Retrieved via the Wayback Machine. Originally posted by addytorialsThe quintessential dark horse of modern Indian poetry was brought to life on the evening of 4th February, 2006, under the visionary direction of Gowri Ramnarayan. The elusive baritone doyen of Bengali art-house films, Dhritiman Chaterji, lends his talent to fill the shoes of the enigmatic Arun Kolatkar in a surrealistic interpretative performance of the poet and his art replete with classical and imaginative play-acting. What better way to inaugurate the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival?

The Dark Horse: Walking Down Arun Kolatkar’s Lane

The presentation raises more questions than it attempts to answer. For one, is this a play? I simply couldn’t get my head around that one. On being asked for directions for the “play at 5:30?”, the kind souls at the Help Desk insist vehemently that I must go to Horniman Circle if I want to view a play. “On the other hand,” they say, “you could go for Dark Horse: Walking Down Arun Kolatkar’s Lane at NGMA. It is a literary event and promises to be very interesting.”

“Ah, interesting indeed,” I reply.

A literary event. And here I was getting ready to watch a fictionalised enactment of Arun Kolatkar and his work. What was I thinking? Yet worse was the aura surrounding the words “Literary Event”. They seemed to be the kind of words that are usually spoken in whispers by members of a strange hooded cult over late night cups of ginseng and chamomile tea. Artsy-fartsy people, in a simple-folk manner of speaking.

But lo! I couldn’t have jumped to a conclusion further from the truth. The audience happily presented itself as a singular mass of people who have trouble comprehending the simplistic courtesy of switching off their mobile phones during a performance. Better yet, some even took the trouble to chatter away with friends in the audience, thus reaffirming my faith in us common people. Ha, intellectual intelligentsia these are not. I am on familiar grounds after all.

So what, then, were they doing there? And what was I doing there?

I presume I was there because a few printed words had once opened my eyes to a city I have been in living in for eight years but never really seen as Kolatkar did. And I was there because those printed words had spoken to me and me only. Truly, it was a one-way communication with my name on it. I just knew it - Kolatkar was talking to me. And for once I wanted to see who the man behind those words really was, even as an interpreted ghost of himself.

Of course, I was disappointed. But that has no bearing on the sterling performances. Poetry is a very personal experience. It is read in a voice and a rhythm only you are familiar with. To see that given a voice and a personality by somebody is like seeing your childhood being played out by people who don’t know you at all. It is very disconcerting, to say the least.

But not for long.

Before you know it, you find yourself among the characters. You are the cynical fan who has been touched by his words. You are the observer on a bus-ride to Jejuri. You are the interviewer with so many questions to ask of the man. And in instances you are the poet himself, trying to elucidate on the science of the art. (”I put what I want to say out there. And then I just play.”)

Since the presentation (I still hesitate to call it a play) will be performing elsewhere in the future (and should continue to do so), it would not be prudent to divulge the details of the narrative. But a unique narrative it is. Interspersed with interpretations and readings of Kolatkar’s poetry, the interviewer doubles back to hint at why the poet will always remain an enigma. We will get from the presentation what her magazine readers will get from the interview - paraphrased dialogues interspersed with snatches of poetry to fill the gaps. The poet will always remain a personal interpretation of the unsaid and the overlooked. (”There must be a very interesting answer to your question. But. I don’t have it.”)

I come out of the NGMA not having learned anything about the poet that I can express in so many words. But as I walk from that beautiful gothic structure to the Kala Ghoda triangle, traffic lights wink at me, an old beggar gives me an all-knowing toothless smile and a stray dog strolling by looks incredibly familiar.

Now, that’s poetry.