A heart to heart with Randhir Khare
By Cherry Agarwal
Award Winning writer, poet, artist, teacher, folklorist, motivator and more, Randhir Khare is a phenomenal mix of elements that makes a great writer. Khare is acclaimed both nationally and internationally. At the same time, he is known to bring forth raw talent through workshops, readings, discussions and talks. His life is exemplary of his talent and creativity. He is known to write highly thought-provoking books like ‘Call of the blue mountains’, ‘Kutch: Triumph of The Spirit’, ‘No Place for Freedom’ etc. His latest book ‘Walking Through the Fire’ comes from excerpts from his personal life.
It enthralled me to have a heart to heart with the man who has inspired so many, in ways, more than one.
What in your opinion makes a writer?
Honesty:
Be yourself. Write out of your own experience. Use your own voice. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. All of us are unique in our own way. We all have a story. Tell it, whatever it is. Don’t try and tell a story that you think someone else would like to read. Tell a story that you want people to read. It’s an inspiring feeling, I know, trying to write like writers you admire. But that only makes you a copycat.
Effective Communication:
Don’t write to impress your readers. Write to communicate. Hold their attention and interest by seducing their imagination and appetite for alluring ideas. Take them with you, don’t take off into space and leave them on terra firma with their tongues hanging out of their mouths with exhaustion or sheer boredom. The ability to take readers with you comes from respecting them and not taking them for granted. The more intimate you are with readers, the more you engage them. So, how does one get intimate with readers? By being specific, being focused. The universal lies in the particular. As Blake says…’the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower’. Consider the intimate and universal power of the classic tale, ‘The Little Prince’.
Consistency:
A real writer, according to me, isn’t someone who has published a book or a couple of them or articles or whatever but one who writes regularly whether he or she is published or not. A real writer considers the act of writing as important as breathing. It’s a deep-seated NEED, a NECESSITY.
Passion:
Be passionate about what you write. Every time you write, let it be as if it is the most important moment in your life.
Simplicity:
Keep it simple. Of course there’s nothing wrong with wanting to make your words and ideas dance…but make sure readers are aware of the ‘tune’!
Patience:
Never force the pace of your writing. Ideas and feelings have their own rhythms, take their own time. Someone said, I don’t remember who ‘don’t worry a work into being’. Even a beautiful peafowl needs to run to gain momentum and then take off. A butterfly has to experience the wait of the chrysalis before it can emerge beautiful…that’s the law of Nature, the law of Creation. That’s the same law that applies to us when we ‘become’ writers.
These few pointers are okay for starters…
How can one be an excellent writer?
By opening yourselves to life’s varied experiences. Don’t waste your precious living moments reading what various creative Gurus have to say about how to be an excellent writer. Soak in experiences. Let your five (plus one) senses soak in what you experience. The quality of your ‘experiencing’ will enrich your creative selves by providing you with an amazing variety of raw materials…the stuff of living. So when you write, you write out of the living experience and not about it.
Writing is a lonely task so learn to be alone (not all the time of course!). Learn to relish your own space and your own time. Write out of that space and time.
Never be in a rush to ‘share’ a fresh work with people. Let it lie. Keep it your secret. Nurture it. Polish it. Excellent work needs its own time to mature. Besides this, banding your work around only disturbs the maturing process and you end up becoming more preoccupied with what other people think of your work rather than about the intrinsic life of the work itself.
Learn to be your own critic. Trust your own judgment. However, if you find someone you trust and who helps your literary self-esteem that would be a good choice.
Keep a notebook or journal. Store up your random thoughts, descriptions of what you see around you on an everyday basis, feelings, dreams, memories, whatever you think is important and valuable. Dip into it now and again and you’ll find valuable stuff in there.
In the final analysis of course, the term ‘excellent’ is relative. So the only way to spot whether your writing qualifies is when you honestly come to the conclusion that that’s the best way to say what you want to say and you can’t do it any better.
What is that one golden rule of becoming a successful author?
Encourage in yourself a feeling of ‘destiny’. Believe that writing is what you want to do and why you live. Your purpose. All else will flow from them like a mighty river begins from a perennial spring somewhere in the mountains…
How should one go about writing in different genres?
Few writers began writing in a number of genres. Most started (and still do) working in one genre. For example, I began as a poet and as I went along I began to write short poetic plays then moved into writing more realistic plays. I came upon writing short fiction when I was working on scene and action descriptions for my plays. That led me to start exploring the possibilities of short fiction. When I discovered that a lot of my short fiction dealt with minority and marginal people, it led me to start trying to experience more about various minority and marginal communities in the sub-continent. That led me to start writing non-fiction essays and books on traditional communities trying to cope with change. In the process I began to collect folklore material and folk songs from around the sub-continent and translate them into English. When I discovered that there was actually emerging a much larger preoccupation in all my writing I turned to writing fables that would capture the preoccupation and related concerns in a symbolic way…and so as you can see I used a whole range of genres in an exploratory way, moving from one to another each time I sensed a new way of writing, a new form, a new stream of expression to write what I wanted to write – better.
So how should one go about writing in different genres? Simple – be like the roots of a tree which constantly shift to new directions because they are searching for nourishment. So be open to exploring. No one can teach you how to be many rolled into one. It has to come from your own attitude. Your passion for finding new ways to say things. Finally – it all boils down to one thing – openness to the act of play. Become a child, play with stories and ideas and emotions, play with words…experiment. No one ever gets it right, the joy is in the trying, the process.
How do you decide on a theme while writing a book?
Themes form out of persisting ideas, feelings and experiences. I let the blending inside me take its own time. I start with a character or situation or as in the case of a poem – the first line. I follow it intently and nurture its movement, allowing it to grow organically. The theme takes form and emerges out of the telling. I never impose a theme. I trust the process instead. If you trust the process, the theme appears on its own bidding like a miracle.
As a beginner what hurdles did you face and how did you overcome them?
I started writing poetry at 11 and everyone ignored what I wrote and considered it embarrassingly romantic. Only two people had time for me and my work – a small shop owner down the road from where I lived and a retired Railway Inspector. The former spent his time correcting my spellings and the latter was more preoccupied with the quality of my handwriting. I was first published in magazines and papers when I was 15 and carried on getting published that way until my first book came out. Instead of praise I got a literary hammering. But that didn’t bother me. My poetry won me admiration from my fellow students in college until the guys discovered that I had a huge female following and I was dropped from the popular list. So that’s the way it went. Most often it wasn’t my writing people considered but more their own view of what writing should be. I did my best to remain focused on my work and not get upset by the view of critics and critical readers. I was hard on myself as I was a severe critic but I allowed myself the occasional experiment and risk. Ultimately I remain faithful to the muse, hard work and passion. That’s what has helped me grow as a writer.
What has been your inspiration all along?
I have had 5 near death experiences…serious accidents, drowning, Royal Bengal Tiger attack in the Sundarbans, fans ( the breeze giving ones!) falling on me…but I am still here, writing my heart out. My inspiration? Its my sense of destiny…to do what I came here to do and do it well…write well…
Is there scope for budding writers?
Absolutely. You don’t have to wait till your hair is grey and most of your teeth have fallen out. You can do it now. Of course there is scope for budding writers…just follow the direction I’ve pointed your nose in and you’ll be a winner. The book isn’t dead. Publishing is flourishing. The ocean is big enough to accommodate all of us. So go for it…
Can you give us some tips, ‘how to go about writing a prose and tricks of a fine poem’?
I can, but you have to first dig into yourself, start drawing out the raw material. Start writing in the genre you are least intimidated by. If our paths cross I’d be happy to help.…there are no tricks in writing…it’s a journey more fraught with threats than walking a mine laden field or walking with huskies to the North Pole.
How did you feel when your first book was published?
It was as if I had let go of an entire cycle of my creative life and was ready to move on, light and free.
How was the response to your latest book ‘Walking through the Fire’? Do you have more books lined up in the near future?
It’s been positively strong and meaningful. So it’s been good for me because I have drawn on the trajectory and essence of my own life to create the story. My personal self becoming a public self. Of course though it is based on my life…it really isn’t my life. It has instead become the life of the novel. For me this is an achievement. As for new work…I’m working on my new novel ‘Strangers On The Shore’, editing a volume of my Collected Poems and planning a series of children’s books.
Any specific memory, which defines "Randhir Khare". Any advice for us amateurs?
We are all amateurs…of different shades. We are all learning. As for memory…my life is alive with memories…one fusing into the other…I can even narrate to you dreams that I had when I was three…but I won’t. I’m stingy when it comes to sharing memories…I nurture my writing with them instead. But yes, I’ll grant you one memory…I was 21, backpack and overcoat trekking through the dark pine forests of Kumaon. I hadn’t met nor spoken to a soul for three days. I was in tune with the elements. Finally, when I emerged from the forest, the first rays of the sun fell on a tree standing alone on the slopes. It was an apple tree and it shivered in the cold wind that shook it. The power and the beauty of the moment made me cry and I when I heard my own voice I realized how infinitely small I was in the vastness of creation. But I felt privileged to have been there at that moment.
Be thankful for moments that awaken realizations in you…they remind you that you are truly alive.
It enthralled me to have a heart to heart with the man who has inspired so many, in ways, more than one.
What in your opinion makes a writer?
Honesty:
Be yourself. Write out of your own experience. Use your own voice. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. All of us are unique in our own way. We all have a story. Tell it, whatever it is. Don’t try and tell a story that you think someone else would like to read. Tell a story that you want people to read. It’s an inspiring feeling, I know, trying to write like writers you admire. But that only makes you a copycat.
Effective Communication:
Don’t write to impress your readers. Write to communicate. Hold their attention and interest by seducing their imagination and appetite for alluring ideas. Take them with you, don’t take off into space and leave them on terra firma with their tongues hanging out of their mouths with exhaustion or sheer boredom. The ability to take readers with you comes from respecting them and not taking them for granted. The more intimate you are with readers, the more you engage them. So, how does one get intimate with readers? By being specific, being focused. The universal lies in the particular. As Blake says…’the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower’. Consider the intimate and universal power of the classic tale, ‘The Little Prince’.
Consistency:
A real writer, according to me, isn’t someone who has published a book or a couple of them or articles or whatever but one who writes regularly whether he or she is published or not. A real writer considers the act of writing as important as breathing. It’s a deep-seated NEED, a NECESSITY.
Passion:
Be passionate about what you write. Every time you write, let it be as if it is the most important moment in your life.
Simplicity:
Keep it simple. Of course there’s nothing wrong with wanting to make your words and ideas dance…but make sure readers are aware of the ‘tune’!
Patience:
Never force the pace of your writing. Ideas and feelings have their own rhythms, take their own time. Someone said, I don’t remember who ‘don’t worry a work into being’. Even a beautiful peafowl needs to run to gain momentum and then take off. A butterfly has to experience the wait of the chrysalis before it can emerge beautiful…that’s the law of Nature, the law of Creation. That’s the same law that applies to us when we ‘become’ writers.
These few pointers are okay for starters…
How can one be an excellent writer?
By opening yourselves to life’s varied experiences. Don’t waste your precious living moments reading what various creative Gurus have to say about how to be an excellent writer. Soak in experiences. Let your five (plus one) senses soak in what you experience. The quality of your ‘experiencing’ will enrich your creative selves by providing you with an amazing variety of raw materials…the stuff of living. So when you write, you write out of the living experience and not about it.
Writing is a lonely task so learn to be alone (not all the time of course!). Learn to relish your own space and your own time. Write out of that space and time.
Never be in a rush to ‘share’ a fresh work with people. Let it lie. Keep it your secret. Nurture it. Polish it. Excellent work needs its own time to mature. Besides this, banding your work around only disturbs the maturing process and you end up becoming more preoccupied with what other people think of your work rather than about the intrinsic life of the work itself.
Learn to be your own critic. Trust your own judgment. However, if you find someone you trust and who helps your literary self-esteem that would be a good choice.
Keep a notebook or journal. Store up your random thoughts, descriptions of what you see around you on an everyday basis, feelings, dreams, memories, whatever you think is important and valuable. Dip into it now and again and you’ll find valuable stuff in there.
In the final analysis of course, the term ‘excellent’ is relative. So the only way to spot whether your writing qualifies is when you honestly come to the conclusion that that’s the best way to say what you want to say and you can’t do it any better.
What is that one golden rule of becoming a successful author?
Encourage in yourself a feeling of ‘destiny’. Believe that writing is what you want to do and why you live. Your purpose. All else will flow from them like a mighty river begins from a perennial spring somewhere in the mountains…
How should one go about writing in different genres?
Few writers began writing in a number of genres. Most started (and still do) working in one genre. For example, I began as a poet and as I went along I began to write short poetic plays then moved into writing more realistic plays. I came upon writing short fiction when I was working on scene and action descriptions for my plays. That led me to start exploring the possibilities of short fiction. When I discovered that a lot of my short fiction dealt with minority and marginal people, it led me to start trying to experience more about various minority and marginal communities in the sub-continent. That led me to start writing non-fiction essays and books on traditional communities trying to cope with change. In the process I began to collect folklore material and folk songs from around the sub-continent and translate them into English. When I discovered that there was actually emerging a much larger preoccupation in all my writing I turned to writing fables that would capture the preoccupation and related concerns in a symbolic way…and so as you can see I used a whole range of genres in an exploratory way, moving from one to another each time I sensed a new way of writing, a new form, a new stream of expression to write what I wanted to write – better.
So how should one go about writing in different genres? Simple – be like the roots of a tree which constantly shift to new directions because they are searching for nourishment. So be open to exploring. No one can teach you how to be many rolled into one. It has to come from your own attitude. Your passion for finding new ways to say things. Finally – it all boils down to one thing – openness to the act of play. Become a child, play with stories and ideas and emotions, play with words…experiment. No one ever gets it right, the joy is in the trying, the process.
How do you decide on a theme while writing a book?
Themes form out of persisting ideas, feelings and experiences. I let the blending inside me take its own time. I start with a character or situation or as in the case of a poem – the first line. I follow it intently and nurture its movement, allowing it to grow organically. The theme takes form and emerges out of the telling. I never impose a theme. I trust the process instead. If you trust the process, the theme appears on its own bidding like a miracle.
As a beginner what hurdles did you face and how did you overcome them?
I started writing poetry at 11 and everyone ignored what I wrote and considered it embarrassingly romantic. Only two people had time for me and my work – a small shop owner down the road from where I lived and a retired Railway Inspector. The former spent his time correcting my spellings and the latter was more preoccupied with the quality of my handwriting. I was first published in magazines and papers when I was 15 and carried on getting published that way until my first book came out. Instead of praise I got a literary hammering. But that didn’t bother me. My poetry won me admiration from my fellow students in college until the guys discovered that I had a huge female following and I was dropped from the popular list. So that’s the way it went. Most often it wasn’t my writing people considered but more their own view of what writing should be. I did my best to remain focused on my work and not get upset by the view of critics and critical readers. I was hard on myself as I was a severe critic but I allowed myself the occasional experiment and risk. Ultimately I remain faithful to the muse, hard work and passion. That’s what has helped me grow as a writer.
What has been your inspiration all along?
I have had 5 near death experiences…serious accidents, drowning, Royal Bengal Tiger attack in the Sundarbans, fans ( the breeze giving ones!) falling on me…but I am still here, writing my heart out. My inspiration? Its my sense of destiny…to do what I came here to do and do it well…write well…
Is there scope for budding writers?
Absolutely. You don’t have to wait till your hair is grey and most of your teeth have fallen out. You can do it now. Of course there is scope for budding writers…just follow the direction I’ve pointed your nose in and you’ll be a winner. The book isn’t dead. Publishing is flourishing. The ocean is big enough to accommodate all of us. So go for it…
Can you give us some tips, ‘how to go about writing a prose and tricks of a fine poem’?
I can, but you have to first dig into yourself, start drawing out the raw material. Start writing in the genre you are least intimidated by. If our paths cross I’d be happy to help.…there are no tricks in writing…it’s a journey more fraught with threats than walking a mine laden field or walking with huskies to the North Pole.
How did you feel when your first book was published?
It was as if I had let go of an entire cycle of my creative life and was ready to move on, light and free.
How was the response to your latest book ‘Walking through the Fire’? Do you have more books lined up in the near future?
It’s been positively strong and meaningful. So it’s been good for me because I have drawn on the trajectory and essence of my own life to create the story. My personal self becoming a public self. Of course though it is based on my life…it really isn’t my life. It has instead become the life of the novel. For me this is an achievement. As for new work…I’m working on my new novel ‘Strangers On The Shore’, editing a volume of my Collected Poems and planning a series of children’s books.
Any specific memory, which defines "Randhir Khare". Any advice for us amateurs?
We are all amateurs…of different shades. We are all learning. As for memory…my life is alive with memories…one fusing into the other…I can even narrate to you dreams that I had when I was three…but I won’t. I’m stingy when it comes to sharing memories…I nurture my writing with them instead. But yes, I’ll grant you one memory…I was 21, backpack and overcoat trekking through the dark pine forests of Kumaon. I hadn’t met nor spoken to a soul for three days. I was in tune with the elements. Finally, when I emerged from the forest, the first rays of the sun fell on a tree standing alone on the slopes. It was an apple tree and it shivered in the cold wind that shook it. The power and the beauty of the moment made me cry and I when I heard my own voice I realized how infinitely small I was in the vastness of creation. But I felt privileged to have been there at that moment.
Be thankful for moments that awaken realizations in you…they remind you that you are truly alive.
Cherry Agarwal - CEO cum Editor @ QW
#Pertinacious Writer
#Stubborn Journalist
#Communicator
#Budding Designer
#Wishful Entrepreneur
#Stubborn Journalist
#Communicator
#Budding Designer
#Wishful Entrepreneur
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