Poetry as “an effort to understand”: An interview with Gieve Patel

Abstract

In this interview, conducted in Bombay in June 2015, Gieve Patel reflects on his career as a poet, playwright, publisher, artist and educator, from his first arts show in 1966 (a year which also saw the publication of his first collection of poems) to the present. Gieve Patel is also a doctor of medicine, and he discusses the significant place afforded to the human body in his work and his “aromantic” approach to the body in poetry. He recalls the vitality of Bombay as an artistic and literary centre in the 1960s and 1970s, the comradeship among artists at that time, and his involvement in the publishing house Clearing House. He is an important poet and artist in Bombay, who to this day maintains creative contacts across generations of artists.

Keywords:

• Painting
• medical practice
• poetry
• Nissim Ezekiel
• Clearing House
• Jehangir Art Gallery
• Akbar Padamsee

Acknowledgement

The photograph of Gieve Patel is reproduced with permission of Avaan Patel.

Notes

1. Akbar Padamsee is a seminal modernist of post-independence Indian painting.

2. Sathottari means “post-1960” in Marathi and stands for a certain rebellious modernist writing philosophy in Marathi that rejected traditional ways of linguistic usage and accepted modes of writing. Here, the term is also a period marker that points approximately to the years 1955–80.

3. Bhulabhai Desai was a famous lawyer in colonial India. After his death his wealth funded the creation of the institute which soon became the center for creative work for diverse artists in Bombay.

4. Ebrahim Alkazi is one of the illustrious theater directors of modern Bombay and the famed director of the National School of Drama in Delhi (1962–77).

5. V.S. Gaitonde is a leading abstract painter of modern India.

6. Kersy Katrak was a mercurial and influential manager of MCM (an advertising agency) as well as a poet in his own right. See the article on Katrak by William Mazzarella in this special issue of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing.

7. Gulammohammed Sheikh is a renowned painter, poet, translator and public intellectual who serves as a bridge figure between locations of Bombay and Baroda as well as between the media of art and literature. Also see Gulammohammed Sheikh’s interview in this issue of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing.

8. Bhupen Khakhar (1934–2003) was a leading Indian artist who was born in Bombay but also lived and worked in Baroda.