My Big Fat Zurich Residency

Jeet Thayil, an Indian performance poet, writer and musician, writes about his residency and experiences in Zurich. [ dated May 2008]

May 2008
I arrived on the 26th of March to a snowstorm. It was hard to believe it would soon be spring. In fact, in the space of a month or so, it was summer. As a former resident of New York and New Delhi, I treat extreme weather as a fact of life. I felt pretty much at home.

On March 31, I met with Pro Helvetia and Edward Rushton, the composer. By then, Edward and I had decided on the story for our chamber opera, a retelling of the Ramayana from the point of view of Sita. I finished the first scene in two weeks and gave it to Edward, who started working on the music. We’ll go back and forth, making it a genuine collaboration.

I’ve also been working on the novel I’ve been shaping for the past four years. I wrote a hundred pages in Zurich and will soon have a first draft done. And the city? I like it that you can’t get lost here, walk far enough and you’ll come to a familiar square or street. I am moved that there is a law against renting basements because the Swiss have decided that a space without air and light is not fit for human habitation; and that a certain percentage of all public projects must go to art. I like it that there are drinking fountains everywhere and the water is safe. I like it that people ask me for directions and though I have little or no Swiss-German, I’m usually able to oblige.

I feel pretty much at home.

Jeet Thayil
Zurich