“At times, a presence
can be more present
in its absence
More alive than a now
more lively, can be its then
More readable
than a city's humdrum calendar...”
I think these two writings in some sense capture--in their contrast--capture, what I want to say today to you.
This is a dialogue between writers from two adjacent civilisations. And the fact that this is the first of its kind, the first unofficial dialogue, is something to be happy about but something to be sad about too. It is a tragic situation that here we can say that we are meeting for the first time unofficially. Because that is the only kind of meeting which matters. Official meetings are all about diplomacy, foreign policy, trade relations, very important things I am sure, but that's no meeting at all, if you ask me. I would suspect that meaningful cultural meetings had taken place between India and China over the last two thousand years. But colonialism has now created a situation where we have to talk to each other through centres of knowledge which are located five thousand miles away. And that is something which is tragic too. And our meeting carries a touch of that tragedy. That is my first proposition.