Earlier this year I met Pankaj Mishra at a festival in The Hague. Ever since reading The Romantics in 1996 I've admired his writing and read nearly all of his articles in The New York Review of Books. My father's colleagues helped him while he was a fellow at the NYPL, and my sister took care of Barbara Epstein, his mentor, while she was dying of lung cancer. I've also always had an interest in Indian politics, and one of my former professors is an expert on Kasmir.
I was very nervous meeting Pankaj, and was unable to drive across the first impression I dreamt of beforehand. What was I expecting. But somehow I always have this fantasy, and I'm sure it's not uncommon, that I'll meet someone like him whom I've admired for so long, and he'll be just as happy to meet me, and in one glittering moment he'll recognize something unique in me and want to be friends... Perhaps it's just an overactive imagination, but I swear he noticed me sitting there in the audience.
Of course none of this happened. And besides, from close up you can see all of my large pores, and acne scars, and then it's all over, the admiration from afar of the blond beauty.
It was all such a disappointment I've decided catching glimpses of people, and then introducing myself, doesn't do me any good.
When I told him I was a writer, too, he asked if I'd written a novel, and I said, no, but I'm working on one. To which he replied, "Oh, so you're a slow writer." Yes, Pankaj, I am a slow writer.
No comments:
Post a Comment