SURAT, July 21: He has everything that a person of a middle-class family would aspire for. A secure bank job, supportive family and colleagues. Yet he feels restless and suffocated and loves to be called a writer sympathetic to the cause of women. ``I am basically a feminist,'' he claims. He is Ravindra Parekh.Born in a family of goldsmiths on November 21, 1946 in Kalwada village in Valsad, Parekh was destined to be a writer. Right from the beginning he felt the urge to express himself and this creative urge made him write.No wonder that, despite slogging for the whole day in the office, he claims he never feels tired. He only feels ``restless'' and it is this feeling he thrives on.An accomplished writer with seven well-received books to his credit, Parekh, at times, writes all night.``I wanted to do BA in literature but my father forced me to take up science,'' Parekh recalls. Though he secured a first class in BSc, he never lost interest in literature, which remains unchanged even today.Later, he took up law (South Gujarat University) and even topped and joined the Union Bank as cashier in 1971.Parekh's literary career began with a short story published in 1965. Though he started writing the story Swapan Ke Satya? in class 10, it was only after three years that it was published in Abil Gulal Magazine.His first novel Jal Durg (Water Castle) was published in 1984. Two of his collection of short stories were published by Gujarati Sahitya and Sahitya Sankul. The first collection Swapnawato went on to bag three prizes - Gujarati Sahitya Academy award, Umashanker Joshi award and critics award - in 1986.Gujarat Sahitya Academy and Mumbai-based literary institute Kalagurguri also honoured Parekh for his one-act play Gharbagarnadar.Presently he is writing a novel and also adapting a Marathi play Wada Chirebandi into Gujarati.Parekh is also a poet. ``A collection of my poems will soon be published,'' he beams. Parekh has a special interest in films too. For about five years he regularly wrote columns on films and still writes twice a week in a local Gujarati Daily.``I am not an ivory-tower writer,'' he says. ``If you want to write about life, you cannot write in isolation which what most of the writers are doing nowadays,'' he claims.To learn about the atrocities being committed on tribals, Parekh, probably was the only writer from the city to have visited Dangs to get a first hand account of the situation. He interacted with them to understand their problems and conflicts with the forest department officials, which was aptly reflected in his writing.A writer who claims that complexities of human relation is his favourite subject, finds himself today at a loss in a age of crass consumerism. ``Everything is market oriented. Even the human relations are based on selfish motives of individuals. It is so distressing,'' he regrets.``I become a pessimist when I see all this mad race,'' he says. But literature, he believes, will never die. Top
