Sunday, March 30, 2003		Books

Meet the author
“As a writer one has to persevere”

HIS sensuous prose, full of rich imagery and poetry, sets I. Allan Sealy’s books apart from the other Indian writers writing in English. His previous book — The Everest Hotel — was a tour de force of evocative descriptions of hills and he was adjudged the master storyteller of quieter climes. However his latest novel, The Brainfever Bird (Picador-India) is set in two bustling metropolitans — Delhi and Moscow. But Sealy’s talent for magical description remains as powerful for the cities as it was for the hills. The smells, the sounds, the surging crowds of the busy bazaars come alive in The Brainfever Bird to produce remarkable cityscapes.

The book was launched in New Delhi recently and is winning him as much praise as his hugely successful, The Everest Hotel. But long ago when Sealy set out on the choppy, uncertain road of writing, he faced only defeat and oblivion. His first book — The Trotternama — still regarded by many as not only his best work but one of the best Indian books written in English — gathered dust in second-hand book-stores until it finally ran out of print. (It was resurrected three years ago by conscientious publishers who could not bear its demise).

Though now Sealy has come a long way from the failures that dogged his first two books, he still carries the mantel of the archetypal writer living in oblivion and never getting his due, but that is only because of the high quality of his books and his dedication to his muse. Ever a perfectionist, Sealy stunned the audience gathered to facilitate him for The Crossword Book Award he won for The Everest Hotel, in 1999, by saying that if he had a choice he would alter certain sections of the book and develop the characters better. Between the launch of The Brainfever Bird in the capital and his trip back to Dehra Dun, where he lives a simple, quite life with his wife and adopted daughter, Sealy spoke about his work to Sanjay Austa.

Well, yes, now they create a minor sensation. But my writing has not changed. The style of writing may have changed. It changes with every book. I guess now readers and publishers are opening up a lot more towards me.

By the way, I really used to do some long-distance running. Yes, as a writer one has to persevere. As for me, I just went from one novel to the next. When you are already immersed in the next book, you don’t reflect back to think of the failure.

I already feel that way about the Brainfever Bird. I was reading from the prologue at the book launch (on February 28) and realised it could have been organised differently. Prologue is a kind of introduction to the puppet play in the novel. It’s very important for any introduction that you get the audience interested in the spectacle of the play. You have to get the audience on your side. I was, in a sense, performing for the first time as a script and that performance told me that I should have made the changes.

Yes, I am. The perspective changes with time and looking back you tend to feel you could have done much better.

Well I stayed in Delhi to write the book and then later went to Russia. When I began writing it I knew it was a Delhi book so I came here. Sometimes you can write books sitting away from the setting but somehow for the Brainfever Bird, I had to live in the cities. In the case of my earlier novel (Trotternama) I was in Lucknow as it is set there.

One wants change. One tends to get tired of writing about the same things and place. You want to alter the pace as well. That was a quite laid back novel. This is a completely different book. Its full of action and set in two cities.

I did visit Old Delhi but the characters in the book are not based on any real people I met. I haven’t spoken to anyone for the purpose of my book. It is always better to be able to speak with the people you are writing about but it is also possible to imagine them more clearly than if I had spoken with them.

Present tense brings immediacy. I used this tense in Everest Hotel and I followed it in The Brainfever Bird. Present tense shows that the act is not yet complete. Something is yet to be finished. This sort of impression was important in these two books.

Yes, my books have poetic prose. This is because I think my observation in closer, deeper. I feel as one with the scene I am describing. It just happens. I do not set out to write it that way.

Ideally I would want my books to speak for themselves but sometimes you are required to talk about the book and answer questions about it . If that means more people will read the book then there is no harm.

(Photo by Subhash Bhardwaj)