Born in Kolkata, grown up in Mumbai and residing almost entirely abroad since 1994, spanning cities in Canada and England, Rajorshi Chakraborti maintains with much fervour, his connection with India. The author whose first novel Or The Day Seizes You won him significant critical attention and an honourable shortlist for the Hutch Crossword Book Award 2006, awaits a similar appreciation for his second novel Derangements (HarperCollins-India). Currently a member of the English Faculty in The University of Edinburgh, Raj Chakraborti illustrates his ideas with BW Online's Alokita Datta on literature and living in two worlds.
Were you always clear that you wanted to be a novelist?
No, not really. When I was a kid I would write essays, stories, but I never really thought about it. But I think it was from the age of about 18 that I felt I would seriously want to be a writer. I wrote a couple of novels then, and later I wrote a whole lot of short stories. They were actually pretty awful, so I didn't really show them to anyone.
But the reason I wasn't writing anything was because there was no story powerful enough to tell that was welling up within me. And then in 2002 one day, a line of images kind of fell into my head and I realised that if I put them together I have a plot for a novel. So I began writing and three months later I had a first draft and that was my first novel Or The Day Seizes You came out in 2006.
It is interesting that you say 'images', is that how the idea came to you, pictographic?
It is. Part of the reason perhaps is that I love cinema. I love thinking in images, forming sequences of images and action. The other thing that happened actually was that four or five different images occurred to me or I saw them. But most such images fade after a few days. The ones that don't fade are the interesting ones.
So, you don't really try to tidy up the edges when you present these images in your novels?
Right. Well, what language tries to do or rather you try to find the language to reflect the images you saw on the screen of your mind as clearly as possible. Images have a mysterious quality about them and are also enchanting. 'Whenever I write I try to find language that is like a sheet of ice, in an ice-skating ring and the reader just glides over the language smoothly, following the action, the story and only in the end they pause to wonder 'How can I interpret that?' I don't want the language to form any obstacle or speed bump…
Do you follow what comes to your mind and just represent it without much meditation on form or political implications.
What I will say is that in my experience, writing is a marriage between the conscious and the unconscious part of you. The unconscious part of you is what gives you these gifts; images, memorable opening moments, this amazing sequence of events or a chapter and as you say, I just find the language for it and write it. At the same time the moment you have these images there is a conscious part of you which has its preoccupations, themes, obsessions. The conscious part of you is always trying to work with the images given to you by the unconscious and fit them together. However in my experience, when I write I don't choose my themes. I write a story and find that my themes have chosen me.
Who were the authors you read?
I used to read Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong'o. I also read Nadine Gordimer, Ayi Kwei Armah, the writer from Ghana. From India of course, there were the usual suspects, Salman Rushdie, R.K. Narayan, Anita Desai and others. These are also the people I like, I mean I love Narayan and I love some of Rushdie's novels very much, others not so much. Other than that I really like Vikram Chandra, I love Suketu Mehta's Maximum City
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All these authors have distinct styles and thematic concerns as well. Do you feel you have a unique outlook of your own?
Such a question is probably best answered by a reader like yourself, when you finish a novel. You will note resemblances and differences.
I would be very happy if other people note 'that bit really reminded me of so and so', for example. I think though I will say, with R.K. Narayan, for instance, I love that particular kind of comic writing, this wonderful, rich beautiful comedy. I feel more recently, Derangements is of course my second novel and the one that is going to be published, but I have since then written three more and also have two more in the pipeline. The more recent fiction is moving towards comedy and that makes me feel very happy since a many of my favourites are comic writers. Parts of Derangements may be comic but as a whole it is quite dark.
Coming to Derangements, why is it that you have chosen this peculiar formal technique of literally 'interweaving' stories (it is almost like a weft and a warp)? Your comments.
I hope for the readers who like Derangements, it works for them on two levels. On the very first level I hope it works at the level of it being a very satisfying mystery story. There is a murdered woman, a disappeared writer, what's the connection? It is a mystery that unfolds in a few layers. However, once they've finished the book and have been pleased on that level, I would also hope they see that another theme that the book is about is the kind of relationship between a writer and his work.
There are three novellas. One is the writer claiming to speak in his own voice, so within the book it is non-fiction. Another one is his latest work of fiction and the third voice which comes in the end is actually the voice of his ex-wife who questions and challenges some of the things he said earlier. Together they make this book. Once the reader has read all these three what I'd like the reader to think about is the relationship between these three novellas and the three narrators. So I'd like them to think about what Raj the writer says in his non- fictional piece and then how the same events are twisted and turned into fiction. How a writer takes events from real life and alters them distorts them and represents them in fiction.
The other aspect of a writer's life that I'd like the reader to think about is how when the writer does this, taking events from real life and turning them into fiction, the fallout on other people close to him. Whether they feel misrepresented, distorted? That's why I wanted to give a voice to his ex-wife to challenge some of the things he says.
How much of an influence does the market (in terms of the forces of demand and supply) play or affects your writing?
I can only talk about my experiences with the publication of the first book. I was in Britain teaching, when my first book came out in India. It came out in February and I could return only to India in July 2006. By then it was old news. What was very gratifying for me to see however was that, even if I was far away over there, the book received some reviews, critical judgment and people wrote that they've liked it. By no means was it an amazing seller but from there it made it to a shortlist for the Hutch Crossword Award 2006, all of that made me extremely grateful and very pleased.
The only rule of thumb that I use in planning a book is that at that moment 'is this story I most want to tell?' The other guideline I set for myself is that with every sentence, paragraph, chapter is, 'Am I being fully entertained and engaged in writing his? You can't plan and tailor your book for this 'ideal' reader. I write the story that I would most love to read and what I like to read is a very wide range. In that there is suspense, action like the Hindi film! I also like parts of it to be surreal because these are all things that I love in the works of art, books, and films and try to bring them in my books That is what I've tried to do with each book and hopefully the stories I most enjoy writing are the ones people most enjoy reading.
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But do you really have a target audience in mind? Probably even in terms of sharing a common sensibility or ideology...
No target demographic as such. Like only people between a certain age or my background. Not even ideological, probably just the sensibility. This might sound really silly but out of all the books, films, works of art or even songs and pieces of music that we experience, there are very few that make us feel less lonely in the world. In our extreme moments of joy and sadness we turn to certain paragraphs from certain books for consolation or pleasure. I think my wildest dream when I write is that maybe there will be some moments in my book(s) that will make some people feel less lonely in the world or the way my favourite moments, song lyrics, paragraphs, paintings make me feel. So that is my target.
What has your teaching experience been like so far?
I feel very fortunate that my job is to do with the very same things that matter to me (literature, art, and writing). The process can be quite rewarding. One of the nice opportunities that teaching literature offers is the chance to discuss things with other people, hear their views, hear about their experiences, share yours and sometimes find words for things you could never express because no one has been there to discuss them with.
Do you have any plans to come back to India? Anything in the offing?
I visit every year and sometimes I come back and stay for six month in 2006. But overall in the last 14 years I have mostly been away. Maybe a regular plan to visit is likely but in the immediate future I have no plans to come and live. However, there is a dream to return maybe for a while, a year, and slowly float through different parts of India as part familiar and part stranger. For instance Calcutta, the city I know and love and also have a very strong relationship with it (through books and my family), some positive some not.
And discover new stories in the same place?
Yes stories. That is a very good way to put it. The stories that come out of it can really make something. So that is the project, which is different from coming back to India to get a nice job in a university and find a flat…that is not on the cards. I would like to return with the spirit of an explorer!
'alokita (dot) datta (at) gmail.com'
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