When you spend two years or more, working up your literary muscle, you form a deep bond with your characters; you live their lives, allow them to peek into yours and together you paint the town red! You have got to be passionate about the words and the context in which you are setting them up, to be read, praised and criticised. If it’s a world that you don’t like being in, then there’s no point in being a humour writer or a children’s writer. You should be at least curious about, if not in love with, the genre that you want your name to be associated with. We talk to a few new and established authors, as their fingers fly over the keyboard, on what it means to work on a book in their favourite genre.
HEART-TO-HEART
Saranya Rai, who debuted as a romance writer, with Love, Take Two (loosely based on two Bollywood actors who recently had a destination wedding), is now working on her second book. “This one,” says Rai, “explores more of the world that I wrote about in Love, Take Two. Look out for some new as well as familiar faces!”
When asked about what’s her relationship with the stars and celebrities, Rai explains, “I’m fully aware of the deep-seated political issues with fanning and investing in celebrity culture. But I’m also fascinated by the narratives that are built and peddled as a part of the game. I see what is painted as aspirational, authentic, desirable, as too out-there and I’m interested in what that says about us.”
The author says that she doesn’t obsessively follow tabloids or digital content aggregators focussing on celebrity news, only for the handful of people that she is interested in. “I’ve subconsciously picked up a lot of the background material in my book on celebrity lifestyles, schedules, interests, even styles and registers of speech, from social media over the years. The process began by reading film magazines and anecdotes slipped in between songs on radio programmes and music channels, even the odd TV show detailing the lives of stars. But this kind of daily avalanche of information and access to celebrity lives only came about with social media and it’s a huge part of how I learnt to add texture to my writing,” she adds.
Rai first tested her skills in ‘Fan Fiction’ writing. “Each fandom is different in the things it values and its traditions, narratives and structures. I’ve been part of several, and written fan fiction for quite a while. In a fiction-writing workshop I’d once attended, Annie Zaidi had compared writing to a muscle — the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes. I’ve found this to be annoyingly accurate. Inspiration is not always going to strike and you won’t always feel like keeping at it, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Fanfic was the easiest way to paddle into the waters. You can be anonymous, you can write about whatever you like, and you do it all as part of a community that’s invested in your work. Even if you don’t always get reliable critique, it’s the best kind of encouragement to keep going,” she elaborates.
SMALL JOYS
When Deepa Agarwal writes for children, she tries to be one with her characters, live in their world and immerse herself in their experiences, feel their fears and anxieties, laugh, cry and triumph with them. “I enter the mind of each character in turn while I’m writing. If you stay detached, the reader will not be able to relate to your story,” says Agarwal, adding, “Both narrative and (even more so) dialogue must sound natural to the child reader, otherwise the story will lack credibility. I used to consult my daughters when they were children. Now I listen very carefully to my grandchildren.”
It’s said that Enid Blyton usually wrote stories for herself. She wanted a dog, so her characters had a dog or were dog lovers. Can every author have this luxury of writing for themselves and also hoping that it connects with readers? Agarwal, who has written books like Sacked — Folktales you can carry around, The Walk Tree and The Hilltop Mystery, says that stories represent wish-fulfillment for writers. “Your characters are often your idealised self and your villains might be people who have troubled you in real life. It adds the necessary note of reality to fiction for writers to project their actual dreams and desires into their work. When you write from your heart, the reader immediately makes a connection because the genuineness of your emotions breathes life into your writing,” she adds.
Agarwal, who often visits schools to interact with children, says that younger children still enjoy animal stories, and folktales and myths are perennial favourites. “With all the fantasy stories going around, many children are still interested in mystery and adventure. They always ask if I write horror or ghost stories. The kind of boarding school stories we read in our childhood seem to be out, though I have encountered kids who have enjoyed Enid Blyton,” she points out.
FOOTLOOSE
Janhavi Acharekar’s first book was a collection of short stories titled, Window Seat - Rush Hour Stories from the City. She has written travel guides for the American guidebook series Moon Handbooks and another fiction novel, Wanderers, All. Needless to say, travel and a strong sense of place have always been central to her writing. Says Acharekar, “Among my previous works, the book of short stories, Window Seat..., is set in urban India and particularly Mumbai. While Moon Mumbai & Goa is a travel guide on Mumbai and Goa for the American book series Moon Handbooks. I lived with the idea of Wanderers, All for a while before I actually wrote the book. It was a short story, Freedom at Midnight, from Window Seat... that started me off.”
“The novel is more about fluidity of identity and openness in belief and experience. An acknowledgement of the fact that your origins are likely to be very different from what you imagine them to be and that nation, religion, community are all human constructs; boundaries, both geographical and cultural, have been continually changing. So, in that sense, we are all wanderers,” she adds.
Acharekar is the contributing editor for Conde Nast traveller and her travel website www.travelpurist.com, says she is a return to the roots of travel in this era of selfies and by-the-minute social media updates. “It is for those interested in immersive travel and in a deeper discovery of a place and its culture. Today, people are travelling much more than they did before so there is an increasing familiarity with different destinations. And thanks to the internet, we are all armchair travellers. Be it in travel writing, food writing or any other genre, good storytelling skills are the need of the hour,” she says.
Does she think there is a growing tribe of experiential travel writers? How does it help readers, because they might not have the same exposure or experience?
“There is certainly a growing tribe of travel writers — whether their writing is experiential or not is debatable. While the internet has democratised writing, leading to a surge in travel blogs, there is also the flip side — no filter in the form of editors (as one would have with a magazine), often leading to mediocre content where the aim is self-aggrandisement, a ‘been-there-done-that’ attitude with a focus on selfies and social media posts, rather than deep insights into a place and its culture. That said, there is good quality writing too and there are some excellent travel magazines, websites and blogs out there. One can only hope that travel writing as a genre will evolve as quickly as the growing tribe of travellers,” says Acharekar.
“To answer the second part of your question about readers who do not have the same exposure or experience as travel writers — isn’t that the idea? To entice readers with the unknown? Historically, the travel accounts of travellers like Marco Polo enchanted readers precisely because they had not visited the places they read about,” she adds.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE MYTHS
Christopher C Doyle’s The Mahabharata Quest series and The Paatala Prophecy fall in the mythology genre, but as they say, the writing comes with a twist. Doyle’s work is focussed on explaining the science behind the myths.“There were four critical factors that I leveraged to weave the two thought processes together. The first was to break free from the traditional interpretation of the myths that I write about. The second was to use real science (not speculative science or science fiction) to explain the myths. The third was to dive deep into the narrative of the myths, to the extent of analysing even the Sanskrit shlokas to find possible links. The final step, which is critical, was to ensure that the science used was validated by an expert in the relevant field. This ensured that, even though my story and theory was fictional, the connections made were fact based and, therefore, plausible as an alternative interpretation of the myths. So, whether I provided a scientific explanation of the Samudramanthan in The Alexander Secret, or explained the engineering behind a powerful weapon from the Mahabharata in The Secret of the Druids, it is easy to believe that the theory I have presented in a fictional context, could very well have been a reality,” says Doyle.
In the mid ’90s, the Gurgaon-based author read some non fiction books by Western authors who attempted to explain Western myths and legends using science. He wondered why no one in India had attempted to do this with our mythology. “I found rather non scientific beliefs, like the theory that the Brahmastra was a nuclear weapon, which is completely at odds with the description of the Brahmastra in the epics. Even where authors did try to link science to mythology in India, it was through inventing, or even distorting, scientific facts to fit a plot or a fictional explanation. This led to a desire to research more and attempt an explanation of myths and episodes from the Mahabharata using real science and not incorrect or speculative science, which is what I have done with my books,” he adds.
So was it faith in science and history, mythology and Indian culture that drove him to write the Mahabharata series? He answers, “I would like to believe that there was a period on earth, in the distant past, where science and technology were more advanced than we usually tend to assume — a golden age of sorts — and what we read in the Mahabharata may be a memory of that age. The sequence of the yugas points to a descent of humankind, not an ascent. It is this belief that drove me to write The Mahabharata Quest series. And, in my new series, The Pataala Prophecy, I explore the possibility that the technology of the ancients may have been based on nature and their power was derived from the forces of nature, very unlike our technology which pollutes and destroys nature.”
EVERY STONE TELLS A STORY...
One of the noted names in the History genre, Rana Safvi, had topped her class when she was doing her post-graduation in the subject. The Delhi-based author had done her BA (hons) in English Literature with History as a subsidiary subject. But she did her MA in History after she heard Prof Irfan Habib speak. “He made me realise there’s more to History than learning dates and battles by heart. I loved it once I figured that out. That’s how I taught History for five years in senior school in Jamshedpur and Saudi Arabia. Most of my students developed a love for the subject too,” says Safvi.
Safvi’s blog (https://ranasafvi.com/) is quite popular and she has written on diverse subjects. What does it mean to be a writer in the history genre — especially now that we have so many historical truths and versions? Says she, “I write because firstly I’m passionate about history and secondly I feel it’s very important to keep putting out facts in the public space. A blog seems to be the best way. I blog on my daily leanings via my research or my travels.”
“History is not an exact science but facts are facts which should be verified via contemporary sources. Analysis is sometimes subjective, so it’s open to interpretation and two historians may have a different take but facts can’t be distorted,” she adds.
Safvi has written on mutiny and two books on Delhi. Is it difficult to gather physical evidences in this time and day on the subjects that you have chosen to write? The author of The Forgotten Cities of Delhi says, “The period I am writing about is rich in Urdu accounts. It’s just that those were hitherto untranslated or unexplored. I’m tapping those wonderful resources.”
When she is researching, writing on the subject, Safvi experiences a great sense of nostalgia and loss, for a way of life that’s lost forever. “A way of life that’s at times wrongly maligned; It was a period of great upheaval and change. On one hand, Delhi was at its cultural zenith and on the other hand, the lamp of the Mughal Empire was flickering,” she says.