In conversation with Abhishek Dubey

Abhishek is working in Eklavya Publications – A man of many talents, he has an abiding passion for literature, is well-read, opinionated and can break into song at the drop of a hat. His djembe has been a source of delight for many of us, when at sunsets and full moon nights he sings and plays, his eyes shining. The music makes us forget our troubles, at least for a little while. He often writes poetry in the form of songs and sets them to music.

 This is a conversation in two parts. This is part one of the conversation--

Were you interested in theatre right from childhood?

My interest in theatre came in much later, after I came to Bhopal to study Mass Communication. In the villages and the cities where I lived or in the schools that I went to as a child – there was never an atmosphere where somebody was reading, or somebody was interested in poetry, theatre or the arts.

 I moved constantly with my parents, and I have lived in many places but it wasn’t until I moved to Bhopal, that I met people who shared a passion for literature and theatre and kindled that fire in me.

You studied Journalism. Isn’t it? And then went on to study literature for your Masters?

I came to Bhopal to be a journalist. I had come with the understanding that as a journalist I would be doing something for society. I had this strong sense of social responsibility which working in the media would justify. Or at least that’s what I thought at that time.

What changed things for you?

When I saw the ground reality, among journalists I mean, I saw that it actually works in an entirely different way. That if you want to do good work, you cannot be independent in doing it – The stories that you have to cover are what your editor is telling you to cover.

You can come up with a fantastic story – which is probably the need of the hour – something that is essential – the kind of story that ought to come on TV channels and in newspapers, but they have no importance. I have known worthy people, good journalists who work on the ground and are barely earning enough, whose work is not getting recognized.  And I thought to myself, it’s all very well to talk about social responsibility but there is also a need for respect and value for the efforts an honest journalist puts in.

Is that one of the reasons you decided to veer towards literature instead.

Not really.  So when I came to study journalism, I had a great circle of seniors and peers. We had a reading circle where we read texts, studied the works of authors, and immersed ourselves in different kinds of literature. 

I owe a lot to my seniors. They changed my world view of things. One of the first things they said to me was –  “Look Abhishek, you need to look at things critically. You need to look at things from many points of view. You cannot come to a conclusion from just one point of view. Now that we are getting exposed to different things, meeting different people – you must start looking at things from different perspectives. “

When I started reading literature – I was influenced profoundly by it – that all the things that I had seen and experienced since childhood, those things that seemed very wrong to me but which was taken for granted in the places I lived in- somehow, it all began to make sense.

Tell me about these experiences.

Since my father worked in different places, we often moved houses. When I came back to my village,Parauwa, in Jaunpur, UP - after about 7 years of living in towns -  I was astounded to find that it was exactly the way it was 7 years ago – not a single change in the place or in the people. The closest market was still 10 Kilometres away. I have seen casteism – in my own house, in the farms that our family had.

There was this person who worked in our fields – Pachu. He was from the Musahar community. He worked in a brick kiln(furnace) and he was arranging money to get his two sisters married. The sisters were to be married the next day and the people at the brick kiln refused to give him money. He came to my uncle and asked him to lend him seventy thousand rupees so he could get his sisters married - He told him he would be a slave all his life if he could save him from his troubles and lend him the money. He had tears in his eyes -- and this made a deep impression on me. I wondered about what kind of a world  we were living in, that one person has all the privileges and that another is willing to stake his life and sacrifice his existence for a fraction of that privilege. Isn't it a huge problem in the way society is structured and wealth and power are distributed? 

The workers who used to work in our fields – they would be given food in polythene covers that were fallen on the ground, or some disused newspapers or torn sheets of paper from  children’s notebooks…. They would go a long way off to eat, in the distance. They couldn’t touch the hand pumps so somebody had to give them water. These things hit me.

A very old person who shouldn’t be talked to with such impudence would be talked to in a rude, offensive manner – my cousins and uncles who were young – their behavior, attitude, way of talking was very offensive.  

It hit me that - you who upholds a certain standard in your own home, that you address a big brother with respect,  you cannot argue or talk back to your uncle, to your father –  and you follow this- why is it that if it is a person from a different community, without your privileges- who is old enough to be your father – your grandfather -  what happened to these standards when you stepped outside of your home ?  How can you talk to them with insults, taunts and swear words? 

 This is a big contradiction in society, isn’t it? And in this only two things are  operating – class and caste – that you believe, because of an antiquated notion of superiority and inferiority – you assume it is your right to talk to that person like that when you would be ashamed to do it to your father or your grandfather.

These small incidents built up over the years.

Another story that keeps coming back to me is - There is a custom in our place that is called Daija – when a girl’s wedding is decided we are sent an invitation – Our family is invited to go to the girl’s house and bless them – And they give us sweets and we give them some money or sarees. I had  studied in Surendranagar, near Ahmedabad and just come to the village – so the village and its ways were very new to me.

 I was very young and – And this incident really stayed with me for the rest of my life –so we went there , they gave us sweets and I ate the sweets but my uncle didn’t touch them  -when we returned home, there was a huge fuss back home –

“ dekho, see this fool has eaten from the Chamar’s house, he has become a Chamar.”  

It struck me then that there was nothing different about them. They looked like us, spoke like us, their houses were not very different from our houses, we shared the same culture –we looked the same – For a child who cannot see any of these differences –how will that thought  “What caste does he belong to?” even enter the mind?

So these two impressions that remained in your mind got a sense of closure when you read literature?

Yes. In childhood you don’t have answers to these questions. In your childhood who will you go and ask? Also as a child you don’t consciously think of these things – it becomes background noise and an unconscious impression of the incident.  But when I came to college, literature began to open up my understanding.

My experiences began to get much more meaning as they got connected to what these writers were writing about. When I read Premchand’s “Godaan”- I felt like he was telling a story that summed up my experiences in life – And through this I began to develop a point of view – all those questions, issues, problems that remained as background noise, that were crushed underfoot and suppressed through the course of me growing up --- I slowly began to find answers to them.

Where did your answers lead you?

My answers led me to more questions. I had a hunger to know. Why these problems came up in the first place?  Jazba and literature – nothing has helped me understand society as much as these two things.

Tell me about Jazba.

Jazba was started in 2013 by our seniors and their classmates – it began as a cultural group where they met, read different kinds of literature, discussed them, screened movies, used art and literature as a starting point for discussing the various problems we saw in society. And at the root of all this activity was a desire to make people aware about their democratic rights. At the heart of it was a belief in democracy. 

When I joined college – the atmosphere there was oppressive. There was a leaning towards RSS and only certain kinds of books were seen as favourable and encouraged. Writers like Harishankar Parsai and Muktibodh, who wrote progressive literature, would be frowned upon. So our seniors began to look outwards. They began to perform street plays about different issues and I remember the first time I went with them, I was holding the banner. I saw the kind of power street performances could have and I was fascinated.

To be continued.....