‘Blinded, shadowless and true...’

This existential struggle which today might be considered ‘over-thinking’ for a teenager, forms a multi-layered dialogue sometimes referencing a father or mother, sometimes conversing with an absent God, sometimes simply thinking aloud “answers which can come only by vanishing my question”.

By Meher Pestonji

“When a circle’s tract begins

Every point is a turning point

No point can be without

One gone before or

One following

Until the last point

Between end and beginning is

Crossed.

End becomes beginning

Beginning end

And life and knowledge are

Fulfilled in the plan.”

Adil Jussawalla’s monologue ‘Soliloquies’, written when he was just 17, is the anguished cry of an adolescent compelled to hurt the family he loves to follow his own calling.  Written in London where he was expected to study architecture but flowered into a poet instead, the play focuses on Adil’s tormented inner life with few images of the bustling city in which he remained a loner.

Recently published by Jeet Thayil Editions, the monologue is accompanied by an 80 page conversation between Adil and Jeet providing insights into  experiences and reflections that have gone into the making of the adult poet.

For those who know him today, his mystical musings come as a surprise as in later life he has placed feet firmly on the ground of sceptical, rational thought.

Back in those days Adil was facing deprivations of student life in an age when government regulations allowed families to send only a limited allowance each year. Life in London was a contrast for the student from an affluent family with a string of affectionate nicknames  -- ‘Buster Keaton’, ‘Atlas’, ‘Beauty Contest’, ‘Grumpy’ and ‘gokalgai’ the Gujerati word for snail – coined by family, friends and teachers from Cathedral school. Withdrawing into himself from the glamorous city, he appealed for understanding from a higher source called God. 

He tells Jeet about having a breakdown as he had to survive on limited food, no sex, and was overworked. Once looking into a mirror, he found himself staring at a lizard. Another time lying in a park he was filled with ecstasy as sky and grass merged into him and he felt stars coming closer silently telling him ‘look kid, you’re going to be alright, we are always here’.

Such mystical experiences he has not known before or after.

Jian, the protagonist of ‘Soliloquies’, whom Adil describes as “a seedbed for mysticism”, becomes his mouthpiece. He walks away from family and religion in a search of an alternative truth, free of rituals or injunctions of priests. Says Jian…

“When after walking my own shadow for

Years, I broke from it and fell

Into a visioned universe of light

Blinded, shadowless and true.”

Though born into the Zoroastrian faith, the iconography Adil draws on is universal. “David, why are your Psalms despairing?”, “Siddharth has your Serene Buddha head no compassion for those you forsook?” ; “The inheritance of light is ours from our Father, to the Son, Immaterial through the Holy Ghost.”

On a day when depression deepens, he pleads, “Father in Heaven, Spirit of all Spirits, Rebuke me not...Turn me not to emptiness.”

There’s guilt at disappointing his father who expected him to become an architect. Also at abandoning the safe harbours of religious convention in a quest for personal truth. He pleads:

“O God!

For whom I have to hurt

The ones I love; for whom

My conscience and my pride

Must be annulled

This biting self of mine remove

Accept my surrender…..”

As the  struggle intensifies,

“Cannot those I love receive You              

Through me, that I must

Leave them to illusion, and know

Truth myself?”

This existential struggle which today might be considered ‘over-thinking’ for a teenager, forms a multi-layered dialogue sometimes referencing a father or mother, sometimes conversing with an absent God, sometimes simply thinking aloud “answers which can come only by vanishing my question”.

Jeet’s interview goes on to trace lifelong friendships with Nissim Ezekiel, Dom Moraes, and the poets published by Clearing House -- Arun Kolhatkar, Gieve Patel, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and Adil himself.

Those were the exhilarating 1970s and ’80s, when English writing in India began to get international attention. Adil’s book among the first four was titled ‘Missing Person.’

“The missing person is a paradox,” says Adil of his semi-autobiographical poem. “Does he want to be found, or does he want to remain invisible, or on the margin?”

The poem emerged from his disillusionment with the Marxist idea of declassing which involves giving up everything that has made you what you are. At the same time, he was impacted by the plight of drought-affected farmers on Bombay’s streets.

Adil’s existential dilemma took a new twist. You don’t need to declass to have empathy. Yet, significant change can only happen through collective action. 

His search for authenticity continues. Jian’s ghost hovers in a new avatar.

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Meher Pestonji is a writer, poet and social activist based in Mumbai.  She has been a journalist writing on multiple social issues, theatre, literature and art, and she has worked in several grassroots and civil society campaigns for the rights of the marginalised, for women’s rights, housing rights of slum dwellers, with street kids, among other campaigns. Her books include Mixed Marriage and Other Parsi  Stories, Pervez, Sadak Chhaap, Piano for sale, Feeding crows, Outsider.  Her other books include Being Human in a War Zone, Can Poetry Halt War, Offspring and Poems.