TETE-A-TETE WITH MAITREYEE B. CHOWDHURY.

Maitreyee B Chowdhury is a web columnist and a poet. Besides writing on cinema and issues related to women and the environment, she has also been featured in an anthology of contemporary Indian writing, ‘Celebrating India’. 

I have reviewed her poetry collection – Where Present is Still Ancient, Benaras. This book is a collection of 50 poems each bringing out a facet and essence of Benaras. Each city has a distinct flavor to it and Benaras is one such place…with its filth, smell, culture and religion attached to it.

Maitreyee talks about this book. In her own words –

As a child, I had heard my father always say that “If you have not seen Benaras, you haven’t seen India.” And when I got an opportunity to travel alone for about 2 to 3 weeks, of all the places I wanted to see Benaras. At that time, however, I had no idea that I would be writing a book about it.

Poetry, of course, I was always writing them. But, I never had a clue that I would be writing a whole book of poetry. So, while I was there seeing things by myself, wandering around the ghats, walking in the streets at night, it was a very different experience for me altogether. While I was doing all this, I was writing too. I have this habit of writing while walking…on my mobile that is. Most of my works have been conceived during these walks.

I had written about 40 poems while I was in Benaras and the rest 10 of them, I wrote after I came back. I had no idea that there actually has to be a theme when a book of poetry is written and when my publishers told me this, I structured my poems according to the theme, choosing and editing them.

Many people have asked me…why Benaras? And what was there that you saw made you write a whole book about it? Well, when I was going to Benaras, I had been warned by a friend, “ It sure looks good in pictures, be prepared for the smell.” It is very dirty like many other pilgrimage cities of India. But as I have said while talking about this book…you have to see Benaras with different eyes.

Many people asked me, if this is a religious book – it is not. In fact there have been many poems where I have ridiculed religion. ( The following poems illustrate the same) I had a nasty experience at the Vishwanath Temple and I was harassed by the so-called pujari’s outside the temple and they irritated me a lot. I came out of the temple and saw a cow, which made me think, “Why is God not accessible? God should be accessible.”

‘To Vishvanath’

‘Vishvanath’ I had come

your doors were closed however-

With people, full of you

and yet themselves.

The crossing proved too long-

Between goatherds deciding Moksha,

Both yours and mine…

I decided not to leave that Rupees hundred

Fluttering in the Benaras breeze,

At your doorstep.

I wonder if you are pretty,

Decorated by the ego of so many-

Does the waft of prayer,

reach beyond the mush?

My shoes, another’s cell phone,

some flowers and Prasad

For you?

I returned, with Hare Rama in my ears

And filth in my eyes-

A sudden brush of a cow’s bushy tail,

Small it seemed, six month old?

‘Vishvanath’! Calls his master,

‘Ghar aajaa bachcha’

Vishvanath, struts his rhythmic back,

Some dung in every step.

A Fisherman’s Ganga

I sat on a dingy boat,

Looking at the Maha Aarati

on the Dashwamedha Ghat.

Seven priests adorned their Ganga

in every human way possible…

Tourists shrieked, conch shells sounded

humanity applauded.

I lit a small lamp and let it flow

Into the unknown corridors of faith-

A fisherman sat nearby

Perched on the helm of his boat

Looked at the skies,

And spat some Benaras

Into his Ganga.

In some way if there’s a perception of religion, it could be called Spirituality…finding one’s spirituality.

(As told to Janaki Nagaraj)