‘I am a Madrasi', says Tishani Doshi

Poet, writer, danseuse: the beautiful Tishani Doshi’s eclectic persona and talents could fill a book. Her multi-ethnic background — that of being born to a Welsh mother and Gujarati father — might have aided to her thought process when she was but a teenager in Chennai, but Tishani’s decision to move to the US to pursue an undergraduate degree in Business Administration truly opened up her horizons, and exposed her to the sensibilities of American literature while she was a student.

What followed was a whirlwind ride — from classes at the Johns Hopkins University when she took to poetry to the high-flying fashion scene in London that piqued her awhile. In 2001 though, the longing for her motherland became far too much, urging Tishani to fly back home — but she wouldn’t have guessed that a chance encounter with the legendary choreographer Chandralekha would open up yet another avenue for her creative pursuits: dancing.

A woman of many parts, five years later, Tishani’s debut collection of poems, Countries of the Body, won the prestigious Forward Prize for Best First Collection. She is also the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award, the All-India Poetry Prize for her poem, ‘The Day We Went to the Sea’. Her first novel, The Pleasure Seekers, was published by Bloomsbury in 2010 and translated into several languages. More recently, her latest book of poetry, Everything Begins Elsewhere, released earlier this year to critical and commercial acclaim, and her second novel is in the works.

Today, she’s one of our most well regarded poets, her many endeavours making Tishani a constant source of inspiration and interest — DC met her.

How I began:
I was 20 when I decided to become a poet. It wasn’t an epiphany, but rather, a gradual awareness that writing was the most important thing for me. My happiest moments seemed to be at a desk scribbling in notebooks, observing the world around me, and I wanted to make a life for myself where I could always do this. Having grown up with two different cultures may or may not have led me to poetry. It did, however, enlarge my idea of the world at a young age.

As an undergraduate I was perfectly competent at any number of things, but I loved none of them. I think when you discover passion, and when you are fuelled by a kind of obsession in your work, it’s very hard to imagine doing anything else, so, when I discovered poetry, that was it for me. And no, I really never aspired to being anyone else.

A realm of influences:
I took my first creative writing class as a junior in college in North Carolina, and it was a beginning for me — of understanding the power of language. The poetry I grew up with in school was primarily written by dead people (mostly men) and it was about daffodils and Grecian urns — things that seemed stuck in a different age. So when I first encountered American contemporary poetry it was like a peeling off of skin, eyes, ears — I was hearing, seeing, touching something completely new, which gave me license to write my own poems in a very different way even though they had little to do with the American landscape.

Straddling the East and West:
Poetry is always changing, and it’s difficult for me to categorise or define it in terms of East and West. I think, as a poet, no matter where you are from in the world, you start with the prism of your self, the individual, before looking out to the larger cosmos. I will say though, that certain places take root in you, and that no matter what kind of sensibilities I may have developed as a student in the United States, my work has always been primarily about India. As a creative impulse, the Indian narrative has always been of great interest to me, but not necessarily always in the form of Indian tradition.

Growth as a poet:

I don’t see anything in my life as truly intentional. Certainly, becoming a poet was not a planned ambition. In between my two poetry collections I published a novel, The Pleasure Seekers, and since Everything Begin, I have published a novella about surrogacy called Fountainville and contributed to a coffee table book, Madras Then, Chennai Now. From 2006, when I published my first book, till now, my conviction in poetry has only deepened. It is one of the hardest genres to publish in, and it would be easy to get cynical about how no one cares about poetry, but in fact, it is everything. Some people just don’t realise it and my job is to make them realise it. 

Everything Begins Elsewhere:
The poems came about on a walking trip to Bhutan. I came across so many beautiful bridges in Bhutan and I learned that bridges were one of the first architectural structures, which were built to improve the way of the traveller, and to show kindness to a traveller was a way of improving your karma. As a person who travels widely, naturally I was struck with this idea of erasing borders instead of creating them and that’s when the first poem was born, How to build a bridge between the past and the future. All the poems in this book are, in a way, meditations on loss and reclamation, and this illusory idea of home, the idea of beginnings and the very potent idea of elsewhere.

Chandralekha and dance:

I was a dabbler as a child, so I did a little bit of everything, including dance, but I didn’t have any ambitions to be on stage. Meeting Chandralekha was one of the most serendipitous events in my life, and it all happened so organically that at the time I didn’t think it was strange at all for me to be spending my days in a dance theatre… I mean, I knew it was remarkable at the time, while it was happening, all the talk and the emotions and the changes that were happening, but it’s only in hindsight that I can appreciate how much luck has a role to play in changing our lives.

Our last performance was two years ago in Sydney. So it’s been a while since I’ve been in the theatre, and I do miss the daily rehearsals, but the conversation that was started with dance is still ongoing. There is a wonderful synergy with writing and dance — the whole concept of time, rhythm, sensuality, which I explore in tandem.

From Madras to Chennai:

I have just written about all this extensively in my essay for the Roli book, Madras Then, Chennai Now. I was born here so I feel that the city has certainly infiltrated me in many ways, and there are many qualities here that I feel you cannot find in other Indian metros — there’s a wonderful juxtaposition of tradition and modernity, it is romantic and industrious, open and closed. I feel that remarkable people live in the city, going about their work without making too much fanfare about it, and ultimately, I think it is a city with grace. I do feel that the onslaught of consumerism has hit it rather hard, there is a burgeoning ugliness along with increased traffic and pollution and noise, which somewhat tarnishes the sleepy, charming image. But ultimately, I am a Madrasi. And this is the only place I call home.

A memorable moment:
I think winning the Forward Prize for Poetry with Countries of the Body — because I really didn’t expect it, and winning a prize of that stature just affirms certain things for you — it gives you financial backing, but a reat deal of emotional assurance too, and as a young poet, it was just what I needed.

Looking ahead:
I’m looking into some dance/art installations, the new novel and always always more poems.