The lightness of being

It was a languorous Saturday evening that saw a select group of book enthusiasts gathered at the David Hall at Fort Kochi.The event had writer Saaz Aggarwal, a well-recogonised name in the newspaper and literary circuit, reading out from her book, along with other guests who volunteered.The book is a lively and humourous collection of her articles published over the last many years.Saaz talks about daily, routine stuff but infuses it with a rare candour and jollity, that readers are sure to be amused by.She sees humour in unlikely situations, like the one where she describes being hassled about not being able to find the flush key at a toilet at the Amsterdam airport.As the title states, the writer sees herself in the book as an 'Unrepentant Madam' looking at things past and present in an ironic vein.On why she brought out the collection, she says, “I was turning 50 and wanted to do a ‘retrospective’ as a present to myself for having been such a jolly good sport all these years.Since I have ghost-written a number of memoirs, I thought it would be fun to do one for myself.I have been vain enough to have preserved and filed almost every single thing I wrote - ever since my first poem was published in the school magazine when I was seven.So it was as simple as reading each one, picking those I felt would hang together well." "Saaz has a brilliant ability to turn the phrase," says C P Surendran, journalist and poet, who came for the reading.And true, enough the writer does employ the English language to excellent comic effect.Also, you notice Saaz has a funny bone, in the manner in which she reads, mimicking her characters and their accents.“I believe people have always considered me funny - in my school autograph book I have Arundhati Roy (besides a number of other lesser souls) declaring that she will never forget me and my ‘gujjes’ which was school slang for pathetic jokes.As a child I loved PG Wodehouse, Stephen Leacock, James Thurber, Jerome K Jerome and others.And I overdosed on Mad Magazine.My father was really funny too.I’ve written about it in my piece on him - even in the depths of his suffering he would make us laugh with his wry comments, and we could make him laugh easily enough.My children are also extremely funny so I guess it’s something in the water in our home,” she smiles.Compared to people in say US or UK, Indians are not known to be all that witty or funny.Does she believe humour depends largely on the culture that one comes from? Says Saaz, “Indians are now becoming really funny - there are some really good stand up comedians and columnists so perhaps it’s something to do with economic stability that lets the wise guy in you emerge?” A lot of her writing is autobiographical.Is it because there is that need to unburden? “It’s a cliché of writing advice that one must write about what one knows.In my late twenties, as a single mother with a 3-year-old, I needed a way to earn a living and my columns writing about my life and my own thoughts and experiences helped me to stay afloat.Over time it became a habit.” [email protected]