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Most NRI writers write nostalgic fiction about India. How come
you did not get caught in that trap?
India is not
strange for me. I was born and raised here. So for me to write a
novel I need to go to places I have not been before, places that
give a sense of adventure, a setting and character. So for the
first novel, I went to the 19th century and spoke about opium. I
wrote about China, Central Asia etc. That’s a distinction from
the purely autobiographical novel or the novel that is nostalgic
about India.
An author’s
first novel generally tends to be autobiographical. Was that
true in your case as well?
I don’t think I
use personal details, anecdotes or events in my story. My story
is drawn from many different sources. At a subconscious level,
perhaps, there is an autobiographical link. There is a sense of
journey in both my novels. I have been journeying and travelling
for a very long time and have been on the road for last 25
years. The first novel is about opium and I have never used
opium. The protagonist of the second novel is a bisexual and I
am not bisexual.
In both your
novels you go back in time. Why didn’t you write about the
contemporary world when there is so much happening around us
today?
I write about the
contemporary world in my short stories and poems. I would like
to think that history is one of my fetishes but is not my only
fetish. I think I will write a novel in the future set in
the here and now. Actually I am thinking of a novel set in
Manhattan about Americans living in America in the present time.
So, I have not given up on the present.
You started with
writing poetry. How come you have not published an anthology
till date? Is it because publishers shy away from publishing
poetry books nowadays?
I have never
worried about either publishing or publishers. I have faith in
my work. If it is any good it will be published some day or the
other. When I wrote my first novel, I didn’t know anything
about literary publishing. But I will be foolish to believe that
if I wrote poems they will definitely be published.
The market for
poetry is shrinking and when we talk of Indian writing in
English we invariably talk about the novel. What do you feel
about this trend?
It is a shame.
Every aspect of creative work needs to be cherished and
encouraged. Everything goes and then comes back and an interest
for poetry in the West has certainly returned. Going purely by
poetry reading at Oxford, one can say that there is a resurgence
of interest in poets.
What about the
novel? Naipaul famously declared the death of the novel many
years ago saying the novel had served its purpose and had no
context in our world today.
He has been proven
wrong because the novel lives on and is healthy.
He himself brought
out a novel, Half a Life, two years ago.
Yes. Well, there
is nothing wrong with people proving themselves wrong. We all
prove ourselves wrong from time to time. In the case of the
novel he proved himself wrong.
Isn’t it a fact
that while there is an abundance of fiction writers in India,
there are virtually no writers writing non-fiction?
I think there is a
very large number of Indian authors writing non-fiction.
Perhaps, they are not writing popular non-fiction of the William
Darlymple variety. His work is popular non-fiction. Yes, that is
a genre waiting to be explored by Indian authors.
There seems to be
a prodigious body of work coming from the NRI community as
compared to the writers in India.
However, the world
has not seen the best of Indian authors. The best of Indian
authors write in bhashas (regional languages). I disagree
with Rushdie when he says Indian writers writing in English are
producing a more important body of work than the vernacular
writers in India. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Some
of these writers writing in bhashas would put a lot of
Indian writers writing in English to shame. The world would see
the best of Indians writing when the world of translation and
translators develops the kind of skills necessary to translate
the regional writers into English.
What would you say
of the assertion of vernacular writers like U.R. Ananthamurthy
and Nirmal Verma that Indian writers writing in English cannot
depict the ‘real India’ in English and that their writing is
shallow?
Indian writers
writing in English are not of one genre. Vikram Seth is not
Rushdie. Amitav Ghosh is not Anita Desai. We certainly have more
diversity that any nation on earth and this reflects in our
writings. One cannot make a blanket statement and say Indian
writers writing in English write shallow stories. Some do, but
others certainly don’t. There is no conflict between Indian
writers writing in English and vernacular writers. Why should
there be? English is an Indian language. Indians have given a
lease of life to English. Without us, English would have
actually died as a language.
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Kunal
Basu is one of the growing tribe of Indo-Anglian writers who churn
out novels on India from distant shores. However, unlike most of
them, Kunal Basu is not preoccupied with themes of displacement,
alienation and the general autobiographical kitsch. He was born and
brought up in Calcutta and now lives in Oxford where he teaches in
Templeton College. But his books do not deal with the usual
East-West experience, the culture shock, the nostalgia with the
invariable undercurrent of ‘searching for one’s roots’. As he
himself puts it, "I am attracted by the strange not the
familiar". So his books have no set geographical boundaries and
take him as freely across the Hindu Kush as to China or countries in
Central Asia. To add to this, the books do not deal with the complex
issues of today. His first book, The Opium Clerk, published
two years ago, went back to the 19th century tracing the famed opium
trade. His latest fare The Miniaturist (Penguin books) goes
back to the times of Mughal Emperor Akbar, depicting the trials and
tribulations of a gifted artist of the time. Basu is, however, quick
to clarify that history is not his only fetish. This even though his
third novel is again set in a bygone era. It is a book set in the
Victorian Period and on its publication will be the first Victorian
novel written by a non-Saxon author.
