Q & A with the Author

1. Were any of the characters in The Death of Vishnu directly inspired by people from your childhood?

Vishnu certainly was – he was a fixture of my childhood, sleeping on the steps, lolling around drunk whenever he had the money to spend on alcohol, and finally, during a trip I made back in 1994, dying an ignominious death on his landing. We didn’t exchange more than an occasional “hello” though, so when it came to creating him as a full character, I had to use my imagination. My family shared a kitchen with the landlord’s family, and there were fights galore – a definite inspiration for the characters of Mrs. Pathak and Mrs. Asrani. They had to be nothing like our real neighbors, though, since my parents still lived there when the book came out.

2. Are there any traditions and customs from your early life in India that you brought with you when you came to the United States ?

I’m sure there were some, but I quickly jettisoned them. I felt a tremendous urge to fit in, to become Americanized, to not stick out with my clothes or accent or traditions. Part of this came from the very westward looking atmosphere I grew up in – a large part of the middle class in India has always been crazy about things British or American. It was really only when I started writing The Death of Vishnu that I rediscovered the country of my birth, felt the strong attachment, the memories, the culture that had shaped me while growing up. And when the book was hailed as a uniquely Indian book when it was released there (and I as a truly Indian author) – well, that’s when the true homecoming occurred.

3. Are there any similarities in how you approach your academic and writing careers?

I’ve been trying to bridge the gap, by thinking up activities that might combine the two very different streams. For instance, when I go to writing colonies, instead of giving a reading from my fiction (as is traditional), I deliver a talk on mathematics instead. I even surprised some audience members at the 2006 International Literature Festival in Berlin by giving them a talk on infinity. Since I meet so many non-mathematicians, I feel I’m in a unique position to show people that they can, in fact, follow the call of both their left and right brain.

4. What is your writing discipline?

I’m good when I’m really into a piece, but it’s hell getting to that stage. For instance, although The Death of Vishnu took five years to complete, about half of that was done while on a four week stint at a writing colony in Virginia – I was really cooking then. The Age of Shiva, my new novel, took even longer – I did a calculation based on the final word count and found I had written 64 words a day on average (64.19 to be precise). I tend to write better in the mornings, before breakfast, especially when school is in session.

5. What kind of detail do you know about a character before you begin to write about his or her interactions with other characters?

In The Death of Vishnu, I knew what I wanted for the characters on each floor – the building was supposed to represent the various stages of reincarnation in Hindu theory, so they had to be more spiritually developed, more detached from worldly attractions, as you ascended. I then built the characters based on these requirements. In The Age of Shiva, this is again the approach I tried to follow, but it failed spectacularly. One of the characters basically took over, and it became her book (rather than her son’s) – as a writer, I could only follow her voice, since it was so compelling.

6. Do you still experience a “liminal” state, where a person leaves one culture or society and enters another?

Less and less. I now visit India three times a year to see my mother and so I can slip from one country to the other without any culture shock. This was a big problem in the beginning – not in terms of coming to America , but going back to India for vacations. Each time I returned, the country seemed to have changed dramatically.

7. What do you read when you are on vacation?

I read mostly international fiction – a lot of it Indian, just to see what other Indian authors are writing. There are so many young authors writing these days, and it’s always wonderful to discover a new one (Altaf Tyrewala, the author of a recent amazing novel set in Bombay called No God in Sight comes to mind). Some of my favorite authors are Kazuo Ishiguro, Haruki Murakami, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri.

8. Are you working on another book?

I’m working on the third part of my trilogy, called The Search for Brahma. Originally, the idea was that The Death of Vishnu would presage destruction to come, since Vishnu is the caretaker of the universe in Hindu mythology. The Age of Shiva would then represent the period when Shiva’s influence would rule – he is the second god in the Hindu trinity and represents destruction. Brahma, the creator, forms the third part of the trinity – he is the one who recreates the universe and continues the cycle. The trilogy has now really become more about India , though. The first book gave a snapshot of the country in roughly contemporary times. The book just released (The Age of Shiva) shows, in the background, how the country got there from the time of independence. And the Brahma book is going to explore the question of what might happen next, in the near future – how will India ’s story end, and how will it regenerate?

9. I understand you cook. What do you cook for yourself when no one else is around?

I used to cook very elaborate meals, with lots of experimentation (e.g. French-Indian fusion), for myself when I was single. I still do that, but now only when my partner is around to be a taster for my experiments. For myself I usually make very simple food now – for instance, the day I settled on my contract for The Death of Vishnu, I came home and celebrated by scrambling an egg for dinner.