An Anthology for Winter

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!

Dialogue of a Different Kind

Dialogue, An Art & Culture Magazine, Collector’s Edition, 2014

The People of Indian Origin (PIO) web portal was launched in June 2010 as a monthly web magazine that focussed on art, culture and politics of contemporary India, as seen by a committed group of young people. It was the brainchild of one man, an expatriate Indian, who felt the necessity to carry an India that he could not live in or experience, but only speak about from his memories to his children. He entrusted the process of re-discovering India, lost to Indians like him abroad, to a team of young Indians who lived and breathed India’s culture and politics. From its inception, this magazine had a unique appeal. The contours of the magazine shaped up from the conviction that there is a place and a purpose for critically evaluating both inherited wisdom and lived experience in India, the landscape of its culture and the pulse of its history. Based on the core values of secular orientation, critical spirit, freedom of expression and social responsibility, the web portal made reasoned analysis and comments.

This Collector’s Edition of PIO Indians web portal goes beyond the horizons and the limited mandate of the web version. Christened ‘Dialogue’, the print magazine seeks to bring together the best of the web portal while rectifying some of the shortcomings, by improving the content and expanding the profile of contributors. Dialogue has articles on art, music, film and literature. An overview of the essays and commentaries cover areas of politics, economy, communalism and social justice that are very much relevant in India today. Interviews and conversations with writers, actors, artists, travellers and editors provide a trenchant view of how they perceive their art and their craft, and the challenges they face in accomplishing a vision. Tributes are given to three historic personalities in India through an essay that seeks to re-discover the legacy of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister and founding statesman of India, a short column on intolerance that banished a great Indian painter on charges of obscenity and a myopic national memory that forgot the illustrious founder-editor of Indian comics. A memoir that brings out the evocative experience of overcoming the English language barrier is peculiar to most post colonial societies, especially India, where the English language is a passport to a bright future. A historic view of the evolution of street theatre as a political weapon of the masses and the critical analysis of the depiction of violence in post partition cinema and novel, succinctly brought out in two essays, deal with the various cross currents in the Indian cultural scene today.

A separate section projects young and upcoming artists, dancers, musicians and song writers, which brings out the concerns of a new generation of Indians, who shoulder the responsibility of preserving and interpreting its ancient texts and traditions. A selection of fiction and poetry from young writers are presented as a portfolio. This special section explores other responses to the experience of being Indian that defies narrative journalism. There is also a representation of photo features by young photographers who brought to us first-rate stories of nature and wildlife, culture and people. 

The compilation of this special edition celebrates the life and work of two years of a dedicated team and their coming together in a happy reunion in a bigger canvas. The selection of stories and articles are representative and not exhaustive. In a way, Dialogue began as an off-shoot of the original web portal but it has transcended its boundaries and acquired a distinct voice and identity of its own. It is the culmination of an extremely courageous and idealistic venture by a young group, sustained by an encouraging and committed readership in India and abroad. 

The copies of the special issue can be had by writing to dialoguemagazine@yahoo.com or the editors, Deepa Kylasam Iyer (deepa_7ki@yahoo.co.in) and Francis Kuriakose (francyge83@yahoo.co.uk)