“We were lucky in those days. Girls liked being kissed”: Pritish Nandy

Whether it’s facing a raging bull or being stuck in an elevator with Donald Trump, poet-politician-filmmaker Pritish Nandy is game for anything that life can possibly throw at him – just so long as it’s not an underwater safari.

By Mallica Singh · Sep 2016 · 8 min read

“We were lucky in those days. Girls liked being kissed”: Pritish Nandy

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If your house was on fire, and you could save only three things, what would you run out with?

Mojo, my Labrador with a damaged hip; a copy of Alice in Wonderland; and the razor I shave my head with.

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If you could be in a movie of your choice, which one would you pick and what character would you like to play?

Taxi Driver, Scorsese’s best. Travis Bickle.

If you could invite four famous people (could be dead or living) to dinner, who would you choose?

Mata Hari, Marilyn Monroe, Madhubala and Jhumpa Lahiri. After that it may not just end up being a dinner though...

If you could come back from the dead and haunt someone, who would it be? Why would you pick that particular person?

Haruki Murakami. Sheer envy. He writes so well!

What’s something you’re really bad at and wish you weren’t?

Music. I know it’s the staircase to heaven but I can never find my way up it. I love music but I can’t sing to save my life or play an instrument with any degree of competence. I am just not gifted, I guess.

Please share a personal fact or idiosyncrasy no one could ever guess about you...

I see myself first and foremost as a poet. Not as a journalist or as an editor. Not as a filmmaker. Not as a Member of Parliament or a humanitarian. I look at life as only a poet would do.

If you were forced to live the life of another celebrity for a day who would you pick and why?

John Lennon. He was a wonderful poet and one of the greatest singers and composers of all time. It is very rare that one combines so much talent. The only other person I can think of is Bob Dylan. Again, amazing talent!

Is there something you’ve always wanted to try but have been too scared to?

Underwater safaris. Arthur C Clarke tried his best to convince me when I met him in Colombo and I just couldn’t do it.

The last outlandish/wild thing you did – tell us about it.

Well, I have spent an entire lifetime doing things few would have dared to and most would have considered outlandish. So why pick on just one? No, I do not do wild things to grab headlines. I do them as they come naturally to me, and have done so all my life, quietly, and in my own unobtrusive way. I make my choices in life without necessarily aligning with what people like to consider normal.

Any bizarre encounter you’ve had or any inexplicable phenonemon you’ve witnessed in life? Could you recount it for us?

My answer is the same here. I have had countless amazing and inexplicable experiences in my life and they have all made a huge difference to it. How can I name just one? For instance, every time I have fallen in love, my life has transformed. Every time I have shifted gear in my career, my life has changed. Every time I have read a great book or watched a remarkable film or heard a great concert, it has left an indelible mark on my life. Every wonderful thing that has happened to me is, for me, a unique and inexplicable phenomenon.

How can I explain to you the magic of listening to Ravi Shankar

Hard choices: would you rather...?

…have no taste buds or see things only in black and white?

See things only in black and white. Some of the world’s greatest writers, photographers and filmmakers have told magical tales in black and white. Study the works of the great photographer and environmentalist Ansel Adams. Or watch The Great Dictator by Charlie Chaplin. Or just flip through the pages of the early editions of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. You will realise that there exists a world out there in black and white that is as beautiful, as exciting and as memorable, as the world in colour.

...experience the beginning or the end of planet earth?

The beginning, of course. That was creativity at its finest. Absolute magic! The end will be violent and catastrophic. No, that is not my scene. I leave that to the prophets of the Armageddon. And to Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer.

…be able to talk your way out of any situation, or punch your way out of it?

I am an author. For me, words are always a stronger weapon than fisticuffs..

…have a foot-long nose or a foot-long tongue?

Neither. I am delighted with what I have. I am told I use them well.

…be in jail for 10 years or be in a coma for 20 years?

Certainly not in a coma. That’s my biggest nightmare.

…live in space or under the sea?

Under the sea. I can discover many wonderful species there. The space has no species, not as far as we know. The existence of aliens is as yet unproved.

…be gossiped about or never talked about at all?

Honestly, I am quite comfortable with both. I am happy being gossiped about. And I am equally delighted to be forgotten. Both work well for me..

…be stranded alone on an island or with someone you absolutely abhor?

I’d be happy being stranded on an island with someone I abhor as long as she is hot, sexy and beautiful. I will teach myself to like her.

…tell someone that you love them or that you don’t love them?

Both come easy to me. I am always ready to tell someone I love that I love her. And I am as ready to tell someone I don’t that I don’t. Relationships are built on the truth. Never mislead others. Tell it to them as it is.

…be bitten by a venomous snake or gored by a bull?

I am not frightened of either. I am sure I can make friends with a snake without being bitten and play volleyball with a bull without being gored. I get on very well with all species.

…share your office cabin with a nosy colleague or a noisy one?

Neither. I have never shared my workplace with anyone. My work has always been creative whether I am writing, making movies, or painting. Aloneness and silence come with the territory.

…be buried alive or stabbed to death?

Again, neither. And I believe I have the skill sets to easily resist both.

…be stuck in an elevator for hours with Donald Trump or Arnab Goswami?

Donald Trump. I can perhaps convince him that to make America great again, he does not need to be mean to others.

…know for sure who killed JFK or what really happened to Marilyn Monroe?

Marilyn Monroe. She was lovely and interested me far more than JFK.

Be painted by Pablo Picasso or Salvador Dali?

By Dali. Even though Picasso was undoubtedly a greater painter, I love surrealism. And Dali was truly its greatest exponent. playing Raag Bhairavi at five in the morning in the Dover Lane Music Conference as the sun was about to rise and the streets were being washed? My childhood memories from Kolkata are made of such magic moments...

Your views on love in the time of Tinder, on modern love and dating...

There is nothing more beautiful, more life transforming than love. Be it in the time of Tinder or in the era of Gone With the Wind. Love changes its colours all the time but it remains the most exciting, memorable and powerful force on earth. I should know. I have fallen in love enough number of times to understand its centrality in my life.

If you could go back in time and change an event in history, what would it be?

The assassination of Gandhi. That should have never happened.

If you could replay a fun moment in your life, which one would you choose?

The first time I smoked up in school and then went off and kissed the girl I always wanted to and never dared. (She later said, she was always hoping I would.) It took me some grass to gain the courage. We were lucky in those days. Girls liked being kissed.

Three things you’d like to change about your city...

One: Its obsession with money at the cost of everything else and its stupid admiration of the rich. Two: When I first came to Mumbai I loved the way it stayed awake late into the night. I would like that confidence to return. And finally, I would want the city to be more humane towards the poor and homeless, both human beings as well as animals. We have lost the ability to even notice their presence, leave alone help them.

Have you ever met someone who has completely altered your thinking? Tell us about it.

Indira Gandhi. The Emergency she imposed transformed my life. An easygoing poet became a battling journalist. I realised the futility of words unless they could be used to change the world around oneself.

If you were to wake up tomorrow as an animal, what animal would you choose to be and why?

Perhaps a big cat? A tiger, a panther, a lion, whatever. I love them all. There is a great majesty about them. I would love to rule the jungle.

What’s the best thing about being a member of your generation?

It has produced the greatest minds and the finest creative people of all time. That is why I so love my generation. Who could have listened to Elvis Presley, The Beatles and Michael Jackson in one lifetime? Who could have watched films by Satyajit Ray, Fellini, Bergman and Woody Allen, in one lifetime? Who could have read and met Marquez and Octavio Paz, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Tariq Ali, and been friends with them? Who could have heard Pavarotti and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Kishore Kumar and Adele, perform? Who could have been friends with M F Husain and Mother Teresa, Ravi Shankar and the Dalai Lama, if I was not born in this generation? There was excellence all around us, magic wherever we looked. There was Che and there was Abdul Sattar Edhi, Baryshnikov and Birju Maharaj, Pele and Messi, Gaitonde and Mario Miranda, Al Pacino and J Law, JRD and Steve Jobs. What more can you ask for?