Pavan K Varma wrote his first book, Ghalib: The Man, The Times, when he found no scholarly work on Ghalib in any of the leading bookstores of Delhi. Decades later, hereleased his first novel, When Loss is Gain. It takes you through Delhi to the stunning landscapes of Bhutan and is riddled with many existential questions.
“Diplomacy is my profession, and writing, my vocation,” this prolific writer and Indian ambassador to Bhutan says. Despite his full-time job, this writer has also penned 16 non-fiction works. “I write during the crevices of the day - whenever I find time,” he tells DNA. Excerpts from an interview:
You were a diplomat in Moscow, New York and London. And now you are theambassador to Bhutan. Has working in Bhutan changed you?
Bhutan has changed me by yanking me a little away from the mundane life. When you look at the mountains, lush forests, rivers, I think it creates an existential transcendence. It opens a window to a world beyond your own.
When Loss is Gain is your first novel. Is Bhutan the reason why you moved from non-fiction to fiction?
I really would’ve written it anywhere because it was a powerful story. It is about people. What does anybody do when like a fly trapped in a bottle you are buzzing around in your immediate world, and somebody says you have a few weeks to live, what is the alchemy that happens? How do you then reappraise the meaning of your life? I was thinking about these. And since I was in Bhutan, I used it for contrast. I needed a counterpoint to the often sterile cacophony of a city like Delhi. Bhutan’s aloof, serene, grandeur provided that. Secondly, I used the countries as metaphors for the dialogue between Hinduism and Buddhism.
Are you Anand, your protagonist, in some ways?
No writer can write from a void, but fiction is a very internal journey, contrary to non-fiction which is external. In this internal journey, which is subjective, you cannot but reflect something of yourself. No, this is not an autobiography.
Your book raises several existential and spiritual questions. So who is your reader?
My reader is you and me — everybody because this is no sermon on spirituality. The themes of it affect as much a young techie as an ambitious management entrant. The dialogue with life is narrated through a fast-moving story in a manner comprehensible to anyone. That is the strength of the book. As an author, all I can hope for is after people read the book in a rush they will perhaps wake up at night to think about it again.
What’s your take on reading culture in India?
It needs a revolution in own context. Are we reading the best we have to offer? You hardly hear about books in regional languages. The primacy of English needs to be questioned not because it is not important as a global language, but because it cannot be a substitute for your mother tongue. You close that window and you become a nation of linguistic half-castes - a drift from mother tongue, and a perpetually unsure of English as a first language.
My generation was born and educated as cultural orphans - Na maa, na baap. No Sanskrit, no Urdu. I was condemned to go to my own literary sources through English. I learnt Urdu and wrote my first book on Ghalib as act of penance.
Fiction or non-fiction, what do you prefer to write?
Both have their own challenges. Non-fiction requires a great deal of research and you are also talking to people, understanding and interpreting facts. With fiction, you are observing people but running away from them to write.
What’s the one thing from your novel that you want readers to take home?
It would definitely be a suggestion - that when you have the gift of life, don’t devalue it. Another theme is our interface with desire. This book talks of what catalytic role desire plays in our lives. It is also about the mystery of life.
What’s your next book about?
It is on contemporary India, about what I perceive as a systemic crisis, which can cost India its chance at the high-table of the world.
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