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Prasoon Joshi, the poet, lyricist, screenwriter and advertising copywriter from Uttarakhand, who recently won the Best Lyricist award at the 55th National Awards for Taare Zameen Par, reminisces about his life in the hill state in a tête-à-tête with Hemant Singh Rana
There are so many memories that are still alive, especially of Almora. There it felt that the world was my playground. When we would come from the plains where my father was posted, I and my sisters would race to my nani’s house, where only love awaited. There were no restrictions, houses never locked. Meals of ras-bhaath and bal mithai would add to the delight of being there. There I felt it rained because the mountains could take a bath in the rain. The rainwater showered them with an angelic glow and then simply chose to flow off the slopes without collecting into messy puddles. The sunlight there was always so gentle. Even the wind personified itself, whistling, shaking the saankal, knocking on the doors. Winter came with the warmth of love of families sitting huddled around bonfires, sharing a quilt, eating bhune huye bhatt (roasted soyabean) and recounting, most often, spooky tales. To have spent a childhood in the hills is perhaps the most wondrous thing. After a walk in the hills, William Wordsworth wrote Daffodils. Has your connection with devbhoomi contributed to your creativity? As a writer and poet, I owe much to the mountains where I grew up. Mountains teach you to be your own companion. You don’t look for company as there is so much to explore there. As a child you are one with nature; you haven’t yet learnt that mud is dirty, that the water from the spring is grimy and talking to yourself can look crazy. Parvin Shakir, a Pakistani poetess while describing a child catching a butterfly, says "ek phool ko titli ke peeche bhagte dekha". This best describes the essence of a child, especially in the mountains. The introduction to nature at an early age gave me the ability to express myself on paper. Pahadi women too have inspired me tremendously. Despite their tough life, they manage to retain their gentleness. I have dedicated my song "Maati" sung by Shubha Mudgal from the album Mann ke Manjeere to hill women. My identity as a person and writer is fused with that of the mountains. Here every faint sound is heard, every minute frequency sensed, the sound of the gushing waterfall far away, the falling of a leaf and the raindrops, the sound of a wet branch crunched underfoot or the distinctive cooing of a bird. I feel one with Uttarakhand. You wrote your first book Main aur Woh — a conversation with himself, when you were 17. Subsequently, you authored two more books. From where did the inspiration come from at such a young age? Reading Kafka, Pablo Neruda, Acharya Rajneesh and philosophers like Nietzsche and Jung early in life gave me a lot of inspiration. I was taken by their views that challenged mindless conventions. The sheer craft of Sumitranandan Pant’s poetry or the power of thought in Suryakant Tripathi Nirala’s works affected me. The voice of Ustad Amir Khan saab and Kishori Amonkar left me deeply moved. In advertising, people like Suresh Mullick and Neil French encouraged me. My two-year-old daughter was an inspiration for Taare Zameen Par. You did your post-graduation in science and went on to do MBA before entering advertising. Were the initial years full of uncertainty? Very much so. My parents wanted me to have a solid educational background and a proper career. Though I went on to do my degrees, yet I knew I always wanted to write or be in a creative field. When I figured out that advertising is the field where I can earn by writing, I was thrilled. Fortunately, I got a break in a reputed agency. But the industry was very different then. It was very anglicised then and had a lot of western influence. There was hardly any room for those who thought and wrote in Hindi. It was an uphill task to establish that creativity is not language-bound and moreover that knowing the language and minds of our masses is far more important than the familiarity with things western. Besides being a successful advertising professional, you are a great screenwriter and lyricist. How do you don so many roles? I never plan anything in life. I take things as they come and try to live in the moment and do justice to that fully. I have been writing ever since I remember. Whether it was as an eight-year-old when I wrote short stories on loose sheets and tied these with a string and circulated these among my friends in Almora, or getting my books published — the first at the age of 17 — or writing and singing my first jingle or film song. I still write poetry albeit more for myself but there’s a fourth book of poetry in there somewhere, in ads or jingles or songs dialogues. I don’t want to choose any one aspect or phase. Actually just the sound of my ink pen on the paper is enough enjoyment for me. You see at the core of it all is creativity it — it may get expressed in the form of an idea, a jingle, a product innovation, a song, a dialogue...it’s just a question of form. How frequently do you visit Uttarakhand? Not as often as I would like to. If I had my way I would be there every month. Every nook and corner of Gharwal and Kumaoun is beautiful. But if I have to pick one place I love the most, it would be Jageshwar. The serenity, the river next to the temple, the cheed ke ped give it a distinct character.
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A major part of your
childhood was spent in Uttarakhand. How do you recollect the memories
your life in the hills?