India-Books/Reportage
New Delhi
The distinction between the genres of non-fiction and
fiction is getting more "mixed" with writers of non-fiction and
reportage using more literary tools in their journalistic accounts since
the literary reportage made its debut in the writing space in 1960s-1970s,
says Polish reportage writer and author Wojciech Jagielski, a student of master
of literary journalism Ryszard Kapuscinski. Jagielski,
a senior foreign affairs correspondent and the author of
four reportage books, is an authority on Afghanistan, Central Asia and
Africa.
"All journalists in Poland wanted to end up as writers
in the 20th century. News reports have such limited space in our country. To
ensure that the traditional Polish brand of reportage has its way, most
journalists write books," Jagielski, said in an informal chat at the World
Book Fair 2014 in New Delhi (Feb 15-23).
Journalism has evolved as a "curious medley of reportage and
literature for the last 150 years in Poland — since it arrived in the country
in the 19th century. Poland was then a hub of classical European culture with
large communities of artists, performers and writers for whom freedom and
philosophy were cornerstones of creative progress.
"But the arrival of Communism after the second World War and
its consolidation for nearly 50 years forced journalists to write in a
metaphorical way - about specific issues and specific situations without
sounding critical," Jagielski said.
A section of rebellious writers, however, began to write between the lines to
convey disenchantment with the regime.
"Writers were writing one thing - but readers knew
that they were allegories pointing to some profound truth and exploring
connotations behind the scene in the garb of descriptive reportage,"
the writer said. This made the writers more literary. "We were all trying
to follow wither way of writing. We did not invent things but we used the
litetrary structures to write a story," Jagielski pointed out.
The Polish School of Reportage — as this style of literary
journalism — came to be known - has broken through the bastions of conventional
journalism with its "verbose style replete with colours, descriptions,
analysis and people's stories".
One of the unique features of Polish school of journalism is that
"reporters write more about the world than about their own country".
They travel extensively and bring home "rich troves of stories and
experience". The tradition traces its roots to the pre-War days when
media houses had money to splurge on their reporters for overseas coverage.
During the Communist regime, while space shrunk and spends were scaled down,
the Communist dispensation "discouraged reporters from writing freely
about home turfs— clamping strict censors. All the fall of the Communism
in Eastern Europe and in Poland in 1989-1990, media was freed
from state control. However, resources continue to remain constrained for
reportage style foreign coverage till this day.
"Most of the media houses send journalists to Ukraine because
everything that is happening in Kiev is important to Poland," Jagielski said.
The writer "joined journalism in 1990s- it was the golden era
of foreign journalism in the country". "Now, the Polish media is
closing foreign offices worldwide because "they cannot afford to maintain
international bureaus or send reports on extended reportage missions for
"multiple serial reports about a country".
"As a result, most foreign correspondents carry
their missions to books — to be able to write all that they have gathered and
have seen," the reportage writer said.
Jagielski has been coming
to India since 1980s. "I admire the South Asian press. I follow
the weeklies," said the writer, whose account of Afghanistan,
"Praying for Rain" was the consequence of 10 years of
touring the country for sustained stretches.
Recounting the triggers that led to the book, the writer said
there was no space for "stories from Afghanistan in his Polish Press
Agency initially". "Then my employers realised that my reports
(edited and shortened) from Afghanistan were attracting several hits
(eyeballs) on the Internet. "The immediate result was my book. I continued
to visit the country (Afghanistan) till 2009 where I was embedded with the
soldiers". "It took me 10 years to understand Afghanistan-
what Afghanistan was all about," he said.
The writer offers "fresh insights into the future of
Afghanistan after the 2014 pullout — "they come from the situations and
opinions of common man and scholars across the society", he said.
"If the west has enough patience to pay
president Hamid Karzai (or the one in helm in the future after April
2014 presidential poll) to help the army survive, then there will be
enough force to counter the Taliban. If the West is not patient, then the country
might fall back to the 1990s situation or worse," Jagielski said.
The writer like his mentor Kapuscinski looks for
unusual metaphors and icons to begin his story.
"They have to be symbolic of the large story I am trying to
narrate about a place," Jagielski said.
'I was looking for a story in South Africa— a country I had been
visiting since the 1990s. There were many biographies of Mandela.I did not want
to write another biography. Then I met a soccer fan in 2007, who narrated his
life story to me. I realised the soccer fan's life and Mandela's life were
the same. I wrote a story about the soccer fan, Nelson Mandela and my own
self," Jagielski said. The result
was the "Trumpeter of Tembisa"- a portrait of Nelson Mandela and the
shaping of contemporary South Africa.
"What I hunt for is an idea of a subject that goes
beyond the immediate report," he said.
Once on a trip to Chechnya, when the writer as a
war correspondent (covering the civil war) was travelling through a region
known as "Bagestan", he came across a "large
boulder" with an inscription, "You Will Not Be a Hero If You
Think of The Consequences". "It reminded me of the Chechen
rebel army commanders— Shamil Basayev and Aslan Mashkadov - one a radical and
the latter a responsible and moderate leader respectively," Jagielski said. The
stone paved the foundation for his popular political account.of the
Chechnya war "Towers of
Stone". .
Jagielski is now looking for an offbeat story to "script" his India reportage.
"Normally people would like to write about Narendra Modi or the Nehru Gandhi family. But I would like to write about the end of an era- a trademark of India that has become old-fashioned. I would like to write a biography of Rahul Gandhi - how he was laughed at by the people and is not so successful any more, How much you miss the old politics. Something is coming to an end in India. I want to write about the hippie trail - why it has turned cold. I was in Paharganj (in the old quarters of Delhi- a favourite haunt of foreign visitors and backpackers) the other day. It is not the same anymore. There is no drug; it is not Nepal... the India people miss and the India to expect— I want to write about," Jagielski said.
"Normally people would like to write about Narendra Modi or the Nehru Gandhi family. But I would like to write about the end of an era- a trademark of India that has become old-fashioned. I would like to write a biography of Rahul Gandhi - how he was laughed at by the people and is not so successful any more, How much you miss the old politics. Something is coming to an end in India. I want to write about the hippie trail - why it has turned cold. I was in Paharganj (in the old quarters of Delhi- a favourite haunt of foreign visitors and backpackers) the other day. It is not the same anymore. There is no drug; it is not Nepal... the India people miss and the India to expect— I want to write about," Jagielski said.
-Madhusree Chatterjee
http://artsinfocus.webs.com/
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