Sahitya Akademi awardee Kiran Nagarkar on how he almost abandoned the protagonist of his new novel before chasing her again
Writer Kiran Nagarkar's second floor Warden Road home doesn't have a door. To the first-time visitor, the sight of him reading on the sofa, visible from the square window in the wooden door of the mansion's vintage elevator, is unusual. And then there is the guilt of breaching privacy. But, that thought is quickly invaded by fear, when we try to push the door open and can't.
Kiran Nagarkar at his Warden Road home. Pics/Pradeep Dhivar
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"You will need to push harder," Tulsi Vatsal tells us from the other end. "It has jammed since the rains." After we fervently attempt Newton's Third Law — some pushing from our end and pulling from hers — the door releases. Nagarkar, who is waiting in summery white cottons, is quick to rise up and lead us in. "Let me switch on the fan for you," he insists, taking us to the drawing room. "It's been exceptionally hot today." One would think that talking about the weather is too formulaic an icebreaker. Not in this case. It's indeed a warm evening, and it has done the trick. We are now, chatty.
Close on the heels of the release of his seventh novel, Jasoda (HarperCollins India), scheduled to make its way to bookshelves next month, Nagarkar is both apprehensive and excited. His last, Rest in Peace (2015) brought the curtains down on his most celebrated characters, Ravan and Eddie, whom he engaged with for a large part of his writing career. His next novel tests a new heroine, the eponymous Jasoda. This character, he confesses, has also lived with him long enough - 20 years.
Kiran Nagarkar
He started writing this book right after his historical novella Cuckold (1997), which followed the life of Maharaj Kumar, who struggled to win the affection of his wife Mira, and was directly inspired by the story of Thakur Bhojraj and Krishna devotee Mirabai. "But, like any male chauvinist pig, I abandoned her," he says, and then pauses. "And, really by chance, a German friend read the 70-odd pages I had written, and asked me why I wasn't chasing this woman. Even then, the quantum of diffidence was so high that it took me a while to get back to her. That too, I did in spurts. But, I am glad I went back."
Jasoda opens in the fictional village of Paar, which is reeling under drought. The protagonist, a mid-wife, married to a man obsessed with nobility, nurses a dark secret — a mother of four sons, she kills every daughter born to her. When resources drain in Paar, she is forced to seek out a better life for her family in the city, undertaking an arduous journey, without her husband, but with three sons, her dying mother-in-law, and a starving cow. "For centuries, epic heroes have always been men," he says. Jasoda, whose story he compares to Odysseus and the likes of Hector, proves how wrong these assumptions are. Yet, she comes with inherent flaws. "I did not want to talk about my heroine, without mentioning how she almost ruthlessly killed her girl children," says Nagarkar, adding that female foeticide is natural to her, because the men in her life normalised it. "That doesn't mean she is not hurting. In fact, she might be going through absolute hell. But, I deliberately wanted to keep her emotions under tight control," he says, as he holds his fingers together in a fist. It's true — you want to empathise with Nagarkar's Jasoda, but she is too heroic to drown in such frivolity.
Here, he harks back to characters of his previous novels, Ravan and Eddie — the Catholic and Hindu who turn into brothers in arms — whom he describes as his favourite children. "You know I never thought about it until now, but the similarity between Jasoda and Ravan's mother Parvati, are uncanny. Don't you think so?" he asks. Even before we can offer an answer, he adds, "…because Parvati's husband is perpetually lying in bed in a foetal position, and she bears the burden without once complaining."
There is also a moment, when Nagarkar remembers the venom spewed against his first novel written in his mother tongue, Marathi, Saat Sakkam Trechalis (published in English as Seven Sixes are Forty-Three; 1980). "The criticism [against the writing style] was so, so severe that I just stopped writing," he recalls. "It's unbelievable that I was so stupid."
His animated thoughts are briefly interrupted by Vatsal, who brings us tea. "Arre, Tulsi…why? I would have got it, ya," he tells her. She smiles, places the tray on the table and walks out. "Have you had tea?" he asks his partner. "I have," she says, and shuts the door behind her. By this time, Nagarkar is done with Jasoda. He now drifts to subjects as varied as religion, politics, literature and cinema. He speaks of how Indians have miserably forgotten the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, and rues how despite having had a fulfilling career as film critic, he can't watch too many movies, and or even read. He needs to get his eyes checked.
"But, honestly, I am not a disciplined person at all. I have to confess very, very reluctantly that I tire easily. So, the resentment quotient against myself is high because I feel I have no business being tired. And, I also suffer from acute insomnia. Everyone tells me, how lucky you are, Kiran, because you can spend the whole night reading. God, that's the last thing on my mind. All I want to do is sleep, and I can't." But, he did manage to catch Aamir Khan's Secret Superstar recently and enjoyed it. "Have you seen the film?" he asks. When we nod, he smiles, "You know, my Jasoda is a superstar too."
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