So here’s the thing about writing for a better world: it’s complicated.
The thing about championing a cause is that, it’s a little like love. Activists, much like lovers, seem to believe that because their love burns with such intensity inside of them, surely the incandescence of it must light up the world? But here’s the thing, it’s all inside you, and my friend, unless you get up on that water tank and declare it to the world, you’re unlikely to have an audience of more than a few surly, non-committal Jai’s (who, even as they believe in your cause, might not exactly be the best people to have on your side).
If you love so deeply, show us.
With a panel that consisted of writers, activists, writer-activists and journalists, the discussion was bound to be interesting. Ably moderated by Dilip D’Souza (in a spousally approved shirt which he very wisely changed into before taking the stage), panellists Bittu Sahgal, Rajni Bakshi, Darryl D’Monte and Joseph Campana spoke with passion and eloquence about the challenges and the difficulties of writing for a better world.
The discussion opened with Bittu Sahgal who read out two touching excerpts of writing by his favourite author Rachel Carson (thank you, Dilip). He spoke enthusiastically of his work of saving the tiger and how, sadly enough, his most receptive audiences consisted of children below the age of 13. The overall feeling one got after Mr. Sahgal’s allotted 3 minutes were up, was that he despaired of ever finding an attentive audience (and therefore a future keeper of the flame) among adults who, blinded by greed and avarice (a bit harsh, don’t you think, Mr. Sahgal?), just could not see that in saving the tigers, they were simply saving themselves.
Which brings me to the point that Darry D’Monte made about the world being full of ‘knowledge resistant’ people. Mr. D’Monte, with this I humbly beg to differ. We’re not knowledge resistant, if anything, we’re hungry to know more. The only problem is that perhaps we lack the wisdom to decide what it is we want to know more about. You could blame that on the information overload that as the internet-generation, we are bound to be subjected to, but this is where I gently place the blame – or a large part of it at least – on your able shoulders. The thing is, I’m an ardent supporter of the school of pedagogy which believes that the student is never (well, not quite never, but close enough) at fault. I’ve been blessed and cursed with teachers who have inspired and completely put me off the subjects they taught respectively. While I couldn’t really find a connector between the bad teachers (except maybe boredom), between the good ones, there was the common factor of passion. A deep and abiding love for the subjects they taught. Their enthusiasm was like a particularly infectious virus which you couldn’t help but catch.
We don’t not want to know, it’s just that with the reams of information we have access to, it’s difficult to know who the real McCoy is.
And I think this is where the similarity between lovers and activists ends. Lovers can make grand gestures; their passion (and their hormones to a certain extent), grant them the licence. Unfortunately, most activists I know are intensely private individuals and shouting from the rooftops seems absurd to them, almost beneath their dignity. I understand this behaviour, but as someone who is part of the big bad media machine, I can tell them that it won’t work. Too many causes have died for want of good marketing. Is that sad? Of course it is, tragic even, but for the thing you love, this much needs to be done. Our attention spans may be shorter, our intelligence eroded, but tell us about your love in a way that we can understand and we will love too.
A very valid point that came up in the course of the discussion was, why is it that so much activist literature (if it can be called that) makes for such poor reading? As panellist Darry D’monte rightly pointed out, it is because most activists are just that, activists. There is no clause in the activist’s 10 commandments that says, ‘Thou shalt also be a good communicator.’
So how does one solve this predicament? It seems a simple enough matter of bringing together causes and people who would like to champion them, but like most simple solutions, it is not easy. Panellist Joseph Campana had a partial solution; encourage students of writing to also study subjects that tell them about the world, its history and its stories. A writer with a cause he /she believes in is a better, a more coherent, a more believable writer. Panellist Rajni Bakshi also made a valid point when she said that as activists, as believers in a cause, it is also their lot to make their causes more appealing to the public. It might be a tad annoying to have to explain the iridescent beauty of the one you love, but that has long been the source of the world’s best stories, poems and plays. Would a “Thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars” have been as much a part of popular consciousness as it is now if Christopher Marlowe had thought, “Look, it’s very obvious that she’s beautiful, why do I need to make a song and dance about it?”
Activists’ selfless love for causes is noble and wonderful, but finding champions for them should be a part of that love. Mr. Bittu Sahgal, I’m looking at you.
