We have had autobiographies written by Indira Goswami, Kamala Das Chattopadhyay, Amrita Pritam, Kiran Bedi, Mary Kom etc. but Indian women, to a large extent, have yet to come out of their shell and dare to narrate a real life story that is as confessional as, say, Naseeruddin Shah's was. This year, when the world saw engaging memoirs written by Hillary Clinton, Joanna Rakoff, Sheryl Sandberg, and so on, autobiographies by Indian women were conspicuous by their absence, writes ANANYA BORGOHAIN
Autobiography could very well be deemed an idyllic mode to argue a political stand. It is, more than often, an effective personal manipulation of what is political. And it has been so since centuries. In the 18th century, it was one of the most revered forms of literary art. Fiction, or the novel form, was neither aesthetically nor theoretically approved. This impression overpowered creative writing to an extent where novelists passed their works off as non-fiction, occasionally writing their prefaces under the names of fictitious people who would in turn vouch for the book’s authenticity. Autobiography has today become a literary genre.
When presented in an objective manner, verisimilitude adds a bona fide appeal to the work. At the same time, it also fuses human sentiments into factual narratives, much like the writers of the Romantic age eulogised in their works, like the strong sense of emotional rhetoric in Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions. This narrative technique continues to be upheld in the present times as well. Some of the most preeminent examples of autobiographies, like those of — Samuel Pepys, Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, Anne Frank, Helen Keller, Benjamin Franklin, Mahatma Gandhi — have been not only popularly consumed but also massively inspired millions across ages.
As 2014 closes, autobiographies consolidate their position as a strong literary genre in the sub-continent; this cross-cultural genus, often laden with romance, is marching with glory towards an infusion into popular culture. More and more readers today, aged and young alike, are cultivating curiosity to read about a person’s life. More so, if said person is renowned. Thespians Dilip Kumar and Naseeruddin Shah, ‘God’ of cricket Sachin Tendulkar, former Minister of External Affairs Natwar Singh and President Pranab Mukherjee, whose first installment of the three-part autobiography was recently launched, are some of the many names who laid their lives bare this year.
Bold step of coming out
Many of these books this year were laden with surprising and unheard facts, sometimes even startling ones. Natwar Singh’s One life Is Not Enough, for instance, was both didactic and confessional. From Pandit Nehru’s association with the CIA to mentioning how Rajiv Gandhi was manipulated by friends to how Sonia Gandhi personally visited him to enquire about what he was writing, he covered a range of issues meriting a discussion. It consciously mapped Indian political power from the era of our founding fathers till date. He had once told us, “My autobiography is very subjective. Reticence and understatements can paralyse an autobiography. There are indeed some things you cannot write about and I too have not bared it all, but besides that amount of self-censorship, I have tried to be as frank as possible.” Naseeruddin Shah’s And Then One Day, on the other hand, was way bolder and he let out facts from his past with fierce finesse. It was a detailed bildungsroman set in the India of the 1960s and 1970s. It was a historical documentation of the pre-video player world, a world of gramophones, Doordarshan, T-model Fords, and Fiats in the 60s. Shah bared all — his ‘English’ upbringing, his rejection by the Aligarh Muslim University, his forever-hostile relationship with his father, his tryst with marijuana and prostitution, his first marriage when he was only 19, his failure as a father, disillusionment with his theatre idols, and so on and so forth. In our discussion on the book, Shah had said, “Why should I put myself on a pedestalIJ I have discarded self-censorship to the best I can… I am not talking down to my readers, neither am I boasting about myself.” Activist Arun Ferreira’s prison memoir, too, titled Colours of the Cage, was filled with horrific details of torture and decadence inside an Indian jail. In Ferreira’s words, “Till then, this was something I had merely heard of. The experience has only strengthened my resolve to work for a truly democratic and just society.”
Indian women still hesitant
literary critics have often argued that Western language and narrative forms explicate solely the male life, and uses a language which denigrates the feminine. In such an arrangement then, aren’t women denied the forum to tell their talesIJ The most inspiring autobiography I have read is Halfbreed by Canadian filmmaker and author Maria Campbell. In the same vein, some of the most unsurpassed examples of an autobiography would also refer to Helen Keller’s The Story of My life and Anne Frank’s wartime diary The Diary of a Young Girl (whose latest paperback edition was released this year too).
However, Indian women, to a large extent, have yet to come out of their shell and narrate a real life story that is thought-provoking. We may have had autobiographies written by the likes of Indira Goswami, Kamala Das Chattopadhyay (a new edition was relaunched this year as well), Amrita Pritam, Kiran Bedi, Mary Kom, and so on, but autobiographies by Indian women authors in 2014 were largely conspicuous by their absence. In a year when the world saw memoirs written by Hillary Clinton (Hard Choices), or Joanna Rakoff’s account about literary New York in the late 90s, a pre-digital world on the cusp of vanishing (My Salinger Year), or Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg’s lean In, where she examined with personal anecdotes why women’s progress in achieving leadership roles has been stalled, Indian women seldom had a personal narrative to share. It can evidently be seen that Indian women are still so entrapped by the fear of social stigma that they seem to be light years away from writing a bare-all account as ruthlessly honest as, say, Naseeruddin Shah did. To borrow Michel Foucault’s claim then, knowledge is power. But ‘the real danger was not necessarily that individuals are repressed by the social order but that they are carefully fabricated in it, and because there is a penetration of power into the behaviour of individuals’.
sequels to autobiographies
The tradition of self-narrative is strengthening base in postmodern times. It is now being written keeping the common reader in mind. This year, the shelves of bookstores, library, airports were inescapably adorned with autobiographies. Not only was there a strong of number of autobiographies being written, but there were also several re-launches. After the death of Khushwant Singh at the age of 99, a compilation of his finest works, fiction, non-fiction, poetry et al, was released and titled 99. This year, the best writings of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam were launched in the compilation titled The Righteous life. It entailed passages from his autobiography, his previous interviews and essays on myriad topics. likewise, the practice of launching autobiographies in installments has transformed into a style too. President Pranab Mukherjee will reportedly write two sequels to the first part of his autobiography, which released this year. The sequel to Nelson Mandela’s autobiography is also slated to appear next year. Natwar Singh too had earlier said that he might return with a sequel; ex-Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Vinod Rai, too was quoted as saying that if he is pushed the wrong way, he might write a sequel to his already much talked-about book.
From a consumerist position, societal and private lives are dialectically different, yet related. For a society to hold grounds, it has to be acknowledged by its members; and vice versa. In their acts, people thus consciously take into account the fear of consequence, of collective judgement. Autobiographies too seem to cater to this realisation. There is a constant individual urge to be validated by society. When the self is challenged, a writer employs his/her authorship, thereby appealing for a reconsideration of his/her evaluation. It’s an urge to be heard, seen, and justified. It’s an attempt to seek redemption, catharsis, and solace. And in this win-win arrangement, nobody is complaining; the readers get their dirt on the famous lot, the writers attain the contentment they sought and the publishers laugh all their way to the banks.
Memoirs written by others
Indians are said to be one of the most voracious reading population. No wonder then that autobiographies have worked their charm on the populace. This year alone, there was a striking influx of colourful personal accounts penned by famous, celebrated figures. But there were also the memoirs written by others as an ode to certain personalities. For instance, Dilip Kumar’s The Substance and the Shadow was co-written by Udaya Tara Nayar. Most talked about, of course, was Sanjaya Baru’s book on former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (The Accidental Prime Minister), but there was also Singh’s daughter, author Daman’s Singh’s biographical work on her parents titled Strictly Speaking: Manmohan and Gursharan. While Rai presented his version of the infamous 2G scam story in Not Just an Accountant, established investigative journalist Hussain Zaidi penned the biography of dreaded don Abu Salem (My Name is Abu Salem). While Dr Binayak Sen’s wife Ilina Sen chronicled his life and struggles in Inside Chhattisgarh, veteran film photojournalist Pradeep Chandra penned an impressive coffee table book on the life and works of actor Aamir Khan (named after him). In 2014, it was as if the face camouflaged underneath the sheet of fame had been unmasked and had transformed into an evocative voice narrating its life story.
The science of memory
The emotional and content qualities of autobiographical memories are said to be evoked by three memory aspects: olfactory, visual and auditory. We are surrounded by stories, we grow up listening to them, internalising, telling and creating them, and eventually turning into them. It is the action of interpreting them which transforms a memory from an act of reminiscing into its tangible recreation (read publishing). Psychologically, one can argue, an autobiography emerges in childhood, in adolescence the memories coalesce into a narrative, mostly socio-cultural in nature, and as time passes, the political and historical models of selves reconfigure its course. There is thus an inevitable tendency to be self-righteous, even when acknowledging one’s mistakes and demerits in a autobiography. like Sigmund Freud would say, the ego develops to mediate between id — the immediate gratification of wants, and the super-ego, which is influenced by the external real world. An autobiography, in a way, is thus the love-child of the id and super-ego.
Most celebrities believe Twitter is their tool to pay back bad press. With the rapid growth of social media and public exposure, more and more renowned personalities have come out to share their private lives. In 2014, established names from multiple fields came forward to present their stories, which were lavishly consumed by the masses. These autobiographies launched an onslaught of discourses — on sports, politics, cinema, and society. Rumour has it that Sonia Gandhi is considering penning her memoirs; what needs to be seen is how many more Indian women actually come forward to bare and bear it all.
ananyapioneer@gmail.com