passion for singing

A: I grew up in India. I remembered very little of England until I went back three years ago. I grew up in Patna in Bihar and the culture there has shaped my outlook.

Q: Before going into your work as a writer, I’d like to ask you about your passion for singing. What made you get trained in Khayal and Dhrupad? Have your passions for singing had a bearing on your writing?

A: I started learning music at the age of seven. There is a culture of music in my family. My paternal grandfather used to sing; my father, even though he is a doctor, sings quite well. I have aunts in the family who sing while they are cooking or going about other household chores.

Dhrupad was an unexpected bonus. The third guru I learnt from is from the Bihar School of Dhrupad, the Mallick Gharana. Music was the one great influence in the early part of my life. It has a bearing on the way I think, the way I write, the way I look at life. The infinite nature of the universe of music is a lesson in patience and humility. My years of training in Hindustani classical taught me how small I was, and yet how much I could learn or do, and how it was important to look for a voice of your own.

Q: Your first publications were poetry. Can you tell us what is at the heart of your poetry? What inspired them?

A: All poetry sprouts from the search for self. Most of my writing talks about the conception of poetry. Also, the extraordinariness of the everyday world around us dazzled me and inspired me to write poetry.

Q: As a poet you are a Hindi-English bilingual. Your published poetry is testimony to that. Does that also apply to your practice as a prose writer? How did you find yourself steered to becoming a novelist?

Poetry

A: I wrote the first draft of this novel almost nine years ago. I started it with a poem; the poem then decided it wanted to be someone bigger and prosaic. And poems don’t listen to you, they come when they like, they choose how they want to grow and what they want to become.

As for writing poetry in both languages, I think this novel was the next natural step from there. This novel is intrinsically bilingual, as you will see when you read it.

I wrote some short stories and a novella in Hindi much before I started writing this novel.

I love the language. If someday a story wants to be told in Hindi, I will write it in Hindi.

Novelist

Q: You have debuted as a novelist with Lovers like You and I. As a writer do you see the genre of the novel as your calling?

A: I have begun work on my next novel. This started as a novel and not a poem so I know it will be either be a novel or nothing. It’s about the life of a photographer, his loves, and how like in photography, our gaze and our perception makes our image of the world what it is. That even though there is an absolute, pure truth, the world as it is, it will remain forever elusive, because what’s right for you may be wrong for someone.

But I don’t juggle things too well. My job involves working with writers, reading, editing, evaluating other people’s novels and stories, and it’s difficult to switch off; there is little space or time to write a novel that’s your ‘own’; because you are filled with stories you read at work. Given the time and focus I have, I write poems, in cabs on my way to work or back, on weekends and otherwise. Prose requires more time, thought and discipline.