Bengaluru is a city of writers and readers – one would have to make an effort not to occasionally run into one of the dozens of authors who call this city home. But even so, some stand out amongst the multitude. One of these is Poile Sengupta – whose writing career over the decades has stretched across children’s writing, theatrical scripts, and beyond. Her latest book, A Higgedly Piggedly Growing Up, is written from the perspective of a teenage schoolboy in a Bengaluru suburb. Sharing her perspective on the city, Sengupta, who is originally from Kerala, says, “I’ve lived in many cities and also in rural Karnataka, but my husband and I decided that our home would be in Bangalore. When we first came to Bangalore in 1973, it was such a beautiful city. there was very little traffic, and a lot of open spaces… when we came back in ’93, the city had changed drastically. There are still attachments to the city… maybe it is the people, maybe it is the trees and the flowers in season. And, of course, the language, because Kannada is such a beautiful and evocative language.” Sengupta started out early, writing for the publication Children’s World in Delhi, where she grew up. This would evolve into a column known as “A Letter To You” which ran for the next 30 years. She says, “I feel very strongly that children need stories that show the wonder of the world, the beauty of the environment… children are so much more intelligent than we adults. They are more responsive, they look around, they are very observant. I have been a school and college teacher… one of the most daunting jobs was telling stories to preschoolers! You have to make your mark there. They say what they mean.” Sengupta has a few other rules in her writing for children – endings must be wholesome and happy, and the writing must not be in a preachy or moralising tone. She is also an award-winning playwright, with nationally recognised scripts such as Mangalam, which won the Hindu-Madras Players Playscripts Competition in 1993. Explaining the difference in the process when working on a play, she says, “When you write fiction, you can say a lot of things that need not be translated into action or sound. your characters can move from here to Lapland. You cannot do that in a play, because it is a physical thing… there has to be physical action seen and heard. You have to compress it to translate it to something live on stage. There is a pace which is not needed in fiction.” Another work of Sengupta’s, Inga, is a considerable departure from her other writings – presented partly through the perspective of a deceased character’s journals. Sengupta says, “I usually write in the voice of the protagonist because I feel there is more immediacy. Inga is very different… if you put Inga and A Higgedly Piggedly Growing Up together, it is difficult to know that it is the same author.” Closing out the conversation, Sengupta says on the craft of writing, “Just be happy writing. Write what is in your heart, whatever it may be, in the language you love, whichever it may be.”
