Deepti Naval, yesteryear actor, launches memoir: ‘A note of memories of my life in Amritsar’

“I have always been writing this memoir, I would keep a diary, keep journaling, talking to myself and I was even writing during my student days in New York. And I remember walking in Manhattan, thinking wow that’s something. The people are so contrasting but so similar. My mother’s convent education, and my father’s love for art. My grandparents, the Partition, the exodus from Burma, and my mother’s stories as a girl of this exodus. I’ve grown up on these stories and I remember writing poetry, thinking I should write all this, for no one will know all this. My childhood was enchanting and joyous and the seed of this memoir was planted in New York,” says Naval.

“It was over 22 years ago that I first wrote the first four chapters, and then the focused work began around five years ago, with a number of revisions, drafts and research. You write chapters, the things that stand out but then you have to fill it all in. A lot of research went into it, dialogues with relatives and family, and people in the vicinity. I kept going back to the house and met so many people from the past. The chapters kept filling up with information that I had written and kept cross-checking with the people I met,” says Naval.

The actor lived in Amritsar till the age of 19, a city she describes as exotic and exhilarating. The geography of the city, a border town, its history, the Golden Temple, a city of the Gurus, one that witnessed Partition, says Naval, created an environment for stories.

“I was an introvert as a child, always an observer. I remember looking at life slightly differently. It was more of registering things, being part of it but always being the observer from within. The book is a note of the memories of my life in Amritsar, my understanding of stories from my parents, my introduction to cinema, and my education. I have tried to write from my memory and stay close to my feelings and I have been true to the emotions I felt and experienced at that time. I feel the book is a documentation of those times and its so many aspects,” adds Naval.

Talking about history, Naval says her parents did talk to them about Partition, but never the gory details, for they didn’t feel the need to impart that information. “They did speak about the anxieties it caused; my mother did speak a lot about the exodus from Burma. Having to leave, crossing the Assam hills and I wrote a fictionalised version about my grandmother,” recalls Naval, who says Amritsar, like other cities, is not the same. “The one I write about is so different.”

Talking about the process of writing the book, Naval says she wrote the entire day, sitting in one place, always looking at the laptop, calling up people in Burma, the USA, from that generation. Poetry, she says, is her first expression, it comes naturally. “When you write poetry in school, it’s all dreamy and indulgent. I also enjoyed the process of writing short stories.”

Naval says she grew up on the stories she has written about. “This is my mythology. I never heard about Mahabharata and Ramayana. Through this book, my publisher made me aware that I’m actually documenting that era,” smiles Naval.