A year-end look back
With the last workshop coming soon, Arundhati Ghosh reflects on the genesis of What's for Dinner, and her experience of conducting it over the last year.
Q What prompted you to devise a workshop or session on grant writing? Obviously your experience of reading several hundreds of them during your time at IFA lead you to believe there was/is a need for some knowledge sharing in this field. Was it just that or was there a more pointed reason, perhaps?
A I did read, in my time at the IFA, about 7500+ proposals. But, don’t forget, I wrote and supervised the writing of almost as many to raise money and other support for IFA, and for many other causes! So the three reasons I will mention emerged out of both experiences: A) The process of ‘thinking up’ a project can follow many diverse trajectories that suit different temperaments. Like different people prefer different chairs to sit on. However, to know how to write a proposal is to learn a well-designed way of thinking. This makes it so much easier not only to explain the project to others but also fully fathom it ourselves. Much like an ergonomic chair is so much better for health and happiness; B) Most artists know ‘what’ they want to make – but the ‘why’ and ‘how’ are only faint silhouettes hanging tentatively in their think-room! A process of learning to write a proposal pushes them to articulate these, giving fuller shapes to their thoughts; and C) I wanted to share all the mistakes I have ever made writing proposals and being rejected a million times.
Q Why choose this particular vehicle? Cooking or preparing a menu doesn't seem like it's the first choice for an analogy here. Was it the deeply personal nature of preparing a meal that made you realise that asking for help is also a deeply personal thing?
A I discovered the pleasure of cooking very late in life. But the explorations in the kitchen very quickly alerted me to how appropriately the metaphor of making food could be wielded to illustrate the workings of various aspects of life. From building relationships, to organizing protest marches, to writing proposals – the idea of ‘cooking’ works really well. Secondly, I have been realizing of late that we are fed the values of individuality and independence as virtues, completely eroding our sense of collectivism or community. But each one of us are actually co-dependent – we need each other – that’s life. Yet there is diffidence when we seek help, a sense of vulnerability, as if it is a kind of failure or weakness to seek support. I wanted to address this through not just the content of what I would share in the workshop but also the form. Cooking is a collective business even when we are doing it alone in the kitchen because we use recipes foraged from mothers and grandmothers and our memories of their cooking. The kitchen is warm with the presence of generations. I wanted to bring this warmth of shared lives into the process of asking for support.
Q And what's the response been like? You've done three workshops in 2024 alone, in Bombay, Pune and Bangalore. What were your own discoveries while doing it repeatedly, to such a diverse set of listeners? And were they, in fact, diverse?
A For me it’s been a fantastic experience. I have learnt so much about how young people in the arts are navigating rather difficult roads in troubled times. I have a lot of respect for their courage and determination. While the groups were diverse, many of the issues with writing proposals were similar – not knowing what to put in, how much to put in, how to think of building a case or a story, how to present these ideas that are graspable by people who may not have anything to do with the arts. One significant gap that I perceived across the various workshops is the reluctance of the artist to know and understand the motivations and questions of a potential donor. I feel we have to get over this and knock that chip off our shoulders a bit. If we are asking for help, we must make an attempt to get to know the person standing in front of us. Because we would expect the same if someone asked us for help. It’s simple. For your question about the response to these workshops – well that you should ask those who participated - I just hope the time they spent with me will be useful for them.
Q Do you think you would like to conduct this for any specific groups of people - corporate organisations or school teachers or people in the development sector, others who could benefit from guidance on how to ask and how to frame their ask?
A I would like to conduct these for fundraising staff in the development sector, community based organisations especially those who come from marginalized groups such as gender and sexual minorities, sex workers, religious minorities and others, activists who are mobilising for various movements, and teachers and students applying for funding and scholarships for educational courses and seminars.
Q What has it been like to work with a producer like Bhasha Centre on this? Has it helped, has it impeded, has it brought anything new to the process?
A Simple - I wouldn’t have done this without a producer like the Bhasha Centre. They understand the workshops, its needs and more importantly they understand me and my own motivations. It’s a partnership where I can discuss and debate aspects of this work. Also, I know and trust that they will always have my back. What it has brought to the workshop is a deep trust in process work as important to the arts; and the community that comes because it has faith in the Bhasha Centre. I will particularly mention Vivek Madan because my collaboration is essentially with him – his inputs into my presentation style, timing, use of materials, delivery and understanding the room of participants have been very useful. Being a good actor his knowledge of these aspects has bolstered the ‘performance’ of the workshop.
Q Do you enjoy collaborations like this? Are you looking to collaborate with any other groups or individuals on other ideas or projects you may have? What's cooking?
A Absolutely love it! Both for reasons I mentioned above as well as the fact that after 22 years at IFA I don’t want to spend another minute of my life ‘managing’ anything but myself. So I would love someone else to manage it for me – finally! A few things I have been thinking about are assisting new leaders in arts and culture organisations; understanding leadership transition processes; working with conflict; and something around personal financial management for independent artists. All in the think-room right now and I would love to develop these ideas with like-spirited collaborators. While I would be delighted to explore collaborations I must confess I have oodles of OCD, have time spread across many things so need 100% punctuality, and have zero patience for bullshit - so it's hard to work with me.
Q Any expectations or hopes from the Kolkata workshop scheduled later this month? Are you excited to be doing this in the culture you grew up with?
A I did not grow up in Kolkata – a small dusty industrial town Asansol is where I spent my school days. Very different from the cultured ‘bhodrolok’ Kolkata! But I am super excited that this is happening in Bengal and I will get to meet many artists who hopefully work in the language too. Also since I love Bangla and it is my creative language I am waiting to see how some parts of it pans out in that language.
So - whoever is reading this come for the workshop if you are in Kolkata or if you have friends ask them to come. There is great joy in writing a proposal – just like cooking is for some of us!
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