The Golden Gandhi Statue From America

by Subimal Misra

  There is no means of promotion for someone in my situation. Some little magazines carry advertisements of my books. But there are a few readers, I know that, and I try to reach them. Most readers find out about my books by themselves. They live in mofussil areas. They write to me or call and request that I send them my books by post. I have been at the Kolkata Book Fair with my books from the very first fair. I meet my readers there. I like to talk to them, as I empathize with such people more than with the ‘smart’ folk of Kolkata, I can understand their humble circumstances. So I’m prepared to give away a book for even a rupee.

  I sell my books after a discussion with the buyer. My books do not have a price; there is a suggested exchange amount, or whatever a Subimal Misra reader thinks the exchange amount should be. A reader without money can get a book for a token payment of one rupee. On the other hand, someone I do not want to give the book to cannot get it even if he pays a thousand rupees. If a buyer is dissatisfied with the book, he can get his money back.

  Quite a lot of sales take place at the fair. When the buyer puts the book in his bag and says, ‘Now no other book shall enter this bag’ – that’s my reader, that’s my reward. It is thus that I have been able to maintain my identity as a writer.

  On being ‘anti-establishment’

  There is a larger ‘system’ within which one lives and writes. When one speaks about an alternative system, our narration must also be different – the thinking, the way of thinking, all have to be different. It is not a question of what I write but why I write, why I am anti-establishment. If writing is part of the establishment, then the very form of anti-establishment writing must challenge it.

  Anti-establishment is not a solution in itself, it is a question – a serious one, which opens up new terrain or action or conception every day. Anti-establishment is not passive in character, it implies activity, active antagonism. Slogans and words cannot make one anti-establishment. Our life and the society are fully governed by the establishment, and therefore an anti-establishment writer cannot sit idle in regard to the various forms of the establishment – the family, religion, marriage, state, political parties, the set human relationships and obnoxious codes of conduct. He is a ‘new’ man, who is not ready to accept anything conditioned, who is always ‘open’ to new realities and ideas. Only when he is outside of the realm of conditioned ideas can he perceive the reality.

  An anti-establishment character is a man of new mentality, or as Marcuse said, a man of ‘new sensibility’. To me, anti-establishment is not a programme of catchy slogans that will make me ‘look’ rebellious. The rhythm of the attitude has got into my very blood.

  What can an anti-establishment character do, except attack this monster which eventually destroys all the finer elements of humanity? It is a desperate fight, as he who fights is also a part of that society. He aims to destroy all kinds of state-bourgeois ethics, lifeless but bright language and dirty thought patterns which are reactionary and based on commercialism. Anti-establishment stands against all kinds of commercial and bourgeois culture and entertainment which compel people to live in abominable conditions (both materially and spiritually) while offering a hollow aesthetic pleasure. In the same way, I also protest against the so-called proletariat literature and culture, which is nothing but a wrong interpretation – deliberate perhaps – of ideas. It is a kind of deviation, it is nothing but slavery to the dictatorial establishment.

  The term anti-establishment has become cheap, its edge has been dulled through overuse. All around, there are hundreds of those who are anti-establishment, who dream of toppling the establishment. But the establishment – that is to say, power – easily co-opts all such ‘opposition’. On the other hand, the nature of the establishment is so multi-form, it changes itself in accordance with the times. The whole world has been transformed into an exchange-based market civilization, where everything is for sale and purchase, all human relationships, even the notion of being anti-establishment. I am not a marketable anti-establishment item. So, now, I must be anti-anti-establishment.

  Man comes first

  To me, ‘man’ comes first and foremost. I do not mean ‘man’ in the sense in which the term is employed by political entrepreneurs of all parties, and the smug middle class, tucked away securely in the comfort of their homes.

  It is commonplace now for writers to express humane concern and empathy for the underdog. That now forms part of the establishment. So that must also be challenged. Expressing anti-humanism becomes a way to challenge the professed humanitarian attitudes of the establishment.

  I believe in using a kind of ‘planned violence’, as used by Truffaut, with all its implications.

  For me, only that which is created by man is aesthetic. Marx’s statement, ‘Nothing human is alien to me’, is very dear to me.

  Reality – raw and cursed – is the thing that I want to project. To me ‘reality’ is not a fixed moment of the unchanging present. Reality is a dialectical situation, in between the past and the future.

  There is nothing like the last thing or any absolute in literature. I will have to try to cross even the postmodern mark. If I cannot, then all my writing should be destroyed, there is no use for all that rubbish. I stand against myself, against all my creations. I reject everything, including myself, and thus I question. I hate stagnation of thought, ideas and beliefs. There are vast possibilities in front of us, new horizons, new understandings… Man cannot stop, man cannot brood over myths, he has only this option open to him – to move on, or perish.

  To me, literature cannot be entirely based on situation or plot or character or theme. Creativity is apparently chaotic, impatient, detached and often without a definite end or solution. Here, affection, lust, hatred, compassion, brutality, love, humanism, everything gets mixed up and plays a definite role in shaping existence. It is, at the same time, subjective and objective, civilized and suffused with libido.

  The main thing that prompts me to write is my curiosity about the complexities of life. I want to discover through my writing what life is, what lies behind a certain movement or action. My query towards life and its possibilities, its various patterns and combinations, helps me. The best knowledge comes only through close contact with life itself.

  Oppressed humanity is at the centre of my writing. When I see the helpless section of humanity fighting even a little against all the odds, I get a kick. Crude politics has no part to play in my writing. If there is anything political there, then it comes authentically from the attitude of the masses. I don’t write from imagination, I collect material from around me, from the complex social order in which we live.

  On middle-class mentality

  I hate the middle-class way of thinking, the thinking that perceives blood while looking at the lipstick on the wife’s lips. I feel humiliated to be in the line of litterateurs like Rabindranath Tagore.

  Let people see the reality that I depict. Let them see their true situation themselves and shudder, let them ponder over their hypocritical social situation. The overturning begins when people develop the power to think, not merely through capturing political power. I want to take people to that level of realization where they themselves start breaking down their own situation. So far, the publishing process has had a form that to me appears extremely watery, sentimental and like a pathetic bleat. I want to stab people with my pen and I have to search for how to stab in my own way. I am not bothered about whether this results in literature or whatever else.

  Left-wing literature is that which is not merely class-conscious but is more than that, which is the literature of class hatred. By reading this, the blood in the hearts of the bourgeoisie should turn icy. It cannot be part of pleasurable literature. It must always be destructive – and creative moments would arise from within this destructive explosion. We should not show optimism for any mechanical path. We must prick the syphilitic sores of this class-divided, counterfeit civilization until liberation is achieved. Reading such literature, p
eople can decide for themselves which the correct way is and which is not. For this, imagination is necessary. It is this imagination that binds readers to literature. The left-wing literature that we wait for is the imaginative literature that inflames readers with class hatred.

  Revolution is not a hollow sound. It is a creative process. Just as the footfalls of class struggle need to be made audible in literature, there is also a need to be creative. Because we are unable to bring these two aspects together, our so-called revolutionary writing becomes one-sided.

  The very existence of the educated middle class depends on the poverty and lack of education of ordinary people. They dream about juicy, bourgeois consumption. They pay lip service to communism while actually deriving contentment from considering themselves beings superior to labouring folk. These half-educated, half-penny wise men need to be exposed – for instance, when they squabble with a rickshaw-puller to reduce his fare, or bargain with a cobbler on the road.

  Middle-class values are the biggest impediment to social change. We practise Marxism while retaining this value system, as a result of which a trade union leader has to go to Kalighat to offer prayers before a protest demonstration, or a nuclear scientist cannot but be a disciple of Sai Baba. I want to assault this value system, I want to rupture their rhinoceros-skins. Hence, I have to employ extremely offensive language. I do not think about the felicity of expression, I do not believe in that. I look at whether or not I am able to achieve my objective with the language. I want to attack in such a way that, seeing our own situation, we, the middle class, ourselves shall start destroying the rotten heap that our social system is. The next stage after this is definitely thought about, but I shall be happy if I can make this a sound assault. Therefore I do not have to ‘make up’ a Marxist story by placing the possibility of social transformation clearly at the end of the writing. If ultimate destruction is shown, then the desired construction becomes transparently clear.

  On Gandhi

  I do have a kind of Gandhi-fixation. He appears in the title of my first collection of stories (‘Haran Majhi …’). The white donkey in ‘Money Tree’ symbolizes Gandhi, in terms of purity as well as stubborn foolhardiness. Only a donkey would do all that he did for his countrymen.

  On sex

  I try to take sex away from the realm of mere sensory enjoyment. I use it instead to expose the shameful character of middle-class morality. The most sacred relationship between man and woman has been reduced to a mere commodity. Especially in my most recent writing, I lament this, I weep.

  My stories

  To understand my stories, one has to go beyond the Bengali language. Just like in order to understand Joyce, one has to forget the English language.

  I cannot describe my stories in simple sentences. They are complex and multidimensional.

  Ideal writer

  My ideal writer is only Subimal Misra. I also like to read Joyce, especially Finnegan’s Wake, Kafka, Proust and also de Sade.

  Awards

  I do not believe in literary awards. A retort of Sartre seems to be very important in this context. Refusing to accept the Nobel Prize, he said that he would have also refused the Stalin Prize if it had been given to him. That had a major influence on me as that was when I began writing. The idea of the living practice of a writer, opposed to and attacking the system.

  What do I get?

  I live in a tiny rented flat. My wife says that the money I have spent on my books could have fetched a nice, large flat in a posh locality of Kolkata. ‘What has literature given you?’ she asks.

  What do I ‘get’ from this relentless rebellious attitude? In the sense of what ‘getting’ means in this commoditized civilization, I get nothing whatsoever. Simply walking endlessly is my gain and my pleasure. To go on examining myself relentlessly and to walk joyfully while examining myself. All that is held to be correct is what most needs examination. The line that I like most in what I’ve written – that is what should be deleted first.

  On translation

  Rendering my work into English is very difficult. It is very difficult to grasp the anti-establishment character of my writing without knowing Bengali and about Bengali culture. Translation is therefore very challenging.

  Translating Subimal Misra’s Stories

  V. Ramaswamy

  My friend, Mrinal Bose, a physician and writer, introduced to me the name of Subimal Misra in 2005 when I asked him to name one writer in the contemporary Bengali literary scene whose work he considered important. I said I would translate his writing.

  Misra encouraged me in my translation effort and gave the project his blessings.

  Bose told me that reading Misra had always been a learning experience for him. He said he hardly read Bengali writers any more, yet he continued to read Misra. ‘His glory is intact. His strength as a writer is his irreverent and blasphemous voice and his ruthless and uncompromising portrayal of our life and times.’

  Bose gave me Misra’s phone number a few days later. I rang up the author to express my intention to translate his writing and to enquire about getting his books. Misra directed me to a couple of bookshops in College Street in Kolkata and also to a publisher who had brought out compilations of his stories and novels. I followed this up immediately, and obtained whatever was available.

  I began translating the first Misra story a couple of months later, egged on by Bose. I then telephoned Misra and told him that I had actually begun the translation and just completed one story. I sent this to him by post, as I did all the other stories soon after translating them. And thus began our relationship, or friendship. Misra encouraged me in my translation effort and gave the project his blessings.

  Thanks to Subimal Misra and his friend Procheta Ghosh (Lala), who publishes and edits the little magazine Jari Bobajuddhyo (Continuing Mute War), I got most of Misra’s published works, as well as writings about Misra and published interviews.

  Misra began writing stories in 1967. Among the varied influences he acknowledges are: Dostoevsky, for his mastery of narrative; Proust, for his distinctive style of writing; film-maker Eisenstein, for his montage technique; Joyce, whose Finnegan’s Wake he regards as his favourite book; Sartre, for his political stance of refusing the Nobel Prize and emphasis on living practice; Samuel Beckett, especially his prose writing; William Burroughs, for his cut method; and film-maker Jean-Luc Godard, for his craft of making films a medium of argument. Among Bengali writers who have influenced him, Misra acknowledges Jagadish Gupta (a now-forgotten contemporary of the popular writer Sarat Chandra Chatterjee), Kamal Kumar Majumdar and Amiya Bhushan Majumdar. However, despite these diverse and eclectic influences, Misra’s writing is uniquely his own.

  Misra’s work has been conspicuously ignored by the mainstream Bengali publishing industry, the media and the literary domain. Consequently, his name is largely unknown even in Bengal. Neither are translations of his writing into English or any other language available to the wider world of literature. But unimpeded by personal penury and lack of recognition, reward or renown, Misra has simply written on – and thus kept alive and enriched the tradition of protest in Bengali literature. He is highly regarded by a small circle of readers in India and Bangladesh, especially in the domain of little magazines and parallel literature, including some acclaimed writers.

  By his life choices – such as destroying his masters’ degree certificate, or giving up a college lectureship and teaching in a school in Sonagachhi, Kolkata’s infamous red-light district – and through his writing and self-publishing, Misra has sought to stand apart from the society around him. He critically interrogates every aspect of the relationship, through the printed word and books, between writer and reader and between writing and society, in a context of mass illiteracy.

  Subimal Misra is like a secret cult in Bengali literature. And through the internet, blogs, Wikipedia and YouTube, Misra’s readers have tried to make his name more widely known.

  That Misra was considered anti-estab
lishment and experimental, had stubbornly shunned mainstream publishing and periodicals and disavowed copyright, made me interested in and curious about his writing. But once I began reading his early stories, I discovered an affinity with my own specific social outlook and practice. I have worked since 1984 with and for Kolkata’s squatters and slum-dwellers, seeking to advance the rights of the city’s labouring poor. Misra’s stories look at the underdog and the underclass. His writing is iconoclastic and scathingly critical of social mores. So here was someone articulating, through literature and in a startlingly different way, perspectives emerging from acute social observation and reflection, and engagement with the marginalized. My make-up, outlook and work necessarily separate me from various people, even though by virtue of the multiple – often contradictory – roles I play in my life, I continue to live among them. It is therefore a lonely existence. In Misra I found a spiritual kinsman.

  Subimal Misra is like a secret cult in Bengali literature.

  Misra knows about the quality and character of life in the city’s diverse spaces.

  The fact that several of Misra’s stories are rooted in Kolkata and reveal the author’s intimate knowledge of the city and its different strata of people also attracted me and resonated with my own make-up and engagement with my city. The vivid visualization of and topographic references to different places: the Maidan, the monument, Park Street, Khidirpur, Strand, Adi Ganga… Misra knows about the quality and character of life in the city’s diverse spaces. He catches and conveys the subtle nuances of everyday life in Kolkata and Bengal through snippets of dialects of the have-nots, like the East-Bengali dialect, or the dialect of Kolkata’s neighbouring district, South-24 Parganas (where many of Kolkata’s labouring poor belong). Misra speaks of the quality of light and the coolness of the breeze, in a particular locale, at a particular time of the year, at a particular time of the day, in this city of Kolkata. He knows the terror that can lurk under the shadow of a tree’s canopy in the Maidan.