One Might call it destiny but writer Arshia Sattar turned out to be one of the few people who was there with her dear friend and playwright Girish Karnad during his last few days. In 2019, Sattar and educator Anmol Tikoo, started recording an interview with Karnad, two hours every evening for a week, culminating in The River Has No Fear Of Memories: Girish Karnad, produced by the Nilekani Foundation. The podcast is going to be out on June 10, which also marks the third death anniversary
of Karnad.
Sattar recalls that regardless of Karnad’s health issues he was always hospitable, offering guests a drink as they came to the end of the session. “He was very much himself despite the oxygen machine and the fact that he often felt breathless when he spoke.
He was smart, wise and sometimes funny, his memory was incredible. It was clear that he truly reserved his depleting energies for us. I don’t think either of us will ever get over the privilege of sharing his last evenings with him,” says Sattar, adding that in March 2019, Karnad called her ‘out of the blue’ to ask when they would start recording.
The podcast, which is about Karnad’s life, begins with his playwright persona. That’s because, in Karnad’s words, “I am a playwright, first and foremost.” The podcast could have come out earlier had the pandemic not interrupted the production.
“It’s a hard project to put together since we never completed our conversations with Girish. We had 14 hours of recording. We were planning to come back for more sessions with Girish and he was already thinking about the things he wanted to share. That never happened,” says Sattar, adding that the conversations range from memories, opinions, judgements and confessions.
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Raghu Karnad is a man of his own thoughts and definitely not his father, Girish Karnad’s shadow. But the essence of his father in him is unmissable. The author of Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War is expressive of his views, which is probably a family trait. But it’s not often that we hear him speak about his father’s last moments. The Windham-Campbell Literature Prize recipient remembers his father on the eve of his third death anniversary lasting legacy.
Appa had a possibly unique career in which he touched people as a writer, an actor, a director, a friend, and through political advocacy. If you asked me for my two favourite parts, though, I would name a play, Nagamandala, and his unwavering defence of communal harmony and that vision of Indian unity.