Finnish born. Swedish native. Indian soul. Wondrously wacky writer. Zac O'Yeah is out with another outrageous crime-fiction thriller, Once Upon A Time in Scandinavistan, that's filled with bizarre adventures, weird characters and twisted scenarios. Fiona Fernandez caught up with the Finnish-Swede who loves all things Indian
Finnish born. Swedish native. Indian soul. Wondrously wacky writer. Zac O'Yeah is out with another outrageous crime-fiction thriller, Once Upon A Time in Scandinavistan, that's filled with bizarre adventures, weird characters and twisted scenarios. Fiona Fernandez caught up with the Finnish-Swede who loves all things Indian
You'd be forgiven for mistaking Zac O'Yeah for a stand up comedian. The kinds who are blessed with great timing. This one-time theatre person who toured with a pop group comes blessed with a refreshing approach to reality and an imagination that is bizarre, simply put. O'Yeah has published 11 books in Swedish including the bestselling Gandhi biography Mahatma, which was shortlisted for the August Prize 2008 for best nonfiction of the year. In his latest work, Gothenburg is Gautampuri and Sweden is reduced to a grubby region colonised by India, run by the Indian Administrative Service. It only gets better from there...
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Why did you decide to make India your home?
I was born in Finland but grew up in Sweden. I came to India nearly 20 years ago and haven't been able to leave! Whenever I visit Sweden, I miss my vada-sambhar and Old Monk rum. People talk a lot here; they're so animated. I don't get much of that in Swedenu00a0-- everything feels bland, including the food. I settled in Bangalore about ten years ago. That's when a curious feeling of deja vu set in.
I was a South Indian in my previous life and was reborn near the Arctic Circle. Settling in Bangalore felt like coming back home. India has taught me how to express, to speak such that one is able to go beyond what is said in the sub-text. It's been a good exercise for me; I've learnt to communicate. I met my wife in India, Anjum Hassanu00a0-- she's from Shillong.
Why this genre?
It's a different process. As a kid, I loved the detective novel ufffd-- Sherlock Holmes and James Bond were my favourites. The typical Swedish novel was all about serious things; I found it boring, the kinds that shouldn't make people laugh. I tried to fit into a formula to be accepted.
India changed that for meu00a0-- I altered my writing to do what I wanted to do. Indians are very individualistic. Around the late 1990s, I was introduced to writers like RK Narayan, Salman Rushdie and Amitava Ghosh; they have universal ideas about writing. It's very different from Swedish writing.
From where do you draw inspiration?
I get lots of ideas on a daily basis. Typically, I note them down; collect them together. Certain ideas lead up to more interesting things. If I never get back to an idea, it must've probably been a bad one. For example, I head this writer Ben McIntyre speaking about a bizarre espionage scenario, which added up to an outrageous plot. Even Ian Fleming's ideas were amazingu00a0-- he has been an inspiration.
What liberties do you take with your characters and plots?
I can't take many. The writer should be able to make the reader acce pt the storyline. It's a gambleu00a0-- what matters is the subtlety of conveying even the most outrageous of ideas. One has to be like a magician who creates these diversions. It's fiction after all. It isn't meant to be realistic. I don't subscribe to the idea. Having said that reality will always finds its way into fiction and vice versa.
...and your characters?
They are all crazy and spaced out! They've all been made up. I've never used a real person in my plots for my books.
Extracts
Once Upon a Time In Scandinavistan
by Zac O'Yeah
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| Once Upon A Time in Scandinavistan, Zac O'Yeah, Hachette Books. Rs 395. Available in leading |
Many got off at the first stop on Coconut Avenue, their small knotted cloth bundles heavy with offerings for the Dagoba. He found their religiosity very impressive although he understood little of it.
The traffic on Coconut Avenue was slow, cows with morning-fresh flower garlands stood in the middle of the road, chewing on discarded cartons. That the Bangatan Street of Barsk's childhood had been renamed, like so many other streets (and entire towns), was perhaps nothing to be surprised about, because it led up to a park where coconut trees swayed around a water tank.
Coconuts: the weather had transformed alongside the political and economic changes, bestowing a sense that it was fated to happenu00a0-- that all was pre-destined. The atmospheric fluctuations had been long known, and to some extent expected, even though international think-tanks tried to cover up the fact that the sun was shining stronger than ever before.
Botanists had announced that the greenhouse effect, which had provided Europe with a round-the-year tropical climate, was enhanced by the methane gas emitted by cows eating milk cartons lined on the inside with a hard-to-digest plastic laminate. It had been suggested that the cow population be slaughtered to save the world. However, too many people considered the cow holy, and others felt that all life was sacred, so it proved impossible.
The milk carton manufacturers refuted the criticism with their own research. The problem according to them was global and could therefore not possibly have anything to do with them. They pointed out that around the North Pole (where there was no dairy industry to speak of) the icebergs had melted and many polar bears had drowned; the surviving bearsu00a0-- who were very angryu00a0-- had attacked Canadian coastal towns where they pillaged supermarkets and ran amok until they were shot down by the Mounties. This could hardly be directly connected to a few milk cartons.
Nobody was the wiser for such debates, least of all Barsk. In any case, whatever the cause of the environmental disasteru00a0-- corporate capitalism or the cumulative effect of human idiocyu00a0-- the telltale signs had been visible for years.
One year, when a million chickens died of heat stroke, the breeders organized a national barbecue party to silence any criticism of the incident. Then they installed air-conditioning in the coops. This had resulted in increased air pollution and the temperature in Gautampuri went up by two degrees. People pretended not to notice. Experts didn't dare accuse the influential broiler industry of drilling holes in the ozone layer.
The greenhouse effect relocated the Sahara desert northwards; the Mediterranean dried up and Europe was covered in sand dunes as high as the Eiffel Tower all the way up to central Denmark.
Despite these warnings, people were taken by surprise when the first few palm trees took root in the town. After that, there was no looking back. Lovely tropical climate, many felt, and cancelled their holiday trips down south. Instead of worrying they prolonged their mid-day siestas and shopped for new sunscreen lotions which, it was claimed, contained ozone.
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