Interview with Samir Satam about his book The Camphor of Night [ Interview 5th]

In this column  , I plan to ask  FIVE QUESTIONS to  a writer about  her\ his latest book .

The purpose is twofold.  Get an insight into an author's new book and secondly , help the novices to get an idea about the agony and the ecstasy, the challenges ,the highs and lows , the hazards  involved in writing .  l am sure these answers are going to help not just other writers , but the diffident people who are hugging a story close to their hearts , and agonising  and burdening their hearts with untold stories .

 As Kamalini Natesan so righty puts it in the very first interview that I conducted here ,in this column [September 2019]   'there is a place for every kind of writer-voice under the sun- so never compare. Find your voice, and hone its timbre, polish its cadence. ' 

Maya Angelou so eloquently said , 'There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you ." So , get those stories out - the bits and pieces that are lurking in small crevices of the heart and mind and  the chunks which need to come out in a gushing cascade . Persistence pays . Don't let that story suffocate inside you . As Louis L' Amour puts it ,"Start writing , no matter what . The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on." So, turn that creative faucet on , and who knows a masterpiece may gush forth ?

 I have been conducting  creative writing workshops off and on and mentoring youngsters  for a pretty long time . During this interaction, I have come across two types of students . First , the over confident , smug ones , who want to finish writing a novel in a month or two , and don't need any validation , advice or creative outputs from anyone .
  Second the diffident ones , who have the creative spark in them , but prefer to keep it well- hidden.  I feel that these conversations will help some of those bashful ones, and also the over- confident ones .
 Maya Angelou  also said, 'we need to remember that we are all created creative and can invent new scenarios  as frequently as they are needed . " So, those of us who want to do it - THEY DEFINITELY CAN !


 In her interaction with me in this very column ,  [November 2019] while talking about her Memoirs , 'Gypsy Wanderings and Random Reflections ' , Dr . Sunil Kaushal had so poignantly put it ," Like an emotional sponge I soaked up the pain of those around me, till my heart and head could hold no more and it would come pouring out some day, straight from the heart in simple language." So , we see that writing can be cathartic, therapeutic and it can also also give writers a  spiritual high .
  

In her interview , [26 November 2019],   Smeetha Bhoumik expressed the view that  'the wordsmiths of the world, are many a time swordsmiths too, and they can really strike at the roots of evil negatives. The ideas and outpourings of poets and  writers have shaped the world and made it a better place over the centuries." And I fully agree with that .

In his interview ,[November 29 , 2019 ]   Dr. Ampat Koshy gave us a deep insight into the immensely intriguing , Roseate sonnet , which is his brainchild , and on which an international anthology is soon to be launched .

Today , we have Samir Satam with us -a brilliant poet - photographer , and from his profound answers , I could see that he is also a philosopher who thinks deeply . Here he talks about his second book of poetry , The Camphor of  Night . 

Santosh Q 1 Tell us something about Samir Satam – the poet- photographer, who also calls himself Humminglens.  We would like to hear something which would make us break into a burst of giggles \ or maybe furrow our brows in bewilderment at the shenanigans of a poet- photographer. 

Samir . Let me tell you a secret.  This Humminglens is a thief, who steals, not just from his immediate surroundings, but also from lives of his friends, family and even his own, so much, that now his happiness and tragedies sleep with their windows locked. Sometimes he tiptoes, steals a few poems and makes his way out of his own life... It's quite an adventure, you see...

Santosh: Wow ! A thief ! I love that !  Come to think of it , all of us crazy wordsmiths are thieves . You know , I commit daylight heists by eavesdropping into peoples' conversations , and using anything that catches my fancy , in my writings ..h aha ...much to my family's discomfiture . You know ,   they  have caught me many times , with my ears pricked , eyes round, trying to catch tidbits of peoples' talks.  Jokes  apart .. I think , you were talking in the language of metaphors .....

Samir : All the metaphorical blah blah aside, Humminglens is an aimless wanderer, not just because he loves to explore, but mainly because he is claustrophobic when it comes to staying within four walls for too long. He tends to feel at home, while he  is away from home. He loves to stroll through the city, hunting for prey to feed his hungry camera and thinking about things he has swept beneath the rug of his mind. It’s here, in these streets, that his poems come to him.

Santosh Q 2 Ah, that is such a wonderful way of expressing your leanings .  In Self -Introduction of an introvert, you say, ‘wherever I go I carry my corner with me’ – this corner, I believe,  is your haven, how do you deal with intrusions and brazen gate -crashing into  this corner?  

Samir :   I can't tell you that, or the gate-crashers will get to know my tricks... Jokes apart,  sometimes life, (especially when you are online) runs at a pace of fast formula ridden movies, and I prefer the pace and texture of life to be like those of Ingmar Bergman or a Godard or a Majid Majidi or a Wong Kar Wai film.

So, nowadays, I simply go offline for a few hours... No notifications = No intrusion... And then there are some hidden cafes in Mumbai , which many people don't know of, so going there helps with shutting myself off physically from family and friends. To stay sane, one must find such places, otherwise there is no dearth of distractions.

Santosh Q 3  Santosh:  Well , that is indeed a very wise way of dealing with distractions and gate- crashing by intruders into your personal space .  Tell me , how is your second book of poetry thematically different from your first one. In one of your poems, in The Camphor of Night ,  ‘Thoughts’  you very succinctly say, 

 ‘Thoughts are ghosts,

They travel across time

To haunt solitary people

Unknown to each other’

Tell us about the thoughts of those writers which have haunted you.

Samir . My first book 'Postcards From Memory' was quite innocent. Those poems had a straightforward approach towards emotions they were based on. Moreover, when those poems were written, I was a bit more of a likeable, easy-going person. Now with poems in 'The Camphor of Night', the approach is far more indirect, yet razor-sharp honest nonetheless, so the poems end up being more concentrated form of the thought they are based on.

This poem ‘Thoughts’ was born out of restlessness which rose from a thought that even the most unique of our realizations, thoughts, feelings which we experience deeply and let them alter our lives, have been experienced by so many people before us and will be experienced by so many after us. While a thought is on my mind, there must be someone else at that exact moment thinking on same lines. Isn't that haunting?

Sometimes, I feel suffocated thinking I will never get to know those people and have no way of discussing that thought with them. And if seen from a purely abstract view; aren't we all (dead, living, yet to be born) related to each other by one thought or another?

Santosh : Well, I agree with you there , Samir . 

Samir : About writers whose works have engraved footprints on my mind include Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Rabindranath Tagore, Michael Ondaatje, Milan Kundera, Alberto Moravia, J. M. Barrie to name a few. I name these specifically, because their works have managed to change, elevate and alter my thought process and that has a lot to do with the person I have shaped up into.

Santosh ; Q4.  Just two small questions before we call it a day . In the back page blurb, the celebrated writer, Dr. Ampat Koshy gushes over your poem, ‘Mannequins’. P 87

  Why do you feel that we are ‘just mannequins in a showcase of this world?'

Samir :  I see Dr. Ampat Koshy as an immensely talented and intelligent specimen of human race. So I wasn't surprised when he read between the lines of that poem. And I was smiling from ear to ear when I read that he liked that poem.

Santosh : Intelligent and talented , Dr. Koshy  definitely  is .

Samir : You know, all of us, including me, are guilty of letting this phenomenon of our 'ways of life' take control of our identities. For example, why do we treat our ethnicity as an achievement? Why are we proud of it? What did we do to be born in a certain caste or a religion or a country? We could have as well been born in Kenya or Ethiopia or Timbuktu.

Our nationality, religious beliefs, ideologies, food choices, some of our life decisions, are a part of our lives, but somehow, we end up wearing these wares with pride (which is a blend of our defensiveness and superiority complex). Thus, we stand in showcases of this world playing mannequins, trying to prove that these things we own, are the best when compared to wares of other human beings. It’s one thing to love something, and completely another to be in a race to prove that something is better than everything else, which again cannot be a fact, unless we have tried all other available options. So, in a way, all these invisible, intangible and sometimes even non-existent things end up owning us and will own our future generations just like they owned our previous generations, as if we were just a resource for them, so that they can keep getting sold and can keep evolving into a concentrated form of themselves...

Santosh Q5  : Ah , the brilliance of this answer dazzles me !   Tell us about your future projects , will your words continue to travel , to use  words from the back page blurb  of another celebrated poet,  Rochelle Potkar from  ', heartbreak to healing , downfall to destiny' , or do you have something else up your sleeve ?

Samir . Rochelle Potkar has been too kind to my poems. I am in awe of her art as a poet and as an author of beautifully subtle short stories. So, when she showered my work with her generosity, I was elevated above the ground for some time, of course just in my mind though... ;-)

Santosh :  Hope you are not still levitating ,  ha h a.... 

Samir  : That was just in my mind ...h ah a..   About my future projects, my third compilation of poems is ready. This one is a collection dedicated to love and longing.

Santosh:  That is great !  Hats off ! 

Samir : I am also working on a couple of translations - one is of a celebrated poet's works and another is a biography of a living legend in the world of Urdu poetry. Other than these translations, I am looking forward to start working on a biography of a renowned folk singer. However, I am not at liberty to disclose titles and names as per my contract with the publisher. So, I will leave it to that for now.

Santosh : It was wonderful having you with us .  Yes , before I forget , let me congratulate you on the cover of the book .It has been beautifully designed and conceptualized  . Kudos to you and Yaseen Anwer.  May you continue dazzling the world by your versatility.
All the best .  

Heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.

- Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera