As I approach the end of 2024, I ponder the dark difference between “finally” and “finally” this year. A celebration was held for the publication of the latest edition of Vivek Debroy’s Gauravashali Purana series. Kurma Purana This month, and as co-conspirators of this epic series, he and I were supposed to have a party.
I can still have that party of one.
Over the past three years, I have had the privilege of working with Debroy on four books in seven volumes, each a testament to his scholarship and dedication to the mammoth task he undertakes – making epic texts accessible to modern readers in India. Debroy was only the second person to translate Ramayana and Mahabharata, a true Sanskritist and historian. It was a vocation for him, to dive deep into complex spiritual texts, and unfold the stories within, annotated and in incredible simplicity for the rest of us mortals.
But his scholarship is not the only thing remembered about him, although it was easy to fear. Wearing many hats, he was an economist, a historian, writer and philosopher. Humorist too. And I met him with some trepidation when we started working together Vishnu Purana In 2022. Almost three years later, as I type and reminisce about him today, I can only look back at his kindness, mostly to his editors, his proofreaders, his designers, with whom he worked on the daily minutia of putting a book together. . There is a strangely fleeting but deeply personal relationship that editors share with their writers that stems from everyday mundane situations. From italics and diacritics. Publication date. Marketing plan.
As we journeyed through the publishing process, I became convinced that he could have done it all by himself, without any of us interfering. But of course, he was kind to us, making us laugh as we labored over edits, book blurbs, and deadlines. He rarely intervened and only to keep us away from mistakes.
His acclaimed work with Penguin covers three volumes of Valmiki’s annotated text. RamayanaAn incredible amount of 10 MahabharataSeven Sections Purana Series, The Bhagavad Gita, Jyotirlingamand the story of in the headThe ancestor of all dogs in the in the head and her children. Don’t forget, his The Book of Limericks. And this is only a part of his contribution to literature and mythology. His other books, columns and poems were published regularly.
You are in awe. How did he find the time?
I look back on the great rigor he brought to his work, not only when he wrote and translated, but also during the next six months of publishing, checking in, asking questions, explaining and guiding. My first blurb was terrible. He had a note, and I explained. “Don’t go overboard with the complexity of the texts and how difficult it is to translate them”. We want people to love epics, not be afraid of them. The blurb is simple, but it’s not a summary. Try reading a book.
And then, quite inexplicably, it was done. Water under the bridge. It didn’t affect him anymore. Once published, he was completely oblivious to the remarkable piece of scholarship he had produced. He had done some difficult, long and eventful work. And when it was over, it just had to be. He was happy to weave the magic of his work into others.
We shared the same alma mater, Presidency College in Kolkata. And when I wasn’t talking about deadlines with him, we talked about the canteen food. He traveled far and wide in his teaching, teaching and work, but I doubt he really left anything behind.
Bibek Debroy lived a lot in his lifetime, and I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to witness him in a small part of it.
Author, Commissioning Editor- Penguin Press, Penguin Random House India.