Deepti Naval’s memoir, an ode to Amritsar, childhood
Renowned actor-writer-painter Deepti Naval was in Chandigarh on Wednesday for the launch of her memoir, A Country Called Childhood
Renowned actor-writer-painter Deepti Naval was in Chandigarh on Wednesday for the launch of her memoir, A Country Called Childhood.
Ehsaas, Women of Chandigarh and the Prabha Khaitan Foundation, in association with Taj Chandigarh, had organised The Writer Circle, a literary session, where the veteran actor, in conversation with former IAS officer, writer and motivational speaker Vivek Atray, shared snippets of her unforgettable childhood in the tumultuous Amritsar of 1950s and ’60s, family holidays in Kullu-Manali, conversations with her parents and didi, and how it all shaped her as a human.
During the conversation with Atray, Naval says the book, in a way, is not a typical memoir but more like a screenplay, adding that she does not nurtures these stories, they nurture her.
“From my father, I got the gift of writing and from my mother – acting, dance, art and music. Also, I was never professionally trained as an actor but when we were kids and my didi would get bored, she would ask me to act on command and maybe that became kind of a workshop for later,” the veteran actor says.
Lauding her writing style, Atray says, “The book left an impression on me. I, as a reader, remember the characters as the description was so cinematic.”
On being asked why the book’s cover is black and white and she herself was dressed in that particular colour combination, the actor was quick to say: “Simplicity is my style! And while I may dress in these shades, there’s colour in my paintings, and my stories and poems.”
On what’s so special about Amritsar, she says, “It being the city of the Golden Temple, most of its residents having wounds, stories and the history of Partition, the walled city’s proximity of the Pakistan border – all adds to culmination of innumerable stories that in turn, shape the residents and their personalities.”
In the book, Naval has minutely recounted and written in vivid detail anecdotes from her childhood in the streets of Amritsar including watching films at the local talkies, acting on command of her didi (Smiti), her mother Himadri Naval telling the sisters bedtime stories of her life in Burma before the family was displaced, her piti (as she called her father), Uday Chandra Naval, lighting up the house at night with a lamp so that a young Deepti could go to the bathroom without any fear, encounters with madmen in Amritsar and Manali, among others.
Naval says that it is these experiences and the lessons taught by her ‘mama’ and ‘piti’ made her empathetic, compassionate and with that came the understanding that nothing, including our lives, is forever. It’s all a journey!
