Interviewer: Nour Ossama
Edited by: Alaa Hossam
About the Interviewee:
Dr. Poonman Trivedyi is former Associate Professor in English at Indraprastha College University of Delhi. She received her doctorate from the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK. She is currently co-editing a collection on Shakespeare in Indian cinema. Poonman Trivedi is currently the vice chair of the Asian Shakespeare Association and formerly Secretary of the Shakespeare Society of India, 1993- 1999. She has directed the Merry Wives of Windsor and Lear’s Daughters for Indraprastha College.
THE INTERVIEW
- 1-HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: What do you think about the differences between the culture in Delhi and India as a whole?
Poonman Trivedi: See, even in the ancient and the modern culture there are some similarities between the Indian cultures, because you know we have a very complicated mythologies- ancient mythologies- the god of the sun, the mother goddess and etc. There’s this kind of similarities of cultures, even in the modern time where people are really relaxed there isn’t that kind of formality, they’re moving around having snack, tea or coffee, It’s like eastern Culture.
- 2-HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: How did you find people in Egypt?
Poonman Trivedi: People are very welcoming and with a great hospitality. Of course there were a lot of merchandisers who want to sell touristic items and of course they’re very insisting but not much. Once they know that you’re not buying they go.
- 3-HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: What’s your point of view about the conference and Shakespeare’s anniversary being addressed here in the Bibliotheca?
Poonman Trivedi: The conference was wonderful I mean it got so many people together. Of course I know many Shakespeareans come from US or UK, but not here in Egypt. Hearing about Arab and Shakespeareans is something entirely new for me and extremely constructive and again there are some similarities in how Shakespeare was received in India to how it’s done here.
- 4-HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: Are there any differences to how Shakespeare is received in Arab world like here and received in India as a such?
Poonman Trivedi: No there are no differences; in fact there are more similarities than differences. Like women and movement of women was always restricted early around. Before yesterday the key note speaker -the professor- said Shakespeare women were very assertive and valuable and how can we bring into Arab culture and women are not supposed to be like that in public, so in India too only translators had a different time doing that, and when there was that Romeo and Juliet kiss they just left out those lines, they cut it out.
- 5-HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: Do you have any comments on the speeches and speakers in the conference addressing Shakespeare?
Poonman Trivedi: No, it’s a very high level conference and many very interesting papers – especially papers on translation- built up very well. In fact they all had interesting papers about films actors etc.
- 6-HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: Where do you see Alexandria few years forward in English department sector?
Poonman Trivedi: This provides a kind of international exposure to the teachers of English here. They were also very adapted in the questions they ask, also the students. So, there’s some sort of triple down effect of such things. People listen, people see what other research going on and then they learn from that, the academic culture grows and if you have few more international audiences like that and conferences like this then maybe English department in Alexandria will get bigger and better.
- 7-HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: Tell me about your experience in directing Merry Wives of Windsor and Lear’s Daughters for Indraprastha College how was it?
Poonman Trivedi: It was great fun play. The difficult part was to get the male part going, but the students were very cooperative they enjoyed the show and it was great fun. We edited a little bit, but it was done in a spirit of education as well. That students will not see Shakespeare’s work is not as hard and difficult to do and if you rehearse properly it becomes easy and it was kind of women centered play so it worked very well. In addition, students were very excited about the dressing part that they wanted to do all of it themselves. But we did it in a modern dress so as soon as you put on a modern dress but speak Shakespearean words it immediately becomes contemporary.
- 8-HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: How is your work going on the currently co-editing a collection on Shakespeare in Indian cinema?
Poonman Trivedi: Yes, you know Indian cinema is the largest film industry in the world. Now and we have cinema in so many languages- 13 other languages- and so many of them ,not all, have some Shakespeare film. Yet people have not researched this topic, because till now films aren’t considered a proper subject for a search so it’s been good fun.
- 9-HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: When is the book coming out?
Poonman Trivedi: I think the book should be coming out by October or September. We got most of it ready just little has to be done and we discovered many new things. You know films that people generally did not know about, like Tummel films and people in the north don’t know so much about the films in the south because of the different languages so it doesn’t transport, even within India we are learning a lot about each other.
- 10-HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: What do you think about where globalization of the English department is reaching few years forward?
Poonman Trivedi: I think there are good aspects of globalization since now we all know about each other’s work. Also the communication and travelling are easy now, therefore knowledge goes faster. There’s some fears that the local will be subsumed in kind of larger just one global picture but that’s not happening. What is happening more and more is that the local is being emphasized more so there is greater knowledge of the local variations from Egypt or else where. So globalization is not leading to homogenization.
- HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine: Thank you so much Dr. Poonman for this enriching interview and for all your efforts in the world of literature.