Meeting with Vijay Tendulkar
iView Author: S J (South Carolina, USA)
EMAIL: withheld
Title: On the sad demise of Vijay Tendulkar
Vijay Tendulkar’s death was a shock to me and I wrote following matter to my Dad, expressing my loss.
Mon, May 19, 2008
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For the first time in my life, today, I am thanking my boss with utmost gratitude. It was she who insisted me going to ‘Vite’s’ house and take his interview.
Her words…”He is a hard task …he won’t talk to you…take shots of his library and come back…first see if he gives you an appointment.”
She gave me his cell-number. I dialed it expecting his snub. But it was his man-Friday who picked up the phone, after my introduction, he asked me to hang on. I noticed my heart beat running faster and my palms becoming sweaty.
Finally, I heard “please make it before five.”
I looked at my watch, it was 4.15 p.m. my boss immediately asked a stringer to reach his place and as usual, I had no staff vehicle. I don’t know how I reached Bandra…met the stringer (don’t recollect his name)…took a rikshaw and told him, “jitni jaldi ho sake utna jaldi pahooncha do.”
To my surprise, I found myself praying…an unusual prayer…”God, let him not meet me…I don’t want to meet the man…I don’t have courage…what am I going to say to him?…do I have a caliber, ability to stand next to him…forget about talking to him?
What am I going to say?
What do I know of him?
What impression would I leave on him? …
he’ll laugh at my ignorance of his achievements, his works, his life…thoughts just didn’t stop…they kept on pouring in making my existence more meaningless…useless…futile…insignificant.
I was under tremendous pressure…I was meeting a man whom I respected so much…here is my chance to meet him and I did not want that?????
What was wrong with me…what happened to SJ, the one who never had problem asking questions or taking interview of any leader, celebrity or artist? What happened to my confidence? My head started reeling…fighting with my thoughts, I don’t know when the auto stopped in front of his house. We (Myself with the cameraman and his helper) came out of the auto and I looked around…and as we were about to enter the premises, I glanced to my left and saw a familiar figure trying to walk fast as if hiding himself from some one or avoiding some one. I
stopped…didn’t know what to do…I knew it was him and he’s avoiding me.
My heart wanted him go…I’ll be saved of all humiliation…but the journalist in me held her own…and thank God for that. I ran…he was walking very fast but I managed to stop him. I don’t know how I controlled myself from touching his feet.
I introduced myself to him…I could read the look in his eyes which were saying…”God forgive them for they not know what they are doing.”
His stare said it all…it said, SJ, who the hell you are?…do you have any credentials, qualifications, or potential to ask a single question to me? I gathered all my courage and asked him for a small interview…
he said, “no, I am going out…I cannot give you any interview…you can get shots of my house and library…please excuse me.”
I don’t know after that what I talked with him…but it was almost for 7-10 minutes…I remember him keeping his hand over my head and saying,” nantar kadhi tari, aaj nahi, mala jayachi ghai aahe.”
I said, “fine Sir.”
Meanwhile taxi came and he went. For the first time in my life, I was not disappointed
after not getting an interview…an interview people would have given their tooth and nail. I was rather relaxed, happier…he save me from humiliation…embarrassment…of my shallowness, ignorance and my inability to know and discuss his works…God bless his soul.
I entered his house. A simple middle-class typical Maharashtrian house…I asked my camera-man to take shots of all his books and awards. I got busy looking at his books…what a collection…besides his own collection there were books of international authors…authors I did not even hear about…I was wondering if he took inspiration from them. As I came back, came back
with me a sense of emptiness…emptiness that came with the realization that I had missed a chance of life to talk to him, to listen to him…his life experiences, his terse reactions, his silent musings, his vocal outbursts, his losses, his achievements, his frustrations… All through my life I wanted to meet him, have a talk with him or for that matter I just wanted to see him…I just wanted to be with him…observe him…how he talks, what he speaks, how his hands moves
when he speak, the acerbic smile on his lips…I wanted to observe everything…I wanted to see what the man reads, what music he listens to, how is he as a real person? I don’t know, must be a weird feeling, but I always had a belief that I could have brought out ‘the’ real
Vite out of Vijay Tendulkar…might be my own flight of imagination…so be it. P.L. Deshpande, Suresh Bhatt and now Vite…the emptiness is growing with every passing day.
Always envied writers…for their ability to create something meaningful out of meaningless, something most beautiful out of most hideous, something most exciting out of most mundane…envied them for their ability to play with words and emotions…envied them for their ability to create a whole new world out of sheer imagination or observation…envied their ability to take us away from reality…or making us aware of the reality. Vite was the one who always brought me
closer to reality…so close that I started seeing the real faces behind every fa'§ade…I started reading people’s minds…their insecurities, their fantasies, their expectations and their disappointments. His characters were ugly, mean, cunning, shrewd, cruel and yet so
real…before reading his books, for me world was a beautiful place filled with beautiful people. His characters made me realize the importance of being good, scrupulous, affectionate and loving…for his characters always lacked these attributes. I wanted to know from him why his characters represent the ugly face of human life…and why not the other way round.
As I am sitting in the library…empty stomach…head once again is reeling… reminiscing my life of a journalist in Mumbai. A journalist…who never had an accreditation, who doesn’t know anything
about tax or tax returns, who didn’t really learn the ABC of journalism or mass communication…but who got numerous opportunities to meet some wonderful people, through this medium. Today as I look back, I feel myself blessed when I remember my talks, meetings with these
people…but I think what I enjoyed most are my talks with the artists and creative people. God bless them…they have given me a reason to live…I can go on in life reading them, watching them. I am because they are(there).
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
@SJ,
I like most your acceptance of fear (inside) while going to meet a big writer and personality like Tendulkar Saab. This fear is natural but sadly its losing its place from younger generation of Journalists because they dont try to go up to the standard of the person with whom they are going to meet rather now they try to drag that person to the level of their ordinary and sometimes silly questions.
Rest assured that if a young media person especially belonging to electronic media is going to meet veteran actor Waheeda Rehman s/he will not do any homework on her films and her stadard work in films but will try to ask her alleged affair with Guru Dutt.
This fear and anxiety is the best thing in any person who is going to take interview of any achiever and if s/he is going to meet a veteran then there should be bigger level consciousness because s/he is going to get something which is part of history.
Its sad that you could not meet him again.
The weaknesses and ugliness in Vijay Tendulkar’s characters are there to shake us. Most of the time we are in a sleepy mood and to wake us up he needed to shout through his character.
I am reminded of Aakrosh here. The conflict of Naseeruddin Shah with Amrish Puri makes Naseer realise the real realities. He learns more after witnessing weaknesses of AP.
Good piece.
I recently saw a documentry available with rudraa.com on Vijay Tendulkar titled Tendulkar and Violence. Has anyone watched it.