A student of English literature, and an eminent personality in the arena of the performing and visual arts, Renu Roy was the founder-Director of Kolkata’s reputed cultural organisation Spandan. In an illustrious career that has spanned five decades, she has also been closely associated with theatre as an accomplished actor, producer and director. Spandan Films was a joint initiative with Aparna Sen and the late Rituparno Ghosh. Renu is the recipient of several prestigious awards including the Bharat Nirman, Women Achievers and Kalakar Awards, for her noteworthy contribution to the cultural field.
To know more about her, click here Renu Roy
Readomania caught up with her to know more about her experience with poetry and her latest book, The Far Side and Other Poems.
Readomania: Renu, you are a multi-discipline artiste. You direct and produce films, are actively involved in theatre, run a cultural organisation, have broken the glass ceiling when you were elected the president of The Saturday Club in Kolkata and then you write poetry…which role is the closest to your heart and which one stirs your creative juices the most? Are they interconnected?
Renu: I must admit that I enjoyed every field I undertook with equal involvement, effort and enthusiasm. Theatre was a passion and I have enacted major roles in more than sixty plays in both English and Hindi, over the decades.I was fortunate to have worked with some of the most reputed directors and actors in the country. Later, directing, writing and adapting plays was as gratifying a creative experience.
Founding and spearheading Spandan, as a director was an exciting challenge. Aparna Sen was a co-Founder and the President of the organisation. In a deeply fulfilling career that spanned more than forty years, I had the privilege of inviting performing groups from across the country and abroad... staging and curating innumerable cultural shows and large-scale festivals in the arena of dance, music and theatre.
Simultaneously, we promoted young and aspiring fine artists and showcased their works in several art exhibitions held at different venues.
Under the banner of Spandan Films we produced a few films in Bengali including the award-winning Unishe April.
which won the 'Golden Lotus' for 'Best Feature Film', the Silver Lotus for 'Best Actor' and 'Best Director'.
We also created a capsule of Celebrity Shows which I moderated...these were in the format of a live interface with various eminent nationally-known personalities from across the country.
Yes, the performing, visual, cinematic and fine arts under Spandan were interconnected on one level, yet were distinctly apart as independent units. A substantial component was the painstaking organisational minutiae and details which was again an interesting challenge.
I was humbled to receive several important cultural, film and theatre awards over the years in recognition of my work and contribution.
To have become the President of The Saturday Club was truly an honour and a privilege...I had served for seven years on the Club's Committee. This post was not in any way connected to my work at Spandan.
I was spearheading a prestigious and hallowed 114-year institution as its first woman President....a national record of sorts for colonial clubs in India.
The responsibility was great and varied and involved the principles of corporate governance. But I enjoyed all aspects of this multi-faceted honorary post thoroughly and had the unique opportunity to absorb and learn so much in my tenure.
Readomania: You have said that the only thing that was unfettered during the Pandemic-induced lockdown was the mind. You treated this not as a period of incarceration but as one of introspection. Did poetry serve as an escape to you then?
Renu: The pandemic was truly one of the most difficult times the world has seen and experienced...almost everyone was affected in one way or another...by the overarching uncertainty, fear and anxiety, economic stress, loss and all round suffering.
One was compelled to introspect about life, its transience and fragility.
I have a deep love for poetry and felt it was an opportunity to use this personal downtime gainfully...Our outdoor movements were restricted but the mind and imagination were not...I felt motivated to write and take advantage of quality time spent with oneself.
At the end of the year, I realised I had a collection which may be enough to publish as a small volume of verse.
The poetic outpouring was not so much an escape as something that had cathartic and creative value and ultimately became a deeply meaningful journey.
Readomania: How does one think so evocatively when there is so much pain around? What makes you see poetry in the most prosaic circumstances?
Renu: I have been interested in reading, writing and understanding Poetry for many years now.
Strife and struggle are so must a part of life that it inevitably prompts one to write about it and voice the pain of the world around one. And it is best done evocatively...it converts the prosaicness of a canvas into poetic expression and often serves like rain for parched soil. Besides, I tend to see poetry in most things because there is beauty and mystery in the philosophy of cause and reason in all that is visible or invisible. Pain and joy, agony and bliss, are all part of the interesting duality we live in. To express this in words effectively, one may need to keep a balance between a deeply felt emotion and an objective distance from it.
Readomania: Your poems are free flowing and follow no structure, yet they have a distinct rhythm to them. Was this a conscious decision?
Renu: Free flowing verse is the only way I know how to write poems. This form allows greater leeway with a level of fluidity and flexibility. Following any formal structure or metrical patterns may tend to get restrictive and is certainly more difficult to practice.
Without rules or strictures there is a feeling of spaciousness, spontaneity and ease.
The unfettered flow of thoughts and feelings often creates its own music and cadence and one can express ideas powerfully.
Over time, one develops an instinct for arranging words with language interplay in a way that has a natural beat and rhythm to them.
Readomania: Poetry gives pleasure first, then truth, hidden in complex imagery and philosophy. You write on varied emotions—love, compassion, betrayal, grief, hope. As a poetess, how invested are you in these emotions when you write about them?
Renu: All these...love, compassion, grief, joy, anger, are an integral part of the vast range of experienced human emotions. When a succinct emotion has found words through imagery, symbolism or metaphor, one aims to create a visual reality to invoke similar emotions in the reader...so that the poem comes meaningfully alive.
I feel fully engaged with the process of a poem...whether feeling or visualising, and hope that the nuances of expression or depiction will resonate, arouse attention and invoke an enduring response in the reader, even if the interpretation varies.
There is no grand purpose, except that the reader should enjoy the essence of a poem.
Readomania: Themes of life, time, death, mortality and transience—there is almost an introspective strand that runs through your verses. Your beautiful lines connect with the readers and make them reflect within. How do you manage to use such beautifully thought through and persuasive words to express even morbid and grim themes?
Renu: Thank you. To a lesser or larger degree, most people possess an introspective strand and wonder about the nature of human existence, its reasons and purpose.
Poetry as a medium has the ability to encompass and encapsulate this conundrum in a language that is appealing, powerful and immediate. The aim is to communicate from a depth that moves the reader. Sound and word choice play an important part, so that there is bridge between the inner and outer world and the reader can be naturally drawn into the experience or image that is intended or articulated. Life is a mixed bag of morbidity and light, grimness and happiness, strife and peace...these are often two sides of the same coin. On a philosophical note, there is reason for every conceivable occurrence.
I tend to see beauty in that reason. The objective is to be able to re-capitulate creatively in order to move the reader to carry the same experience.
Readomania: Your imagery! No matter what I say, will be less about your expansive and vivid imagery. How does your poetic mind function?
Renu: A poem is often enriched by its flow, content, style and imagery and invites the reader to savour the intended sensory experience.
An image forms in one's mind and when it felt, visualised and outlined clearly, one use devices of language...figures of speech, similies, metaphors, to express the idea, thought or emotion in words and hope it will resonate with the reader.
Readomania: There’s perhaps no theme that you’ve not written poetry on. How do you choose your theme? Do you pick a theme as per your mood or the place you are in or the season that is? What is your favourite theme to write on?
Renu: Our own experiences in every aspect of life are so varied and diverse that it is natural that poetry too must incorporate different moods, themes, subjects, thoughts.
Sometimes my choice of poem is well thought out and deliberated on. At other times, it is spontaneous. Even I am taken by surprise, when it happens quite suddenly and without preparation.
Sometimes a particular situation, scene, visual, place or person may inspire me to pen down a poem there and then. But most often, I like the quiet and privacy of my home, or the ambience of a library to work in.
Readomania: Do you feel poetry is eternal or are the newer generations with their Gen Z lingo and catchy Instagram captions, failing to appreciate the beauty of poetry?
Renu: Poetry is as eternal as the spirit is...and has therefore survived so much.
I don't read much written by the newer generation.
Perhaps I should. I am not in a position to judge.
However, I would suggest to all young poetry lovers and writers to read as diversely as they can in order to widen their horizons and absorb the wonder and beauty of the vastness of poetic expression across the world.
Readomania: Thank you Renu, for this wonderful conversation. Her latest book of poems, The Far Side and Other Poems, is now available on Amazon across the world.
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