Suman Gujral: How I Wrote ‘Lion’ | Video Interview

Interview by Zoë Brigley

At Poetry Wales, we are always open to conversation, and we were very glad that about eighteen months ago, the artist and writer Suman Gujral wrote to us to mention that it was almost 75 years since the Partition of India and Pakistan and to encourage us to mark it in some way. After some discussion, we felt that this was an important event and though we don’t have themed issues, we did send a special call-out to writers with a connection to South Asia. The poems we received were on every subject, including some moving ones about the history and legacy of Partition.

We were also glad to be able to have two poets discussing the subject of Partition too: Sampurna Chattarji (based in India) and Nasia Sarwar-Skuse (based in South Wales), as part of a series that puts Welsh writers in touch with poets from beyond the UK. (For our next issue 58.3, we’ll see Nia Morais (based in Cardiff) in conversation with American Dakota poet Gwen Nell Westerman.)

None of this would have happened without the conversation with Suman Gujral, and it is fitting that her stunning artwork is on the cover of issue 58.2. We are delighted to host Suman’s powerful video poem here along with an interview. We want to thank Suman wholeheartedly and encourage readers to find out more about her art and writing.

If you would like to write to us with a suggestion for the magazine, please do so by emailing editor@poetrywales.co.uk

VIDEO: LION

Listen to an audio-only version here:

Lion

My Daddy is a proper Sikh, his turban is 
so elegant, his beard is always neatly tied
I really think he's dashing

he wears his suits with such aplomb, I 
think he is more handsome than 
any other daddy

I love it when he's chanting prayers, 
so rhythmic and mysterious
he loves us more than life itself

sometimes though, I am perplexed, his mood 
swings right from day to night, sweeps away 
our peacefulness, in just a millisecond

I sense an ancient hurt inside, which
I'm too young to realise, is grief and 
rage for all that he has suffered

he never speaks about his trials
though, one day I will understand the 
wounds done to his soul and land

he had to leave his childhood home 
his early life and all he'd known, 
to flee from those he'd long 
considered brothers

for men in charge of India's Fate
made choices which turned love to hate   
untold millions fled their homes 
rivers flowed with blood and bones

roads were paved with bodies,
daily, horror- trains arrived, 
no-one on them left alive,
whilst wells turned into coffins

though Dad survived and life 
is good it's not that long since 
India keened her dying song,
divided, wounded, never healed

as Daddy never will be

VIDEO: INTERVIEW

Listen to an audio-only version here:

Transcript of Interview

Zoë Brigley: So, welcome everybody I’m here with Suman Gujral and we’re actually having here our first video interview for How I Write a Poem which we’re really excited about. And you can see the cover that Suman did behind me here, for Poetry Wales, which we are also very excited about, and we have a video poem [above] as well to present to you.

*Contemplation* by Susan Gujral, next to the cover of *Poetry Wales* 58.2

ZB: We were actually in touch about some other things about 18 months ago, and I was really delighted that you mentioned to me that 2022 was 75 years since the Partition of India and Pakistan, and it seemed to me that to have something to mark that would be really important and I’m so appreciative that you wrote to me and suggested this to us. We actually really appreciate people writing to us at Poetry Wales suggesting themes. We don’t exactly have themed issues with Poetry Wales, but we have kind of calls within the magazine.

We’re always open to all submissions, but we have sections within the magazine which focus on particular themes or particular writers, and so we really appreciated that, and we’re so glad that you were able to do the cover.

I wanted to just start by asking you about the theme of Partition in your work and its importance to you?

Suman Gujral: Well, like lots of people, when I was growing up, my parents used to tell me about the things that had happened to them when they were younger, and I kind of didn’t really listen then.

Then I did an MA at the University of Hertfordshire, and when I started it, I thought that I would be looking at the history of Indian art because I didn’t know very much about it, and everything in this country is taught from a very Eurocentric point of view – but then I started to realise how much Partition had impacted the development of art in India and that then led me to talk to my Mum again about her experiences, and to realise how traumatic it had been for her, and for millions and millions of people. And then I began to make work about it.

ZB: Yeah, and I think something that’s come up through the issue has been, like, what a kind of important issue it is for a lot of artists working in the UK, and the call out particularly asked writers with connections to South Asia to send work. And it’s been a really fascinating and moving journey, kind of reading those poems and listening to the stories as well. Something that perhaps is, you know, not as as highlighted as it should be.

And it’s interesting because I noticed, for example, that sometimes it does seem to be coming up in media texts more, so for example, there’s a Marvel show now which has a Partition story in it, although whether it’s kind of complex enough is questionable. But, you know, it was interesting to me. I thought, Wow, my kids are now watching stories about Partition. That’s good. Probably we’re wanting more complex representations and better representations of it.

I mean, do you feel like it’s represented enough, or that it’s kind of in stories that we see and read and and watch enough?

SG: I don’t think that it was for a very long time, but around the 70th Anniversary of Partition, there began to be more known. And now there’s a Partition Museum in India in Amritsar, which is actually where my paternal family fled to after Partition. And it’s really good to see more about it in the news, because it’s kind of, it’s been a hidden history and yet it was devastating. It’s the largest mass migration in history, and tens and tens of thousands of people died in the conflict that arose out of it, people who had been living peacefully with each other and neighbours with neighbours turned on each other.

And unfortunately, that’s a universal story. But we need to hear more about Partition, because it’s so relevant to what’s happening in the world right now, I think.

ZB: Yeah, definitely. So it’s great to see, you know, more being written about it, I think, and more representations, although we could ask for more, I think. Your poem Lion touches on these themes, and it speaks in the voice of a child observing a parent.

I’m really interested in the mysteriousness of parents, and the things we’ll never know about them or never quite get to the heart of as their children. And so it was really interesting to me that it’s written in the voice of the child, writing about the parent and trying to observe them and work out their story. And I wondered if you’d talk a bit more about that?

SG: Yeah, I feel very lucky, because when my parents came to this country, we actually lived in Southall, and there’s a very big Sikh community in Southall, and it used to be known as ‘Little India’, and I had a very strong sense of identity as a Sikh. I never quite, you know, I never felt sidelined, or in a minority, because I wasn’t. I always say that I didn’t really realise I was Brown until we moved away from Southall to Hastings on the coast, and there were no other – well, hardly any other Brown families.

So, I was always very proud of my Dad. I used to love his turban, he always wore these fabulous suits, he looked so smart. And his, you know, the religion was very important to him. And he used to do – he used to read prayers in the house every day. And I would just – I’d kind of watch in fascination. But he also had this other side to his nature, which was that he had a really short fuse. So he would lose his temper, he would lose his temper very easily.

And it was only when I was much older that I began to wonder about why that was. And I think some of it was the – that huge trauma of being, of having to leave his home and everything behind and having – you know, not ever being able to go back to where he had grown up and gone to school.

And, you know, I’ve always wondered what he saw on his journey. And also heard terrible stories as well, because people, you know, obviously told each other what they had seen and experienced and gone through. And that was – in his probably late teens, [he was] about 18 or 19 when that happened.

So writing this poem feels like a tribute to him, to actually give a voice to what happened and acknowledge what happened. And that’s actually a constant theme of mine in my visual work as well; it’s really important to give a voice to people who – who are overlooked, I think.

ZB: Yeah, I love that. I love that. And, something that came up with a lot of writers when they were talking about Partition was this worry that people who kind of went through the experience, how we’re losing their stories and how people are becoming – it’s becoming urgent. People are like, ‘Well, we must write this down! We must find these stories now! We must try and capture them now!’ Before, you know the generation that went through it are not there to tell them anymore. And I wondered if that was kind of a concern of yours as well?

SG: Oh, definitely. There’s lots and lots of South Asian writers and artists who feel very concerned that those stories shouldn’t be lost because those people are dying. They are now collecting stories in India as well, there are Partition archives in India and in the US. I think Manchester History Museum as well is recording quite a lot of eyewitness accounts.

I feel really sad that I didn’t ask my Dad, and didn’t realise when my Dad was still alive, when I was younger, what had happened to him.

But yeah, it’s good. It’s good that we’re recording those voices now, while we still can.

ZB: Yeah. And I think that use of the the child’s voice in the poem is really powerful, because it’s almost like we’re drawn into this family, and we’re also contemplating the father, we’re also thinking about the mystery of him and trying to work them out with you. So it’s quite an effective technique, in terms of the poem itself.

The poem varies between tercets (three line stanzas), and quatrains (four lines) and it ends with a single line on its own. And I wondered if you could tell us about how did you decide on form with poetry? Is it something that comes organically, naturally, or is it something that you – you kind of work on later on, that you kind of just write stuff out and then transform it into a form? How does that work for you?

SG: Well, it works for me organically, actually, because I didn’t – I used to write a lot poetry as a teen, until I was a teenager – and then I didn’t write any poetry at all until lockdown. And I haven’t studied poetry or read a lot of poetry, because I’d moved away from that.

And then I had an incident in lockdown, which was around BLM, and I started writing poetry again after that, as a way of expressing what was happening, because I wasn’t making any visual work. I found that very difficult in lockdown. I’m not really sure why. And so the poem just came out almost as it is, and it just felt very important to have that last line on its own.

ZB: Yeah, Yeah, definitely. And I think that is, you know, very powerful having that line, that single line there by itself. Just for us to ponder and wonder about. So I think that was very effective in terms of the form. And it is interesting, isn’t it, you know, that kind of sense of, like, the difference between, say, a couplet and a quatrain and how, you know, there’s – there’s a different kind of rhythm to reading it. And I think sometimes that does come organically and, and with, you know, the writing the poem, it can just come out if you’re lucky.

If you’re lucky, it can just come naturally, and you don’t have to labor over it too much, which sometimes happens with poems too, right?

SG: Oh yeah, there have been some that are more difficult to write! But I find it really interesting, all the poems that I’ve written about my parents’ experiences have come out, really have come out very – not easily, but they just flowed out.

The feeling is that they were always somehow there in the back of my mind, just collecting. Does that make sense?

ZB: Yeah, Yeah. And that’s wonderful that even if that, you know, lockdown was difficult, that if it made you write that that’s, that’s a really great thing too. That’s great as well.

And of course you’re a visual artist, and we’re so grateful that we were able to use this image of yours for the cover. I wonder, this is something that intrigues me. Do you have a different mindset when you create visual art as compared to writing a poem? Do you kind of get into a different space, or is it similar? I’d love to ask you about that.

SG: I think it’s actually slightly different, because when I’m writing a poem, I can only have the words of the poem floating around in my head, I can’t – when I’m painting or when I’m making prints or drawing, or sewing, I can actually think about other things. I can have other words going on in my mind. But with a poem, I can [only] think about the poem, and I can’t have any music either. Whereas when I’m making visual works, I sometimes have the radio on or I listen to an audiobook, it is a different mindset.

ZB: Yeah, and I’m sort of interested about your career with the visual arts as well, because you said you’ve kind of had moments in your life where you’ve written poetry, but I feel like the visual art has certainly been a constant for you, right?

SG: It’s been all the way through, and it started when I was really young. I used to sit together and make things with my Mum, sew with her, and she was always very keen on me having an artistic career.

And then when [my] kids were, when I was working, when the kids were small, I always did art classes. And when they were older, I went to do my MA in Fine Arts, which is what launched me to this career, because before, before the MA, I was mainly making landscape work. Whereas the work I make now is much more kind of, I’d say, research-based? And based on history, and is a response to politics and world events.

ZB: Yeah, interesting. And I wondered if you had any advice to younger writers – or newer writers, not just young writers, because it’s not necessarily the case that new writers are always young! – but, if you had any advice for newer writers or newer artists, I wonder what that would be, if you could tell them like a couple of things that they should think about, almost like, things that you wish you’d known yourself maybe when you were a new artist? I wonder what advice you would give?

SG: One piece of advice is – that I had actually – is to not worry about whether anyone’s going to see the work; to make, to immerse yourself in your work and enjoy it. And don’t make it for anything in particular, but just make it for the sake of making, because [the] kind of creativity where you don’t kind of shoebox yourself into thinking we have to be one thing or another, that’s very liberating.

Because then you can just make anything that you feel like making, and that quite often, it’s almost out of playing that the best work comes.

ZB: Yeah, great advice, great advice. And where are you going to go next as well, where are you going next? What are your next projects? What are you working on now?

SG: What I’m really interested in at the moment is how craft carries culture, and how women quite often are the memory keepers, and [of] the objects, you know, if you think – when I think about my Mum at the moment, she’s clearing her house out, she’s 89, and she’s giving me all these things that she’s amassed over the years, because she doesn’t throw anything away.

She’s that post-war generation which didn’t waste anything, and I want to make work based on the objects that she’s given me, and I want to have workshops with other people coming with objects their families have given to them, because museums collect things that are ‘important’ – that are considered to be important, I mean, we do have social history museums as well – but on the whole, it’s kind of objects that might not seem relevant to – to us as individual people. Whereas ordinary people keep the things that matter to them, that remind them of happy memories and good times of things they’ve managed to save in times of trouble. So yeah, the next lot to work is going to be about that.

ZB: Yeah, I really appreciate that. And I think, you know, those kind of things, those ordinary – seemingly ordinary things – but that can hold a lot of memories, and a lot of resonance, are really important.

I think about how my own Grandmother died a couple of years ago, and my mother went in to clear out the house and she found all these amazing things, and she kept a load of it for me, and passed it on to me. And to other people, they might not seem very significant, but there’s, you know, there’s kind of memories embedded in these things. There’s things that kind of – there are resonances that other people wouldn’t get. And I could imagine that must be even more so true, you know, when you’re talking about like, kind of memories of the past and Partition and how, you know, perhaps an ordinary object, which seems ordinary to other people, could hold something. You could almost have, like, an archive of those things. So I think it sounds wonderful. It sounds like wonderful, wonderful work, and I wish you all the best of luck with it. Sounds fantastic.

SG: Well, thank you very much. And thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk about my work.

ZB: Most of all, thank you for writing to us! Thank you for getting in touch with us. And for giving us this brilliant idea, for flagging it up, because when you when you mentioned it to me, I thought: ‘Yes, that is so important. That’s so important. We’ve got to do that.’ And I hope that more people will do that and write to us if they feel like there’s something that we could cover which would be significant for, you know, our writing community. So thank you again, it’s much appreciated.

It’s been brilliant talking to you today for our first video How I Write a Poem! And you know, if you haven’t looked at the video of that already, please do so, it’s going to be here on the website for you. Take care everyone, and stay well.

SG: Thank you.