- 4 weeks ago
Writer and Journalist Amitava Kumar joins Outlook Editor Chinki Sinha for an in-depth conversation on writing, memory, identity, and Indian trains. In this episode of Outlook’s podcast series, 'Our Lovely Friends', Amitava Kumar discusses his latest book, 'The Social Life of Indian Trains', and how trains shape India’s social, political, and emotional life.
Speaking about his writing process, Amitava Kumar reveals why he carries five different notebooks for five different purposes, how observation feeds literature, and what nostalgia means to him as a writer rooted in Bihar but living across in-between places. The conversation also touches on Indian literature, journalism, migration, belonging, and how everyday travel becomes an archive of stories.
This wide-ranging interview explores:
* The Social Life of Indian Trains by Amitava Kumar
* Indian trains as social and cultural spaces
* Writing habits, notebooks, and the craft of nonfiction
* Identity, roots, and Amitava Kumar’s love for Bihar
* Memory, nostalgia, and living between places
Watch this episode for a thoughtful discussion on Indian writing, travel, literature, and contemporary nonfiction, featuring one of India’s most important literary voices.
Speaking about his writing process, Amitava Kumar reveals why he carries five different notebooks for five different purposes, how observation feeds literature, and what nostalgia means to him as a writer rooted in Bihar but living across in-between places. The conversation also touches on Indian literature, journalism, migration, belonging, and how everyday travel becomes an archive of stories.
This wide-ranging interview explores:
* The Social Life of Indian Trains by Amitava Kumar
* Indian trains as social and cultural spaces
* Writing habits, notebooks, and the craft of nonfiction
* Identity, roots, and Amitava Kumar’s love for Bihar
* Memory, nostalgia, and living between places
Watch this episode for a thoughtful discussion on Indian writing, travel, literature, and contemporary nonfiction, featuring one of India’s most important literary voices.
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FunTranscript
00:00Welcome to Outlook's new podcast series called Our Lovely Friends.
00:11Today we start with our great friend Amitav Kumar and also he's here in Delhi for his book launch
00:20which is called The Social Life of Indian Trains brought out by Aleph.
00:24I have known Amitav for a very long time and he's a writer. He's also a professor of English at Vassar College
00:33and also he's from Bihar and that was the first point of connection because very few writers have
00:40written about Bihar the way he has written. I mean there's this famous book called The Matter of Rats
00:44which is very interesting. It's a biography of Patna and Bihar in terms of how he looks at the city.
00:52I remember I read his book The Husband of a Fanatic when I was in college and I was like oh my god
00:58I have to meet this writer and in fact I met him at the New Jersey airport at the baggage counter.
01:04Yeah you didn't want to talk to me but yes.
01:07No.
01:08I was like I didn't know how to react that there's this writer standing in front of me at the baggage counter.
01:14So yeah so for years and years you know we've been in touch. He's written for Outlook before and he has very fond memories of being in Outlook.
01:24Yes yes. It was a great dream of mine particularly when I was younger.
01:28I'll write it too. I'll do a little reporting. Also to do book reviews.
01:34Vinod Mehta was the editor at that time then Krishna Prasad etc.
01:37So I've cherished Outlook and it's wonderful to be here.
01:41Yeah but thank you so much for taking the time out.
01:44And now we'll start I mean we have so much to ask but we'll start with this Indian trains.
01:50And it's very interesting because you know the first memories for me also is taking the train out of Bihar.
01:57You know the flights were kind of out of reach back then.
02:00Exactly same with me.
02:01And the trains were eternally late. You know this passenger train and all of that.
02:07So if you can talk a little bit about like how did you come up with this idea.
02:10It's a very unique idea and the cover is very beautiful actually.
02:13And why the trains?
02:14Well the commission came from Aleph.
02:17David Devidar asked me would you write a longer book.
02:20Because he had read a piece I wrote for the New Yorker.
02:23I get on it in Kashmir and I travel across the length of India from the northernmost station in India to the southernmost station in India.
02:33I get down in Kanyakumari.
02:35And I wrote I asked I had watched a documentary in which someone had said the documentary came out in 1967.
02:45Whose film ka naam tha I am 20.
02:48India was 20 and the people in the film are 20.
02:51And one guy in the film says he would like to go up and down the country with a notebook in hand.
02:56So that's what I did.
02:56I also wanted to ask people whom I met in the journey.
03:00Where is India going?
03:03Where are you going?
03:04What are you doing in your life?
03:06And that account was what I published in the New Yorker.
03:09And then David said maybe you could do a book for us.
03:12So I have another book.
03:14It's quite a beautiful concept actually.
03:16You know it reminds me of this other book I had read.
03:18I don't know if you have read it.
03:19Jenny Disky.
03:20Strangers on a Train.
03:21Yes, yes, yes.
03:22Very sharp writer.
03:24I admire her a lot.
03:25Jihan, jihan, jihan.
03:26She gets on this Amtrak and travels.
03:28She also meets people on the train.
03:29That's right.
03:30Very beautifully written.
03:31The other thing I wanted to actually ask and I have always wanted to ask.
03:34Yes.
03:35What is you know Patna to you especially Pihar?
03:38Because you keep going back.
03:39Right.
03:40And there was a piece that I was reading in the New Yorker by James Wood.
03:45You know where he kind of talks about this book, The House of Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipal.
03:51And there's a sentence where his life is so unaccounted for and so this thing that it will not make for historical account but a novelistic form is more forgiving.
04:01And then he comes to your book, My Beloved Life.
04:04How do you look at places, people, novel, history?
04:09It's a very long question, but yes.
04:11I know.
04:13What is Patna to me?
04:15While my parents were alive, you know, my father died a year and a half ago or two years ago.
04:19While my parents were alive, that was the place of return.
04:24Where we always go back.
04:26We came from there and you went around the world but that is where you had to come back.
04:31After my parents' death, my sister is there and she will be unhappy if she hears this.
04:37But it seems like something has been lost, you know, the connection.
04:41In the case of Naipal's book, the man, you know, here are people who are immigrants, basically.
04:49Because here are people who have gone to Trinidad in UP, children of indentured laborers.
04:54They are poor.
04:56This man, Mr. Biswas, doesn't have a house.
04:58And by the time when the book ends, that line that Wood would have quoted says that what would it have been like
05:07if they had been unaccommodated, unhoused?
05:10It is good to have a house to return.
05:13That idea of the home is what is important in the novel.
05:17And perhaps for Wood, Patna is what it is for me.
05:21But I have to say, after you, you know, I have been abroad for 40 years, India is where my material is.
05:31But the real home is in language.
05:34You don't understand?
05:35Yes.
05:35To find a home in language and a language of one's own devising.
05:44Maybe a shared language, but a language that is so particular that that makes you think that you are at home.
05:50In one of the books, in fact, you wrote a sentence which I have quoted many, many times.
05:54In fact, that's my one place is home, the other the world, right?
05:57And that, I think, contains a lot of conflict, a lot of sadness, a lot of hope, and a lot of clarity in terms of, you know,
06:07the world is elsewhere, and that what you say is that it is a home.
06:11But look, when I talk to someone like you, I feel that I know so little about this country.
06:20No, I think you know a lot.
06:21No, I think you know a lot.
06:24Because this podcast is called, you know, has friends in the book, I asked you about so many friends,
06:30and you knew so many secrets about them, which I have no idea.
06:32Completely.
06:33You also knew two, three secrets, but that's okay.
06:35But I think that you are in this finding home, but one needs more and more intimacy with so many more friends
06:44to be a little bit more anchored in what is the lived reality of our friends.
06:48That is true.
06:49I think friends are very important in life, and with them you can be yourself, right?
06:54So we thought that we'll do this whole discussion with friends who have been there for us,
06:59and who inspire us, like in terms of writing.
07:02In fact, we were, last week, we were reading your Matter of Rats again, and whenever we talk about Patna,
07:08in fact, so many connected people, Ruchira, you know, all of these people, and then you wrote a very lovely piece
07:13for our upcoming issue, and you wrote it in one night, I mean, and then I was telling somebody,
07:19this is what friendship is, you know, this, he just wrote it and sent it, and you sent us three drawings.
07:24You said, how do you say it?
07:26Yes, I did.
07:27You asked, you asked, you asked, you asked, you asked, you asked, you gave it with your heart.
07:30But the idea was very complex one, because the idea was a very complex one, to talk
07:37about landscapes, which are fictional, and then how to connect the reality with it,
07:43because this whole thing, and I feel that in your writing, and in your books, that is one thing,
07:47because cities also exist in memory, right?
07:49Because of Patna that you left, and the Patna that there is now, it has been very changed.
07:54So, how do you as a writer look at…
07:56I was watching a BBC documentary and the man goes to Patna.
08:01And he says that Patna was more glorious.
08:06I don't remember all the words, but he compares it to ancient Rome.
08:11And he says that all these, there was so much glory here.
08:14And I think that any common person watching it,
08:18if they were from Patna would feel a great deal of pride.
08:21Or maybe that was not most important for me.
08:25That landscape was important because I connected it with the declining health of my parents.
08:31That made it real for me.
08:33That landscape and its forgotten glory, hidden history was important, but it was not vital.
08:40What was vital, what stuck like a knife in my heart was,
08:46that my father is now, what is their health?
08:49When will I have to come back?
08:51Yeah.
08:52And what will be the news that will bring me back?
08:54Yeah.
08:55And just as I have done fear, it has also happened.
08:57So, you inhabit a landscape of fear and anticipation,
09:00sometimes with hope and optimism.
09:03And all these things are in India.
09:05And I think you also fear losing that one bond that has been there.
09:10Yes, of course.
09:11In fact, I think in 2014 or 2015,
09:13remember there was a Patna Literature Festival?
09:15Yes, of course.
09:16And you had written to me a note from in between flights,
09:19saying that I think I missed the deadline.
09:22That was the time when your mom passed away.
09:24Yes, yes.
09:25And it was a long note and I think it was later published in English Press.
09:28It was, in Granta actually also.
09:30Yes, yes, yes.
09:31It was a very beautiful note.
09:32And I remember another…
09:33You remember a lot of things.
09:34I remember a lot of things.
09:35I think I have like an elephant memory.
09:37And you know, soon after, in fact, I received another note like that
09:42from our actor friend again, Vinay Pathar.
09:44Sure.
09:45Who lost his father.
09:46Sure.
09:47And he was also in between the journey and there was something,
09:49I don't know, what is it about people from Bihar who are writing
09:53while either on train or in flight or something.
09:57We were talking about what we were talking about in the election.
10:01This incessant migration is a part of our reality.
10:04Yeah.
10:05And you and us, why don't we study abroad
10:09if there were institutions in that way
10:12as they were for our parents.
10:13When our parents went to Patna College or Science College…
10:16And they were so proud of it.
10:17They were proud of it.
10:18Those were institutions of learning.
10:19Yeah.
10:20By the time we came, what was it?
10:21It was nothing.
10:22You know, you yourself have written about times, for example, about…
10:26City of eternal waiting.
10:27That's right.
10:28You know.
10:29Wait he kar te re kar.
10:30But also, I thought we will also ask you about the very…
10:35As in the house of Mr. Priswas.
10:37Yes.
10:38I mean, he says unaccustomed, right?
10:40And I was writing in my notes in the morning to ask this question from you.
10:44The unaccounted for people.
10:46And I think that term kind of suits or maybe fits with this Bihari thing that we are so
10:54unaccounted for.
10:55Look at the migrant labourers.
10:56Look at what happened to them during Covid.
10:58And it's heartbreaking.
10:59You know, as a reporter, I was there.
11:01And I don't know how…
11:03I mean, I kind of…
11:04I mean, I had a breakdown after a point and I had to go to therapy.
11:08But I don't know how you deal with this day in and day out kind of travelling, kind
11:13of looking at people.
11:14You know, in matter of rats, you kind of look at it.
11:16Yes.
11:17How do you do that?
11:18In this book, how do I do that is mainly because writing offers you relief.
11:23In this book, I tell the story, for example, very early in my journey.
11:28So, Chinkee Ji, I'm on page 13, which is the start of this part called Kashmir to Kanyakumarit.
11:34I met a migrant labourer from Bihar.
11:37And I asked him,
11:39Hey, Babu, we have to talk a little bit.
11:41We have two questions.
11:42Yes.
11:43So, he said to me, before we start talking, he said,
11:45If you write these numbers, you have to write them in my hand.
11:48He had two phone numbers.
11:49Yes.
11:50He is travelling across the country.
11:52He is going to the border.
11:53Okay?
11:54His only connection to that, with that city, is written here in pen,
11:59where a contractor's number is written.
12:01That's where he leaves.
12:03So, I had a notebook like this.
12:05Yes.
12:06That's what I talked about.
12:07I read it quickly and read it.
12:09I have to give it a note.
12:11And I remained struck by his courage, by his ambition.
12:14If we go and you,
12:16then we keep our phones on our phones,
12:18keep our emails on our phones,
12:20keep our emails on our phones,
12:21keep our phones on our phones,
12:22keep our phones on our phones.
12:23And keep our money on our phones.
12:24We keep everything.
12:25We keep everything.
12:26We keep everything.
12:27We have nothing.
12:28It's just the courage of those who have nothing else,
12:29but their courage and their hope.
12:30That slender thread of optimism.
12:32How beautifully you put it.
12:33But what?
12:34Then I asked him,
12:35his name was Ganesh Rajwar.
12:37I asked him,
12:39Hey, Baba, if you go,
12:41if you don't go,
12:43if you don't go,
12:45what would happen?
12:47He says,
12:49if we don't work,
12:51if we don't go,
12:53then this country will go.
12:55And that is a statement about
12:57these unaccounted lives,
12:59these people who are invisible.
13:01If you are a mani,
13:03then you will do your husband's marriage
13:05so that the whole world
13:07needs to be able to take care of the whole world.
13:09But this,
13:11we never encounter it.
13:13So I am privileged to travel,
13:15find a great resource
13:17in trying to attend to the realities
13:19of these lives, which would otherwise
13:21go unnoticed
13:23and unhoused.
13:25Because the novelistic form allows you
13:27to do that.
13:29And we have always kind of believed in,
13:31I studied literature.
13:33I don't know, I mean, I just feel that
13:35there is something to confront all this, right?
13:37And as a writer,
13:39When you read literature,
13:41did you find a book or something
13:43that told this story?
13:45Or did you find a home there also?
13:47Many. In fact, when I was growing up,
13:49I read a lot of Russian books.
13:51People's Press,
13:53People's Press,
13:55People's Press.
13:57Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure.
13:59Beautiful heart covers.
14:01And I collected my mother.
14:03Oh, yes. I have seen those posts.
14:05Fernando Pessoa.
14:07When you gave his name,
14:09I thought that I haven't read it.
14:11So then I have read him too.
14:13The book of Disquiet.
14:15What a disturbing book.
14:17I thought that literature basically
14:21shapes a lot of your
14:23political thought.
14:25And for a long time in Outlook,
14:27and that's why we also started this podcast series,
14:29to kind of look at people who are,
14:31I mean, to be more inclusive.
14:33Like, why shouldn't journalism include any of this?
14:35And we've done poetry issues and all of that.
14:37And you have written for us.
14:39So I just wanted to also ask you,
14:41because you also call yourself a journalist.
14:43Yes.
14:44How do you navigate both the worlds?
14:45And how does one feed the other
14:47and the other feeds the other?
14:49I'll give you a little bit of a question.
14:51By saying that,
14:53if you're an Indian
14:55walking on the street of New York City,
14:57and you're talking about something in Hindi,
15:01then if someone else says,
15:03you're in America, speak in English,
15:05then you can say that,
15:07no, this is also a part of my identity.
15:10Do you understand?
15:11So a little bit of this is,
15:13that as an immigrant,
15:14you're made up of different languages
15:16and different realities.
15:17In that way,
15:19any human being,
15:21is made up of very many parts.
15:23And for me,
15:25I have never tried to think,
15:27that one should,
15:28a language of specialization
15:29or expertise
15:30trap in a trap,
15:31and accept yourself as a writer,
15:34a photographer,
15:36a journalist,
15:37a poet.
15:38And now you're painting also.
15:40Yes.
15:41So I started the pandemic.
15:42It's like,
15:43it's a bad thing.
15:44It's a good thing.
15:45It's a good thing.
15:46I have never done it.
15:47And then finally,
15:48we have done it.
15:49We have done it.
15:50We have done it.
15:51We have done it.
15:52We have done it.
15:53No, but that's a very interesting approach.
15:54Because you know,
15:55in fact,
15:56when we look at your work,
15:57it's very inclusive.
15:58You take everything.
16:00that's the idea of the landscape of India,
16:02it's a critique of India.
16:03Yes.
16:04And in a very subtle way,
16:05because we are dealing with so much censorship.
16:07That's the right thing.
16:08I think one of the ways is,
16:10that's why when we were doing this thing,
16:12you thought that we have already got so much resource.
16:15Why do you use it?
16:16It's the right thing.
16:17It's the right thing.
16:18It's the right thing.
16:19In fact,
16:20the piece that you have written,
16:21it's a highly political piece.
16:22Yes.
16:23But it has three paintings also.
16:24It has three paintings.
16:25You talk about memory,
16:26you don't name the names,
16:27and yet you say that,
16:29you know,
16:30how will you forgive yourself for not taking that name?
16:33That's the right thing.
16:34That's the right thing.
16:35Yeah.
16:36But how do you like,
16:37clearly I studied.
16:39But also,
16:40I just wanted to ask you that,
16:42the same question,
16:43because I,
16:44when we go out on the field,
16:45right?
16:46I mean,
16:47we went to do this mental asylum,
16:48it's very difficult for us to handle that.
16:50You know,
16:51people think reporters or writers
16:52are like this,
16:53it's a habit.
16:54So,
16:55the process of your writing,
16:56how do you write,
16:57how do you think,
16:58how do you write,
16:59the issues of writing are like this,
17:01it's a habit of the writing.
17:03If you write,
17:04it's a habit of the writing,
17:05but you keep in mind,
17:06little anxiety is like this.
17:07Right.
17:08Maybe he can write later,
17:09and then inform you about your work.
17:11But,
17:12in that time,
17:13how do you deal with that?
17:14First,
17:15you have to take a place,
17:16let's say it's the space of the asylum,
17:19or you enter somewhere else.
17:22What do you do as a writer?
17:23Where I study,
17:25you've said in the Wester College,
17:26I say that you have to keep a journal, so I want to see those who are watching this, that I have got five journals for this journey.
17:38And all different colors. All different kinds, different colors.
17:42This is what always needs to be in a jacket pocket.
17:45It's a very journalistic thing.
17:47So I always say to my students also, you should have a journal to quickly take.
17:52As I was married to Bangalore.
17:55A student who had his own money and didn't put money on it.
18:01And someone else was bearing the expenses entirely.
18:03So I thought that I was a writer, I should confront him.
18:06So when I talked to him, he said that we are a master.
18:10My father said that in terms of money and in terms of money, it should be a right thing.
18:17So I thought that you should read it quickly.
18:19And after that, we didn't write it, madam.
18:22Then we went to him and said that,
18:24Hey boss, if you said that, you should notice it correctly.
18:28His father used to say,
18:29Hesab and Prisab should be both right.
18:31Anyway.
18:32So for some small things,
18:34I tell my students about 50 words.
18:36This is a small thing.
18:38This is a travel journey.
18:39This is a long way to write something.
18:42In the morning,
18:44I try to do that.
18:46I try not to do that.
18:47I try to do that.
18:48I try to get a drawing.
18:49Yeah.
18:50It's all beautiful.
18:51And what I plan for that day,
18:53I also write it.
18:54Okay.
18:55Morning pages.
18:57So now I will show you three things.
19:00I want to show you one good thing.
19:02Five Year Diary.
19:04Oh.
19:05One page.
19:06One page.
19:07One page.
19:08One page.
19:09One page.
19:10One page.
19:11One page.
19:12One page.
19:13One page.
19:14One page.
19:15One page.
19:16On every page.
19:17You can find.
19:18The same day.
19:19In different videos.
19:20Yes.
19:21Wow.
19:22And then that will remind you.
19:23Of.
19:24You know.
19:26But if you are filled now,
19:27how do you remember?
19:28Leave it.
19:29What do you remember here?
19:30What do you remember here?
19:31Which name is it?
19:32Chinki.
19:33Oh.
19:34What do you remember here?
19:36Yes.
19:37What do you remember?
19:38You are writing on this.
19:39So next year.
19:40On November 26th,
19:41I will make an entry here.
19:42Okay.
19:43Next year I will make it here.
19:44Next year I will make it here.
19:45Next year I will make it here.
19:46So on this day,
19:47November 26th,
19:48what happened in the past five years?
19:49We have a whole list.
19:51So I will show you four.
19:53For longer interviews.
19:55This is more easy.
19:57Why do I keep this notebook?
19:59It's a good notebook.
20:00It's a line of mine.
20:01What I am trying to say is,
20:06you are not a writer if you don't have a notebook.
20:08That is true.
20:09If you don't carry a notebook.
20:10So that is the way the entry into the process of creation.
20:13And then,
20:14people say that,
20:16someone said,
20:17my friend Teju Kol said,
20:18if journalism is the first draft of history,
20:22then a journal is the first draft of literature.
20:25That is true.
20:26If you read in the journal,
20:27then you can do some literary work.
20:29Now your question was also,
20:32that once you have documented what is sorrowful,
20:35or what is disturbing,
20:37or even for that matter,
20:38what is ecstatic,
20:39how do you deal with that emotion?
20:41Yeah.
20:42Many people don't talk about this.
20:43Yeah.
20:44I don't know where I deal with it.
20:45I think my hair will be dry.
20:47It looks good.
20:48It looks good.
20:49It looks good.
20:51But,
20:52that's why I am talking about this podcast with friends,
20:54so that you can assure them,
20:55that it's fine.
20:56Yeah.
20:57Of course.
20:58There was a writer,
20:59a South African writer.
21:04He was a white South African,
21:06Brayton, Brayton, Bach.
21:08He was in jail during apartheid,
21:10because he was interested in,
21:12involved in struggles to free the blacks.
21:15Yeah.
21:16So when he got out of jail,
21:18the journalist asked,
21:20how did you survive prison?
21:22Yeah.
21:23So he said,
21:24I did not survive.
21:25So,
21:27I really like that.
21:29We perform our duty,
21:31by in some ways,
21:32being sensitive to,
21:33alert to,
21:34attentive to,
21:35all the sorrows of the world.
21:37And I don't think you ever,
21:39survive it entirely.
21:40Survive it.
21:41Or like the world that we live in now,
21:43is all about,
21:44either here or moving on.
21:46That in between space,
21:47I think,
21:48is what writers and artists inhibit.
21:50Inhabit.
21:51I feel,
21:52I mean,
21:53I feel like you are there,
21:55in that space.
21:56Yeah.
21:57That's good.
21:58You are not letting go in your life.
21:59Yes.
22:00You are not moving on.
22:01You don't want to also.
22:02Yeah.
22:03We don't get nirvana,
22:04we don't have salvation.
22:05We don't need it.
22:06We don't need it.
22:07We don't need it.
22:08We don't need it.
22:09We don't need it.
22:10We don't need it.
22:11We are rooted,
22:12but we are in transit.
22:14Yes.
22:15So if you describe your life,
22:16because you know,
22:17you have been abroad for 40 years,
22:18right?
22:19And your subject matter remains here.
22:20Yes.
22:21Your language,
22:22which you speak in English,
22:23is also a Bihar.
22:24Absolutely.
22:25No.
22:26No.
22:27No.
22:28No.
22:29No.
22:30No.
22:31No.
22:32No.
22:33No.
22:34No.
22:35So how do you,
22:36as a writer,
22:37as a person,
22:38as a person who also has to connect deeply
22:40with a place like Patna,
22:42which is also not like Delhi or
22:44Cosmopolitan,
22:45to be a lot of years.
22:46That's not that way.
22:47That's not that way.
22:48It's provincial Cosmopolitanism.
22:49And then you are in New York,
22:50right?
22:51That's right.
22:52How do you look at identity?
22:53And you have written about this.
22:54Yes.
22:55How do you navigate that?
22:56Because when you were at Delhi University,
22:57you had such a time
22:58that the Biharans were very fun.
23:00In the first day,
23:01the Biharans were ragging.
23:02He said,
23:03in the first day,
23:04in the first day,
23:05he said,
23:06that he had such a book,
23:07or Orwell's,
23:08and he also said,
23:09that you are a Bihari.
23:10So I thought,
23:11that's a problem.
23:12How do I navigate that?
23:13Look,
23:14in the upstate New York,
23:15where my house is in New York,
23:16and where you want to come,
23:17and where you haven't come,
23:18there is a cemetery.
23:19There is a cemetery.
23:20There is a cemetery.
23:22And if you go to that cemetery,
23:24if you go to that cemetery,
23:26then there is a cemetery,
23:28which is a cemetery,
23:30which is a cemetery,
23:31which is Hindustani.
23:34Okay.
23:35Mr. Prabha Devi,
23:36I have written some names,
23:37I have written some names,
23:38in some writing.
23:39Yes.
23:40What was the name of Pune?
23:43It was the first doctor doctor from India.
23:47Okay.
23:48What happened,
23:49that a Christian family,
23:51Pennsylvania,
23:52gave them a donation,
23:54and they could go to America,
23:57and Pennsylvania,
23:58or such a place,
23:59they got a degree,
24:01and they came back,
24:03married,
24:04after two years,
24:05they would have died,
24:06or childbirth,
24:07they would have died.
24:08But after cremation,
24:10the ashes,
24:12that family,
24:13which was the sponsoring family,
24:14they took them,
24:15and buried them,
24:16and buried them,
24:17and buried them.
24:18Yes.
24:19I'm reading this story,
24:20but one thing I forgot.
24:21In Venus,
24:23all the craters,
24:25are behind them.
24:27Oh, I didn't know that.
24:29Really?
24:30Yes.
24:31Because Venus,
24:32as you know,
24:33is considered the feminine planet.
24:34In this place,
24:35there is also a crater.
24:37I would say,
24:38small beginnings,
24:39but you end up in Antriksh.
24:41Yes.
24:42So, for me,
24:43the question of identity,
24:44is that of travel.
24:45Where are your roots?
24:46And where are your roots?
24:47And where are your roots?
24:48R-O-U-T-E-S.
24:49Yes.
24:50Where are your roots?
24:51And then,
24:52where are you going?
24:53Where do you feel at home then?
24:55Where do you return to?
24:56R-O-U-T-E-S.
24:57R-O-U-T-E-S.
24:58That's right for me.
24:59I was just saying that,
25:00that my hometown,
25:01or my hometown,
25:02in Champaran,
25:03is not really,
25:04has been only a part of it.
25:06I think of it as home.
25:08I am,
25:09I return to the page.
25:11The written page,
25:12or the printed page.
25:13That's your?
25:14R-O-U-T-E-S.
25:15That is my home.
25:16I think,
25:17that's right now.
25:18I'm looking at a lot,
25:20I'm connecting.
25:21Or I'm going to connect here.
25:22Or I can get a breath here.
25:24Does that sound alright to you?
25:25Sound alright to you?
25:27Completely.
25:28Like I feel very…
25:29Does this mean that you were going to send it one day?
25:30Yes.
25:33And the question of identity, because you know,
25:35an immigrant has an identity.
25:38In Bihar, it was an identity of migrant migrant.
25:40There were also Girmitians and all that.
25:43In fact, a few days ago, I met some of these granddaughters,
25:47great granddaughters, who had come to look for a home.
25:50And there was this…
25:52They came from Caribbean or something?
25:53Yes.
25:54And they are still living in the Netherlands.
25:56So, Bihar Museum, I think there was this fantastic artist,
25:59and Sarojini Lewis.
26:02So, he had a gown.
26:04Now, he found one gown.
26:05But the other gown, he didn't understand it.
26:09The accounts that her great-grandfather,
26:12Trinidad Tobago, then he did it.
26:15How did he reconstruct it?
26:16Somehow, I feel that…
26:18In my case, I have a house here,
26:20I have a house in the house.
26:21I mean, I feel homeless almost.
26:23So, that identity is reconstruction.
26:27How do you reconstruct?
26:28And how do you look at facts as an immigrant?
26:32If you are writing about Ptna,
26:34you have changed a lot from Ptna.
26:36If you go to Ptna, you have changed a lot.
26:39I don't know what the question is.
26:40Yes, but I don't understand.
26:41Because I always think about this,
26:44So, I have some thoughts to share on that matter.
26:48Some years ago, I went to the Caribbean.
26:51And my experience in Trinidad was that I, as a writer,
26:55I had been much influenced by V.S. Naipaul.
26:57Yes.
26:58V.S. Naipaul was looking at his home.
27:01He came here.
27:02And there was an area of darkness.
27:03So, out of his great disappointment with the land.
27:05Yes.
27:06I thought I could do a journey in reverse.
27:08So, I went to Trinidad.
27:09I found names.
27:19I found faces that one finds only in deep Sahabat or something.
27:24Because that peasantry was taken there and people were left.
27:29So, I am very interested in the travel that has produced a sense both of difference
27:36and something that has remained as a residual of your past.
27:39Yeah.
27:40And to account that is my job.
27:43For example, one quick instance about that experience.
27:47In Trinidad and Caribbean, Indian music.
27:50Yeah.
27:51And black music mingled to produce what is now called chutney music.
27:55Oh, I didn't know that it is chutney music.
27:57Yes, yes.
27:58And if you go there, if you sell her at a store, CD store or whatever,
28:02I give you the new chutney music, they will give it to you.
28:06But how did it happen?
28:08Indian parents, conservative, wanting to police the sexuality of their daughters
28:14were not interested in them being exposed to black music and going to parties.
28:19So, instead, it was this music that was produced to be played at Indian Shadis
28:23and Indian things and Indian parties.
28:26And it became both a way of mixing but also a way of controlling identity.
28:30So, this story is, I think, my job.
28:33And that is that tracking, I think, is precisely where migrant writers need to invest their histories.
28:42Not so much in nostalgia, though there can be affection.
28:47Not so much in celebrating only solitude, though there can be that too.
28:50But instead in tracking, what kinds of changes have brought us to that place?
28:55How does someone like Mamdani arise?
28:57Yeah.
28:58So, the other question I wanted to ask was that this is a moment of great churning.
29:05In India, elsewhere, across the world, there are wars happening.
29:09There are all kinds of things happening, things that we probably are even shocked to accept.
29:15And that is very apparent in your writing also.
29:17Like in very beautiful, subtle sentences, you actually challenge a lot of these things, right?
29:23So, how do you look at yourself as an Indian now or do you look at yourself as an Indian?
29:28Do you think, you know, you said a migrant writer.
29:31Now, is a migrant writer rooted here or rooted in the train or rooted there?
29:39Yeah.
29:40I don't know.
29:40A very strange thing is that if I come, if I come, if I come to the market, if I come to the market,
29:45and if there is a temple in the temple, if I come to the temple,
29:48Gopal Bhagavan Ji.
29:50In that temple, there are a lot of things that someone will say,
29:54Sir, you want to sell dollars?
29:56Because he thinks that I have come from abroad, he is seeing something.
29:58Yeah.
29:59So, you come to the house, but you are seen as a foreigner.
30:01Yeah.
30:02If I go outside, if I step into a hall or a public space in England, in America or England,
30:09I am seen as the Indian, right?
30:10Yeah.
30:11That Indian man over there.
30:12Yeah.
30:13Then where are you?
30:14Oh, that's what I am saying.
30:15I am the one who sees that either I am there or I am there, or I am there.
30:19Yeah.
30:20And exploring, how to define oneself and how to say something, this is who I am.
30:27And as I said, I feel that when I grasp language and I am able to produce a story or a narrative,
30:37that is where I really come home to it.
30:39Yeah.
30:40But that aside, because I have already said that, I want to say that when I see someone
30:47who is doing the right thing or who is creating, because this podcast is also about creating
30:52something that is inspiring.
30:53Yeah.
30:54When I think someone is doing something wonderful and they are from India, then I am Indian.
30:59Hmm.
31:00When I also see on the other hand, that someone is talking to someone who is preaching communalism
31:08or hatred, someone is giving someone's house by violence, then I feel, as an Indian, also
31:15I feel like protesting.
31:18How do you protest?
31:20Mostly in my writing.
31:22Someone has said that you have not written something in Palestine.
31:25So I have said that actually I have written drawings and written, but it is not that thing.
31:30Let me just first say that as a writer, I do not feel that it is my main job is to join a procession
31:37or to write a petition.
31:38Yeah.
31:38I do not feel like it.
31:40I rather would like to think, what can I do something that has not been said before?
31:45And how can I do something that addresses the complexity of a situation?
31:49And should I use non-fiction?
31:50Should I use journalism?
31:52Or should I use fiction?
31:53There are so many mediums, drawings.
31:54To think in deeply original ways rather than to do something that simply satisfies an impulse
32:03towards righteousness.
32:04Or also as a prescribed thing.
32:07Yes, yes, yes.
32:08You know, today morning, in fact, I had shared something about Zadie Smith, right?
32:12Something about being a woman and Pat comes and replies, I mean, I shared something that I
32:17identified with her views on how women feel.
32:20And then somebody said, oh, by the way, do you know her?
32:23Have you read about her views on Palestine?
32:25And I'm like, this cancel culture, it's a bit much like, why everybody is supposed to go by
32:31prescription?
32:32Like, I may like something that you have written.
32:34Yes.
32:34And I mean, not totally.
32:35And you may dislike something else that you have written.
32:37Just totally.
32:37And even among friends, there should be a certain kind of acknowledgement of a range of complexity
32:44and difference, you know?
32:45Yeah.
32:46Otherwise, it becomes very boring.
32:47Life has to be, life is rich, life is messy, life is pure chutney.
32:55And one question that I've always wanted to ask you about nostalgia.
32:59You know, there's so much about nostalgia spoken, felt.
33:05People say it's like rose-colored glasses when you look at the past.
33:09Lot of people have talked about memory as landscape, memory as imagination, memory as a very selective
33:15kind of, you know, how does the brain work, right?
33:18And I think the writer, a writer like you especially, who's relying heavily on memory
33:24in order to explore and kind of move forward from there, right?
33:27Like, so, for example, matter of rats, where you look at, you know, Patna.
33:30Right.
33:31So, there's nostalgia also, there's a dismantling of it.
33:33Absolutely.
33:34Absolutely.
33:35Absolutely.
33:35So, what is nostalgia to you?
33:37How do you…
33:37So, there's a essay in Joan Didion, in which she's trying to remember her youth.
33:49When she had to sit on a train every day, and she journeyed to Birdcliff from Sacramento.
33:56And today, she can remember what she calls the rancidity of the butter,
34:00meaning that she had a taste of the butter.
34:02Yeah.
34:03So, when I read the passage, I remember that when I went to my village,
34:09I had to cross the steamer on the steamer,
34:12so, in the steamer, I used to make a toast on the coal and fire on the coal.
34:17And then, I used to put butter on it.
34:20And then, I used to put butter on it.
34:22That taste, I remember that.
34:25I remember that I was talking about 50-55 years before.
34:28So, to keep it, it's also a nostalgia.
34:31But, I also have to keep up with nostalgia.
34:34Yes, that's it.
34:35Because, I have a line in Bombay London and New York,
34:37that in diaspora, the soft emotion of nostalgia has been turned into the hard emotion of fundamentalism.
34:45Exactly.
34:46So, people say that you are nostalgic for an old India,
34:50but you are using that affection or that imagined affection to turn into something brutal and violent against those who represent difference.
35:01No, I also think this is fed nostalgia for this glorious India,
35:04which was in a lifetime, which can also be transferred memory.
35:08Absolutely.
35:09And it's often delusional, often based on something unreal.
35:14So, how to at once have an effective sense of the past, the affective past,
35:19which affects you, but yet be skeptical of it, I think is the place to be.
35:23How do you do it?
35:25I often actually do not, I succumb to nostalgia.
35:29Yeah.
35:29I also think about the woman I loved when I was in Hindu college, you know.
35:33So, I am shaken to the core.
35:35Does it happen like that?
35:36Yes, it happens, it happens with me.
35:38It happens to be embarrassing to have boyfriends, really.
35:43No, brother, we have done everything.
35:48I actually wrote to the woman, you know, nothing happened between us,
35:51but we used to write a lot of letters at that time, when I was a student in Hindu.
35:55So, so many years later, I wrote to her, you know, she's a well-known academic,
35:59and I said, do you remember me?
36:01She said, I would love to get together again, 40 years later,
36:05and ask how little we need, you know.
36:08Just talk about it.
36:09She said, yeah, I will do it.
36:10It doesn't happen until now.
36:12So, at that time, she had a long time.
36:15You know, so now we are waiting.
36:18No, but it's a nice, beautiful thing that,
36:20I also feel that Biharis, they are experts at waiting.
36:23Yes.
36:23I mean, the first time we started Bihar with a transformer.
36:26Yes.
36:27Let's open the TV.
36:28You know, the language itself is so innocent.
36:30Yes, yes, yes.
36:31And so matter of fact,
36:32he said, oh, my house is here, let me open the TV.
36:35Yes.
36:36But when he opened the TV, he started to dismantle the TV.
36:38I said, let me open the TV, I mean,
36:39let me open the TV.
36:40No, no, we are experts at waiting,
36:42because we are connoisseurs of suffering.
36:45Yeah, why?
36:46And because things don't happen,
36:48they don't work, so sit down,
36:50and there's no train,
36:51there's no train,
36:52then sit down, where is it?
36:53Then stay in a day.
36:54No, and this is a political context,
36:55there were elections in Bihar.
36:58And you have observed the election.
36:59A lot of our friends observed.
37:00I mean, as Bihar people, we had that thing.
37:03Even though we may vote here,
37:04or I mean, I voted there.
37:07But, you know, the one discussion was that,
37:09okay, academics are writing,
37:11reportage are doing.
37:12But the Bihar's soul,
37:14which we have written about it,
37:16I mean, you wrote that.
37:17So, we thought that in this podcast,
37:19we will get to know what the soul is,
37:22why do we understand it so little?
37:25What is it?
37:26We never saw this,
37:27like when we were going to COVID,
37:29and we were going to see what the fault is,
37:32and what the fault is,
37:33and what the fault is,
37:34and I went through all the migrant corridors,
37:36so we have to understand it today,
37:37that we have to see,
37:39as if we see other places,
37:40that there's an ambition,
37:41that there's a lot of things.
37:42It's a good thing,
37:43but it's a very strange thing.
37:45Yes, that's right.
37:45Why?
37:46What is the soul?
37:47Because you have the advantage of
37:49observing from the outside also.
37:51Now, you talked about COVID,
37:54so there was a very interesting story,
37:58where a girl,
37:59who was a child,
38:00who was a child,
38:02and was a child,
38:03and put her on a cycle,
38:04and put her on a cycle,
38:05and put her on a cycle.
38:06She crossed the whole breadth of the country,
38:10drawing her father on a bicycle,
38:13and then,
38:14and after this achievement,
38:17I read news in America,
38:18that the bicycle federation,
38:20or the Olympic federation,
38:21who said,
38:22Yes, yes, yes.
38:22I was there that night,
38:25when she was on an outfit.
38:26And Trump's daughter,
38:28she also put something on Twitter.
38:30Yes, yes.
38:30And then,
38:31I remember a story,
38:32that another migrant,
38:34during COVID,
38:35during lockdown,
38:36left a note,
38:38saying,
38:38that,
38:40I am going to take your cycle,
38:42and I have a child,
38:45who cannot go,
38:46and cannot go,
38:47and it is necessary for her,
38:49and if it is possible,
38:50then you will forgive me.
38:52I am the only one that,
38:54you know,
38:55acts of wonderful humanity,
38:57that come from a place,
38:59of having so little.
39:00Yeah.
39:00And yet,
39:01having so much of emotion,
39:03or sympathy,
39:04or imagination,
39:05to be able to say something,
39:08that is so revealing.
39:09It is so sad also.
39:11It is very sad.
39:12And I have all our political leaders,
39:16have contempt for them,
39:17because they offer us so little.
39:20They offer these people,
39:21who have all this to offer us,
39:23in return,
39:24so little.
39:25You know,
39:25and what are their hopes,
39:27who,
39:28they trade them,
39:29their votes,
39:31which lead to their own,
39:33prosperity,
39:34but the greater impoverishment,
39:35impoverishment of the masses.
39:37Yeah.
39:38It is going to be the soul.
39:40But why do we accept it,
39:42even if it is so easy?
39:44What is wrong with them?
39:46Let us leave them.
39:48What is it?
39:49We are talking about Bihar today.
39:51Yes, you are talking about it,
39:52but on the other hand,
39:53we are forgetting.
39:55Bihar has been the site,
39:56of repeated revolutions,
39:57repeated agitations.
39:59People do rise up.
40:00And,
40:03you know,
40:03as the old book shows,
40:05Bihar shows the way,
40:06a title is a good book,
40:08which has also been
40:09documenting,
40:12how agitations have arisen in Bihar.
40:15This may happen.
40:16You know,
40:17we always say that,
40:17it is the land of the Buddha.
40:19So,
40:20because Buddha found enlightenment,
40:22he actually went through,
40:23he endured suffering,
40:24to arrive at enlightenment.
40:26At that level.
40:27So,
40:27maybe,
40:28maybe we have internalized that.
40:29Maybe we are so used to waiting,
40:31even for a revolution.
40:32We are such experts at waiting.
40:36Thank you so much,
40:37Amitav Ji,
40:37for talking to us,
40:39as a friend.
40:40And,
40:40please read this book,
40:42how traveling actually,
40:44and we travel so less these days,
40:45you know,
40:46to figure yourself out.
40:47Discover our truths.
40:48And to kind of confront,
40:50what is out there,
40:51I think that is,
40:51there is something to confront reality,
40:54on a train.
40:55And,
40:56also read his other books,
40:57I would strongly recommend,
40:58Matter of Rats.
40:59And,
41:00the one that I read,
41:01non-fiction,
41:02which is,
41:03The Husband of a Fanatic.
41:05And,
41:06also the,
41:06My Beloved Life.
41:08And I feel that,
41:09you know,
41:09there is something about,
41:10being somebody,
41:11who is tackling,
41:13this identity of being,
41:15somewhere else,
41:16then somewhere else,
41:17and in between.
41:18And that's why,
41:18this journey is important,
41:19you know.
41:20We attach very little,
41:21to journeys actually,
41:22and that's,
41:22something,
41:24which is here.
41:24So yeah,
41:25thank you.
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