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Amidst all his engagements he took time out to speak to Sanjay
Austa in New Delhi. Excerpts from the interview:
The thriller does
not have a tradition in India. Why did you think of writing one?
People are calling
it a thriller. It is not really a thriller. That is just a
nomenclature people are using. In the US different bookstores
have stacked it under different categories. Some under
drama-fiction, some under espionage, some under English
literature. So even they were not sure exactly how to categorise
it. But yes it is always good for literature to have new voices.
You had approached
literary agent Gillion Aitken much before the book was written.
Why did you do that?
I had written
about 10 chapters. My agent saw my work in 1999. That’s when
he signed me. Well that’s the procedure they follow in the
West.
Till now your book
has got only good reviews and adulation...
Yes, it’s got as
favourable reviews as, perhaps, Arundhati Roy got.
Why did you choose
to make your protagonist an anti-hero dealing in drugs,
smuggling and other nefarious activities?
He is just a
character. There is too much genteel writing in India. I do not
like that sort of writing.
Your first book, Crack
in the Mirror, sank without a trace.
But one was not
formed as a writer at that time. Way back in 1990 Rupa
publishers published some 400 copies. At that time not many
books sold anyway.
What is Cobrapost
all about?
I am trying to
establish a small, independent media. Cobrapost is just the
first step in that direction. It’s a resource site right now.
It will eventually have its own content.
You have a
penchant for wacky names for your news portals. First it was
Tehelka now it’s Cobrapost. These names don’t really sound
like media organisations, do they?
We have to have
names which have a high recall value. Names that suggest some
urgency. You have to keep many other considerations in mind when
you think of names for websites.
The language in Bunker
13 is not only colloquial but also quite unlike the language
used by other Indian writers writing in English.
It is just
language. It is the question of what tone you want to adopt. The
subject you select is very important as is the treatment meted
out to that subject. Your
book has been compared to many bestsellers of the past, notably Catch-22.
Do you feel your writing has in any way been influenced by these
works?
I love Joseph
Heller. I have not read much of Norman Mailer. I have favourite
writers but have not been influenced by anyone. Subconsciously,
it is possible they influenced me but consciously I was not
aware of any influence.
What do think of
other Indian writers writing in English?
I respect Indian
writers but I am put off by their harking back to the past all
the time and indulging in nostalgia. Literature should have
different voices.
Your detractors
said that the advance you got from your publishers, Faber and
Faber, was illegal money that you were trying to get into the
country.
In India they want
to mix up my journalism with my fiction. That is unfair. It was
very petty of my detractors to say something like that. Now that
the book has come out they have become quiet.
How much time did
you spend researching the book?
I read a lot,
talked to people, surfed the Net. The total time I spent writing
the book may have been 6-7 months but the entire project that
included research and writing took over six years.
Why would you want
to leave Tehelka at this juncture and leave Tarun Tejpal all
alone?
I wanted to get
back to journalism in some way or the other. A lot of new people
have already joined Tehelka. My moving out, perhaps, leaves me
all alone. But Tejpal and I may have a content sharing
arrangement after all.
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