An interview with Pooja Sharma (writer and editor) on me

Me interviewed by Pooja Sharma (writer and editor)

Pooja Sharma:I am planning to write on you and your creative activities. Kindly tell us about yourself in general. 

Koshy: In general? Smiles. I am short or of medium height, 5 feet and 6 or 7 inches to be precise, dark of complexion and have six fingers on my right hand. I am 49 years old. I was born in Kerala, as a Malayali Christian and share Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s birthday. My father belongs to the Church of South India (the Anglican persuasion, the one people like T S Eliot and C S Lewis came from ) and my mother to the Mar Thoma denomination that claims to be directly descended from St Thomas’ converts, so my upbringing was very much religious, South Indian, patriotic or nationalistic, politically Congress oriented and English education based, in fact a typical lower middle class and later middle middle class one in many ways, my father having worked his way up the government employee ladder, being ISRO personnel, and my mother having retired from the Railways to look after four children.

2 Would you tell us about your family and upbringing and particularly about the society in which you have been brought up?

My family was loving and closely knit, with my parents being very Indian Christian in beliefs and values, though my mother was quite futuristic in her vision and also ambitious for us, being herself a writer in English and Malayalam. She made us all write in English and constantly win prizes in writing in school, district, state, national and even international levels. I lived in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala, my hometown and the most beautiful place in the world according to me. It was a sleepy little hamlet and everything was peaceful, beautiful and dreamy. My great love for Nature comes from the time I spent there, and for a quiet and serene indoors life, as too for its geography in terms of its roads and architecture and its lovely monsoon and temperate weather. Trivandrum had superb libraries and one or two small but quite nice theatres in those days. The Public library, the British Council library, now closed, and the Sree Kumar theatre and New Theatre gave me a lot of education and pleasure. My people, meaning all in Trivandrum, were and are mainly friendly but non-interfering, and a tad conservative.

3 You are a great academic personality. Tell us about your teaching and the Ideals which you believe in.

I don’t know if I am a ‘great’ academic personality but many of my students tell me I am the best teacher they ever came across. I have done some courses in Srishti with my brother A.V. Varghese, with whom I have also collaborated as a writer on one essay, and some courses by myself in creative writing that I rank with the best in the world. My ideals as a teacher were shaped by people like Jesus, Gandhi, the Catholics especially the Jesuits (sometimes negatively), Tagore, Ambedkar, Jiddu Krishnamurthy and most of all by Geetha Narayanan and they place the student at the centre of the learning experience and believe in making learning fun as well equipping the student for life by passing on not just knowledge but life skills and all other skills and constant adaptability and not by tortuous methods of learning. In fact my ideals run counter to most of what is practiced in India and abroad and can be summed up as expertise, simplification, love, passion for teaching and finally in the teacher making the student so self sufficient that the teacher is no longer important, only the process of life long learning and achieving and excellent output remains.

4. Could you please tell me why poetry is so important to you?

Poetry is the one thing that makes me feel alive, for some reason or the other I feel a love for it that goes beyond my love for anything else, and it started with a great writer who taught me called Nakulan and a poem by Keats called Ode to a Nightingale. Poetry makes life worth living as it enables me to understand every aspect of it and writing and reading it and teaching it remains my greatest pleasure to date.

5. What is your conception of poetic creativity?

From childhood I have been reading story books but when I try to write it is poetry that comes to me most easily so I think it is a gift and made up of an ear for music, an eye for images and a grasp of figures of speech and language at its best, as well as philosophy, psychology and the ability to touch the heart of the reader through the senses and through the ability to make the reader feel and emote powerfully, in empathy with the poem’s content. Thus I think my aesthetics on poetic creativity is unconsciously Indian as it asks for bhavas and rasas to correspond on both sides of the fence, on the writer’s side and the reader’s side. IF a poet can do this he is a poet and a master. I mean if a poet weeps while writing a poem on death and then reading it the reader weeps too the poet has succeeded as has the poem. The same with laughter

6. You have written so many poems, on different subjects. Which is your favorite topic? Do you feel poetry to be basically a medium for giving a message to the people?

My favourite topics are universal ones like life, family, love, sex, romance, violence, anger, hatred etc… They even transcend human topics. Poetry is and should be for the people but the message has to define itself. I aim at finding a balance between simple, complex, complicated and profound as I want any person who knows English or reads it in translation to read my poems and find something there that touches him or her, even if all of it is not understood.

7. Which writers and poets is your source of inspiration?

I can’t really answer this question properly as I would need to write a book on it but I am definitely influenced by books like the Bible, the epics like Ramayana and Mahabharatha, the works of Shakespeare and Dickens , the great Russian writers, Eliot, Pound, Yeats, Joyce, Beckett and so many, many others, Pooja – in fact it is very classical and very much a kind of letting world literature’s best influence me.

8. What are those points which you keep in mind while penning your imagination? Do you feel that there should be a touch of reality as well?

Imagination is only reality remixed or mashed up or reconfigured so yes, but the points I keep in mind are always those of accessibility meaning will my reader love it, understand it and embrace it etcetera. I boldly borrow from anywhere and use things freely to achieve maximum effect.

9. You are working for autistic children too. How do you feel when you are around them?

I am more into supplying funds but whenever I work with autistic children I feel very happy and at ease as my son is autistic.

10. Would you like to share about your son with us?

He makes me the happiest and gives me a reason to exist, he is a blessing or gift from God and even in the midst of the most difficult times with him I understand he is there for a reason and purpose, that of showing us true love – a divine one – and thus want him and all such differently abled people on earth to be given as much and more than neurotypicals in return for us receiving unconditional love from them.

11. How do you manage to cope up with your poetic world and with your social work?

I am more a poet than a social worker and to be honest social work takes a backseat as something I do only when I can, so far.

12. Did you ever face any problems regarding ‘Autism for Help Village, ’?

Yes, the main problem being I juggle family, work, writing and that and so it is something that at present takes fourth place so for it to flourish it will have to wait for some more time, till I become more free.

13. Would you kindly tell us about your life as a teacher and how would you like to relate it to your life as a literary critic and as a poet? Is there any conflict between these roles?

No conflict, as I teach literature and thus am constantly engaged in literary criticism even in class and as for poetry I teach it and then come home and write it. It has always been so and still is in Jazan University, Saudi Arabia. The passion for teaching literature, being a critic and a poet or a short story writer, writing articles and dabbling in journalism are all interconnected… as is teaching and learning, they cannot really conflict…

14. ‘A Treatise on Poetry for Beginners’ and ‘The Art of Poetry: A Self Styled Verbal Weaving’ are well known books in our literary world. Which one is more close to your heart of both of them and why?
They are both the same book. When the Treatise was published it sold well in print and as ebook, kindle etcetera but Indians found it too costly as it was costing too much for shipping and handling. So now it has come out under a different name with Authorspress and Butterfly and the Bee…and Indian readers can easily get hold of it on flipkart or www.authorpress.com. Both books are well produced and close to my heart. The book got rave reviews spontaneously from authors as diverse and significant as Dr Bina Biswas, Vasudev Murthy, Sujata Parashar, Dr Prathap Kamath and Dr Madhumita Ghosh to name only a few.
15. This world is a stage, and on this stage you are playing many roles as an established author, poet, critic and artist. Which role do you enjoy playing the most? And why?
The role I enjoy playing the most is that of poet but people sometimes tell me my criticism is better than my poetry. I am now entering fiction and later want to go into all kinds of art more seriously. Regarding why I enjoy being a poet the most, the answer is simple, though purists and classicists sometimes look down on my poetry while reading it ordinary people have found so much of meaning, sorrow and happiness in it that it pays me back hundredfold what I gave to it which was nothing less than my whole heartedness.
16. You are the source of inspiration for the new generation, what is your message to the emerging poets of the present time and future?
My biggest message is against pride, the saddest thing I see is young people who want help in the beginning soon becoming proud and refusing to help others in their turn or they even consider themselves bigger than me or people like me and go away. Good poetry is of course not based on your character but a good life is and for me writers should enjoy each other’s writing and help each other as much as possible, not be so petty and clique ridden and selfish as is often the case in India. I hope the younger generation will be different.
17. Would you like to tell us about your future publication plans?
Yes, a book of my short stories will come out from Lifi and a couple of other books are there, one on Dattani with me as co-editor with Bina Biswas, and one on analyzing Indian issues as well, again with her, as well as many, many poetry collections, some of which are collaborations. I eventually hope to bring out a novel and a play too.
18. Kindly tell us about your Indian relations.
My wife and children are in India though I am an NRI and India is my first love as far as countries go. I hope the Aam Aadmi party is voted in to bring about any kind of a change and our country improves. I feel sad about many things in India and writing will also help to bring changes.
19. Would you like to add any more info about you to the questions I did?
Yes. I would like to add some specific info on my books and certificates. My first book was called Figs and was a self published collection of ten poems. Then came Wrighteings: In Media Res with A.V. Varghese – a collection of critical essays - published by LLAP from Germany and two collaborations of poetry, one published by Brian Wrixon Publications of Canada and the second by Destiny to Write UK, collections in which I collaborated with Gorakhnath Gangane and Angel Meredith respectively. They are available on Amazon, Blurb and Lulu respectively as PODs. Then A Treatise on Poetry for Beginners was brought out by Speak Up Publishing USA, which is available on Amazon as book and kindle, and on Smashwords in e book formats and on Createspace, Barnes and Noble and Kobo. Last but not least is my Beckett’s English Poetry: Transcending the Roots of Resistance in Language, published by Authorspress Global Network which is probably my best book in terms of literary criticism to date and the re-release of Treatise as Art of Poetry, - the new bottle and old wine - both these books just mentioned being available on flipkart and www.authorspress.com as of now. I have also written for or appeared in distinguished online portals like Plumtree Books UK, Bardo blogazine, Nothing No one Nowhere, Carcinogenic Poetry, Camel Saloon, Destiny Poets UK, Poetryz’own of Canada and in many Indian and Western (Canadian and Indo-Australian anthologies), and have co-edited Inklinks by Poets Corner. I have certificates from World Bank and USA for online courses in social innovation and pedagogy. I am also on the advisory committees of research journals and contribute to them. I have also won awards for writing as well as been nominated once for Pushcart Poetry Prize in 2012. I have won awards for teaching too.
20. Lastly, what are your ideas on Facebook creativity and also the future of online media that is gradually becoming more popular than the printed media.
Facebook is a hub or buzzing hive of creativity and the future belongs to such places as far as writing is concerned as writing needs readers more than anything else. In fact online media is what is going to thrive and flourish and not books and there is scope now mainly for the community of writers and not anymore for single, great writers as much as there used to be earlier. Defeating market constraints, self publishing and print on demand and ebooks and kindle will grow and be in demand and even big publications houses will go this way. My only warning is that writers should be careful they are not exploited in this new atmosphere by syndicates but get their due in terms of not only fame but money or they will be foolish to enter this arena, where love or passion for literature and an ability to do well at it is not rewarded and only market savviness is adulated. Thanks for giving me this opportunity to be interviewed, Pooja, and I wish you all the best.

Postscript: I would like to mention something interesting, that my poetry and writing hangs around places/spaces that are mental reconstructs, so memory plays a large part in my works in a fictional way. The places thus reconstructed are Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kerala, Bangalore, Delhi, Jeddah, Riyadh and Jazan in Saudi Arabia and Al Khums and Tripoli in Libya and Sri Lanka and Oslo in Norway. This will make my fictional world very different and rich in the future even as it already irrigates my poetry. Dr Zeenath Ibrahim has pointed this out in her research paper on me.