Jahane Rumi In search of the unsearchable: O, my soul! where would you find your house?

31Mar/094

Postcard from Agra

Published in The Friday Times

As Indian TV channels broadcast stories on Pakistan's domestic infighting, and rumours of a new coup d' etat, my less perturbed alter-ego is calmed by Agra - the run down city that was once the capital of the Mughal empire. I have spent three days with a delightful group of South Asian writers, poets and academics who have congregated to celebrate the SAARC writers' festival organised by Ajeet Caur, the legendary Punjabi writer whose love for Lahore has not waned despite the iron curtain erected sixty one years ago. Caur has been managing the Foundation of South Asian Writers and Literature (FOSWAL) since 1992 and single-handedly she has challenged the many geographical and political barriers that have been erected. FOSWAL is now a platform for writers and poets on the margins of power-drama, lighting little lamps of hope. (picture above left : SAARC writers with Pakistani delegates Ustad Akhtar (middle), Parveen Atif (second from left) and Zahid Nawaz (extreme right)

I had been reading Caur's earthy, profound stories for decades, and always wondered if I would ever meet her. Therefore, receiving an invite from her a month ago, was a long cherished wish come true. In a few, scattered and sparkling conversations she told me how she had found me through my writings urging for Indo-Pak amity which, in the words of my cynical friends, are dreamy rants asking for the impossible. This March, the gods overseeing visas and border crossings were not too cantankerous. So I made it to Delhi the day before the conference was due to start.
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7Jul/087

Hanif Kureishi on the room where he writes

Writers' rooms: Hanif Kureishi Guardian has compiled an interesting list of writers and their rooms here. Here's a detailed account of Kureishi's room:

"The garden gnome with his bottom showing on the desk was given to me by my son. I've got three sons - 13-year-old twins and an eight year old - and almost all the objects you see on the shelves are to do with them: they are of no intrinsic value but they remind me in some way of my boys.

The photographs are also mainly of my kids. And above the desk there's a very sexy picture of Kate Moss. I think every writer needs a picture of Kate Moss in their room as an inspiration. Kate is from South London like me, and, indeed, like my girlfriend, also a Croydon girl.

I've got thousands of CDs because I always listen to music when I'm writing. I've done it since I was a teenager, when I first started writing in my bedroom in Bromley. Silence makes me feel rather uncomfortable, nervous.

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