{"id":5340,"date":"2016-03-13T13:22:32","date_gmt":"2016-03-13T07:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=5340"},"modified":"2016-03-13T13:22:32","modified_gmt":"2016-03-13T07:52:32","slug":"kiran-nagarkar-obituary-genius-author-tireless-activist-flawed-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=5340","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye, Kiran Nagarkar: Genius Author, Tireless Activist, Flawed Man"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span><\/p><\/div>

\nn early 2018, before the #MeToo movement reached Indian shores and felled many Colossuses in its wake,\u00a0 a \u201cretired denizen\u201d of Mumbai wrote an <\/span>open letter<\/span><\/a> to the then-municipal commissioner through a city newspaper. Even in his 70s, Kiran Nagarkar, the Sahitya Akademi award-winning author and playwright, maintained an active interest in the city and its affairs.<\/span>\n\nThe self-confessed retiree\u2019s bone of contention with the administrative body was the pathetic state of affairs the civic-run BEST bus service had been reduced to, the many ills of <\/span>corruption<\/span><\/a> and collusion the ordinary citizen has to contend with, and the rapid downward spiral the city was staring at. The author of that letter, 76-year-old Kiran Nagarkar, was simply doing what his heart had dictated his pen to do over the last six decades \u2013 hold up a mirror to the city\u2019s changing values, sing odes to its often devastating energy, and show up the innovative, quirky, and infinitely patient nature of its uncomplaining citizens.<\/span>\n\nThe author of the much acclaimed <\/span>Cuckold<\/span><\/i> would show up to listen to Dr Romila Thapar when she gave a rare talk at the Prince of Wales Museum (now renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya). And in the same breath he\u2019d turn up to make an impassioned speech on saving the BEST at <\/span>meetings<\/span><\/a> organised by citizens\u2019 groups like Amchi Mumbai Amchi BEST in the bylanes of Wadala. The contrast was pure Nagarkar, straddling the lofty world of the literati and gritty reality of the man on the street, while understanding the pulse of both.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nIn his letter to the municipal commissioner, Nagarkar walked Ajoy Mehta down memory lane. Perhaps for the first time, he wrote about his childhood that had been riddled by illnesses \u2013 ranging from lung problems, diphtheria, double typhoid, and smallpox. He spoke about the <\/span>BEST buses<\/span><\/a> his middle-class parents were obliged to travel in to take the young Kiran to the doctor\u2019s clinic three times a day for treatment. He remembered with ease and fondness the names of the buses (D and N, this was before numerals were used to denote the buses), and also the punctuality and efficiency with which they plied.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n

The letter, as Nagarkar was wont to do with his major works, took the BEST as a microcosm to highlight his \u201cbeloved and beleaguered\u201d city\u2019s macro ills.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nThe letter, as Nagarkar was wont to do with his major works, took the BEST as a microcosm to highlight his \u201cbeloved and beleaguered\u201d city\u2019s macro ills. Just a few days earlier, he had stepped up to the microphone in a dingy street in Wadala, addressing a motley crowd comprising activists and BEST workers\u2019 families, urging them not to give up the fight to regain the lost <\/span>pride<\/span><\/a> of the BEST. Nagarkar often batted for social causes without caring which system or institution he was taking on, so long as he believed in the validity of the cause. It is no wonder he drew critics from all ideologies. But Nagarkar refused to be bracketed. Thankfully.<\/span>\n\nHe was equally comfortable with the idiom of both languages he wrote in \u2013 English and Marathi. He brought an earthiness to his English works, and a refreshing turn of colloquial phrase, hitherto unknown, to Marathi writing. One of the rare and dying breed of writers from the city who dared to think in his <\/span>mother tongue<\/span><\/a> and express in another. Nor was he immune to the critics of the day. His play <\/span>Bedtime Story <\/span><\/i>earned the wrath of right-wingers back in the \u201980s, but he lived to write more in the same vein, caustic yet poetic.<\/span>\n\nAs with many admired men around the world, the fire of the <\/span>#MeToo<\/span><\/a> movement in late 2018 touched him too, and if his confidantes are to be believed, killed his spirit much before it killed his self. Three women labelled Nagarkar a serial harasser, and the allegations cost him the formidable reputation he had built.<\/span>\n\nAnd yet, Nagarkar needs to be remembered for the bridge he forged between different cultures within Mumbai, the ease with which he took the grimy <\/span>chawl<\/span><\/a> culture to international heights, for shaking up ideas of masculinity and piety through his novels. That novelist and that crusader were much bigger than the man.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even in his 70s, Kiran Nagarkar, the Sahitya Akademi award-winning author and playwright, maintained an active interest in Mumbai and its affairs. He was able to straddle the worlds of the intellectual and the common man, while understanding the pulse of both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":5341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[9095,3202,9096,5890,9097,1475,9098,9099,9100,7834,80,9101,9102,9103,9104],"class_list":["post-5340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-metoo-movement","tag-best","tag-best-buses","tag-chawl","tag-chhatrapati-shivaji-maharaj-vastu-sangrahalaya","tag-corruption","tag-flawed-man","tag-genius-author","tag-kiran-nagarkar","tag-mother-tongue","tag-mumbai","tag-prince-of-wales-museum","tag-sahitya-akademi-award-winning","tag-tireless-activist","tag-wadala"],"yoast_head":"\nGoodbye, Kiran Nagarkar: Genius Author, Tireless Activist, Flawed Man<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Even in his 70s, Kiran Nagarkar, the Sahitya Akademi award-winning author and playwright, maintained an active interest in Mumbai and its affairs. 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