A Conversation with Kiran Nagarkar
Arnab Chakladar: If we could go back to this idea of authenticity that you mentioned earlier, that both Arun Kolatkar and you were deemed authentic by the Marathi literary establishment only when you wrote in Marathi--what seems to be implicit in this is the idea that a particular regional identity is only carried in a particular language, that it isn't possible to speak of Marathi culture or to write from a Marathi cultural standpoint if you're not doing it in Marathi. So let me ask you what you think of an idea of Indian literature based on regional affiliations rather than only linguistic ones--so you could have Marathi writers who write in Marathi and English? And would you still call yourself a Marathi writer even though you now write in English?
I don't have to give a shit about whether my writing is Indian or not
Kiran Nagarkar: At that Neemrana conference there were about 10 sessions, and all of them essentially became incarnations of the theme of Indianness. All they could think of was this question of being an Indian writer. And it pissed me off no end! For the simple reason that I am not setting out to be an Indian author. But at the same time I cannot for one moment forget that whatever I write comes from an Indian consciousness. Which is why I don't have to give a shit about whether my writing is Indian or not. Even if I want to deny my roots and origins, they are going to show up in some tangential way or another. I don't know if I set out to be a Marathi writer or not, but one of the very fine Marathi authors called Kamal Desai wrote in the introduction to the Marathi translation of Cuckold--which no one is buying, by the way, in the sense that no publisher wants to touch it, though it has been around for 3 years in Marathi and the book won a national award etc. etc....
Arnab Chakladar: Who did the translation?
Kiran Nagarkar: The same person who translated Ravan and Eddie: Rekha Sabnis, who is a film actress, a theater actress, director and producer, and a very fine Sanskrit scholar. And the quality of the translation I'm told is very good.
Arnab Chakladar: So you haven't read it yourself?
Kiran Nagarkar: Oh, I have but I'm too close to the original to be able to tell. But Kamal Desai says that the writing has the smell of Marathi soil...As an aside: I would tell you that for me form is a function of content. I've been criticized very heavily for Saat Sakkam, its fragmented form etc. etc... In Marathi the syntax is very unusual. But again I didn't set out to write anything different. That's the way I thought of my theme and that's the form the book took. If I ever go back to writing a Marathi novel and I use that same idiom, I'd be an arch fool.
What we need is a sense of balance and proportion. A critical sense of our own instead of always looking to the west for cues and approval
Arnab Chakladar: In other words, you don't have a particular style you try to work in?
Kiran Nagarkar: No, no, no. I know what I don't want. In fact one of my problems with Rushdie, for example, is that he is trapped in his style. I saw the review of the new book and again he seems to be doing the same thing. Which is okay for him but it is not something I want to do.
Arnab Chakladar: Let me switch gears a little: what do you make of the Indian literary scene in the last few decades? On the one hand there's been this explosion of writing and publishing, at least in English; on the other, we don't really know how much of it will actually survive.
Kiran Nagarkar: Oh, I think we do know! However pompous this sounds, we have an inkling of what will outlast the hype and the fanfare. We know enough of Kabir and the Bhakti poets and Shakespeare and Céline to know by now what makes a classic. There's been too much back-patting going on about the greatness of new Indian writing in English. What we need is a sense of balance and proportion. A critical sense of our own instead of always looking to the west for cues and approval. At the 50th anniversary of Indian independence some people were already talking about a Golden Age of Indian literature! Were these people really thinking for a second that the precondition of a Golden Age is that you realize it only when it's over?! The good times are over man! And secondly, what Golden Age?! We've just started, you know...I'm one of the oldest Indian authors now...sadly (laughs)...but what I've always said is, give it time, and we will discover our own voices. And I find that, this year particularly, from some books sent to me in the proof stage that some of these guys are beginning to write!
Arnab Chakladar: Would you be comfortable mentioning any names?
Kiran Nagarkar: There's this chap Tyrewalla--I think Penguin is bringing out his book...and he's doing really interesting things with form.
Arnab Chakladar: What do you make of the publicity around so many new writers in English?
Kiran Nagarkar: I think 97% of the western critics are terrible. They do not have any notion that words have weight or meaning. Do they know what they're saying? As you know the bible begins with the line "In the beginning was the word"--I believe that words must count for something...
There's also this exoticism and also the trap that a lot of expatriate writing in America falls into: where you're just recycling the same things over and over again
Arnab Chakladar: At the risk of digressing: I remember reading with great amusement when the film version of English, August premiered at some film festival in North America a critic who dubbed it the "First Great Indian Comedy" or something like that. You know you read something like that and your first instinct is to just dismiss it as hype. But there's a certain arrogance in something like that: no work needs to be done, only what shows up on your radar screen is worth anything...had this person seen Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi or Padosan?
Kiran Nagarkar: Exactly. They are talking like jerks and all-knowing ignoramuses. And for us these 97% are the role models--so where does that lead us? Slowly, once in a while we will come up with a fine book. The 3% of Western critics who are good have one thing in common. They have a sense of registers: they understand that a good book is a rarity, forget the great ones! Know that there can be very, very few books which are great, a handful. Once you know where the very top starts, you can start working your way down to very good, good, competent, mediocre and trash. Most important you know why a book falls into one category and not the other. You know who you want but right up there: Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Cervantes or Kabir--for me Kabir would certainly be there--and everything falls into place, yes? And competent writing is not a bad thing at all--and good is certainly good.
Arnab Chakladar: This is something I discussed with Githa Hariharan as well--this whole phenomenon whereby in India a young writer now is someone in her mid-20s, rather than someone closer to 40...that your first book now has to be the Great Indian Novel and is usually hailed as such...writers don't seem to be given the room to grow...
Kiran Nagarkar: There's also this exoticism and also the trap that a lot of expatriate writing in America falls into: where you're just recycling the same things over and over again. You know one of my greatest fears is slackness...And you know something you said earlier is very true: that we have not handled various genres...for me that's such a shame--I would love to do a thriller. And I don't think that thriller-writing is a matter of plots alone. Chandler, after all, was one of the finest stylists.
Half of the books that win the Booker, I think half of them would probably be completely unreadable!
Arnab Chakladar: We do have Ghosh's The Calcutta Chromosome which is in some ways a genre book but is very serious at the same time...
Kiran Nagarkar: Or Hammett or whoever...But it is a shame that we don't do it. Instead we're often caught in this trap of exoticising...
Arnab Chakladar: I don't know what the situation is in all the Indian languages but in English sometimes you get the sense that there's a genre of books that is being marketed at least as the kind of book that wins the Booker or something like that.
Kiran Nagarkar: Yes. Half of the books that win the Booker, I think half of them would probably be completely unreadable! Some of them would be of course exceptionally good, I'm not denying that. But you know it is not a science. You just have to look at your own work and be as harsh and rigorous and robust as the very best authors. But as I said, I do see some books now that sound interesting.
Arnab Chakladar: Going back again to something else you talked about earlier--the question of language and so on: do you think this question of English and other Indian languages, which is always posited as an opposition, with this huge gulf between English and all the other languages that seems impossible to bridge...do you think there's anything productive about this conversation that we've all been forced to have, in large part due to Rushdie's pronouncements about English language writing? Or do you think it is entirely a dead end?
Kiran Nagarkar: I may be wrong but I think it is a total dead end. It is a barren thing. It is not that Marathi did not have Arun Kolatkar, or Sarang or other people. Think of Tukaram, Dnyaneshwar and others from the Marathi tradition.
Arnab Chakladar: ...and even someone who's very unhappy with people writing in English... Nemade...
Kiran Nagarkar: Oh yes, Nemade..the first book of his, Kosla, is terrific barring the end. Did you know, he wrote it as a dare? But I'm not crazy about his other novels.
(laughter)