How Swadesh Deepak saw his Mandu

VN Rai

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SWADESH DEEPAK, who taught English at a college in Ambala, was an unusual glam figure among the outwardly moral clan of Hindi writers since the 1970s. He was a bipolar psychiatry patient from 1991 to 1997. He re-entered the world of literature and completed some of his unfinished works, in addition to recording his memoir of mental sickness, connecting that phase with the past (genesis) and future (recovery). He suffered a relapse, and, seized with an overpowering death wish, disappeared from home in 2006.

True to his writing style, Deepak lent respect to his medical attendees led by Dr Pratap Sharan of PGI, Chandigarh, returned affection to family, friends and companions and injected integrity even into the most simmering encounters with his characters and contemporaries included in this book — ‘I Have Not Seen Mandu’ (Maine Mandu Nahin Dekha).

I remember when the time came to dedicate this unique psycho-literary creation, serialised in the Hindi monthly ‘Kathadesh’, to be brought out in a book form, Deepak jointly shortlisted three heavyweights from the world of Hindi literature: Nirmal Verma, Namvar Singh and Ashok Vajpeyi. He was overawed by them and that was his response to acknowledging Verma’s skills with language, Singh’s reigning dominance in the Hindi world and Vajpeyi ’s overarching status of a powerful patron. By that time, Deepak had ceased to be on talking terms with Krishna Sobti, another doyen of contemporary Hindi literature whose stature he respected and warmth and affection he never ceased to cherish.

Frankly, to me, this dedication smelt of bipolarity. After arguments lasting a couple of days at my Delhi flat, Deepak reluctantly decided to drop all three names. He quietly and fittingly dedicated the book to his intimate buddy Soumitra Mohan, a poet of yesteryears, famous for his legendary long poem ‘Lukman Ali’. Years ago, one evening, Soumitra Mohan had recited the poem to me on Deepak’s repeated insistence. It carried certain images that resembled Deepak’s ‘Mandu’ in the making.

Jerry Pinto, the brilliant translator, acclaimed author of the pathbreaking ‘Em and the Big Hoom’, counsels at the end of his introduction to the book: “It was said of Swadesh Deepak that he hunted his characters with a gun. I suspect that in this book, he has turned his weapon on his readers.” The aloof seductress or Mayavini, portrayed as the principal target in the book, and her proposition to visit Mandu, the eternal love fort, with Deepak presented as the trigger focus — it was indeed the story writer’s own Mandu waiting to be visited for years.

He felt short of new tales but had not lost any of his magic with words while emerging from a lonely fight against the shattering bipolar disorder. Though a late bloomer in the world of drama, his plays were an unprecedented success with the audience and critics. He carried the same dialogue trajectory while compiling the memoir. In the theme chapter of the book, he acknowledged his prowess thus: “When the authors come to drama by fiction, their depth is great and their grasp is sure.”

The author had been savaged by his characters during the disease; it was now the turn of the author to be back at work. Deepak narrated it in the contexts and plots from his life and stories, like fractured shadows illuminating his own personality traits — masochism, narcissism, social commitments and politics of justice. And, not the least, imprints of a Casanova. The seductress herself was the exceptionally graceful Maya Bakhshi, whose macho lover had been typically sentenced to gallows at the moment they were to meet in Deepak’s 1984 long story ‘Kisi Ek Pedh Ka Naam Lo’. The breathtaking dissection of authority and discipline in a love theme had made me Deepak’s life-long friend. Now, in the present book, the same Deepak conceded, “Which author has the guts to confront his characters?”

The memoir appeared in ‘Kathadesh’ between November 2001 and August 2003, invoking a tremendous amount of interest. The effort exhausted Deepak. He had begun the narration with an observation from Nirmal Verma; he closed it after a letter from Nirmal suggesting him to stop.