On Writing

The Beginning

I started writing a long time ago; I don't remember when. The past, so often, gets crushed together making space for a massive present, until the difference between yesterday and today is as significant as that between 2010 and 2011. However, I remember I started writing fantasy.

My first story was an amalgamation of the Smurfs and the Mahabharata. Much later, after I read my first Potter book, the same work included a Hogwarts-esque world as well. In fact, for the best part of a year, I was hell-bent on improving J.K. Rowling's literature; it didn't live up to my expectations, and in a mad childish whim, I tried to do better. My protagonist - shamelessly given a European name 'Peter' and white skin - thus journeyed into a terrifying world through a nightmare.

Over time, I imagine my writing developed a slight flavour, as I experimented with Indian myth; most prominently with a Bheema-like figure called 'Veera'. What I read - mostly European and American fiction - still shaped my works strongly. I never completed any of these tales. They held my attention for a while, and during this period, I was devoted to them; then they slipped away.

The Steadfast Tin Soldier?

Ashwin's story began as a blog-post that became longer than anticipated. I promised myself it would end as a 10,000-word short-story; I later found it transforming into a novella, and finally into a 70,000-word novel. I never wished to publish the work. But when the story ended, leaving me friendless for a short while, I decided - why not?

'The Steadfast Tin Soldier?' is not as autobiographical as people say it is, but it isn't independent of its author. I put a considerable portion of myself into that book, and sold it to the market. At first, it felt strange that something as intensely personal as a story was being read by other people. Soon, like many others before me, I learned to distance myself from the tale. In a strange way, imagination shaped reality.

My first foray into a longer form of writing was thoroughly satisfying. I was happy inside that bubble of imagination, untroubled by the world outside. I could live the life of Ashwin - my protagonist - and struggle his struggles, but in a world created by me. So the struggles always had purpose; I found purpose through writing.

MR19

Here, I write about the book I never got published. Not yet, anyway. MR19 - which only my closest friends have read - is the story of a man who tries to understand the world as it changes. The story, a work in mythology and science-fiction, happens in the future - in a homogenized planet. I wrote MR19 in order to understand the world, to accept the changing zeitgeist. I found enlightenment in writing.

Writing is more about listening to a story, than about telling one. I imagine that I write better than I converse; that is only because, when I write, I am listening to the story alongside you. The story plays out with a mind of its own. I cannot begin to describe - this paradox is unintentional - the beauty of a scene unravelling itself to you for the first time.

Nobody Remembers Ram

I wrote my latest book in two months. I was possessed by the story; it did not let me sleep. I wrote from bed, at work, in the metro, at bars, in coffee-shops, when I was friends, when I was on a family-vacation, in trains, inside planes, while eating... I found peace in writing.

This is a story of a successful man who goes missing. People search for him. They discover a narrative of his experiences. By elevating the pleasures and torments of a fictional character, I have been able to placate my own self.

There is too much turbulence in the world outside. Frankly, I don't care much about people and places any more. Why should I be part of something I cannot control? Give me a paper and a pen.