Piyush Mishra’s new book maps a life shaped by cities, memory and imagination

Piyush Mishra at his Andheri office. Pic/Nimesh Dave

I, me, and myself. That's all I could write if I had written an autobiography," says Piyush Mishra. We sit in the Tamboo Media office, a quaint space, full of young blood, all excited to be in the presence of this monolith of art, song, theatre, and cinema. For those who've only brushed past his name, Mishra is many things at once - a poet who sings, an actor who writes, a musician who performs with his whole soul, and now latest, a novelist with his new book Tumhari Auqaat Kya Hai, Piyush Mishra. A fresh take on memoirs, his book assumes Mishra to be a fictionalised version of himself, Santap Trivedi urf Hamlet. In the book, Mishra fictionalises friends and foes. "Many would have been hurt if I would have put their real names. So I changed their names to protect their dignity. And no one would be hurt too, except for one director. I won't name him still, but everyone would know him if you read the book," says Mishra in the quiet of his office.

"Thoda tedha novel hai, par ekdum seedha bhi hai [It's a crooked novel, but it's also very straight]," he says. It's a memoir in the true sense then, because that's the person Mishra is. Unconventional and eccentric (he's a theatre kid, after all), yet very straight to the point. He sits down with Sunday mid-day to discuss life, theatre, cinema, and the new adventure of his book.

Childhood started in the little town of Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, a city celebrated for its legacy of Hindustani music and also recognised by UNESCO as the "City of Music". The musical legend Tansen was born and died in the city. Perhaps, a childhood in such a city influenced Mishra's own leaning towards art. "In Gwalior I first learnt that I am capable of doing this [the arts]. That's where I learnt it," he says, "But there were obstacles there too, with parents, with friends. I chose a very unique profession, and I was often told, ‘Kya gaana gaoge? Kya nautanki karoge? [What will you do, dancing and singing around?]' But I loved it too much. That's where it all started. So it holds a soft corner in my heart."

Mishra grew up in Gwalior, where he first learnt song and acting

He remembers Delhi fondly, "Delhi and I have a very strong relationship. I lived there for twenty years. I didn't have any money back then but theatre was everywhere. All I did was work, but I didn't make much money. But I don't regret it, I earned something much bigger, adapting some of the best roles, best music." He tells us about how he remembers being "phissadi [weak]" in Physics as a child, but theatre brought back a certain love for it, as he played Galileo and Einstein. Having spent most of his theatre days in Mandi House, Mishra has plenty, and vivid, memories of those days. "There was a bench there, beneath a tree near my office. I would spend day and night writing there."

Cut to now, it's been 23 years since Mishra came to Mumbai. "The entire topography of the city has changed in the last 23 years. Too many flyovers have come, a lot of crowd, a lot of cars too," he says, "I still live in the quiet corner of Versova, but soon there will be flyovers here too. But you can't challenge change. Even I have to accept it." He segues into talking about change in Bollywood. "Cinema too is as different as night and day. Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bharadwaj, Imtiaz Ali, Rajkumar Hirani, all of them came in the early 2000s. They brought a lot of change to cinema."

But being in Mumbai is no easy task, even for Mishra. There's a constant give and take. "I got money, real money for the first time in my life. That's what it gives you. And I earned a lot of fame here. In the first twenty years of my career, only a limited, theatre-going audience knew me. Mumbai gave me everything, it gave me my band, my poetry collection, and now this book." But the cost to pay isn't cheap either. "I would only recommend you become an artiste if you truly wish to. It can't be forced. It needs hard work and a lot of studying. Even in my theatre days, I studied sculptors, writers, architects, playwrights."

Mishra (left) in his Delhi theatre days; (right) "I would only recommend you become an artiste if you truly wish to. It can't be forced. It needs hard work and a lot of studying. Even in my theatre days, I studied sculptors, writers, architects, playwrights," says Mishra. Pics/Harper Collins India

A certain tug pulls Mishra between the two cities. "Mumbai is a commercial place. You work instantly, and you make money instantly, you earn fame instantly. But really, you can't compare Mumbai and Delhi."

As he sat down to write this memoir, Mishra had to reflect a lot. Going through his entire life journey brought back memories he didn't even remember making. But there were hard times too, like his alcoholism, which he touched upon in the book. At 62, Mishra is now sober. "I revisit only from a distance. When you look from too close, the pain can be too much. I like a bird's eye perspective," he says, "A generation of people started looking at me as a God. If they knew what I was like in the '80s or the '90s, my image would be ruined," he jokes, "So I thought why don't I tell them myself."

But even in the days of his struggle, what kept Piyush going was "my work, and my wife. She worked. She told me when we got married, ‘If you love theatre, you do theatre. I am working, I will provide.' I realised how important money is to live in society, and moreover, how difficult it is to make it."