FIVE QUESTIONS :Dr. Sunil Sharma

  Today in FIVE QUESTIONS, we have Dr. Sunil Sharma with us, a widely-published Indian critic, poet, editor, translator, essayist, literary interviewer, fiction writer and the English editor of the very popular Setu magazine.  He has  published three collections of poetry, three collections of short fiction. Total of 22 books , joint and solo . 

 He is the recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets' inaugural Poet of the Year award---2012. His poems were also published in the UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree-

2015.

Santosh: Delighted to have you with us, sir.
At the very outset, let me congratulate you for the immense success of Setu. Let me also confess, that I am very proud to be associated with Setu and happy to see it making immense strides on the literary firmament.  Your recent initiative Prose and Poetry Readings in the time of Pandemic, received an overwhelming response. Kudos.

June 2020 marks the fourth year of the monthly production of this hugely popular bilingual journal – 14 lakh plus viewership – wow!  Kudos to you, Dr. Sunil Sharma, to Dr. Anurag Sharma and team Setu.  
Now, a few questions for you, Dr Sunil Sharma.

Santosh:  Q 1. Where does the man Dr. Sunil Sharma end and the writer begin, or is the writer an extension of the man?  In the course of my interviews, I have listened to many interesting answers regarding this, I am all ears to you now.

 Dr. Sunil Sharma:  First comes the person, followed later by the writer; often the distance between the person, the subjecthood, being and the writing self, light years away, as in the Classical poetry.

In case of the Romantics or the subjective poetry or confessional, both follow each other---and intermix freely.

As a lifelong learner, I feel that even in the best of writing traditions or genres, the subjective and objective remain comparatively distant. Great art---serious writing---eschews personality, as rightly pointed out by TS Eliot, and reflects social preoccupations of a writer.

As far as I am concerned, the biological self is remote from the writing self---both hardly collide.

That distance is important.

The man and writer must remain separate.

They are separate in my case.

Like a trained actor, real and cinematic/ theatrical are always apart. The hero or villain is not the real actor, the man.

Same with the writing process everywhere.

One allied aspect is also there---the historical person/self sometimes shadows the writing self, as a twin.

Hemingway living his credo, for example, where the man and the writer often meet---and produce special richness and synergy.

Tolstoy, again, where the real and writing selves collapse into a unitary and dynamic entity.

Sartre, another interesting instance, of this convergence.

On the other hand, Gunter Grass is the opposite. You will not find the regular Gunter in his works---or, a bit earlier, Thomas Mann.

In the end, a finer balance is to be achieved and equi-distance maintained by a writer going for the objective, macro narratives.

The Russians are adept at this balance--- Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak and Sholokhov.

Chinua Achebe and Ralph Ellison, Philip Roth and Saul Bellow---other names of this kind of balance between outer and inner.

Santosh:  Q 2. That was a wonderfully satisfying, in-depth answer.  Dr. Sharma, you are a very intriguing story- teller and I have noticed your panache for ghost stories and the supernatural. Tell us which writers of this genre inspired you in this direction?

Dr. Sunil Sharma: I am afraid the facts are otherwise. 

Your impression is built up on a short fiction submitted to an anthology edited by you, years ago. It was called “The Whiteman’s Bungalow”. The ghost was used as a literary trope there. The story employed the ghosts of colonialism, the Raj, as a device to recall the brutal realities and ugliness of that grim exploitation of a nation by a foreign power.

The trauma of that historic experience.

Ghosts are used by me in some flash fictions and poetry as well. They are just literary modes in the tradition of Marx and Derrida (Hauntology), Dickens (A Christmas Carol) and Shakespeare (Hamlet and Macbeth, two key texts), Gogol (The Overcoat) and Dostoevsky (Demons), Poe (The Tell-tale Heart; The Pit and the Pendulum), to name but a few enduring literary influences.

I am not a hard-core fan of the Hollywood horror genre and do not enjoy this literary form, either.

Gothic horror does not work for me. But there is an audience for these creatures of the night, visitations from some realm of reality; the spooky sensation of being watched in a cursed castle or running into Dracula, on a "normal" night.

Ghosts are the other side of life. As an unknown, that realm or dimension of collective memory continues to fascinate and engage creative minds.

In my view, ghosts were real for Homer and Virgil and continued to baffle and occupy the Victorians but gradually these airy beings became mere tropes and in the last century, cash registers for the film and TV industries, with their predictable storylines and settings: moonless and stormy nights; creaking boards and doors; floating candles; white outlines walking soundlessly; sudden shrieks and a cat purring and an owl screeching and ketchup for fake blood on white, bleached faces!

Rewind early to Virgil, where one could easily visit the underworld and meet the shades of warriors or your own father and converse easily, while other shades sighed or lamented softly in a vale.

In Shakespeare also, ghosts can also communicate with the living. Both the dead and living worlds converge, but briefly and hint at the possibilities of the strangeness of the universe and such encounters for viewers still not skeptical, like their post-Enlightenment counterparts.

Ghosts waited for humans outside the comfort of the commune---in a forest or a manor.

Even today, rural settlements, such unusual tales, sightings, circulate.

However, things changed rapidly in a mass society.

Post-industrial culture has monetized that poor thing---a white plume rolling down the hall on stormy nights---for an audience seeking thrill; looking for a manufactured version of the Beyond.

The Canterville Ghost takes a different take on such narratives and the British and American views collide. It is a masterpiece by the brilliant Wilde and works like these study in-depth and interrogate the intersecting themes of the dead, guilt, redemption, memory and their complex representations in serious art.

So, no real ghosts for me, only as reference points. A selective use of them as a device in my few works here and there.

Ghost as a guilty conscience or bad faith or memory.

Even otherwise, ghosts need to be exorcised and buried.

We must be free of the trauma of the past and the inflicted violence and move on.

 Santosh:  Ah!  That was a very erudite and spirited discussion on ghosts, and that story of yours in the anthology, Darkness there but something more, [The Whiteman’s Bungalow], was a very fascinating read.
 
Honestly speaking, ghosts have always fascinated me, and I remember, listening riveted to my father as he went full throttle relating ghost stories with a lip-smacking pleasure. The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs was the first story that I heard from him, to be followed by stories of Edgar Allen Poe and many more.

 
“Ketchup for fake blood on white, bleached faces!” Haha [especially in the old Hindi movies, this ketchup used to be so ketchupy that it failed to send goosebumps up your spine!]

 Yes, I remember having read The Canterville Ghost in school. Mr. Otis, the new American tenant in the story, telling the ghost, Mr. Simon that he should oil the chains, when he finds the ghost right before him, with heavy chains hanging from his wrists and ankles and the Otis twins shooting peas at him through pea-shooters- was so ribticklingly hilarious.

Santosh Q 3: Now, allow me to change gears from spirits to sublimity.
I have noticed that in your poems, you talk of social justice, pleading for the establishment of an egalitarian society. Yes, you also talk a lot about nature, and how we, in our materialistic pursuits are bent on wrecking it.

In one of your poems, Search, in OPA [the issue of Spirit of Nature],  the following image of a bird searching for her lost home, left me with a lump in my throat. Minimal words, maximum punch!

Above the clusters of towers

a bird soars through the smog,

desperately searching for a tree

that once was her home

but bulldozed last night by a greedy

bungalow-owner for light and vertical growth

in a dense Delhi neighborhood.

 In your poem,  Atrophy, Glomag [March 2020], I  was awed by the imagery and the stark picture of desolation- the last stanza, succinct and sweet, leaves one with an everlasting image of abandonment. I kept going back to it, so mesmerized was I. 

Now-
solitude
walks the rooms
and corridors, while the
forest
talks.  

Do you think that poets can make things happen?

Dr. Sunil Sharma: Thanks for appreciating my poems. Yes, poets can be legislators of the world---not all but few chosen by history. Shelly. Neruda. Lorca. Pash. Ghalib. Faiz Ahmad Faiz.  Nagarjun.

 Every culture has got a long and illustrious history of such radical writers and thinkers. They are truly gifted and eminently suited to challenge the status quo and radicalize the consciousness. Most are rebels and talk of an equitable social system. Most declass themselves and emerge as the voice of the dispossessed.  

 Santosh Q 4: Yes, indeed some poets have emerged as the voice of the dispossessed and the invisibles, languishing on the periphery of society.
This brings me to one of your old poems, Creation: Pain and Bliss, in which you call the poet the’ tattered maker of images divine’. Why “tattered?”

Dr. Sunil Sharma: Poets of great vision and gift suffer most and die in poverty and obscurity. Hence, the indication in the FB post.

A society is known by the respect it shows to its writers and teachers.

Great writers are, for me, great teachers.

Santosh: Elsewhere, [not in a poem] you talk of your ‘troubled visions, self-doubts, and solitary struggles as a low profile writer, on the margins of the mainstream literary establishment.”
Please elaborate.

As a writer you struggle with your artistic visions, not very sure about them or their execution and finesse or finale. There are trying moments of self-doubts and uncertainties---so common to the craft.

Mainstream literary establishment has its own grim realities and patronage, their close circles, where admission is often by invitation. Many writers are excluded from such circles, fests, discussions. Only a handful represent the national lit. It is a circle that needs to be challenged and broken.

I referred to those ugly truths of the culture industry, the insider/outsider binary.

Some writers do not care.

Some get incorporated.

The game goes on.

In India, migration to America or Britain helps these voices and they get their due recognition denied earlier in their own country.

Unfortunate but true!

Santosh: Q 5. One last question before we call it a day. How did the idea of starting Setu come to you? Was it a childhood dream, you always held close to your heart or did it just strike you one fine, sunny morning?  Tell me about the pinpricks \ pitfalls on the way to building bridges.

Dr. Sunil Sharma: My Pittsburgh-based cousin, Anurag Sharma, is a bilingual author and senior IT professional. He blogged and did audio of some classic writers. One day we got talking over the phone---and an idea was born, of launching a bilingual monthly journal. He was to edit Hindi and the English one was to be handled by me in Mumbai. We wanted a welcoming home---not some snobbish place where you act as the gate-keepers.

And the Setu journal was launched in June of 2016 from the USA---both the editions, independent of each other, are produced there only.

Setu is indeed the bridge of understanding and serving fine content month after month.

We publish books on a no-profit-no-loss basis.

And humbly recognize outstanding contributors through our e-awards.

It has been a cheerful journey and we are happy to serve the reading and writing communities in both the languages.

A recent initiative---video readings during the pandemic-induced lock down---has garnered good response.

Our special editions, guest-edited by happening authors, are equally popular.

The idea is to serve with humility.

That is all.

Santosh:  Yes, Prose and Poetry Readings in the time of Pandemic, which received an overwhelming response, was a very good idea. Kudos. I loved reciting my poems for this commendable venture.

Dr. Sunil Sharma: Thanks for this rare opportunity to talk to a famous academic and writer like you. I am proud of your sterling credentials---and achievements---and hope for more milestones from you. Enjoyed this conversation very much.

Santosh. I thoroughly enjoyed this interaction, and please don’t embarrass me by calling me famous, I am just a small fry following my passion, and trying to enrich myself by such intellectually stimulating discussions with literary luminaries, like you.  Thank you for agreeing to this interactive session.
All the best for your future literary ventures.

Sunil Sharma

Writer | Critic | Editor | Freelance Journalist | Reviewer | Literary Interviewer

Editor:: Setu: http://www.setumag.com/p/setu-home.html

website:: https://drsunilsharma.blogspot.com

Twitter: @drsunilsharma 

https://www.instagram.com/drsunilsharma/

LinkedIn: http://in.linkedin.com/in/drsharmasunil/