Good storyteller must have sense of real & absurd: Majumdar
Saurabh Tankha
Novelist-academician-literary critic Saikat Majumdar recently came out with his latest work, The Scent Of God. Born in Kolkata and educated in India and the US, Majumdar, after teaching stints in the US and Canada, is now a professor of creative writing and English at Ashoka University. We spoke to Majumdar about The Scent Of God and moreโฆ.
What is The Scent Of God all about and how did you go about writing it?
Itโs a love story. The story of the relationship between two teenage boys living and studying in a boarding school run by a Hindu monastic order. Itโs the atmosphere that drew me to it, having known a similar world in my own life โ the atmosphere in which the spiritual becomes sensory. Where religion is about fragrant rituals, music, the silent community of other bodies, the touch of fellows, brothers in the monastic order, which intriguingly complicate the practice of celibacy. Itโs also about growing up, and how sexual desire appears without your quite knowing or understanding it, and how you feel desire without quite caring about gender. What happens to such desire when it sprouts in the communal atmosphere of a boarding school, especially one shaped by the ideology of monastic celibacy? Such a character took hold of my imagination, and the story is the story of his life, and the people who shape and influence it. But now that Iโve written it, I also realise it is a play on the themes of sexuality and spirituality, monasticism and celibacy, the way they are now being debated in our private and public consciousness.
Where do your ideas germinate from?
I need a seed of reality that compels me, enthralls me, provokes me, perhaps even terrifies me. I donโt need to understand it fully. In fact, overpowering realities that provoke art usually bewilders rational understanding. The reality needs to be situated somewhere; Iโm a writer of place, and local atmosphere is crucial to my fiction. Based on this spark, I try to develop characters. Plot, action, is whatever the characters do โ that usually comes at the end. My writing is usually a blend of the real and the invented, in a way it is, in the end, impossible to tell what is real and what is invented.
How different are you from other authors?
Every author is unique. Art, I feel, is simply a framed and heightened version of life. Weโre all alike and weโre all different.
What if your creative work doesnโt get good reviews?
Itโs not so much about โgoodโ reviews as intelligent and sensitive reviews. Such a review may very well point to where the book falls short, or where it could have done better. The spirit of such a review would still be one of serious engagement, which is what really matters.
What is that one thing which is the most important part of a book?
Depends on what kind of book it is. For the kind of novels I write, place is very important โ setting is an important character in my fiction. Next comes character. But for different books, different things are important.
Is writing energising or exhausting?
Both at the same time. Itโs like breathing โ breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out.
The word โcreativeโ to you meansโฆ
The word has been overused to the point I worry it has no meaning anymore. What is more important is that a work of art touches you, really hits you rather, in your soul and guts.
Are authors friends with other authors or are they competitors?
Friends, of course. This is not a soccer match.
You spent your first advance onโฆ
Just deposited it in my account. Boring but true.
Best way to market a creative workโฆ
To produce a really good one that moves people naturally.
How much time do you write in a day?
Depends where Iโm at with the work. Three to four hours at least.
Do you believe in a writerโs block?
There are periods in your life when you feel you have no real story inside you, and there are periods when you simmer with them. My second novel came eight years after my first novel (though I wrote a book of criticism in between). The last couple of years have been full of fiction, as well as a nonfiction book as well as essays. Right now feels like a rich and productive phase.
What do you do when you are not writing?
Teaching and university administration. I enjoy running, and thereโs a four-year-old boy at home whoโs always hounding me to play cricket with him!
Any book that inspired you to take up writing?
All the books I read while growing up that touched me genuinely.
What does it take to be a good storyteller?
To have a sense of the real and a sense of the absurd.
Do you write at home or travel to a destination for writing?
At home. I like to write in my home clothes, in a disheveled state!
Did any of your creative works get rejected by a publisher?
Of course.
Do book covers matter as much as the content?
They matter in a different way. A book is a physical object โ even when on Kindle โ and holding and reading it is a sensory experience, so certainly, book covers matter. Language, however, is an abstract medium and therefore can take you anywhere.
Fiction or non-fictionโฆ
Everything, and poetry.
Favourite childhood bookโฆ
Pather Panchali by Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhyay.
Favourite childhood authorโฆ
Sukumar Ray, Lewis Carrollโฆ
Do you watch movies?
I love movies. No particular genre, just good movies.
One advice for existing authorsโฆ
I donโt think I have any authority to give any advice to my peers.
One advice for budding authorsโฆ
Again, advice is a presumptuous word. But I would suggest that they read widely. I donโt think reading makes you a better writer. But reading makes you a better reader, and that is invaluable quality for a writer. It helps you become a better judge and editor of your own work.
One thing you would want to change about yourselfโฆ
I wish I had a deeper and more meaningful relation with music.
Favourite author nowโฆ
Favourite recent Indian book, Vivek Shanbhagโs Kannada novella, Ghachar Ghochar. I also love Sumana Royโs poetry and Amit Chaudhuriโs writings on literature and music. But thereโs much moreโฆ
Your biggest plusโฆ
Iโm single-minded when I set a goal for myself.
Your biggest minusโฆ
Iโm single-minded when I set a goal for myself.
Do you have any secret talents?
I can lie with a straight face while pulling a prank โ does that count?
If you had a superpower, what and why?
That I can eat anything I want and not put on weight.
You are, at present, readingโฆ
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Also just finished Shashi Deshpandeโs memoir, Listen to Me, a charming first novel, Patna Blues by Abdullah Khan, and a young adult book my nine-year-old daughter loved and insisted I read too, Talking of Muskann by my own editor Himanjali Sankar.
One thing you would want to accomplishโฆ
Leaving a body of work that matters to posterity.
Do you believe in life after death?
The only life I believe you have after death is the meaning of your life and work to other people, your family and the world.
