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Literary Review
Bombay poet
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ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA recalls what it was like to be in Bombay as a young, book-loving and aspiring poet...
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THE16-inch overnight case with contour handle and rust-free locks, which once had belonged to my grandfather and had the status of an heirloom, was an Air India freebie. During the two years I had it with me in Bombay before it fell apart, I seldom let it out of my sight. It was always either gripped in my hand, or resting on my knees, or, in crowded suburban trains, placed securely between my squashed feet. And at night, when I went to sleep, it stood next to the pillow, so as to be within easy reach, as though its contents were life-saving drugs I might need in an emergency.
What it contained was more vital than medicines. It contained books, manuscripts, little magazines (I was at one point editing three of them), items of stationery, and a reversible Chor Bazaar trenchcoat, dark purple on one side, off-white on the other, and furnished with Demy-sized patch pockets, about which more in a moment.
The books were university textbooks — Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer, "Richard II", The Prelude, a Dos Passos novel. Sometimes there were also titles on philosophy, history, art, heavy duty stuff I did not always read or understand, but nevertheless felt was necessary to have in a writer's library. These titles I would pick up from the pavement stalls in Flora Fountain, or from a hole-in-the-wall outfit in Lamington Road. Hidden between a hardware store and a bakery, it had the best selection I knew of in Bombay of secondhand Modern Library titles, at five rupees each.
A place I visited often, and where I found myself to be the sole customer, was Govindram & Sons in Marine Lines. It was a large inadequately-lit establishment which had seen better days. The owner, a kindly old man who wore white dhoti and kurta, had a face like a polished walnut. When he learnt I was from Allahabad, the face took on extra shine and he mentioned the names of Allahabad's fabled English professors — S.C. Deb, P.E. Dustoor — who had been his customers. His business was now dying, yet he seemed in no hurry to get rid of the hundreds of books he still had in stock, kept in proper glass-fronted bookcases, with small brass locks on them. Peering through the glass, which decades of dust and grime had made almost opaque, I could see row upon row of uniform editions of Shakespeare, Scott, Dickens, Kipling. They were like confectionery to a hungry child.
Like most students, I bought books from whatever I managed to save from the allowance I received from my parents. The allowance was small and often I had no savings to speak of, though this did not stop me from expanding my library. Once in a while I'd pick up a book, and while turning the pages would see it disappear into the trenchcoat pocket. One day I was in Strand Book Stall, looking at some new poetry titles, when I could not make a title I was attracted to, Andrew Glaze's Damned Ugly Children, disappear fast enough. Realising I had aroused a vigilant shop assistant's suspicion and was about to be questioned, I slipped out of the door and without looking back ran all the way to Churchgate station. Unfortunately, the book that had nearly brought my thieving career to an end turned out to be a disappointment. I think I wanted it more for its deckled paper than for its contents. I did not venture anywhere near Strand for months afterwards.
Stealing from libraries, I decided, was less hazardous, and the two I concentrated on were those at the British Council and the American Center. The British Council had stopped admitting new members, which gave me an excuse, not that I needed one, to steal from it. Still, to be fair to myself, I stole only those books, like J.B. Leishman's on Donne and Herbert Read's on Wordsworth, that I required for course work. The American Center made me a member right away, on production of my student ID card, but I walked off with its books all the same. One of the books I pocketed from the British Council was Wilfred Owen's Collected Poems, "Edited with an Introduction and Notes by C. Day Lewis and with a Memoir by Edmund Blunden". I still have it with me, as I do the others. Its yellowing and brittle pages contain several passages that are heavily underlined. Among them, from Day Lewis's Introduction, is the following:
It has been said that Owen was no great reader... But, when he died, he left a library of 325 volumes, which was not bad for a young man with very little money to spare.
I was impatient for my library to reach that figure.
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When in June 1966 I came to Bombay and enrolled at Bombay University, there wasn't a soul I knew there. My parents had found me accommodation in Mulund, in a sort of ashram run by a woman we called Maji. Her name was Brijmohini Sarin, and she was my parents' guru. She wore terrycot maxi dresses in pastel shades and had a husband, Papaji, who worked in the telephone department. The permanent residents of the ashram included a couple of rich Marwari widows. They spent all their time in the kitchen and could easily be mistaken for scullery maids. The ashram often had guests staying for short periods, and when Maji showed them around she would appreciatively say the widows had given up their diamonds and chosen the path of self-realisation. I was desperate to get away from the place and make friends outside it.
Someone, I don't remember who, had mentioned Coral Chatterjee. She belonged to the well-established Caleb family of Allahabad and worked for Imprint magazine. One day I turned up at her office in Colaba. She was a tall, striking-looking woman, who to me appeared taller and more striking because of her job at Imprint. I don't think she quite knew what to do with me, and after exchanging a few pleasantries introduced me to her two colleagues. One of them was Qurratulain Hyder, whom she addressed as Annie and whom I'd never heard of. The other was Nissim Ezekiel. When told I wrote poetry, he gave me a friendly, encouraging look and invited me to a reading he was giving in Worli in a few days time. It was to be held at the house of Piloo Pochkhanawala, and he gave directions on how to get there. Piloo Pochkhanawala, I discovered when I reached her place, was a sculptor. Her modernist works were on display in the verandah of her large bungalow-like house and on the lawns. Since I was among the first to arrive, I had plenty of time to observe the audience, as it drifted in. Everyone who came looked twice my age and better dressed. Everyone seemed to know everyone else. I had hoped Coral would be there but she wasn't.
That evening, Ezekiel read out the poems of Adil Jussawalla. He started out by saying that Jussawalla lived in London but needed no introduction to Bombayites. He then read out, for about half an hour, from Land's End, Jussawalla's first book of poems that had been published by Writers Workshop. One of the poems he read out consisted largely of a shopping list: "toothpaste / toothpowder / beetroots / hairsoftener..." I had known Ezekiel by reputation before, but Jussawalla was someone new. He was a little older than me, but the formally assured poems he wrote seemed way beyond anything I was capable of. To me, he and Ezekiel were like twin unscalable peaks, shining in the distance. The Pochkhanawala house and lawns were brightly lit.
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra is a well known poet. He has recently edited An illustrated History of Indian Literature in English. He lives in Dehra Dun.
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