For some he was a revolutionary, to others he was a tyrant, but there’s no denying the allure of Fidel Castro, who passed away on Saturday. He was an key figure in the lives of several veteran writers, poets and leaders in Karnataka who built their careers at the height of the Cold War, and were part of the Bengaluru Chapter of Cuba Solidarity Forum.
Noted poet H.S. Shivaprakash had always wanted to write a poem on Fidel Castro. He visited Cuba for over a week in 2012. “I somehow got around to writing it. The poem will be an epic detailing the struggle against oppression in the twentieth century, with interludes from the life of Fidel Castro,” Mr. Shivapraskash told The Hindu, hours after Fidel Castro passed away.
The poet said Castro was the only communist leader who survived all the leaders of the movement. “His socialism was of the home-grown variety, attuned to people’s sentiment. His reforms were social and economical. When I went to Cuba, my first impression was how content the society was. People were still driving around in 40-year-old cars. They were not victims of capitalist market forces,” he said.
A trip to Cuba is on the wish list of many writers and theatre personalities. Senior journalist G.N. Mohan and film maker B. Suresha are organising such a trip for enthusiasts.
Mr. Mohan is one of the few from the State who met Mr. Castro, although fleetingly. “I had represented Indian journalists at World Youth Festival, 1997. Mr. Castro made an appearance at the festival. As I cheered him on, he waved at me. I went up to him and shook his hand. He asked me if I was from India. When I replied in the affirmative, he said, ‘Ravindranath Tagore, Indira Gandhi and Gandhi, in that order’. I was surprised that he identified India more with Tagore than with Gandhi,” he recalled. Mr. Mohan’s travelogue on Cuba, Nannolagina Hadu Cuba, has been a text at many universities in the State.
The Cuba Solidarity Forum, Bengaluru, held a day-long event in 2009, to mark the golden jubilee of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, marked by Cuban music and Kannada poems on the revolution. It was attended by then CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat. In the late 1990s, the forum hosted Aleida Guevara, Che Guevera’s daughter, in Bengaluru.
