an interview with a writer

Translated from Kannada by Tejaswini Niranjana, Jayant Kaikini’s stories in the collection No Presents Please cast an unnerving glance on Mumbai and its people. Kaikini’s creations are unique, albeit deeply embedded in the ordinary: a middle-aged unmarried Bengali man, a naughty boy and a quintessential stunt artist. Kaikini spoke to Lounge in an email interview days after winning the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2018. Edited excerpts:

In the beginning of your writing career, you wrote Kannada lyrics for an Atul Tiwari musical play in Mumbai. You wrote "chabbukh-chequebook chabbukh-chequebook chabbukh-chequebook" in the sequence where manned horses appear onstage. There, as in your writing in 'No Presents Please', your approach is direct—drawing the reader's attention to the obvious easily. What do you think about your writing style?
No clue. I have grown up watching "yakshagana", a rich classical form of dance, drama, music, visual aesthetics with an intellectually interpretative narrative. It’s a seamless blend of all these elements. As a family we were very fond of cinema, theatre and anything that brings people together. I was an intense reader from college days. May be all this forms a mode of perception which is your own. Style is nothing but how you perceive things unconditionally.

How old were you when you moved to Mumbai? When was the last time you visited the megalopolis?
I was 21 when I moved to Mumbai in search of work, with a masters in biochemistry and a copy of maiden poetry collection in my tiny suitcase. I lived there for 24 years before moving to Bengaluru in 2000. Since then I don't miss any pretext to see Mumbai meri jaan. I am a regular visitor. Mumbai is alive in its own way in my stories.

Given that you started as a poet and then took to writing lyrics and fiction—how do you think your world as a poet and lyricist intersects with your world as a fiction writer?

I am driven by images and metaphors from the simple day to day routine life. Unclaimed portraits in a frame-maker’s shop, dressing mirror in a scrapyard, a street kid kneeling down and peeping in to a tiny rain water pond on a deserted midnight tar road, only to touch the floating image of the moon which breaks in to pieces in small ripples, whenever he touches it—such images evoke the stories and poems untold. Fiction or nonfiction the poet in me is always around. Writing a film lyrics demands for a different skill. You have to pen lines for preset tunes and context. It's not your world view which is needed there. It's the expression you are providing for the characters mind in the context. Kind of a role-play which happens in story writing! So there is an osmosis between all three kinds. Yes I remember fondly dear Atul Tiwari with gratitude for pushing me to pen lyrics for his Kannada theatre production of My Fair Lady. He made me write 20-odd songs in two days since it was a musical production. That, I suppose, was the induction-cum-crash course in lyric writing for me.

'No Presents Please' won the 2017 Gallata-BLF Prize and now the DSC Prize, what is your view on literary prizes given you won your first at the age of 19?
They say ailments like chicken pox or measles should come and go at early age so that we develop immunity as we grow old. Early awards just come and go before we realize what it is since you are absorbed by so many other youthful things. I became a "writer" in hostel who wrote proxy love letters for others. It was a challenge as each had to be different in style! Any award for any pursuit is like a pat by the bystanders on the back of a marathon runner. They might even offer him nimbupani or throw an orange at him. He has to just gulp it and throw the empty bottle, wave at the cheering group and keep running. If he stops for accumulating things and for self, he will lose his rhythm. Pat is not the goal.

In the translator's note Tejaswini Niranjana says that you asked her "not to hang on to the Mumbai peg". Even in the case of 'Dots And Lines', your first English translation, wherein there were about 14 stories translated by a bunch of translators, there is a distinct, even fleeting sense of Mumbai. What would you say is your relationship with the translators of your stories?
It is heartening that the attachment to the story gets extended to the translators. Art binds people. Tejaswini who translated No Presents Please is a friend since four decades. People ask me about the collaboration. In fact there was no collaboration at all. All 16 stories in this collection are picked from my Kannada anthologies. We jointly decided which 16 to be picked. That's all. May be we met once to discuss about retaining Mumbai expressions like khalaas, khaalipeeli. Other than this there was no interaction at all. May be that's why the book is what it is. I believe translation is safest in the hands of a poet. Because a poet is connected to the "unsaid" more. Tejaswini is an English language poet who published her debut poetry collection as a teenager.

What do you think is the difference between the Kannada readers and English readers?
Each anonymous reader breathes his own life in to the stories…gives his own faces to the characters…it's difficult to generalize readers in groups. Kannada readers have been reading me since long. Now the response from English readers has been really heartening.

Do you feel a special connection with Mumbai because of the sea, given that you were born in Gokarn?
Yes. Sea is a vital element and force. I love coastal towns, since one side of the town seems always open and bright! It reflects in the mindsets too. Sea is friend with a large heart. Always soothing…always vibrant.

What is your process of writing like? Do you have a set schedule or do you write whenever it comes to you?
I am an impulsive writer. I write at the last moment. I write a single draft with minimal corrections. And yes I write with hand. I love the tentative, incomplete, in process look of a handwritten manuscript. If I type it starts looking cute and final. I’m uncomfortable with that final look. Not that I am proud about all this. But this is how I write. I let the writing consume me. I get lost. Unless you get lost you can’t find new things.

As a Konkani speaker who writes in Kannada, and shifted to the English medium, which language do you think in?
Multilingual sensibility is a precious virtue of any Indian living in a semi-urban or urban area. Any person if willing can easily know minimum three languages. When in Mumbai, I spoke Konkani at home which is my mother tongue, spoke Marathi with neighbours, spoke Hindi in local trains, spoke English in my work place and then after returning home wrote in Kannada! Non-Kannada characters like Dagadoo Parab, Roopak Rathod, Satyajit Datta, Tejbali, Madhubani, just came in to my narratives and talked in Kannada. Isn't it heartening! I sincerely believe that there is no language for the thought at all. It gets its language only at the moment of expression.

Is Mumbai your constant muse? What is your current relationship with the Maximum City as of 2019?
My bonding with Mumbai is the same. It can never change. I visit Mumbai regularly like I visit Gokarn. Earlier women would wind their tiny wrist watches while rushing to work as if they are winding themselves for the day ahead. Now they are peeping in to their smart phones when they are on the move! Autoriksha-wala still returns exact change back even at odd hours.

While growing up in Gokarn what kind of books were you reading? Were there a lot of books at home? What would you say were your early influences?
My father Gourish Kaikini was a radical humanist, school teacher and a writer. He was fond of music, theatre, science, philosophy and literature. He was a Sanskrit scholar too. He was a most respected atheist in a pilgrim centre. So our house naturally had good collection of books. I read Kannada writers like Yashwant Chittal, Shantinath Desai, Shivram Karant, AN Krisnarao, Triveni and Niranjan.

Being a translator yourself what do you think about translations?
Translation is a selfless virtue. You must love the work which you are translating. You must be a practicing writer in the language in which you are translating. Treating translation as an “assignment” is risky. It may take the spark or warmth away.

Why Mumbai?
Because it's the city of plurality where even strangers address each other in singular like “tere ko” “mere ko”! It's a spiritual space due to its inevitable minimalistic living style due to lack of space. So no frills or accumulation no excess baggage!