The Wisdom of the Gita
- Amit Majmudar
- May 4
- 6 min read
Lightning-Round Interview with Marginalia's George Steiner Editor of Poetry and Criticism, Amit Majmudar
Introduction
I had the joy of interviewing Amit Majmudar, our George Steiner Editor for Poetry and Criticism, and asked him about his own miraculous range of reading and writing, his personal interaction with Steiner, what he’s looking for in a pitch, and who his favorite poets are today. This is my “lightning round” with Amit, and you can hear his story about corresponding with George Steiner in our next issue, as well as learn about his new novel project, inspired by the real life events of Miguel Cervantes.
Samuel Loncar
Who are your top three or four favorite contemporary writers?
Amit Majmudar
Christian Wiman, who's a poet and essayist. Cormac McCarthy, who has passed away, but he was number one. A. E. Stallings, who is a poet. Oh, and how can I forget James Elroy?
Samuel Loncar
Why those four?
Amit Majmudar
I think that Wiman has an amazing ability, so does a Stallings, with the sonic aspects of poetry, and that's something that I'm very interested in. James Elroy has a very, very staccato style. It's very poetic and compressed, but he also has a certain course, vulgar, harsh aesthetic, which is not something that is in my roundhouse or my wheelhouse. I appreciate things that I can't do being done well. Elroy is an example of that.
Samuel Loncar
Well, that's a very critically capacious admiration. I love that. I feel that, too, when a writer does something that I know I could never do—somehow, it's even more fun. So, The Great Gatsby—this is the book’s centennial year. It's personally one of my favorite books, and I think that The Great Gatsby is truly one of the great American novels. What are your thoughts; do you think it's overrated, as some of the recent essays going around suggest?
Amit Majmudar
It's not central to me, right? So, I don't think that is a statement I can make because there are so many people for whom it was, or is, so important. And I know that. I think GI's were passing it around at one point and it took off among soldiers, if I recall, and they used to just read it until it was ragged. So I think books aren't just the text. The books are also their role in the culture, right? I think about it from that perspective. There's no such thing as overrating or underrating The Great Gatsby—it has had the role that it has had in the culture and you can’t take that away.
Samuel Loncar
If you had to give people any advice in one minute about how to approach literature, what would you tell them? I know you’ve mentioned audio-booking on social media. So, do you have any advice for a culture that's largely lost the art of reading and how they can get back into it?
Amit Majmudar
The foundation of it is to keep looking till you find something that you like, and then just run with that. Not everything is for everyone. I'll be the first person to say that I’ve never read a John Updike novel, and maybe someday I will, but that's just not something that appeals to me right now. I think that audio-booking, as you mentioned, is excellent. You can stay super fit, walking or running while getting your literature in and being entertained and being enlightened. So, stick to what you like, because there's a lot of joy in that. There is illumination to be found in reading and in reading books because it's not like you need it. You don't need it. You can find the same thing elsewhere, but this is one more way to get that illumination, that depth. In some ways reading is more rewarding than any other delivery mechanism for illumination and entertainment; it’s beautiful.
Samuel Loncar
As the George Steiner Editor, of Marginalia, what are you looking for? What do you want to tell all the people out there who are excited to work with you if they are unsure what to submit?
Amit Majmudar
Try me. Just try me. The worst I can do is say, “Nah, probably not going to be interested in that.” Because the truth is, I find everything basically interesting. I'll be honest with you, there's very little on earth that I don't find interesting. You'd be wise to shoot your shot. In my opinion, if you have an idea, let me hear it. I may not pursue it, and there’s no need to take it personally, but you know, I would love to hear you're thinking about, because chances are I may find I may well find it interesting. [Submission information below.]
Samuel Loncar
Beautiful. As someone who's translated the Gita—what is maybe the most influential human spiritual epic of poetry, of religion, of philosophy, which is still regularly cited by millions of people every day—is there any wisdom you can leave us with? Is there something that you meditate on that you could share with people, or something that you’ve experienced with this special text?
Amit Majmudar
The Gita is so infinite because it's one of the few—or only, to my knowledge—religious texts that takes as a given the idea that human beings all have different temperaments and that different things are true to different people, and it builds from there several different pathways to the divine.
So, some people identify as intellectual and into learning. That's gyana yoga, the yoga of knowledge. Other people are more emotional, and that's bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion. Other people are more active, and have projects and are engaged in the world, and that's karma yoga, the yoga of action.
And what's good for the goose may not be good for the gander, right? And there's not one size fits all truth. I think that this particular basis of the Gita is an insight of the Gita, but it's also the basis of how the Gita is structured. I think it defuses fanaticism. It defuses the impulse to religiously persecute or to persecute those who disagree with you, or to feel contemptuous or estranged from people who are not like you.
So I'm an extremely bookish person, a very literary person. My best friend is not a reader. Most of my family members are not readers, and I love them, and almost all of my friends, historically, have not been readers. So that's just one example at the level of what my passion is. But it’s the same when it comes to religion, right? So you and I will have this, I'm sure, beautiful friendship going forward. We're not the same religion, and we don't care. That's a beautiful thing, that's a beautiful thing.
Samuel Loncar
Yes, that is a beautiful thing. Amit, thank you. This is such an exciting and joyful beginning, and I think that's a beautiful ending to the lightning round. I’m looking forward to bringing more of our conversation and your insights to our readers.
Amit Majmudar
Thank you. Thank you. Have a great one.
Amit Majmudar is Marginalia's George Steiner Editor for Poetry and Criticism, a poet, novelist, essayist, translator, and the former first Poet Laureate of Ohio. He works as a diagnostic and nuclear radiologist and lives in Westerville, Ohio, with his wife and three children. Majmudar’s essays have appeared in The Best American Essays 2018, the New York Times, and the Times of India, among several other publications. His most recent collection of essays, focusing on Indian religious philosophy, history, and mythology, is Black Avatar and Other Essays (Acre Books, 2023). He is most recently the author of The Great Game: Essays on Poetics (Acre Books, 2024) Later Adventures of Hanuman (India Penguin, 2024), The Book of Vows: The Mahabharata Trilogy Volume 1 (Penguin India , 2023), and The Book of Discoveries: The Mahabharata Trilogy Volume 2 (Penguin India , 2024). The Book of Killings: The Mahabharata Trilogy Volume 3 is forthcoming from Penguin India. Learn more at www.amitmajmudar.com. X@AmitMajmudar
Samuel Loncar, Ph.D. (Yale) is the Editor-in-Chief of the Marginalia Review of Books, the Director of the Institute for the Meanings of Science, the creator of the Becoming Human Project, and the founder of Olurin Consulting. His speaking and consulting clients include the United Nations, Red Bull Arts, Oliver Wyman, and Flagship Pioneering. His work focuses on integrating separated spaces, including philosophy and poetry, science and spirituality, and the academic-public divide. His book, Becoming Human: Philosophy as Science and Religion from Plato to Posthumanism, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press. Learn more at www.samuelloncar.com X@samuelloncar
