Is Addiction a Way towards being a Writer?

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Writing as an Addiction and Addictions for Writing.

Why, in normal course of life we turn to become addicted? Or to put it in more mild way, why we are heavily dependent on one object of passionate desire and why we allow to remain by relying on pursuit of that object for the stability and tranquility in our life henceforth? If the writing and writers are integral parts of the life then why should they be aloof from the comprehensive rules being applied to other forms of equally substantial areas in life? We may easily distinguish between the kind of physical obsession about certain eatables/drinkables and those of constant/mental intellectual needs sought to be satisfied by very intense, uncompromisable habits. But this distinction is not merely to compel us to apply different rules for writers, authors. I did not intend to do so. But going ahead I wish to mark a line of genuine departure point to assert that if writers, artists, thinkers, musicians are worthy of protection from time and again threats of censorship, attack on their freedom of expression and assault on their free way of living, then strangulation of their addictions is certainly one aspect of that suffocation writers may experience.

Then the question asked in the title will certainly come back and haunt us that are addictions way towards being a writer? May be this is not a normative question compelling us to narrow down the choices to only have certain forms of addictions and leaving no other rebuttal option. Addiction if viewed in broader sense not only leaves us with helplessness and overreliance on the cause-du-jure but it also gives writers a cultural sphere in which they can discover their own solitude, they can mingle with the single idea they are engaged in or they can consistently dwell in contemplation about the issues they are disturbed due to. What exactly amounts to addiction in this case? About writers, it does not mean obsession. It does not hint towards being crippled by the availability and non-availability of particular cravings. It is form of lifestyle in which the comfort zones are so infinitely deep and morals are massively high that they continue to live likewise whole of their life disregarding all other material rewards, luxuries and worldly benefits coming out of sheer recognition to their creativity. 

Just as we always listen to the very senior and renowned authors, scientists, artists regularly reflecting on their relation to their work like, “We do not work in our world to earn awards. We live to enjoy that work.”  So this type of courage to say the unobvious things definitely must be coming from that corner of mind where the romance with the hardships and strivings of the unrelenting work resonates with that of solace they find in their habits, customized-uncustomised lifestyle. This romance is possible because these people are able to develop peculiar ways of circumventing the nonsense of daily life by achieving a supreme individual freedom to think, write and express in whichever form they like, at whatever instances and around whatever environment they are living in.

Upto certain point, this discussion about comfort zone is meaningful. Beyond it, I am afraid how far it could withstand analysis. Because every serious effort of writing somehow connects to the diverse issues of life. So, however justified writers could not have luxury to isolate themselves from the pressures of their own livelihood, the compulsions coming due to professional occupation and due to enormity of logistical-administrative issues they handle in their fieldwork. So, I doubt how many people are able to catch this minute thread of addictive passion in their writing. Some people may admit this because they are professionally involved in that or some others may argue about this only because they see writing as one of the platforms or means to achieve larger material goals in life. But what about the people for whom writing is the only mean, only goal, only way of living, only way of dying. They cannot think of anything except writing about the ideas, ideologies, delicate relations, virtues, values, emotions and likewise.

How do writers could manage the painful task of sustaining losses in their own life and still continue to move ahead on the front of writing. In one way or another different ways of addictions actually gives us a feeling about what to compromise and what not. For example, any passionate addiction normally compels us to sell anything to continue that. But here we are thinking about the addictions which are indispensible for creating and personal or social ambience to nurture, to blossom, to emerge into the realm of momentum where there is no other need to satisfy the cravings of the body and mind. Only that unique passionate desire inhaled in the form of unending association is enough to inspire our experiments with letters.

So standing for addiction in creative world and rejecting the right to promote material obsessions of addictions in public life are not biased approaches. We can debate on that also. This may perceive a genuine bias towards elites, a strong leniency towards the people who can afford the luxury of relaxing in unique loneliness to pursue their goals compared to the communities suffering for a little bread and butter requirement. But while taking a laid back seat to think more carefully will allow us be able to appreciate this kind of freedom. This liberty is meant for giving a exclusive bias for people who are supposed to make use of that for developing traits and skills employable for if not immediately solving but at least addressing, describing and debating the issues of the larger people outside that ambience.

I am not going for sudden and urgent itinerary so as to cultivate such pursuit of novel addictions. In fact, I realize that I have many such shades of habits ingrained in my life which always remind me about uncompromisable need to write every other time I wake up for breakfast and every other evening when I go down the memory lane and for dreams. But I strongly feel the need to have this value in my life to uplift me to the level of a living where I can sustain my writing as an addiction and also I can cultivate a addiction which can shape my writing in unique fashion so that I will be more than happy to embrace to those moments as very proud because then there is no need of any other pleasure because I and my addiction will be made for each other.

It is hard to agree that I have emerged to think like this. It is not easy to leave everything behind and get along with only one single passion when you know that things you left behind may be of greater significance and relevance than the things we continue to adore and seek. But the kind of addiction we acquire over a period of time, in that work of writing, around that quest of scripting the mind and life, during that painful experiences in which we compromise many things; I do not thing I will never ever regret the shameless marriage to addiction for betterment of my writing. Because that will determine why I live and not the things which I left behind. However crude, irresponsible it may seem; the place of passionate obsession is unique in the solitary world of literature, scholarship and reporting the life. I will be pained to lose the heritage, treasure of writing only because I refused to ally with some kind of addiction. Instead, I will lap and leap for the passion it signifies if it helps me to evoke my imagination for making writing worth living and dying for. 

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The Message from Turkish Professor via Salman Taseer

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Nisar main teri galiyon ke , ai watan, ke jahan

chale hai rasm ke koi na sar uthake chale

Jo koi chahne wala tawaf ko nikhle

Nazar churake chale, jism o jan bachake chale

 Hai ahl-i dil ke liye ab ye nazm-e -bast-o-kushad

Ke sang o khisht muqaiyad hain aur sang azad.

---Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Whether it is burning any book or banning a creative work or silencing the voices demanding justice, peace and development; intolerance is scaling new heights in its shamefulness and reaching new pits in its tragedy. Unjustifiable and heinous murder of Salman Taseer, one of the strongest voices in Pakistan took his last breath in the role of Governor of Punjab province which has dominated the strategic and political history and thinking in Pakistan. The Governor was shot dead by own bodyguards and subjected to 28 bullets. The unparallel drama due to this incident sent shocking waves across the subcontinent declaring that if Mr. Taseer cannot survive even in the shadow of his own bodyguards then every dissenting voice in the public sphere in this society will be silenced once and for all.

There are more reasons due to which I was stunned the day Mr. Taseer was killed, I was able to read a biographical book about legendary shayar Faiz Ahmed Faiz. For all his life he stood for skepticism, debate and invoking the liberal ethos of the generation of the poets who saw and experienced trauma and partition. Faiz started a branch of Progressive Writers' Movement in Punjab in 1936. His generation experienced the legacy of partition continued with subsequent mutual assured destruction through riots, bigotry and persecution forming the perpetual enmity amongst the communities and nations in the subcontinent; first based on religion and further on the basis of linguist ethnicity which lead to partition of Pakistan in 1971. Faiz was a learned man of English, Arabic and Urdu. In initial years he taught in Amritsar, the other side of Punjab which remained with India. Later he went to Karachi and Lahore. Even though Faiz was uncle of Mr Tasser, his lifelong dedication and commitment both had for free and just society was not merely due to any relation. These two men, firstly Faiz generated a voyage of poetic critic of the contemporary hypocrisy and secondly Taseer who through his role of Publisher of newspaper ‘Daily Times’ and through his other public roles, appearances and gestures vindicated the same kind of belonging to any true voice appreciating the struggle for any argumentative fight for setting the tone in correct manner. It is without any doubt that these types of human being belong to all. When we debate that these types of human being belong to all. When we debate in India to which community Galib and Kabir stood for, we intuitively know that principles of religion, province or even language and nationalism do not come in the way of heralding the all inclusive aspiration and all encompassing voice as of their own.

Let us try to decipher issue on another level. When we read a novel or when we watch any drama, movie we always try to sketch and trace the central theme of that creation. There need not be any central theme but our mind believing fictional novels to be reflections of true life or conflict ridden present shadow of biographical stories of past, relentlessly engages in expressing the centrality of the conversation and contemplation in novels and movies.

Recently I listened to a 2006 interview of Turkish author Orhan Pamuk given to Stanford University Campus radio anchor George Harrison. He himself being a Professor of European literature probed Pamuk about issue of centrality having significant impact on his work. Pamuk, an ardent voice a nation situated in east and west, between glorious medieval past and struggle for modernity in present between Islamic heritage and upcoming multicultural society. Pamuk said, in the quest of 21^st century modernity he still feels Turky reluctant to come out of medieval slumber.

Pamuk elaborated on this point: “It is true that Istanbul stands at the centre of Europe and Asia. It is true that Istanbul is the gateway to have a look towards showcase of European enlightenment and modernisation, Even though I belonged to elite, upper class educated Turkish family which enjoyed, I was always felt myself around margins of modernity. My introspection, my melancholic enquiry about my elite existence, my well being was always driven to understand the centre but through the lenses of periphery.” How true Orhan is! In 2010, Istanbul was European capital of Culture, 2010.

In a way the conception of centre and periphery, whether in literature, politics, colonial & post-colonial debate, trade or in scientific research-knowledge dissemination; the subjective interpretation indicates towards conflicting definitions about progressiveness and backwardness. So, centre-periphery discourse actually not only pervades the literary scene—may be in symbolic narrative it could better expose the complex realities—as Orhan Pamuk showed in ‘Snow’. So every contemporary literature is actually depicting this struggle of ideas in most possible brave and courageous manner. Then again and again controversy happens, authors are threatened and atmosphere is vitiated due to ignorance towards simmering tensions prevalent in the form of absence of dialogue in any form of life activities.

In the European summer of 2010, I was fortunate to understand this tacit conflict between centre and periphery in my mind. I was driven by questions of and about the contestation to religious and any kind of orthodoxy because I had the accidental apparently to meet one Turkish Professor in Italy. Trieste is a major harbour in eastern Italy which had great history of trade and cultural interaction with central and west Asia. One of my friends from Croatia recently visited India. She was recalling how formerly east European soviet countries and Balkan countries had special connection with Trieste. Trieste progressed and became wealthy because many branded and modern things like jeans, perfumes, music was available unlike those countries. In a way for young generation in those countries, Trieste was a dream destination. Another friend I recently met was from European Union Innovation Team. His Ph.D. was focussed on how cultural artefacts and objects were traded in black and white in communist influence. How state fears new song, new slogans, new thinking and new actions. And when it fears, it suppresses. Sometimes suppression happens by many, pressure and other material tactics. If none is convinced, then gun is the last resort.

Any-ways, in Trieste I met this Professor. He is Professor of Physics from Ankara. I could never forget those five days I spent with him. Impact of those five days has permanently altered my point of view towards all the issues of conflicts in this world. For five days, after finishing my workshop assignments we used to have dinner together. And then was the time of a symphony of thoughts and exchanges. In wine, we found companion to reflect each other`s feelings, perspectives. He did not regret that even though he was Muslim, I take wine. When you take wine, you slow down and then be able to think it over any issue at our consideration for dwelling upon it in details. To think in a calm and slow way without reacting with basic instincts of orthodox discipline, upbringing or any other kinds of privileges of education, societal status and power bias is best way to understand the issue. If we consider life as a novel, I am reminded of a saying of Orhan Pamuk who in his latest book ‘Naive and Sentimental Novelist’ says that great art of novel yields when we try to understand the story rather than we judge it. Our moral judgement of the characters must be always in the background of our reading of the literature. We should first read the story with its natural flow.” Going beyond it can be said that “Literature is flesh and incarnating truth of philosophy and is able to say more than abstractness of philosophy and says it less naively.”

Thus going further, to think in a calm way without reaching by your basic instincts is the key. To be able to think, interact and thus be able to enhance the level of debate, he said, is very important in the kind of lifestyle we live in. Irrespective of the background of native Turkey and conservative Islamic Arab world around it. Professor said that it is hard to imagine a meaningful conversation in the family. “When both husband and wife are busy in struggling for livelihood and children have no time to come out of their fantasy, dreamful world, it is very much necessary to slow down, sit across the table and have a wine or cup of coffee with each other so as to have chat about vexing issues we face in the form of enormous challenges”, he said.

The Professor’s marriage was culmination of love affair with Turkish girl. He said, “Love marriage is very common these days in Turkey.” He never followed any dictum of religion in his diet, appearance and rituals as he confessed without letting any sign of regret. Though he completed his research degree from USA, after having in depth conversation with him, he reflected very much original Turkish ethos and virtues. I had few glimpses of what Modern Turkey stands for when I visited Istanbul just for few hours before I met this Turkish Professor in Trieste. Without narrating that incident, I will say that, accidently I could stay in Istanbul starting from sunset to sunrise next day. I tried to live those moments as I could. I visited the Bosphorous Sea which connects two continents in west Istanbul. I wandered in uptown, glazy Taxim locality where whole Turkey seemed to be showcased in highly modern way alongside market thriving on exodus of tourists. Gradually evening and night crept in before I realised.

(Image from http://www.thadguy.com/comic/holier-than-thou/521/)

Then after having a comfortable dinner, in the warm breeze I went towards Blue mosque; Sultan Ahmed mosque by a tram from my hotel locality. It was a holy Ramadan night. Streets were full with the children, youth, senior citizens and everyone. There were women with hizab and without hizab. In women with hizab, I saw no contempt for modernity and in women without one, I felt no insult for religion. Streets were thriving with such a vibrancy of openness and floodlights. It was Disney Land experience in Ramadan night; purely religious in its core and almost celebratory in all of its manifestations outside mosque. There I really understood, the kind of concern my Kashmiri friends always express-the gift of vibrant night life-it being a symbol of many pursuits in our mortal life-pursuit of many extraordinary immortal things. Sacred by spiritual values, wet with emotions of expression, decorated by the balloons and bookmarks of the diversity, explained by modern exhibition of Islam, in that night—I saw a narration of contribution of Islam in modern progressive society—a rare one.

These glimpses from Istanbul instilled in me a great courage to understand what Turkish Professor was trying to say. Perhaps emphasis on wine is merely symbolic. What he conveyed across was more crucial­—to slow down, to think it over and to discuss all the pending issues—without any bounds, without any extreme illusions and prejudices, without any hopelessness. When I returned from Trieste two things happened. While travelling in Turkish airlines, crew offered me beef and red wine. I tasted beef for the first time in my life in Turkish plane and preserved small bottle of Yakut for my friend in JNU. After my return, I was discussing with my Kashmiri friend about menu on Turkish plane. He was taken aback and surprised to find out that how airline service of an Islamic country offers wine in its cuisine. Silently then, I was thinking about what type of blasphemy I did by tasting beef!

When I was in school, my nature of being child did not allow me to follow the strict regulation and order of teacher and parents. I did eat chalks when I was asked not to do it. Defiance is so naturally rooted in our life that still it takes us great amount of courage to understand a alternative and not completely opposite view. The lack of this kind of courage gives strength to extreme intolerant voice. I don’t know where the boundary lines of prophesying and rebelling against religion start or blur! I only know the message from Turkish Professor who told me to slow down, calm down in thinking and discussing the issue to everyone having stake. May be this is starting point to understand what are the causes and implications of killing of Mr. Salman Taseer for not only Pakistan but also for every society struggling to cope with the conflicts and trauma aroused because of pro and anti religion debate.

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