Report by Santanu Ganguly: Robin Gupta's book What Remains in the End: The memoirs of an unrepentant civil servant will be formally unveiled on Wednesday, April 24, 2013, 7 pm at Amphitheatre, Indian Habitat Center, Lodi Road, New Delhi. The book will be launched by Author and Columnist Rahul Singh, the son of famous Author Kushwant Singh followed by an interesting panel discussion with author and Journalist Nirupama Dutt and RI Singh IAS Punjab.
" 'Robin Gupta has writers' ink flowing in his veins. His memoirs mirror the chiaroscuro of contemporary India as observed by a Civil Servant....[This book] is literary milestone." Said Khushwant Singh.
In the fine art of memoir writing, Robin Gupta spares none, least of all himself, as he recalls the absurdity of life and brings together a brilliant collage of a life lived to the hilt and thus fulfills the task of a writer as a thinker.
Robin Gupta’s first posting, after completing the training schedule of the Indian Administrative Service, was in 1976, as Magistrate-in-charge of Raiganj sub-division in the district of West Dinajpur bordering Bangladesh. He looks back and recounts: “I found the people simple, religious and with a penchant for visiting the circus. One morning, as I sat at my desk, a delegation of local ‘respectable’, propelled by a businessman of generous proportions, sought an audience and told me that the Royal Apollo Circus was shortly to be launched and would I consider their request to inaugurate it. The date and time were fixed and a week later I was escorted to the circus.” When he reaches the venue on the appointed date and time, he finds a large bunting colorfully proclaiming: “The honorable magistrate has kindly agreed to inaugurate and actively participate in the circus!”
Reading these memoirs by Robin Gupta, covering over three decades and a half of service that began with listening to Raag Darbari, in the quiet evenings of Raiganj, to the culmination with the Financial Commissioner's flag fluttering on his car as he drives past the green fields in Punjab, one feels that one is going through a compelling novel with contemporary India as its locale. It is not just a political and administrative circus that the reader witnesses but hears the sad strains of a symphony at the lot of what the author calls a 'sorrowing civilization'. Sometimes the ascending notes of the Raag Bahar and at other times peals of laughter, in ‘Brechtian’ breaks, make room for the theatre of the absurd. These are not mere official reminiscences but the story of a young man in ‘quest of life’ recalled in the poignant silence of ‘silver hair’.
Celebrated writer Khushwant Singh has described the author thus: “Robin Gupta has writer’s ink flowing in his veins. His father was a distinguished surgeon in the British Indian Army who also wrote books on his profession. His mother comes from an equally distinguished family of civil servants also addicted to literature. Hence there was an element of hereditary compulsion for Robin to opt for the civil service.” His abiding interest in history, arts and literature, the author takes the familiar route of through Bishop Cotton School and St. Stephen's College to find himself face to face with fathomless poverty amidst which stand the Asokan pillar and the ruins of Nalanda. The author knows the route of his journey by heart and brings it alive before the reader with a poetic flourish. Candid and immensely readable, indeed, it is a case of ‘one flying over the administrator's nest’ and these distinctly different memoirs will be long remembered as the ‘backstairs of the history’ of our times.
" 'Robin Gupta has writers' ink flowing in his veins. His memoirs mirror the chiaroscuro of contemporary India as observed by a Civil Servant....[This book] is literary milestone." Said Khushwant Singh.
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| Robin Gupta's What Remains in the End |
Robin Gupta’s first posting, after completing the training schedule of the Indian Administrative Service, was in 1976, as Magistrate-in-charge of Raiganj sub-division in the district of West Dinajpur bordering Bangladesh. He looks back and recounts: “I found the people simple, religious and with a penchant for visiting the circus. One morning, as I sat at my desk, a delegation of local ‘respectable’, propelled by a businessman of generous proportions, sought an audience and told me that the Royal Apollo Circus was shortly to be launched and would I consider their request to inaugurate it. The date and time were fixed and a week later I was escorted to the circus.” When he reaches the venue on the appointed date and time, he finds a large bunting colorfully proclaiming: “The honorable magistrate has kindly agreed to inaugurate and actively participate in the circus!”
Reading these memoirs by Robin Gupta, covering over three decades and a half of service that began with listening to Raag Darbari, in the quiet evenings of Raiganj, to the culmination with the Financial Commissioner's flag fluttering on his car as he drives past the green fields in Punjab, one feels that one is going through a compelling novel with contemporary India as its locale. It is not just a political and administrative circus that the reader witnesses but hears the sad strains of a symphony at the lot of what the author calls a 'sorrowing civilization'. Sometimes the ascending notes of the Raag Bahar and at other times peals of laughter, in ‘Brechtian’ breaks, make room for the theatre of the absurd. These are not mere official reminiscences but the story of a young man in ‘quest of life’ recalled in the poignant silence of ‘silver hair’.
Celebrated writer Khushwant Singh has described the author thus: “Robin Gupta has writer’s ink flowing in his veins. His father was a distinguished surgeon in the British Indian Army who also wrote books on his profession. His mother comes from an equally distinguished family of civil servants also addicted to literature. Hence there was an element of hereditary compulsion for Robin to opt for the civil service.” His abiding interest in history, arts and literature, the author takes the familiar route of through Bishop Cotton School and St. Stephen's College to find himself face to face with fathomless poverty amidst which stand the Asokan pillar and the ruins of Nalanda. The author knows the route of his journey by heart and brings it alive before the reader with a poetic flourish. Candid and immensely readable, indeed, it is a case of ‘one flying over the administrator's nest’ and these distinctly different memoirs will be long remembered as the ‘backstairs of the history’ of our times.
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