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Literary Review
A sudden madness
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Celebrated Hindi novelist KRISHNA SOBTI's Ai Ladki was published in 1991. Since then, the novel, about a young woman and her dying mother, has been dramatised and performed numerous times as a play, and is much translated, most recently into Swedish. Here she talks about the process of writing it and reflects on the creative process generally.
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Gopi Gajwani / The Little Magazine
MEMORY is a rare gift. Whatever one remembers of an intense moving experience becomes a part of our personal text. Writers like me touching the pen, pray to God — bless me with ears that hear flowers, sunshine, moonlight; give me sight that I can see a sigh of sorrow and the anguish of the human heart.
My mother's mortal remains were consigned to the fire with the chanting of mantras and her last rites were performed according to family tradition. At home in her room, an earthen lamp burnt day and night silently as if saying that the body perishes, not the soul. For the soul there is neither birth nor death.
I would get up from sleep and standing in the doorway of my mother's room, stare at the flame from the tiny earthen lamp. My mind would be empty. The bed and bedside cabinet looked forlorn.
On the fourth day, after the havan was over, the priest said the last prayer for her soul. A long journey and now it was the end. My mother had joined the dead of the family. The family stood with folded hands and thanked the visiting friends and relatives.
I took the morning flight to Srinagar. I was exhausted and needed a change after my mother's long illness. At Pehalgam, I was not listening to the roaring rhythm of the river Liddar, not noticing the snow-capped mountains. I felt drained out, living like someone other than me.
One afternoon as I woke up from a nap, I looked at the watch, laced my shoes in a hurry and ran to the bus-stop. The caretaker of the cottage had informed me earlier in the morning that he would be going to Srinagar and if I needed something from there he could bring it for me.
I had thought in the morning I did not need anything. And now I wanted to give him a list of stationery items to be brought from the city.
I spotted him standing near the bus. I handed him my list of requirements. He seemed surprised and said, I had asked you in the morning, sister. You could have avoided the trouble of coming here. He boarded the bus. I waved, he waved back. I felt warm and light and began walking towards Pehalgam bazaar.
Walking towards Pehalgam bazaar, I saw a herd of horses near the river bank. My mother's image flashed through my mind. During her sickness, she had talked about horses. She was always in command on horseback.
No, I must divert my mind from the drama of death.
Lying in the bed she thought of horses. The day the family doctor told her lightly — Ma-ji, take things easy, everyday is a blessing, eat whatever you desire.
She had smiled.
Next morning when I brought her breakfast she was thoughtful. She looked hard at me and said, My horse is gone. What would I do with the saddle?
I avoided looking at her.
Late in the evening she asked me for something hot to drink.
As I brought her a cup of milk she gave me a piercing look and said Daughter, I wanted to scale the mountains — but where was the time? This household consumed every moment. Do you understand?
She looked at me and said No you don't — you stand outside this.
Ai ladki, the family takes away all one has...
After this she would not call me by my name, she simply said Ai ladki, hey girl.
Was she creating a distance between the dying and the living?
I started walking fast. Suddenly I spotted a high yellow flag fluttering in the air, a gurdwara, a shrine of my mother's faith.
I decided to go in. A turbaned priest was reciting verses from the Adi Granth, the scripture of my mother's faith.
I knelt down and sat in a corner. My eyes closed. When I opened my eyes it felt as if I had had a final message from my mother. Look at the mountains, the river heights, and the green. You are in Kashmir. My death is not the end of the world for you.
Little did I know I could not shake it off so easily. I was bound to the past so intensely I would have to touch it again. Me, my mother's daughter. And she her daughter's mother.
On my way back I bought cherries — red and fresh — and felt happy.
That evening I sat a long while in the verandah. I was completely at peace with myself. The evening sky was painted grey, threatening clouds resounding with thunder and lightning. It started raining. I watched the falling rain till late in the night clearly hearing the silences within me.
Later at night I opened all the windows in my room and switched on my table-lamp. As I picked up my pen I heard my mother say: Ai ladki. I followed my instinct: here were the key words. It came quietly and moved into my fingers. I did not have the slightest idea I was going to create a value symbol with this very ordinary word combination, Ai ladki. As I wrote I knew I had to provide the spiritual framework to accommodate the emotional intimacy and presence of those words. I knew I would have to create a comfortable togetherness between the fading and failing interior of a dying woman and her daughter, the recorder of her last statement, a text of the undying human spirit.
There were two different generations, times, two identities faced with each other. One a woman — a mother entrenched in her home and family — and the other a single individual outside the family fold. A new woman.
Much goes on between the initial fragmentation and the concrete realisation of a creative idea. When it happens, it is the result of a complex cerebral and emotionally detached involvement. The creative spark for any such writing is not in skill, style and language; it is in the mind. We all have different ways of touching reality and distilling the centre of our vision. An image, powerful and lingering, our artistic capacities, intellectual capabilities and inner energies all combine to weave the human narrative.
In Ai Ladki I mixed the different elements of life. The words mingled with the very age and body of time. The human drama of the last statement of a dying woman was so powerful that I needed great restraint and merciless accuracy.
No one is exempt from literary failings. What is important is honesty and intellectual integrity, some inner dimensions to visualise a touch, a sensation, a dream, a challenge, and finally a sudden madness, a leap to create something vibrant and alive.
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