In conversation with the GreatBong

There are very few who know Arnab Ray. He is better known for his cyber identity, the 'GreatBong'. He is one of India’s better known bloggers (Random thoughts of a demented mind) known for his sharp and witty takes on politics and Bollywood. Over the years, his articles have been published across mainstream media and online websites.

He has carried his writing on to books. His debut, May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss, read like a blog with discrete chapters consisting of recycled and original content. It featured his irreverent take on Bollywood including B-grade movies and actors (The Mithun-starrer Gunda is given much space), television shows, current affairs, and so on. His second book The Mine was a horror thriller that explored the idea of death by trapping five people in a closed space.

In September this year, he released his third book, Yatrik. In keeping with his previous trend, the book was completely different form his earlier works. Yatrik is the story of a young man who wakes up one day in an unknown place to be told that he is dead.  We picked the mind of the senior research scientist about his latest book, his writing process and whether someone actually did offer him sex in exchange for meeting him. 

Edited excerpts: 

In Yatrik, the story sets off with the protagonist being told he is dead. It’s an unusual way to start a book.  

The technique of throwing the reader into the story is quite a standard one, and the story of Yatrik being as it is, that this seemed to be the most natural way of building the narrative. 

Why a philosophical story about life after death? Is it a topic that fascinates you? Do you believe in the afterlife? 

I don’t believe in the afterlife as a rationalist, but I am fascinated by the concept. There is a line in The Mine (my second novel) which goes, “Every day we live we are a day closer to death”. As I walk into middle age, the fascination with the topic seems to increase every day.

You’ve written humour, horror and now fantasy. You don’t believe that writers need labels. 

The only label an author needs is “good”. Everything else is just fluff. 

Is it a conscious decision to be as varied as possible in your writing? 

Yes. It’s considered to be commercial suicide to write in different genres. You need to build an audience with every book and they say that when you hop genres many of your previous readers get turned off by the new genre itself. But for me, writing the same type of books one after another is as exciting as watching Doordarshan public service ads from the ‘80s. I watch different types of movies and different types of books, so why should I not write different types of books? 

Who are your literary inspirations and why?

Stephen King, JK Rowling, Charles Dickens, George RR Martin and Ved Vyas. They are great story-tellers and the creators of memorable characters.

Do you have a process when it comes to writing? 

I start from the climax, conceptualising it and then work backwards. If the ending is not to my satisfaction, there is no book. 

Which part of the process do you like better - sitting at a bookstore, meeting fans and answering their questions and signing autographs? Or sitting at home, at your desk and watching the characters become whole? 

I like the part where someone says that they loved my book. That’s what authors live for.

What are some of the weirdest requests/ fan queries you have faced?

Well, someone asked me to come to his office, which happened to be a bit far from where I was, just to sign his copy of my book. Being asked at Bangalore Lit Fest “Are you a famous author?” by a total stranger counts for another rather intriguing interaction (My reply was “I guess if I was, you would not have asked me that question”)

How difficult is it separating your identity from that of your characters. There are many who believe that books, especially fiction, are semi-autobiographical or contain autobiographical elements.

After I wrote The Mine, more than one person confessed feeling “uneasy” about me as a person because of what they had read. While something of you is inside everything you write, I am extremely conscious of the fact that often readers will use the book to judge me a person.

You write a blog, pen articles for newspaper, are a regular on Twitter, write books…do you ever get tired of writing? 

Many times. Then I read.

What are you working on next? 

A multi-generational crime saga called The Sultan of Delhi. It will be two books---Ascension and Resurrection.  

In India the audience for books is often subdivided into the intellectuals and the mass public. Your thoughts?  

Any market has different segments. As to what constitutes “art”, whether it should be measured purely by the objective criteria of popularity or by its adherence to certain, one may say arbitrary, standards of “what is good” is a topic as old as the hills. 

Why the dislike for authors whose books are read and liked by a mass audience?  

I don’t think there is dislike for *all* such authors. Maybe one, not all. 

Who are the Indian authors you like reading? 

Diptakirti Chaudhuri is writing some seriously good stuff on the Indian movie world. Sidin Vadukut is experimenting in various genres, non-fiction and humor, and is doing it very well. Among the biggies, I read Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English August when it was published, and was truly blown away by the voice. 

Do you think this sudden rise in literature festivals is a good thing? They have become a dime a dozen and it is often difficult to discern quality.  

Again the notion of quality is very subjective. What’s more important is that people want to interact with authors. I believe that is a huge positive. I mean if we have ten “most prestigious awards for Bollywood”, why not lit fests? 

What do you think ails the literature scene in the country?

Poorly edited books. 

Also Read: An excerpt from 'Yatrik' by Arnab Ray