Attached are excerpts from an interview with the HarperCollins editing team. This was conducted in March’ 2010, a couple of months before the publication of Johnny Gone Down:
Q: First things first, congratulations on publishing your second novel, Johnny Gone Down. From India to Cambodia to Thailand to Brazil to the Silicon Valley back to India, you’ve covered quite a bit of ground in a pretty slim novel.
KB: Thank you. Yes, the story does run through several countries, but since the intent was to follow the protagonist versus make any comment on the historical or political context of his environment, the size of the novel didn’t increase with its span. In Thailand, for instance, the story remains within the four walls of the monastery where the protagonist becomes a Buddhist monk.
Q: Johnny Gone Down is very different from your first novel, Keep off the Grass. I know writers hate this question but I feel compelled to ask if you like one more than the other?
KB: I guess the correct answer would be to say that I like both equally as a mother loves both of her children or something. But I’ll be honest and say that I have a stronger affection for Johnny Gone Down. I was young when I wrote Keep Off The Grass, both in terms of age and experiences. I think I’ve grown up since and JGD is a deeper, darker, more heart-felt novel with a much stronger story.
Q: Yet Keep off the Grass was a significant commercial success and reasonably well reviewed! This leads me to my next question. Literary critics have come down heavily on the new generation of Indian writers. Does criticism bother you?
KB: On the contrary, I’ve found criticism quite helpful. To get reviewed by seasoned critics, who’ve read everything from Salman Rushdie’s epics to Salman Khan’s biography, is like getting a free education of sorts. I deeply valued the feedback I received from critics as well as the hundreds of readers who wrote to me after reading KOTG—and consciously acted upon it. Given the poor reviews on Keep off the Grass’s plotting, I focused heavily on JGD’s storyline while trying to retain the pace and freshness that made KOTG a success.
Q: How long did it take you to write JGD?
KB: I usually start with a big theme in mind and allow the story to work itself in my head for a while before I put pen to paper. The theme I was playing around with for JGD was around success and whether a stable, even-keeled life is better than a rich, interesting life with towering ups and abysmal lows. During this time, I was also backpacking for a year between jobs and traveled to some pretty interesting places and ended up meeting quite an odd assortment of people on the road and in youth hostels. Somewhere in the middle of the trip, I began to realize that no matter where I went, whether Cambodia or Brazil or Mongolia or Holland or India, there seemed to be more similarities than dissimilarities in people, feelings and ideas. Hence this incredible intercontinental journey of the protagonist began to fuse with the original theme. So I guess the story was playing around in my head for almost a year, but the actually act of writing took four or five months which began when I joined my new job.
Q: So you wrote while pursuing a full time job? Do you find it difficult to balance your corporate career with writing?
KB: No, I don’t think my corporate career is coming between me and the Nobel Prize for Literature! The lack of skill and ideas limit me more than a lack of time. I’m lucky that I’m in a very fulfilling line of work which actually infuses my life with energy versus sap it out of me. I work in Brand Management, which requires a lot of leadership, team-work and creativity and you work with a lot of diverse, interesting folks—advertising agencies, design agencies and such—which always keeps things interesting.
I also feel that having a steady career which I enjoy makes me a better writer. I can choose to write what I want to and compose from the heart because I don’t have to cater to the latest publishing trends or specialize in the genre I’ve written in before or lobby for author awards or worry about networking for film deals. I don’t really need the finances from writing, nor is writing my only source of self worth.
Q: From a film deal perspective, your first novel was optioned by a Hollywood studio and received a lot of Bollywood interest as well. Do you envision a similar response to JGD?
KB: I don’t know. It occurred by happenstance the first time around as well. The book was picked up casually in airport and hotel bookshops by the directors who eventually contacted me. I hope something similar happens this time, but ultimately writing has to be its own reward. Rather than a great film deal, I’d probably feel a greater sense of accomplishment in writing an honest, engaging book which touches some hearts—and hopefully, I’ve come close to doing that this time over.
Q: “Write about what you know” is said to be the mantra for good writing. Have you lived through any of the varied, almost surreal, events that happened to the protagonist in JGD?
KB: No, I’ve never been a Drug Lord, a Buddhist Monk, a genocide survivor, a homeless accountant, a deadly game fighter or even a software mogul! I’m more of a believer of “Write about what you can feel”. I deeply relate to Nikhil, Monk Namche, Coke Buddha, Nick, Johnny and the other avatars of the protagonist. In various stages of my life, I’ve experienced the same sense of displacement and failure as also the unconditional love and friendship that the protagonist experiences. Of course my life has never been this dramatic but then, these leaps of fancy are what make fiction so compelling.
Q: Who are your writing inspirations?
KB: I’m inspired by both films and literature. Johnny Gone Down, for instance, was inspired by the dark, futile mood of films like Oldboy, The Deer Hunter and Amores Perros as it was by the incredible journey of Forrest Gump (which is one of my favorite novels and a mighty decent film as well) and the surreal adventures of Sonchai Jitpleecheep, the Buddhist Detective-protagonist of John Burdett’s Bangkok novels, Bangkok 8, Bangkok Tattoo and Bangkok Haunts. Closer home, Ruskin Bond, Upamanyu Chatterjee and Mohsin Hamid are among my favorite contemporary writers.
Q: Indian writing in English has gone through a great transformation. What do you think about Indian publishing today and where it’s going?
I’m too small a person to attempt a knowledgeable answer to this big a question. All I can say is that like any other era in Indian publishing or anywhere else, I think there are a few good novels and many more bad novels. I hope to be a writer in the former category.
Q: What is your next novel about?
I’m not sure yet. I’m getting interested in mysticism and occult sciences as also in the importance of charity and giving back so it’s likely going to be some combination of these ideas. But that’s all I know right now. Before I begin writing another novel though, I think I need both silence and some new experiences to nurture the substance within. Otherwise I’ll end up recycling the same ideas in a different story.
