NEVER MIND THIS NEW
UPSTART CHENNAI.
Very briefly then,I am middle class
and very Madras.
Born and raised in
West Mambalam –
the other side of the railway tracks
where fabled mosquitoes turn
people into elephants.
Went to college in
Khushboo sarees stripped
right off the absurdly voluptuous
mannequins at
Saravana Stores T. Nagar
Chennai 17.
To weddings I wore,
in deference to my mother,
silk kanjeevarams with temple
borders.
Every other girl
was a designer-sequined shimmer.
I thought nothing of
throwing away
my dreaming hours on
MTC’s 47A,
sitting beside women who ruined my
view,
leaning casually across to
spit or
chuck
through the grime of windows
spinach stems they didn’t fancy
in their evening kuzhambu,
hurling motherly advice at
young men who dared death by
swinging,
two-fingered,
from other women’s windows. |
My idea of a holiday
was rolling down the hillsides
of Ooty,
dressed in white
like Sridevi.
Objects of love-hate:
the auto annas.
And of course it is coffee that
defines
the limits of my imagination.
I never could think of it as
cappuccino or mocha or
anything other than
decoction coffee,
deep brown like my own Dravidian
skin.
Lunch:
10.30 sharp: sambhar rasam curry.
Tiffin:
5 sharp: idli dosa vada.
My idea of arctic winter:
twentysix degree centigrade.
And so on and so forth as
they don’t say in Tamil.
Never mind this new upstart
Chennai.
Madras, my dear, here I come!
About me, rest assured,
there is
no Bombay, no Delhi, no London
and certainly no New York.
I am all yours,
Madras, my dear,
wrap and filling!
This poem, Bionote by Prof. K. Srilatha of IIT-Madras’s Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, is part of her recently-released collection of poems Arriving Shortly. She spoke to me after the release. |
Please tell us about the genesis of Bionote.
 The poem was written on a sort of impulse. It was triggered by a comment I heard from a friend of mine – quite a culture-vulture himself – about another writer based in Bombay. My friend said that this writer was “so Bombay”, meaning so typically a Bombayite or a Mumbaikar. It got me thinking about how he or others might see me and so this poem got written.
At the core of it, of course, lies my own love for the older version of this metro now called Chennai with all its malls – an older version which is thankfully still alive in certain pockets of the city – in Triplicane or Mylapore or Saidapet, for instance. This older Chennai that is not Chennai at all, but the Madras of my memories.
As a Professor at IIT, Madras, do you teach creative writing to budding engineers and scientists?
The Humanities Department offers a five-year integrated programme leading to a Master’s in English Studies or Development Studies. Our first batch has just passed out and they seem to be doing very well. This programme is altogether separate from the B.Tech programme.
At the same time, my colleagues and I offer electives in the Humanities (courses in Literature, Sociology, History, Philosopy, Economics and so on) to B.Tech students. My creative writing course has been offered both to our Master’s students as well as to B.Tech students. On the whole I find teaching very rewarding. I think it enriches my writing and feeds it, in a way, though sometimes I wish I had more time to spend on my writing.
What is the focus of your academic research?
My academic research is quite diffused. My Ph.D. was on the self-respect movement in Tamil Nadu and the journals that emerged in the wake of the movement. And I have translated some Tamil poems for the anthology The Rapids of a Great River: The Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry, which I also co-edited. I have just finished translating my mother Vatsala’s Tamil novel Vattathul – literally, within a circle. So my research interests tend to focus on women’s writing, contemporary fiction and translation.
You are also a novelist and you’ve set Table for Four in the United States ...
Yes, my novel is set in Santa Cruz, a small university town in California, where I spent some time as a Fulbright scholar. That was the first time I left the country and travelled to another country. I missed everything – my hometown Madras, my friends and my hostel mates in Hyderabad where I was studying at the time. I remember remarking to my housemate that in America not even the sugar was as sweet as the one we got back home and he laughed and said, “Aren’t you taking things too far?” Well, I do take things too far, which is why I write! I tend to see things from a somewhat extreme position.
What are some things you love about your hometown – some things that should never change – other than its name?
The great food, the small lanes, the pavement shops, the bazaar in Ranganathan Street in T’Nagar, the aroma of jasmine, the sense that it is just one large village which has suddenly walked into a metro.
What are some things about this place that absolutely need to change?
Public transport needs to improve and we need pavements to walk on. The pavement shops I mentioned before should only be on narrow streets where no traffic is allowed – then you can just walk and shop.
The streets need to be cleaner. Litter on the beach especially hurts me. And the drainage – one heavy rain and we cannot walk on the streets. These things need to change.
A case for the dosai
– A poetic presentation!
Indeed, idiomatically the idli wins out.
We invariably speak of idli-dosai,
never of dosai-idli.
But I will be contrarian
and make out a case
for the relatively disregarded dosai.
An idli is one big thing –
round and plump
bland and dumpy.
Dosais, on the other hand,
are many things
rolled into one (no pun intended).
They can be laughably small
or formidably large.
An honest MLA dosai
must extend unhygenically over
both sides of the table.
But most dosais resemble
your regulation
standard issue
newspaper-like
roll up
|
though a few
stand bold upright
shaped like cones.
Dosais may come
packed with paneer
loaded with kheema
mixed with eggs
stuffed with potatoes
and sprinkled with cheese.
Or you may prefer them as they are:
proud and alone.
Simply put,
dosais are
accommodating
amenable
responsive
cosmopolitan.
I rest my case. |
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