Patel, who passed away last week, was never a flashy collector of identities. He polished, crafted and worked only when he was seized by ‘inner necessity’
For all its insistence on the surgical and clinical, Gieve Patel’s vision of the physical world never really excludes the possibility of a divine presence.
His intense forensic examination of violence impelled him to recognise its roots in the divisiveness of antagonistic identities. He committed himself to ideas rather than ideologies.
Gieve Patel, who had been battling cancer, was admitted to the Pune centre a few weeks ago. A noted playwright, poet, painter, and thinker his passing marks the end of an era in the world of Indian arts and literature