We are sitting at a boutique hotel in the city that offers an enchanting view of the Victoria Memorial. But Robert Dessaix is more interested in people than monuments. Visuals of women in Pushkar engaged in religious rituals, the spiritual vibe in Madurai, are part of his pictorial memory that has touched his heart. “I’m not religious, but I like to see how people cope with their lives, which is not easy to do. And a place like Pushkar, which is full of village women coming from different villages, having no education, no understanding of the world… they cope through going to a Brahma temple and doing puja in the lake. It’s very touching. In my country it is not possible,” said a soft-spoken Dessiax, who believes Calcutta has a lot of character.
The Australian novelist, whose childhood days were highly influenced by Russian literature, has been a teacher at many universities and even translated many of Anton Chekhov’s major plays for productions in theatres around his country. From 1985 to 1995, he presented the weekly Books and Writing programme on ABC Radio National. His literary oeuvre includes A Mother’s Disgrace, Abracadabra, Night Letters, Twilight of Love and many more, which stand out for their honesty and outspokenness. The octogenarian, a recipient of Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement 2022 in Literature, who speaks with calm and poise and is still searching for meanings in life, weaves his story in his books and the latest one, Chameleon: A Memoir of Art, Travel, Ideas and Love, he says, is an ode to his younger self. Over a cup of tea, t2oS, had a hearty chat about real happiness, having a family, why he likes women more despite being gay, and of course, his books. Excerpts from the chat...
The starting point
In the English-speaking world, Russian literature of the 19th century — Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, and Alexander Pushkin — is still very revered and honoured. So, I studied Russian and French literature at university and this became my passion, my love. I thought that once I grew up, I would teach other people about beautiful literature. I did that for many years, and then I stopped teaching because I got tired of teaching.
I started to write and wrote A Mother’s Disgrace. It was disgraceful not to be married and to have a child (Robert was adopted by Tom and Jean Jones). I met her at the age of 45. So, I started by telling that and then one memory brings another memory and I found that I was good at it. In fact, I realised that I can’t do anything else. I can’t change this light bulb in here, I can’t take a photograph, I can’t drive a car, can’t play football… I can’t do anything except write and speak English, French and Russian.
The reason I can write is because when I left teaching at university (UNSW Sydney), I had a job at the National Radio. It entailed talking every week about literature. What the radio does, which print or TV journalism doesn’t, is that it teaches you to know who you are talking to, which is more important than knowing what you will say.
Gender and Identity
Most of my friends are women. I was married to a woman for 11 years. I always talk to a woman. I am gay. But I like to be with women and talk to them. Men mostly bore me. I have met some nice ones, and I live with a man now, but women are much more fun. I think that’s because women don’t want to win; men always want to win everything. I think it’s true of many women and many men. We watch Indian gay movies at home and they are very sensitive in a way that Western gay movies are not. Western gay movies are under the influence of Americans and it’s about identity. Gay is not my identity; it’s my behaviour, my sexual behaviour. My identity is human being and vital to my sense of identity is a world with lots of women in it.
No regrets
In Chameleon, the latest book, I am talking to my younger self, until 25 or 30, whom I call Thomas Robert. Life has taught me many things; I have not lived in vain. I no longer believe in right and wrong, the way I did when I was a child. I believe in things that make you happy. This is really a book about knowing what makes you happy and then living your life to maximise the possibility of happiness. I don’t want to be good. I want to be happy. I regret almost nothing. I try to keep a childishness in myself alive even though I am 81 years old, as they have a unique sense of purity in them.
Great composers like Beethoven and so forth had variations in music, it’s the same thing about my books. The theme is obvious: How to have a good life.
The process of talking/writing
You must not have a plan. You sit in front of a blank page. You write something. You must create a voice. Once you have the voice, like I had Andrea or Susie, you just talk. I just talk to the page. But you have to be alone, quite a lot. And the stories will take shape. That’s how it happens with me.
Being honest and courageous
I have no family. So, I have no shame at all. Families create shame, especially in very traditional societies. I don’t think about it as a power but as freedom. I think I am a very free human being. That is partly because I live in a very free country. There are all sorts of things wrong with Australia, like all other countries, but one thing we have is great personal freedom. People let you live according to your own rules, by and large, and I appreciate that. I have lived in France, Russia, England… spent a lot of time in North Africa and in Muslim countries. I think that we are very free. So I don’t think of it as power, although in a way it is power, but I feel I don’t owe anybody anything. I am not answerable to anyone. Of course, I have a partner, Peter, I must be considerate of him. He is also a writer and rather different from me. We are passionate about the environment and we contribute towards two organisations who are working towards combating climate change.
Of love, Life and India
In my recent book, I talk about a lot of things, including love. My idea of love is changing constantly. I think one can love in many different ways. The way I love my partner is different from the way I love my friends. There are many loves, and I will have to be open. My focus has moved more to Asia now. I am a fan of William Dalrymple and find his books fascinating. I think we underplayed India in the past and I think in India everything is possible. India is very central. My only regret is that I haven’t learnt Sanskrit.