Actor-author Deepti Naval talks about her love affair with Amritsar that continues even today, as she launches her book A Country Called Childhood

Neha Saini

You can take a girl out of Amritsar, but not Amritsar out of the girl. At least that seems to be the case with actor-painter and now author Deepti Naval, whose memoir A Country Called Childhood was launched in Amritsar by actor Richa Chadha at a gala event hosted by Phulkari and Prabha Khaitan Foundation.

Naval’s book narrates stories of her love affair with Amritsar, a city that she lived in for the first 19 years of her life. She says it has undergone a lot of change, but to her it remains her home!

“I was born at a time (in 1952) when Amritsar had just found unsettling sense of normalcy after the wounds of Partition. So, the geography of where I was born dawned in to me gradually, when I learnt about the stories from people around me. My father was a teacher and we lived in Katra Sher Singh in a big house that shared its wall with the heritage maseed (as she refers to a mosque in her book). The ambience where I lived is still engrained in my memory and that’s how I describe it in the book as well,” she shared.

Naval, like a true-blue Ambarsari, has penned down a detailed account of her childhood, whether it was sharing a makeshift room with her sister in the barsaati (rainshed) of her house or writing a chapter on mochistaan, a name she gave to a cobbler settlement a few metres away from her house, which is now a bustling shoe retail hub. “As a child, we had all kinds of influences to take in. We woke up at 4 am listening to Lata Mangeshkar’s singing Jaago Mohan Pyaare, then there was the namaz sound coming from the mosque adjacent to our home. I went to a convent school, run by nuns from Belgian congregation and since, we were a strictly Arya Samaj family, the idea of spiritualism was very abstract for us. The stories I have shared in the book define a lot about me, about the incidents, individuals who were detrimental in my life, including my mother,” she said.

Naval also shared that the book will definitely help her break a myth about her. “Most people believe me to be sweet and simple, just like the screen image that stuck to me. I would like to break that myth. I ran away from my home as a teenager because I wanted to go see the mountains in Kashmir, as popularised by the movies of that time. There are so many stories in the book that will surprise readers.” For any Amritsari of her generation, the book will be like a taking a trip down the memory lane. And for the Gen-Next, an education in what growing up in Amritsar was before it became this global city.

True inspiration

Actor Richa Chadha, who launched Naval’s book, shared how like Deepti, she too shares a special bond with Amritsar. “I was born in Amritsar and my parents had taught at GNDU for a few years before we moved. So, her book, which describes Amritsar in detail, is quite intriguing and I am excited to read it,” she said.

Calling Naval a prolific artiste and individual, Richa said she looks up to her as a mentor. “Deepti Naval was one of the few artistes who inspired me take up acting as a profession. Her work in the movie Main Zinda Hoon made me look at my mother in a different light.”

#richa chadha