Synopsis "Encounter with Kiran Fragments from a Relationship (in English)"
DescriptionWhen they first met in 2002 at a literary festival, Nayantara Sahgal was a veteranof more than twenty books; her debut work, the memoir Prison and ChocolateCake, was published in 1954. Kiran Nagarkar had published his first novel, SaatSakkam Trechalis, in Marathi in 1974, and his first work in English, Ravan andEddie, twenty years later. Sparks didn't fly at that first encounter. It was only in2014, when Nagarkar wrote to Sahgal about Mistaken Identity and other books ofhers that he had read, that she invited him to lunch at her home in Dehradun-and thus began a correspondence that lasted until Nagarkar's death in 2019.As they discussed each other's work, their almost daily exchange of emails grewinto a sharing of concerns: Nagarkar's chronic ill-health, Sahgal's grief on the deathof her 23-year-old grandson, Zum, and through it all, their distress at the rise ofviolent majoritarianism and the loss of democratic ideals in their beloved country.Emails don't, observes Sahgal, 'have the prestige of letters, but they havean immediacy that letters can't have. Our mails made for the sense of apresence nearby with whom it became natural to share views, feelings anddaily doings'. United by their love of books and their politics, separated bydistance-Nagarkar in Mumbai, Sahgal in Dehradun-this immediacy wasthe key to a friendship that remains an enigma to an outsider. For Sahgal, theemotions appear to be those of a friend, albeit a close and loving one. ForNagarkar, 72 to Sahgal's 87 when the correspondence began, the feelings rundeeper; he misses her constantly, and proclaims his love.This collection of mails is a rare and poignant document, an intimate glimpseinto the life and times of two extraordinary writers who drew strength fromeach other in their personal and political battles.
