Typeradio is a Micro FM broadcast, an MP3 internet radio stream, and a podcast station. Broadcasting questions, answers, performances, events, and talks online and onstage. This interview was taken by Donald Beekman, Liza Enebeis, and Underware.
R.K. Joshi
Prof. Raghunath K. Joshi (1936–2008) was a versatile figure—a calligrapher, designer, poet, researcher, and teacher. With 30 years in the mass communication industry, he later taught design courses at IDC/IIT in Mumbai for 15 years. He also contributed to font design software, Indian language word processing packages, and Indic fonts for Windows and Linux. Prof. Joshi organised exhibitions, workshops, and seminars on Indian letterforms, showcased his calligraphic works, and conducted pioneering research on Indian manuscripts and epigraphic writings. He was a renowned speaker on Indian design and calligraphy and received prestigious awards such as the CAG Hall of Fame (1992) and the Ad Club Distinguished Achievement Award (2004). Prof. Joshi passed away in San Francisco on February 5th, 2008, at the age of 72.
Following is a transcript of his 5-part interview on TypeRadio (adapted to reading). This was at ATP 2006 in Lisbon, Portugal. Donald and Liza speak to R.K Joshi.
Part 1
Liza (Host): What sparked your interest in typography?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Actually I was interested in letter forms per se, not so much of typography in my childhood. I saw signboards all around the town. They were really good and I got impressed. I use to wonder who drew these forms? Who are the people? I grew up in this environment. Later in our school, as a part of my higher education, we had this topic called lettering, L E T T E R I N G. No name of typography at the time. And, nothing on calligraphy at the time. We had to do all the Roman alphabet by hand. It was a very tedious job for all students in those days. I'm talking about 1950s’. Yeah. Without understanding the whole historical significance of all these typefaces or the inscriptions or the manuscripts. Great people did contribute to this entire civilisation of humanity. Our teachers didn't give you any guidance. They just made you practice. They’d say “copy this, copy that and do it correctly”. What is correct and what is not correct. At that time, you had to copy some sheets. We copied them as a teacher would say. But at that time, I was exposed to an interesting article in a book. I forgot the name of the book. There was an article, The Romance of Calligraphy. I didn't understand at that time - what is this romance of calligraphy. Because that word was unknown at that time.
Donald (Host): Was it a western book?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Yes. It's a western book. We had some type of specimen book in our school. We tried to copy them. Millimeter, height, serif, sans-serif, this series and that…
Liza (Host): Were you good? We were you good student?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Yes. We did this and then I forgot. It was fantastic. All the proportions match and everything is happening. But who does all these things work? You know, still we do not know the type designer, the breed of type designer at that time at all. We thought that we will have an exhibition. So in 1955, I had an exhibition at my art school called, “Know Thy Character”. I thought that each and every typeface has a character. Almost has a life. So the type can talk to me, as I'm talking to you now. That's how I got interested in this without actually knowing it, but actually feeling it. If I had to use a Bodoni, then I had to be careful. If I had to use Garamond or Gill Sans you know, it’s sans serif. I really got deeper into it and that's how my interest in, type and typography came up.
Liza (Host): But was there anybody in your family that was also interested in this?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): No, no, no. They say, that you have to have a background in the family or you are an born artist. But, no… I just said that I want to be an artist.
Donald (Host): So was that your conception of your future when you were taking this education? You wanted to be an artist or you wanted to be… (Joshi cuts him)
R.K. Joshi (Guest): See, at that time we didn’t even not know the difference in between art and design. I'm talking about 50s. We called it either commercial arts or fine arts. It came from British to India… So, we also did not know the term called graphic design. In India, after your art school, you go to advertising agency. That's all.
After my education, I went to an advertising agency and I did my work so well in typography that they said, “Well, you are a typographer”. I said, “Well, thats nice.”
But actually I was really inspired by calligraphy. By great writing masters - Arrighi, Palatino, Tagliente. I saw their work in books and I was very impressed and I tried to copy it.
Donald (Host): I wanted to ask you… there are so many Indian writing systems and very different. How did you try to emanate to these systems?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Good question. Actually, all the time I was exposed to western typography, calligraphy and designs. But, I was always thinking about Indian letter forms. The aesthetics, tradition, cultural importance of Indian letter forms, Indian scripts, Indian languages. All the time I was comparing - “This can happen for Roman script in English, why can't it happen for my Hindi language in India?” I said, I must know about it. But the answers are not readily available. I had to go to a printing press and do an apprenticeship of composing the Indian alphabets by my own hand for a few years. But it felt complicated and I said, “Why so much of a complication? Why aren't we able to solve our own issues, our own problems?”
That’s why I always say, “I have inspirations from the West, but something has to happen in the Indian environment.”
Part 2
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Indian sounds, Indian alphabet, visual forms. Such a fantastic treasure is there in India. There are 22 languages about 10+ different scripts, but there is some common thread. I may call it as a phonetics, the utterances. They are planned in some definite way. There are two sounds together, three sounds together, and we have got an entire system in that way. So, the Indian letter forms, from many angles. Aesthetic, historic, calligraphic, typographic, religious, angles. I got involved in so many seminars, exhibitions. Oh, plenty of things to do. And I did it, and still I have to do a lot more, but I get tired these days.
Donald (Host): I understood, it must feel like a struggle to bring all these different languages, cultures, religions together. Are you actually looking for a one singular form in which like the Indian language… (Joshi cuts him)
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Ahhh! You talk to my heart. Because this was the thing I thought in 1968. I said, God, I have to really think of some way. Because these challenges must be there in all Indian languages. I don't know all languages. I know only a few. So how do I do it? Then, I tried to evolve my own script of that time. You know… if some participant was absent, then I would stand over and read the poem, say in Kannada, which I do not know. So, in 1968, I tried to do a project called Desha Nagari, a common script for all Indian languages. These were exciting moments.
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Of course, you know, the reality on the ground, people always oppose. “No, no. Our language, our script, this common script is no good.” Even you had problems here and in all of Europe. Bernard Shaw said that “Roman script is phonetically absolutely bad, spelling is a problem.” He tried to reform the script himself. Declared a big prize until he was alive. But nobody could get the prize. Afterwards, Kingsley Read, did some work on that and it is based on the Indian phonetics. So, you come back to the same source again. Right? That's how this whole thing has evolved. In fact, I have some of my type designs done long time back in the 1960s. But at that time, there was no environment. In India, it was hand casting. Who will cut the punches? Who will strike the matrix? Who will cut the type? No real environment was over there. And even people asked. “why do you need new types? We have some types”.
But then I realised, the types are based on calligraphy. Great example was Hermann Zapf in Germany, whom I met and we had long chats that way. So I always felt that unless somebody writes well and appreciates the handwritten forms, no new styles can really come in. Then I plunged like a devil into the area of calligraphy. So my name is always associated with the revival of calligraphy in India. It's a single man's work for last 50 years, I'm struggling to reintroduce calligraphy. I mean, Indian calligraphy in India.
Liza (Host): But there are people who will continue the project, no?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Well, I mean, there are now students. Now the students have become teachers, and it's our third or the fourth generation. All going on. But, look, India is a big country and if I do it in one art school, it does not mean that I have done it in other art schools. You have to go there and talk to them. “Tamil script is so beautiful. Please check your palm leaves and, how nice is your entire calligraphic tradition”... So you have to really move around and do it as a missionary work. This is almost in that way, life's mission, I could say, that to revive the aesthetics of Indian letter forms.
And, now in context to all the technologies. That's a more important thing. I did work in hot metal. I did work in prototype setting. Then the digital things is also introduced in seventies there. So immediately I have to check, what can happen to Indian scripts. I worked with few great computer scientist in India. They were happy to see something very interesting is coming up over here. I'm also working epigraphist. I said, look, “Trajan's Column, Rome’s inscription has inspired hundreds and thousands of type designers in the entire Europe. And we have got thousands and thousands of beautiful inscriptions in each and every Indian script. Why don't you do something about it?” He said, “What to do? We only can read inscriptions, who donated whom? who killed whom? or, you know, the war details., how will we know?”
I said, “Let’s just appreciate the beauty of these letter forms.” So now I go to epigraphist conferences. And I talk about some of the calligraphy on stones. It is also equally important. I have been involved in this entire research work. I know that who was the first guy in India, in 200BC, who first wrote text on the stone at King Ashoka. His name is “Chapada”. Because he engraved his name by writing, “Chapadena likhitam idam.” Which means, “the great guy called Chapada has written this”. That way I have traced more than 40 names of the calligraphers who wrote on stone, their names are there for the first time in India and it’s whole historical aspect of it.
Part 3
Liza (Host): Also, have you written your name and said, the great calligrapher, Joshi has written this?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. (Laughing out loud). Thats a good one… Actually, in the Indian scene we have no care for our names.
Donald (Host): So you don't sign your work?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Ha. No. I sign my work. But generally, in Indian Philosophy, you will not see too many people signing their work, because they, really didn't believe in that in terms of a philosophy itself. Now you may ask, “what is that philosophy?”
You are not a master of your own creative work. It is your assignment. This assignment has come from some unknown source, place or power. You are supposed to do it! You do it and then leave this world. So, you do great things, good things, almost with the sense of responsibility of completing an assignment - given to you by some unknown power.
Donald (Host): And this is like a general Indian notion?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Actually, you’ll find this in so many pockets in India. Faraway places, not in the cities. If you got to Bombay and talk to an industrialists or an artist, they will not agree. They don't believe in that. They will say, I'm a creator. My name is there and I did this.
One day, I was talking about this with my eye doctor. He was testing my eyes, because I'm almost blind now. He examined me.
Joshi to doctor: Sir, I want to give you a small piece of my work.
Doctor: What is it?
Joshi to doctor: It’s written in Devanagari and it means this
Doctor: Joshi, I don't agree with you.
Joshi to doctor: Okay sir!
Doctor: When I fix your eyes, I do your entire surgery, with my hands, my skill and I'm doing it.
Joshi to doctor: Sure you are doing it.
(After about six months, in my next visit…)
Doctor: Joshi, in the last visit, you told me something. I thought about it. I talked to my wife and I think we now agree with you. It's the correct thing.
R.K. Joshi (Guest): So, it's there and also it’s not there. Right? We can't say “don't sign your work or sign your work”. As far as my work, I have treated it as a passion. Mission of my life - on educational front, on professional front, at R&D front, and also on technology front. So it's there and people can see it. I have many students. They go abroad and then they call me over there, “I'm so happy that you scolded me on that day, etc, etc…”
On the academic side, I've introduced calligraphy as part of a syllabus, so few art school in India are now really taking it seriously. A few have not still, so I have to go there and talk to them. (In Hindi, “kuch karo.” - which means, “do something.”) because you are Indians, and you have to care for Indian culture, Indian scripts, Indian language, and Indian aesthetics. So, hopefully things will improve, I'm sure.
Donald (Host): Do you have a favourite dish?
Liza (Host): We're changing the subject.
R.K. Joshi (Guest): You are asking me all questions (laughs) which are so interesting. You know, I have gone through very, bad patches of hardships. Food was a big problem. I couldn't get my food. So, now I value it a lot. I enjoy each and every dish. Of course, I don't eat any meat. But in vegetarian I enjoy all of it. So there is no problem for my wife to cook. My daughters also don't say that I want this or that.
Liza (Host): Can you cook?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Yes, I used to cook in twenty minutes back then when I was a bachelor. And, yes, I still cook sometimes. I can do some interesting pickles, you know.
Donald (Host): How long have you been married?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): I got married in, um, sixty four. No sixty six.
Donald (Host): Sixty six, so that makes forty years. Forty four years?
Liza (Host): Forty two? No? Yes. No, forty?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Now you calculate. I’ve lost the track. (laughs aloud)
Donald (Host): You mentioned you had daughters?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Yes, I have two daughters. Both are good in their studies and they're quite career oriented.
Liza (Host): Are they interested in calligraphy?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): I have not forced my views on anybody but one is a good poet, and I'm also poet. I'm a concrete poet. All my visual poetry is in archives throughout the world, somewhere in America and in Oxford here. I'm the only guy in India who has done this work in concrete poetry, visual poetry, sound points, typographic poems. So people exclaim, gosh! “here is another experiment by R.K. Joshi”.
So, ya… the younger one writes poems. The elder daughter is good with computers.
Liza (Host): Do you write poems with your daughter? Do you work together?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): No. Her poems are also published. She writes in English. I don't write in English. I write in my own language.
Donald (Host): Which language is that?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Marathi. It’s a language in Bombay area. I write in Marathi and nowadays I translate them in English also. Few of these poems I have read in conferences in Tokyo, and...
Liza (Host): Could you? That's it! You know the question!
R.K. Joshi (Guest): (Laughing out loud) This afternoon is really fantastic. I did not know until this morning that I will be revealing my entire life through your great radio to this entire world. Here we are, good friends and we are talking!
Part 4
Donald (Host): Do you have a hero?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): I have two books as my gurus. That's all. Books are my heroes. I had a teacher who taught me calligraphy, but books taught me more. Ordinary books you know.
First book, when I saw Penguin Type, I said, such work is done by these great people. Who are they? And how did they know about this whole thing? So, that's book number one. Book number two is more on the Palaeographic study of all ancient inscription by Pandit Ojha. (He was referring to Pandit Gaurishankar Hirachand Ojha). He is no longer alive. Oh, yes! I must say that there are three books, instead of two books. The third book is a really the great book called Siddham. S I D D H A M. That's actually how the Indian script, Devanagari went to China and Japan in about 7th or 8th century AD. Few Hindu priests went with few Buddhist travelers and shared the entire knowledge. That book was entire Sanskrit written by their own tools. You know how Chinese and Japanese are so sensitive to their calligraphic tools. Such a fantastic forms they created and that book was about that. Interestingly this story is written by a Dutch guy. (In Hindi, “Kya hai”, which means “what a wonder”), you know this whole world is just so fascinating.
One Dutch guy, who had gone to China and wrote this in his preface. I really wish and I hope that some day, some Indian artist will see this book, study this whole style and try to bring back the entire beautiful style which has gone from India to China and Japan. That is the book I'm talking about.
Then I fell in love with the whole process of how you concentrate and how you take care of your tools and how they bring the strokes through you. I studied the whole thing and I experienced this great spiritualism of calligraphy which Zen monks have, and India is also spiritual at heart. And, then I tried so many experiments with huge tools which I cut myself. Dipped into bucket full of ink, did some strokes and an interesting exhibition happened in Germany in 1998 with another great calligrapher, Werner Schneider from Wiesbaden Art School. So, three books are my heroes.
Liza (Host): Which is the most beautiful word for you in any language? Not necessarily its meaning, maybe what it sounds like?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): That's a nice question. You people are really professionals. Yes, I'm interested in the sounds of the words. Meaning is all right but the sound. Sound of the word “OM”. A U M. To chant it… I really love the whole aspect of it. The chanting of the OM. The priest and the yoga people do it, but I have some different take to that in terms of how these variation in sounds can be put in calligraphy.
I always kept my base quite strong all the time. OM is that word. You can call it a word although it is a single syllable but yes, OM is the word to answer your question.
Donald (Host): What profession you would have chosen other than being a calligrapher, poet, whatever, what you're doing now?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Actually, I would still be born as a teacher if I ever had a second life. It's because that, it gives me a great satisfaction… not really being a teacher in a normal sense. But a teacher is always a student, in that sense because only then you can study a lot more and impart the things. I always tell my student, I have taken 25 years to think about this, and I'm sharing this to you this afternoon, so that you can use those 25 years of your life in some better ways or advanced thinking. Don't spend that much of a time on that. That's a great feeling. You become empty every day and you have to get filled in every day. You come there next day and you are a new man. Last night, you were empty. You had to again face these young people. They are going to ask you hundreds of questions. So, it's a great challenge. Poorly paid. Poorly looked after. But, money is not the thing. So, I would be a teacher again, so that I can learn and share many more things.
Part 5
Donald (Host): So does money make the world go round?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): No. But actually, I have nothing against money. In fact, I’ve lived a miserable life without money. So I know the value of money. But you know, you don;t have to be after it all the time. It will come to you. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “There is everything plenty in this world for your needs, but not for your greed.”
Obviously one has to travel. Now I've come from here, I had to beg, borrow or request someone, or take it off from the kitty, but it’s not a big deal. If you put a price for your knowledge giving activity, you are doomed. I know that people downstairs will not agree with it (Laughs), but that’s okay. They have their views, I have mine.
Liza (Host): Do you have any rituals you do? Is there something that you do every morning before you start work?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Yes. I think, I haven’t told this to anybody so far; even to my people back home. As soon as I get up, first thing I'll do is… I will give some water to some plant. Any plant. If there is no plant, I will just say, “this is for the plant”. In Indian systems, there is a provision for this. If there is no plant in the hotel, I don’t open the door and search. Yes. This is the first thing I do it everyday, giving water to a plant.
Then I stand facing to the East. Knowing East is important for me; not for travelling around but for my morning ritual. I stand facing the East, I sip some and sprinkle some water in all ten directions - East, West, North, South, Up, down and so on…
Then, while facing the Sun, I hold some water in my hand. I try to stand on 1 leg and chant the Gayatri Mantra 10 times. Of course, my one leg is stronger than the other, so I switch - 5 times on one leg and 5 times on another, reciting the Gayatri Mantra and then drink the water. This is the ritual for me everyday, anywhere I go, India or abroad.
Donald (Host): We have one more request. Could you recite one of your poems for us?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Actually, I am a very bad poet. I say this because, I don't have any of poems by heart. You know, in India, especially from the North belt, they recite poems like mad. One page after another page. They don't look anywhere. It just comes out of their mouth. I say, kya karte hai? Kahan se aata hai? From where did it come? How can they recite their poem about eight pages long without stumbling, or stuttering. But I'm dead opposite. I don't remember any of my poems. Also, when I write a poem, I can't find my poems in my house. So I write a new poem.
Liza (Host): That’s a good solution. (All of them laugh)
Donald (Host): I have one last question, which is more powerful, the written word or the spoken word?
R.K. Joshi (Guest): Always spoken word. I'm saying this, though I’m attending this conference, who believe in written word.
Yesterday, they asked us, what are the areas you think are important for us to probe into? Few people suggested their things and I said, another area is speech. We really now get our attention to the speech, the spoken word, otherwise we will lag behind.
It takes so many years for calligraphers, typographers, type designers, printers and all those people who have worked so hard to reach here. But spoken word comes first.
To end, I would like to share a Sanskrit line, “ākāśasya dharmaha śravaṇasya pratītiḥ.” ākāśasya dharmaha means, “the words are everywhere in the sky”. śravaṇasya pratītiḥ means, the experience of listening. It’s the experience of listening to words. So spoken words come first.
Donald & Liza (Host): Which is the point of Type Radio. (All of them laugh out aloud)
Hope you like it? You can tune into the conversation here. Please do share this post with as many people as you can. Especially Designers in India. We are reaping the fruits of all their life long hard work. We are standing on shoulders of giants. A small way to celebrate these giants.