Zee Jaipur Literature Festival: After Narcopolis, Jeet Thayil plans to cut an album

Q) You are writing songs now.
A: There is also a novel in the offing. I'd better not talk about it. The last time I talked about it, I jinxed it a little. That’s writing. Writers tend to be a suspicious bunch. Obsession, anxieties, rituals, appalling discoveries about your worst inner recesses, hopefully, served up with black humour. The kind of humour that doctors share.

Q] Is there pressure to write another novel?
A: My editor and agent ask me gently what’s happening and I deflect the question. Then there is the voice at the back of my head asking: 'why are you wasting time?' It’s a nagging voice.

Q] How is life after Narcopolis?
A: When I wrote it I was clean, I was running, even vegetarian. When you write a novel you have to be fit. I am none of these things now.

Q] Why not?
A: Because, I feel I am in musician mode. I'm up all night so there is no writing the next morning. I have a new six-piece band called ‘Still Dirty’. We are performing on Thursday.

Q] Any common thread running through your songs?
A: It’s a heavy, textured psychedelic sound with funk and rock. It’s a very collaborative sound. Each member is very important. We are a band of friends. Two of us are writers, one is a journalist, another runs a restaurant. The drummer comes from a heavy metal band called ‘Joint Family’.

Q] Do you plan to come out with an album?
A: We do plan to come out with an album, although we have not made a deal with any record label. We have recorded half of the album, which comprises nine songs.

Q] What are the currently dominant trends in Indian poetry?
A: Modernism still hasn’t arrived in Indian English poetry. Our poetry still has a very formal, classical, mid-20th century feel to it. We have a British hangover. A hangover that prizes older practitioners more than we should. It makes us less willing to take risks. We crave acceptance. So we are less willing to risk everything.

Q] That being said, which poets do you enjoy reading?
A: Vijay Nambisan is an underrated poet. He’s a formalist, just gorgeous. Vivek Narayanan has taken risks with the language. He might be the new direction that Indian poetry will take. It’s iconoclastic (work). He’s a poet to watch out for.

Q] The recent massacre at Charlie Hebdo’s offices has raised questions about self-censorship. Do you, as a writer, censor yourself?
A: My work is not overtly political. I have never felt any kind of limit.

Q] What do you think about Charlie Hebdo and free expression?
A: I would not wear a t-shirt called ‘I am Charlie Hebdo’. Their satire makes sense within France. It doesn’t travel. And even in France, liberal Muslims would be offended by those cartoons. Why do it? What for? What purpose does it serve? You need some kind of moral judgment before you attack people’s religious figures. You get the sense that it’s attack for the sake of attack. Of course, nothing would justify killing an artist.