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Journalism of Courage
Zohra Segals memoir Close-Up is the story of a hundred years not of solitude but of a journey bustling with several characters,on the stage and off it. There is also some sideways look at people who shaped the twentieth century,like a reference to Jawaharlal Nehrus arrest in 1942,a day before he was to host a dinner for the newlywed Segal couple at his home in Allahabad.
Its a spirited account,almost like a screenplay,written with a sense of abandon. There are some exotic details from her genealogy of one of her ancestors participating in the Revolt of 1857 and another being responsible for the gouging out of the eyes of the dispossessed Mughal king Shah Alam II,but mostly the book is about the twists and turns in her life. And the narration,although detailed,is neither boring nor self-indulgently wordy.
Close-Up is also about Indian theatre Uday Shankar,Prithviraj Kapoor and IPTA,the last looked at not through the lens of ideology,but as an artist in the fray.
Something that quite inevitably runs through the book is a sense of history,traversing as it does a momentous century. Sometimes one forgets Segal is as old as she is,98,only to be reminded of it suddenly when she contrasts Germany before and after World War II and how her memories of Dresden before 1933,when she stayed there,made her most despondent in the years following the War.
The last few years of the 20th century do not get as much space in the book as her salad years do. Still the chapter 1976-1996: The Last Decades offers an insight into working in India as an older person,and as an older woman-artist. Segal continued to live life to the lees,as she did a whole lot of television and films,but she does mention the difficulty of finding a part as an older woman: Very few stories have an ageing character so the chances of my getting a lot of work are slim unless someone writes a role for me,as was done in Tandoori Nights,Never Say Die,Partition,Down Every Street,etc. Am I disheartened? Yes and no .
Zohra Segal concludes that despite not getting her desserts,she wouldnt have it any other way. For the rest of us,her easy-to-read account is a joyous treat.
