In Memoriam — Keki Daruwalla: Memories, by Sampurna Chattarji

I have so many memories of Keki. Too many. It all began in 2006, when he was reading my manuscript for potential publication by the Sahitya Akademi. I was stricken with nervousness, and flooded with elation when I learnt it had been accepted. Keki was my first, strictest, fairest poetry editor. It was he who wrote the Foreword to my very first poetry book, Sight May Strike You Blind (2007). I was overwhelmed then that such a senior poet could take the time to do this, make the effort so willingly and warmly. I’m still overwhelmed.

When my first novel Rupture came out in 2009, I had no doubt who would launch it in Delhi. Keki, of course. He was blunt and forthright, as always. “Why the bric-a-brac?” I remember him asking me about a particular section, as the audience guffawed. That discussion – with Urvashi Butalia as our wonderful moderator – still glows like it happened yesterday.

Thereafter, Keki’s Collected Poems was launched at PEN@Theosophy Hall. I remember that evening. He was very unwell and had to go home. In lieu of the prepped plan, we took turns, audience members and organisers alike, to read from his book. So many memorable evenings and events followed, in Bombay. And always, Keki had a joke, a wry comment; ever the self-deprecatory, witty, old-school gentleman.

I will never forget his humility in welcoming and accepting editorial direction, when I found myself publishing his poetry in the Indian Quarterly (what an honour). That was a different kind of grace altogether.

2017 shines as a high point for a very special reason. It was that year, at the Poetrywala Festival, that Keki and my father, Chandak Chattarji, met for the first time. Both poets, both gentlemen. They drank tankards of beer after the day’s session. Keki joked about Baba having beaten him in terms of two hospitalisations and being two years older than him. Three days after the numbness of Keki’s passing, five months after my dad’s death, I thought: There, he’ll be joking again – saying, “You beat me to it!”

In April 2023, I visited Keki at his Dilli home in East of Kailash. His daughter Rookzain had said I could come for a short while. He was immaculate as ever, the smile on his face as he greeted me wordlessly a whole summer’s worth of sunshine. His speech centre had been affected by the stroke and Rookzain told me he was doing speech therapy. This poet, who wrote complex, intricate, referenced poetry, with the world’s mythologies and poetries at the tip of his tongue, was re-learning how to pronounce simple words: ball, tree, cloud.

His latest book, Landfall, had arrived from the publisher. I opened it and read a couple of poems to Keki. Rookzain recorded them. I share them here today, with love and gratitude for the life of this person, this father-figure in poetry, this friend.