BENGALURU: Inspired by the generosity and goodwill of Mother Teresa, Italo Rovere, came to India in 1990, all the way from Brazil. After starting his journey in May 1989 from Rio, he reached Kolkata in April 1990. Currently in the city, he will be teaching the art of making books this month.
Why books? Being a poet he has carried books all his life. On the second day of the two-day Bengaluru Poetry Festival, Italo is seen carrying a cardboard box that is sealed with “I Love My India” sticker. Inside the box, there are numerous books, all handmade by him, painted and penned. His poems, titled the ‘Yellow Touch’, comes in all shapes and sizes, varying from the size of a diary to tinier than a matchbox. All books, encapsulated in a paper box, are pretty to look at.
For the past ten years, this has been his art. Fifty-year-old Italo, wearing quirky green spectacles with a square frame on the left and round one on the right, looks for a space to display his books.
Italo Rovere writes in Portuguese and hails from a “poetry village” in Brazil called the Villade De Poetas in Maranguape, northeast part of Brazil slanting close to the Equator.
Escape in 20
Why did Italo take a year to reach India? He took a plane from Rio to Madrid in May 1989 and, from Madrid to Kolkata, he hitchhiked. “I walked and asked for a lift whenever possible. I walked without shoes and I felt like giving up so many times,” says Italo, his smiling face suddenly tearing up. What kept him moving was a hymn of St. Francis of Assisi called ‘Make me a channel of your peace’, he adds. All those memories have been captured in his books and paintings, all bright in colour. His work has been translated into archaic English with ‘Thou’ and ‘Thy’.
Italo emphasises that he never writes when he is sad, because he does not want to remember or be remembered by sadness.
On meeting Mother Teresa, he says that she advised him to go back to Brazil and work there in his country. “When I returned, my family thought I was crazy and had me treated with injections and by psychiatrists,” he shares. “Nobody recognised me because a long journey had transformed me and my family, who runs a business, could not accept my change,” he adds. He shares that he even contemplated suicide from the 7th floor of the apartment he was living in.
While his family did not support him, his theology
professor told him to travel and write a book.
I want to be a book
The reason why he does what he does is because he wants children to teach children. “As Mother Teresa said that children are the best teachers,” he says. In 1995, Italo travelled to Africa and worked with education projects. “In Africa they love soccer and they loved me because I am from Brazil,” he smirks. “It was then I wrote many poems and decided to make my first book in 1996 and started with handmade books in 1999 after the first book became very expensive,” he adds. “I wanted to become a book,” he says.
His first poem written to Mother Teresa is titled ‘My Little Mary’ and the second poem, he wrote in 1997 is titled ‘Teresa in All Sisters’. Italo recites the poem animatedly and shares that nuns in Kolkata tell him to recite it every now and then.
For six months
Italo’s visa expires on November but till then he plans to go across cities and conduct a book-making workshop and highlight the difference art can make in lives.
His workshop is likely to happen on September 20 at Atta Galatta.