Nissim Ezekiel, my father

If I could pray, the gist of my

Demanding would be simply this:

Quietude. The ordered mind.

Erasure of the inner lie,

And only love in every kiss.

(From ‘Prayer 1’ by Nissim Ezekiel)

The year 2024 is the birth centenary of Nissim Ezekiel. For me, as his daughter, it is a time to celebrate his life firstly as a father, and then for the immense legacy he left for the literary world and his mentorship of many younger poets like Dom Moraes, Adil Jussawalla, Gieve Patel, Menka Shivdasani, Ranjit Hoskote and Sudeep Sen. He placed special emphasis on the craft of writing and on attention to careful and thoughtful revision of a poem. He created a space for poetry, both the reading of it at the PEN office in Bombay, and the publishing of poetry.

In ‘Modern Indian Poetry in English’ (1987), the first comprehensive overview of the field, American scholar Bruce King presented Ezekiel as a watershed in the evolution of Indian poetry in English; the poet who “brought a sense of discipline, self-criticism and mastery to Indian English poetry”, separating poetry as a “hobby, something done in spare moments” from poetry as a vocation, to be pursued with “craftsmanship and purposefulness”.

Ezekiel was a poet, playwright, editor, art and television critic, translator and professor. He wrote hundreds of book reviews and essays on poetry, travelling extensively in India and overseas on invitation, reading his poetry and speaking at literary events. He was invited as visiting professor at the University of Leeds in 1964 and Writer-in-Residence at the University of Singapore. By common consensus, he is remembered as the ‘Father of post-colonial Indian writing in English’, specifically in the field of poetry. He is also fondly known as the ‘poet of Bombay’.

He was born in 1924 into a Bene Israel Indian-Jewish family in Bombay, a city he loved dearly and never wanted to leave. My father passed away in 2004.

The centenary celebrations have been ongoing throughout the year. They began with The Nissim Ezekiel Poetry Crawl hosted by Saranya Subramanian, where people walked through the iconic city and poetic landmarks, stopping to read Ezekiel’s poetry, and experiencing Bombay through the poet’s lens. This was a part of the Mumbai Kala Ghoda Literature Festival held in January.

In August, the Sahitya Akademi held a seminar on Nissim Ezekiel’s impact on Indian poetry in English. An interview conducted by Prof Malashri Lal with me about the centennial celebration volume ‘Nissim Ezekiel, Poet & Father’ compiled by me, edited by Vinita Agrawal and published by Pippa Rann Books, was part of the inaugural session.

My father was a strong influence in my life in terms of the values and principles he held dear. He was always concerned about the welfare of others, especially the poor and the downtrodden. He himself was a simple man with few needs and a single-minded devotion to poetry. My name, ‘Kavita’, is the first bond I had with my father. My mother told me that he rejoiced at my birth as if he had written his best poem!

Though he never directly helped me with my writing, he would bring a variety of books and magazines home to encourage us to read widely. He knew I was writing poetry from the age of nine and was proud of that. He felt if he helped me with my work, it would mean to the world that he was promoting his daughter. He did not feel that was the right choice to make. So, professionally, he was not involved in my writing. I attended his poetry readings, and he was my professor when I was doing my Master’s degree at the University of Bombay.

Among my many poignant memories of him are of his daily routine and humour. At night, long after all the day’s work, I could hear the creak of the old wooden stairs at 11 pm. His voice still rings in my ear, “Kavitam!”, and I would know that he was home. His day was far from over. I’d see the lights in his room sometimes at 3.30 am. I would make my way to his room, knock, and call out, “Daddy, it’s late. You should get some sleep.” Sleep or not, he was at the PEN office by 9 am.

He took the train from Bombay Central to Churchgate after a 15-minute walk down broken sidewalks from my grandmother’s home where he lived.

He never complained about anything, whether it was too hot, the train too crowded, or whether there was a caterpillar in his food at a restaurant one day! Finding the little creature in his food, he turned to a friend and exclaimed, “That must have been one very hungry caterpillar!” I promptly bought the children’s book with the same name by Eric Carle. It is now one of the most beloved books on my shelf!

The poets my father admired were Rainer Maria Rilke, EE Cummings, TS Eliot, Ezra Pound and WB Yeats. He loved the writings of Henry David Thoreau.

When I retired after more than four decades of teaching, I was able to devote more time to studying his poetry in-depth. I realised that subconsciously, my poetry, like my father’s, was about ordinary things and personal experiences. However, I will readily admit that it would take me many lifetimes to become a poet of his stature.

We each have our unique journeys, and I am humbled and proud to be his daughter. My father had a gift, one that he readily shared with others, giving generously his time and money to help them on their poetic journeys. Many of his poems are cherished by me, but if I have to single out one, it would be ‘Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher’:

To force the pace and never to be still

Is not the way of those who study birds

Or women. The best poets wait for words.