Theatre thespian Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry speaks about the books that shaped her life’s journey

I can map my life in terms of the books that have influenced me. I remember when I was in college, I read The Catcher In The Rye and Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour by JD Salinger. These books made me understand what it meant to be adolescent, the concept of family and that darkness existed along with light. That was the new form of writing that I experienced.

As I turned older, I read Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki, which are short stories in Zen Buddhism. These gave me a certain understanding on what to shed or expunge from the system. As in how not hold on to anger, meanness and toxicity, and how to keep on doing a sort of mental flossing.

Later, I grew with the books that I read. In fact, mine were very typical—One Hundred Years of Solitude by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez—my introduction to magic realism through which I realised that one could explore many other worlds, one could let one’s imagination in any direction one wished. I was really taken in by Salman Rushdie, especially his Shame, and, of course, his latest Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder, which shook the core of my being. When Was Modernism by Geeta Kapur is an academic read that made me understand what it meant to be modern in art, philosophy and political standing. Then there are other books by BR Ambedkar. These opened up mind, heart and spirit to alternative ways of thinking; to expand your horizon, to know that there is no single kind of thinking.

I understood through my reading that this whole concept of individuality or being put into silos is not how it was. The characters in all these books are not slotted, it’s not a menu card, which you take home. But ever-changing and ever-evolving. My current read is The Ex Daughters of Tolstoy House by Arunima Tenzin Tara, It’s a very blood-soaked kind of a book, a kind of gothic novel set in Lutyens’ Delhi; it talks about misogyny of desi men. The debut book of this young girl has a very interesting and unusual take on many things—maleness, being part of a social strata. Characters feel like people you know, but the twists and turns are completely unexpected. — As told to Mona

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