Don Bachardy, 1997

Last Wednesday (9th July) Fresh Air (NPR) broadcast an interview with Don Bachardy. I was unable to hear that programme but was fortunate enough to accidentally catch it in full on Sunday the 13th on the weekend edition of Fresh Air. Listening to the interview not only reminded me that I had to post pictures on my blog of the two portraits of myself done by Don but also of my meeting him in 1997. It was interesting to hear Don describe himself as an "unconscious mimic" when Terry Gross asked him about the uncanny similarity between his voice and that of Isherwood's. I remember the first time I called Don's number and was greeted by what I thought was Isherwood's voice on the answering machine! "Oh my God!" I thought, "he has still got Isherwood's voice on the answering machine!!" I subsequently realised that it wasn't Isherwood's but Don's own voice! In his interview with Gross Don says that he was beginning to sound "a bit like [Isherwood]" within a year of their relationship! Don also has the habit of saying, "Very good, very good" apparently exactly the way Isherwood used to. Edmund White writes in one of his essays that he once caught himself saying "very good, very good" during a conversation with someone on the 'phone and then realized that he was saying that phrase because he was missing Isherwood and wanted to hear his voice.
I was also struck by what Don had to say to Gross about mimicry being an important aspect of his drawing people. So when Don drew me was he mimicking me too? If so, how? We were from two fantastically different worlds: him, from sunny California; I, from hot and dusty Calcutta. By strange coincidence, I believe that Don has only drawn two Indians in his life and both are Bengalis from Calcutta: the other Indian and indeed Calcuttan Bengali was Swami Prabhavananda - Isherwood's Vedantist guru. So, I'm in very good company!
Don's 18-minute interview on Fresh Air made me realize how fresh the memories of that April in Santa Monica are still in my mind.