The Best of Quest
(2011), Edited by Laeeq Fatehally, Achal Prabhala & Arshia Sattar,
Tranquebar, Chennai, pp. 660
There are many ways to end a year and cozying up with
an anthology is the best of them! The sweeter the nostalgia for times gone, if
the said anthology is from the alcove of lost time. The Best of Quest is
one such tome that compiles English writing from and about India during the
period 1955-1976.
It was the height of the Cold War and an international
enterprise called ‘The Congress for Cultural Freedom’ was set up to spread
liberal ideas of freedom through literary endeavors. Covertly funded by the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), this endeavor took various forms through the
launching of classical ‘little’ magazines such as Encounter in the UK
and Quest in India. So much for the thrilling background story of
who-dunnit!
In India, fresh from British colonial rule, Quest
must have represented the niche space of liberal cultural ethos expressed in
the colonist’s language (For archives: http://www.freedomfirst.in/quest/quest-archives.aspx). The diversity of the literature spanning essays,
fiction and poetry were deliciously served by those who went on to build new
India such as Kamala Das, Nissim Ezekiel (poet and its first editor), Adil
Jussawalla, Dilip Chitre, Ashis Nandy, A.K. Ramanujan and so many more. The
subject of the discourse was also delightfully diverse from the portrait of
historical figures to those of historical institutions, from the pleasures of
commercial cinema to the gravitas of ancient paintings, from breezy travelogues
to political arguments for gender rights. The housing of the pedantic with the
pedestrian, polemic with the anti-puritanical signals the firm ascendance of
modern, liberal view of the world that a part of India hoped to achieve.
Evocative Journey
From the vantage point of contemporaneity, reading
these perspectives evoke a multitude of emotions. The first is nostalgia at the
loss of the punctuated leisure that these pieces present. I believe this quality
has been lost along the way through the onslaught of neoliberal consumerism. Today,
we do not read with such relish. To my generation, it is a loss of inheritance.
The second is envy at the ease of writing, the style
of the language and the strength of the argument, no matter the subject. Such
candor requires confidence in the self and its place in the scheme of things. With
the way we are today with ourselves and our social media, something of such
integrated self is lost. We can share kink, but not erotica; viewpoint, but not
argument in under 30 seconds.
Finally, there is pathos, the moving portrait of what once
was and what dreams have become. I believe this is the biggest loss. The
ability to not only say most of what you think, but to be politically
incorrect, to be funny and unabashedly self-deprecatingly so, to use irony to
drive home a million home truths- the loss of such powers hurt a bit more in
this age of extremism.
I think it is for the feeling of what Quest
represents than what it contains that you must revisit the Best of Quest.
Besides, the volume comes with an exquisite cover art and vintage Quest post
cards. Certainly, a collector’s delight and a great way to wind up the year!
