A Conversation with Githa Hariharan
Arnab Chakladar: and insulates you from all the hype around certain writers...
the noise and the hype may be tiresome sometimes, but if you are writing, or reading something really good, you don't pay attention
Githa Hariharan: Well, the noise and the hype may be tiresome sometimes, but if you are writing, or reading something really good, you don't pay attention. I think the more important problem is, as I said, where the power centers and the opinion makers are...that is what is more worrying. If there is a certain amount of noise, a certain amount of space being given in newspapers and on television shows that have to fill up airtime with all kinds of things, including this month's flavour and so on, it's all right, you know...people aren't as stupid as product makers think; they might even buy it a couple of times, but that doesn't mean they'll do it again.
Arnab Chakladar:...hype doesn't necessarily mean a book is bad...
Githa Hariharan: Yes, there's no necessary correlation... And there is no real link between hype and the sort of reviews you get either. Some very hyped books have got poor reviews, or bad reviews in India and good reviews elsewhere. The God of Small Things was an exception -- it got quite a range of reviews, most of it good, if I remember right.
Arnab Chakladar: The danger, I suppose can be of falling into the trap of thinking that the only true recognition is that of the hyped kind.
Githa Hariharan: Yes. I won't deny that you don't feel a twinge if you go to a bookshop where you don't see a single thing you've written. And sometimes, when you are talking in some country as an "Indian" writer, you realize your books are not in that language and possibly no one in the audience has read you. So the audience has to take the claims of your being a writer as a matter of faith (laughs) -- and you know how tricky that phrase is! Then you go back and read about some other writer's experience, you read Calvino's American Diary for instance, and then you know you are in some pretty good company! (laughs)
what you want is to write as well as you can, try different kinds of writing, not be too easily classified, push yourself forward, and if in the process you become one of thousands of reasonably good writers, that seems more than enough
Arnab Chakladar: Sometimes I almost feel a little sorry for some of the young new Indian writers-there seems to almost be an expectation now in the Indian literary scene that everybody will be the next Great Writer, and write the next Great Book. I remember reading something recently that Kiran Nagarkar said about greatness in literature not being something that comes along very often and that not everybody needs to be a Dostoevsky.
Githa Hariharan: Most of us start off wanting to be great, it must be part of growing up! But luckily we do grow up. I say luckily because I think the hankering to be great must be wearing if you keep it up. Like any writer, I would be delighted if my books sold like mad and were translated into every possible language and so on, but I find this simply doesn't work as a goal. The same thing goes for fame -- which is really what this greatness that we are talking about all the time amounts to. What you want is to write as well as you can, try different kinds of writing, not be too easily classified, push yourself forward, and if in the process you become one of thousands of reasonably good writers, that seems more than enough. On your more intelligent days, you see that is more than enough.
Arnab Chakladar: I think your readers are very happy that your work is available to them, even if they might sometimes wish that it were your face splashed everywhere and not that of the flavour of the month. But this may be a good segue to one of my closing questions, which is, do you read any other contemporary Indian writers? And is there anyone your readers might be surprised to discover Githa Hariharan likes?
Githa Hariharan: I don't know about surprising likes. But I was recently buying books for my son -- which is a new excuse I have for buying books -- and I bought him Rana Dasgupta's Tokyo Cancelled. I thought some of the stories delightful and very hard to classify and I liked that. Of course it is hard to sustain this sort of a thing and some stories are a little over the top -- not always in a rewarding way. But I think on the whole it's a challenging book, a very promising first book, and I am curious to see what the author may write next. And I've recently enjoyed The Hungry Tide. Though I still think The Shadow Lines is Ghosh's best, one of the most remarkable novels we have in Indian literature in English...
Arnab Chakladar: or Indian literature in general...
Githa Hariharan: or Indian literature in general or English novels in general...it is a very fine book. Clearly he's now on a somewhat different track, and on this track I think The Hungry Tide is more successful than The Glass Palace.
Arnab Chakladar: In a sense I think he is becoming the novelist as historian, practising a hybrid between fiction and historiography.
on the whole, on a day to day basis I spend a lot of time with people who have absolutely nothing to do with writing, which I find truly restful
Githa Hariharan: Yes, I liked this, it seems to be aware of both its possibilities and limitations... And he has the substructure of the research showing... I liked that too. In any case, and this is what I wrote to him, anything which uses confluence as the peg to hang the whole thing on, it is very difficult not to respond to it, especially when he does it so well. To get back to your question about my reading, it is really very chaotic...I pick up all kinds of things and I don't really pick up the latest thing. Right now, for example, I am reading Bama's Sangati in English translation, a novel by Pat Barker, Border Crossing, and an essay or two from Amartya Sen's The Argumentative Indian.
Arnab Chakladar: Well, this will probably be the last question, and is probably a very naïve one, but do you feel like there is a community of Indian writers that you are a part of?
Githa Hariharan: Sometimes I think this is more important when you have just begun writing. My tiny community then consisted of some people who were friends first before we became writers...For example, Shama Futehally and I were friends before we got published and we showed each other all our early work. Otherwise I think any yearning for a supportive community, a publisher who will nurture you, and fellow writers and critics who will spur you on, ...I put this in the same box as the yearning for the man who will (laughs) truly appreciate you and make your life as exciting as you want it to be.
Arnab Chakladar: In short, you're confirming that it is in fact a naïve question...
Githa Hariharan: Well, if you kill yearning because it's impossible or naïve, you might as well lie down and die. So yearning must never be scoffed at too much, only a little if you find yourself doing it too much and too often... But in practical terms I don't think there is a community of writers...of course over the years I have got to know a lot of writers and some have become friends...but, on the whole, on a day to day basis I spend a lot of time with people who have absolutely nothing to do with writing, which I find truly restful. I really believe that nobody needs to be reminded all the time of being a writer, nobody needs to be asked what is being written now, which is guaranteed to...
Arnab Chakladar: um...
Githa Hariharan: (laughs) You see how cleverly I'm anticipating...In fact when two writers meet and one is un-PC enough to ask, well, what are you writing, the only revenge you can take is to say, so what are you writing? (laughs) The only thing worse is when the publisher asks you and they say so and so is writing such a ...and of course if you happen to ask that writer about it, he may say, Oh god! This is what I was told you were writing...
Arnab Chakladar: a three part opus...
Githa Hariharan: (laughs) Yes. I used to think people who write in English have less of a community than those who write in other languages. Maybe I romanticized this at one time. From what little I've seen, I suspect these communities are like any family which is...
Arnab Chakladar: ...grossly dysfunctional...
(laughter)
Githa Hariharan: yes, probably as oppressive as nurturing (laughs). I think of that Granta special issue on the family...I think it said, on the bottom, "the family fucks you up". A good thing to remember when you get maudlin about families and communities... (laughs).
Arnab Chakladar: Well, on that note...
(laughter)
...let me thank you for your time...it has been a very enjoyable conversation.
Githa Hariharan: Thank you.