The Diverse World of Ketaki Kushari Dyson

An Introduction:

Dr.Ketaki Kushari Dyson (1940- ) is an Indian-born bilingual writer of the Diaspora and a brilliant scholar of Calcutta University and Oxford University. Her academic achievements are as legendary as her literary output is diverse. As a versatile bilingual writer, she has published poetry, novels, critical essays and plays of high sensibilities both in Bengali and English. She is known to the English-reading public in India for her four volumes of English poetry and translations. Her first poetry and novels were written in Bengali. In her autobiography ‘Nari, Nagari’ and her  first work of ‘episto-diary’ fiction ‘Notan Notan Payraguli’ (Those Crested Pigeons), which portrays in an inimitable  style the struggle of a Bengali woman in Diaspora, an educated mother who discovers a bond of humanity in the lives of the émigrés with their rich but varied cultural backgrounds. In ‘Jal Phurey Agoon’ (Fire Bursting Through Water), she reveals the stream-of-consciousness of a father and his daughter about burning issues of life in India and Britain.

Ketaki Kushari Dyson's research works include her doctoral thesis, ‘A Various Universe’ (Oxford), ‘In Your Blossoming Flower-Garden –Rabindranath Tagore and Victoria Ocampo’  (Sahitya Akademi), and another research project ‘Ranger Rabindranath’ (Ananda), which are not only scholarly but also innovative in their respective fields. She has also translated some of Tagore’s finest poems into English with an elaborate introduction as ‘I Won’t Let You Go’ (Bloodaxe) and ‘Selected Poems of Buddhadeva Bose’ (Oxford).The Indian Diaspora literature is gaining ground with the growing recognition of Nirad  C Chaudhuri, V.S.Naipaul, Anita & Kiran Desai, Vikram Seth, Amitava Ghosh, Jhumpa Lahiri et al. Dyson has published three volumes of brilliant Bengali essays covering a wide range of literary and cultural topics. They are ‘Shikar Bakor’ (Ananda), ‘Bhabanar Bhaskarya’ (Dey’s) and ‘Chalanta Nirman’ (Dey’s). Her English essays have appeared in various journals, but yet to be published together. In sharp analysis, observation and style she is at par with the best essayists.

Her three plays, ‘Night’s Sunlight’, ‘Mozart Chocolate(s)’, and ‘Suparnorekha’ have been published in English and Bengali and have been staged. She has explored the issues of environmental concern, women’s status and satirized the unsubstantial literary schools of post-modernism and post-colonialism.

Dyson’s fictional characters are unique: They are members of  Diaspora of  various  nationalities - Irish, English, Algerian, Jewish, Canadian etc -  living in England: the cultural life of the Diaspora is also unique. They cannot leave behind the culture of their roots; at the same time, they absorb the best of British culture. In spite of having a settled life in British society, they are evidently not Britons. But there are genuine Britons in her fiction as well.  But Dyson finds  that in their love, desertion, divorce, the pre-marital and extramarital affairs there are  absorbing stories which are individual yet universal, and can sustain the readers’ interest in the narrative.

 In her own words (Quoted from her website): “I think that a diversity of genres and a vigorous bi-culturalism and bilingualism are my hallmarks as a writer, and it is my aim to maintain this quality to the best of my ability. One does not get my true profile if one does not keep track of the many different things I do. I not only write and publish in two languages, Bengali and English, but also in several genres encompassing the creative and research-based modes. I have never severed my links with the literary life of my native Bengal and have been functioning as a writer of the Indian diaspora since the sixties, writing ‘transnationally’ and publishing extensively in Bengali magazines before I had anything out in book-form.”

She has received the literary award Ananda Puraskar twice: for her researched-based Bengali novel ‘Rabindranath O Victoria Ocampor Sandhaney’ and a collaborated research project ‘Ranger Rabindranath’. For more information on Dr.Dyson, please visit her website:

www.ketaki.dyson.dial.pipex.com

My Ongoing Research Paper:

My acquaintance with K.K.Dyson's works began with her essays ‘Shikar Bakor’ and ‘Bhabnar Bhaskarya’.Then I discovered her website and read her Bengali fictions. I realized that all her works are the creation of a poet. So, understanding her poetry is essential to the appreciation of her works.

I give here a brief outline of my paper which focuses on the multiculturalism and other issues in K.K.Dyson's volumes of English poetry such as, ‘Sapwood’,(Writers’ Workshop) ‘Spaces I Inhabit’ (Navana), ‘In That Sense You Touched It’ (Akademi) and ‘Memories of Argentina and Other Poems’ (Virgilio), ‘Manipur-Memories’, and her only published play is available in English as ‘Night’s Sunlight’ which deserve close study for the cosmopolitanism, deep human values and innovative techniques.

Dyson can be beautifully nostalgic without any sense of regret. She believes in the contexts of happenings and the connections between apparently discrete events which happened but are hidden from view. She explores the link between the poet and the events which took place in the past which she was either unaware of or dimly aware. She is concerned how the obscure past events shaped her through the knowledge of various details or through the ignorance of other details. In a sense all her writings deal with glocal  problems. And her cosmopolitanism has been fostered by her deeper understanding of Shakespeare and Tagore. To balance the high-tech onslaught on communal harmony more researches should be done in multi-cultural poetry.

Her poetry and prose works show an eye for details and an acute power of observation. She can equally deal with light-hearted and serious subjects. Often her poems are sparked off by incidents of daily life and she looks back to her past experience. She is equally at home with description of Nature as well as with themes of inclusionality and the halves of normality. Innovation and scholarship are the hallmarks of K.K.Dyson’s works. Her poetry is her immediate reactions to everyday life – the serious as well as the small things of everyday life. Serious poetry is seldom popular. Like art film it has a small niche audience. The innovative narratives of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf do not have the stuff of best-sellers. In a society where technology rules the roost, even good poetry finds few publishers. So, the worth of a poet cannot be judged by the printing history.

Her love of nature is palpable. In her sublimation of the trivial she reminds us of Charles Lamb (sans his antiquated style) and William Wordsworth (without his pantheism); in plumbing the depth of human psyche she carries forward the trend set by Woolf and Joyce. She traces the roots of violence in the traumatic experiences of childhood.

“In childhood’s innocence is the honey of regeneration

..those unlucky kids who see too much, know too much too soon

 pay a price… for none of us are islands.

The violated becomes violators.”

She combines in her works the best of the Eastern and Western cultures. Tagore and Shakespeare have mingled in her as naturally as  milk and honey. She is steeped in Bengali culture, especially Tagorean, yet she has relished Shakespeare and other German, French and Spanish authors in the original language with equal gusto. A polyglot, her knowledge of six languages helped her research work and easy interactions with members of  Diaspora from Russia, Armenia, Ireland, Algeria, France and Canada. Her knowledge of Sanskrit gives her access to classical Indian literature.

She is serious about the issues of exploitation, environment, feminism, communal violence and terrorism, yet she has the softest corner for nature and the various Diaspora  in England who lead a multi-cultural life. Her poem ‘June Magnificat’ aptly illustrates her palpable love of nature, laburnum and a hatred of racial violence that was ripping Europe apart.

          Finally, it is a thrilling experience to do research on a living author because you can communicate with her to check facts and seek explanations. Often out of print and unpublished writings may be received from the author.

Her five (apart from six volumes in Bengali) volumes of English poetry are best classified thematically. Her philosophy of life remains consistent during the four and a half decades of her writing career.

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