Interview in Helter Skelter magazine

From an interview in Helter Skelter magazine:

The first thing that struck me when reading The Comeback is that it feels like it takes place at a distance from where the quote unquote “action” is. I found that such an interesting choice, where we’re hearing about things from a distance, and we’re not on the stage itself. What made you want to set it at that distance? 

That’s interesting you pick up on that. It was not done consciously, but I think one of the reasons I wrote the book at all was that I felt like I was at a distance from everything. I was missing theatre. I wasn’t writing theatre anymore, I wasn’t even watching too much professional theatre. It came out of my own sense of feeling like I was missing out on something and wanting to be at the centre of things, but at the same time, being in a smaller place and recognising that being at the centre of things doesn’t necessarily mean being in a big city. Sometimes you can be in a big city and still have serious F.O.M.O. because all the cool things are happening somewhere else, you know? 

Also, a little bit consciously, I was thinking about our commitments to big cities in the arts. I think it’s unconscious and we can’t always control it, because we go where the money is, and we go where the big industries are. Writers tend to congregate around places where the publishing hub is, [actors] to where the film scene is. But at the same time, I think that we also are then controlled by the big scene. It’s a trade-off, and we trade our own sensibility. The other possibility that is traded in is of actually having control over what you want to do, setting up your own thing in your own social context. So I think it comes a little bit from there, the sense of wanting and not wanting to be in the thick of things.

Link to the full interview: https://helterskelter.in/2025/03/interview-annie-zaidi-the-comeback/

Seven notes on Hope

A few weeks ago, I was invited to contribute to the Hope Project by the University of York. This is a series of conversations with writers and scholars, those looking for a way forward despite all the bad news. In the midst of intense climate change, illness, a pandemic, cultural and physical destruction in various parts of the world, how do we hold onto hope? 

I responded with a long prose-poem, taking off from the famous Emily Dickinson poem where hope is compared to a bird. As a starting note, I wondered what kind of bird this might be. Surely, not a fragile thing for it must withstand hard times. This turned into a reflection that become the first note on hope (shared below). Then I began to draw images and ideas from two major books: Jonathan Lear's Radical Hope: Ethics in the face of cultural devastation (2006) and Rebecca Solnit's Hope in the Dark: Untold histories, Wild Possibilities (2016). I have also sought refuge from despair in the works of several Urdu poets, including the work of my own grandfather, Ali Jawad Zaidi. All of these ideas add up to seven 'notes' or one long prose poem. 

The first part of this text is below and the full version is linked to, and can be read on the York website. I also share a link below to the talk with Claire Chambers where I discuss the work and its images and my attempt to engage with hope. 

i

If it is a thing with feathers calling through chill lands, perhaps it has a curved beak and talons

It cannot be a snowflake. A bird of prey, surely. Sharp-eyed hawk looking far into the distance, swooping when the moment is right, swallowing little mice

A scavenging thing perhaps, living off that which cannot weather the sore storm. On land, it seeks small mammals. On strange seas, fish. A feathered thing that can poach from bears and mountain lions. Strong, STRONG. Fierce in the knowledge that every desert has snakes and lizards, every lake has toads. Every posh enclave has a garden where lunching ladies eat ham and cucumber sandwiches. The magpie ability to grab, to sneak into alien nests to conserve her future. A crow is also a bird after all.

Full text of Seven Notes on Hope: https://www.york.ac.uk/politics/research/current-projects/citizenship-futures/talkingabouthopeproject/sevennotesonhopebyanniezaidi/

Link to video conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZI4REaTPCw

An interview with Mint Lounge about City of Incident: A novel in twelve parts

From an interview with Mint about my new novel, City of Incident

With City Of ... I had started with just little flashes of incidents (in Mumbai) that I remembered, little scraps of detail that I saw/read somewhere, sights that haven’t quite left me, things I have been carrying around for years and have never forgotten. And I was unable to make sense of them, vis-a-vis my own relationship with the city and its people. With this book, I was aware that I needed to tell a story, that it had to capture the essence of all these little things—for me they are memories, but in literary terms they are just images. I wanted to construct a sense of what it means to live in a city, where so many things happen—small and big tragedies.

I think of cities primarily as people’s spaces and not so much as geography or an urban plan. And when you tell the story of a city through its people, you are bound to use a kind of fragmented approach because that’s just what the city is... 

I think every (form) has its limitations. If you ask me if I would do this form of writing again, I would say no, not in the near future. Usually, you need certain preconditions for interconnectedness or multiple-perspective stories to work: There’s this central incident and you come to it from different ways—what happened before it, what happened after it; and all the characters involved have a role to play. In film, you would see this often; the most famous one is, of course, Rashomon (directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1950).

City Of Incident does something similar, except that there is no central event. Bits of the information of one chapter will feed into the next chapter, and you will know a little bit about the characters, but ultimately, the only thing you will know a lot about is the city itself.


Link to the full interview:

https://lifestyle.livemint.com/how-to-lounge/books/i-think-of-cities-as-people-s-spaces-annie-zaidi-111645774746321.html

An interview about the latest book, about cities and loneliness and some thoughts on literary ethical

I was interviewed by Chintan Girish Modi this week about my new book. One question in particular led me to think deeper around a topic that I had been debating internally for a while, so I put down my thoughts at some length.


Q. What are some of the ethical questions that you grapple with while writing about people whose lives are available to you through observation but far removed from your own experience? For instance, people who sleep on pavements and under bridges.


Annie - I have been reading around the question of cultural representation, ‘voice’ and debates about who should write what. I run the risk of writing an essay in response to your question, but this is as good a time as any to put down some reflections and fears.

The first aspect of this question is: Should one write of what/who one sees, or should one only write about what one has personally experienced? I have to say that I disagree with the notion that one should only write what one experiences. People are told ‘write what you know’, especially when they are just starting to write, because they may not have an instinctive, immediate capacity for vivid or plausible description based only on imagination. But if we all only wrote what we have personally experienced, we’d only churn out diaries and memoirs. Where does that leave fiction? Science fiction, fantasy and historical fiction would be absolutely impossible under such conditions.

Besides, the point of literature, especially fiction, is to transpose. The writer transposes herself by building up characters in a world that may not be based on lived experience. Even if it is ‘real’, the writer could have experienced only part of it. If it is conjured, that world is unexperience-able. If it is a combination of real and conjured, the writer herself neither knows nor does not-know. She can only try to capture feelings the way one tries to capture images and memories.

Even within a narrow range of experience, within the same caste, class, religion, gender, it is impossible to represent or experience another life. You may think you ‘know’, but do you? My grandmother’s life was very different from mine though we have the same gender, class/caste background. I observed her, but her experience was not mine. Should I not write about her? I believe I should. Even if she has told her own story in her words, I should still try and make sense of her as a character from my perspective, maybe even try to make sense of my own self as a character seen from her lens.

The second part of the question is about assumptions about knowing. Do we ‘know’? To answer that, we must dip into philosophy, spirituality, neuroscience, and this is not a suitable venue for such expansions, nor am I a scholar of such breadth. To a writer, the more relevant question is: Can we know through reading and writing? Can we know each other’s hearts? Can we at least try? And my response is to try.

The third part of your question is about the person observed. We all observe people whose lives are far removed from our own. There’s little question of an ethical dilemma if the gaze is reversed, say, if a homeless man were to write about a woman riding in a bus one hot afternoon. So, this question is not about who observes; it is about who writes. In theory, anyone. In practice, not everyone.

So, I disagree with the framing of the debate though I agree that it is important to discuss who is allowed what in our society. The shape of the argument must clarify its true ethical intent: everyone deserves a voice. Everyone deserves to be able to read and write. For this, we have to argue that everyone deserves housing and cultural materials. Food, clothing, shelter, but also books, performances and internet access. In countries that do have such a vision, there are public libraries equipped with computers; people can use them for free. There are high-quality, free performances in public spaces like parks or town squares.

The fourth part is the core of the debate: equity. The ethics question arises not because of who is writing but because of who is not writing, not getting published.

I’ve considered this debate by imagining myself in the position of one who has limited cultural access. If I become part of a very tiny minority in another location, and I can’t find a publisher for my work, or don’t have the time to write fiction, or can’t find a publisher that publishes in my language, do I want others to not write about women like me? My answer is: if they can write with empathy and insight, then they should. However, I also want an environment conducive to me writing in my own language.

I also imagine the alternative: what if writers actually stopped describing lives outside of their experience? Nirala wrote about Kulli Bhat. Kulli Bhat should have been able to write about Nirala too. Should Nirala have refused to describe what he was seeing and hearing, and limited himself to writing about his own family? What would be gained from that moment in time, in literature, in our country’s consciousness, not being written? Kamala Markandeya wrote Nectar in a Sieve, about a farmer couple and their distress. The farmer should have written too. But would we be better served by Markandeya writing only about upper or middle class, English-speaking women?

There is obviously a vast difference between stories based on observation and what emerges from lived experience. This is a difference between Markandeya or even Mahasweta Devi’s work, and that of Manoranjan Byapari or Baby Halder. But I don’t think it is a good idea to create rules about who should write about what. It is bound to boomerang. If we say that white people can’t write about black or brown lives, can we argue that black and brown people do have the right to write about white people or their motivations? Or are we only allowed to write from the perspective of a victimized/colonized person? Such rules are easily hijacked by those who are politically and socially powerful, and used against those who are trying to right the balance of power. There is a danger of writers who write about class or caste divisions being silenced on the grounds that they don’t really know what they’re talking about, because they cannot possibly have experienced both (or all) sides of the divide.

In an oral literary culture, cultural equity is easier to achieve. Ali Khan Mahmudabad, in his book Poetry of Belonging, writes about mushairas where unlettered, working class poets participated alongside upper and middle class poets. Publishing and, even more significantly, distribution equity is much harder to achieve. So we must advocate for publishing those who want to write but can’t access literary organizations. We must ask for free libraries too.

When we strike a blow for equality, we must be aware of how the blow lands, and whether it has the desired impact. Is the blow landing on the shoulders of writers of fiction, instead of shaking up governments and leading to policy changes? We have no comprehensive data about the income/caste/gender profile of writers in India. We still need permission from the censors to enact a play, permission from the police to perform on the streets. But I notice that the more inequality increases in the world, the more people focus their critiques on artists and their individual choices instead of turning on structural inequity, patriarchy and state policy.

What power does a writer have, after all, except powers of observation, comprehension and empathy, and a certain felicity with language? You write about what you see or know, about what matters to you, what moves you, what you feel is important. That is the core of a writer’s ethic. Or, my ethic anyway.

The full interview is available here: 

https://www.news9live.com/art-culture/annie-zaidi-large-cities-impress-upon-us-a-painful-economy-of-leisure-and-socialisation-151690

Some thoughts on sanity, truth, violence and protest

I was interviewed recently by Saumya Kalia for Outlook magazine. One of the questions she put to me was taking off on something I said after my book Prelude to a Riot won the Tata Litlive Award for fiction. 

I directed my comments towards the sponsors of literature festivals and book prizes, and the question and answer that follow build upon some of my thoughts: 

"On winning the Tata Live book prize, you wrote about sponsored literary festivals and the motivation of the rich and powerful to get speakers to participate. For any society to remain sane, a little truth must survive, was your hypothesis. Can you explain what you mean by that?"

Me:  The question of who sponsors art, and what art achieves in any society, has been troubling me for a long time. The vision of artists and their sponsors is often at variance. How does this relationship work, then? Artists are dependent on others, not just for their income, but also for spaces (physical, digital, metaphorical) wherein they engage with their audience. Picasso can make Guernica, but where will it hang? Will it survive if the powerful decide to get rid of it? Some of the greatest Renaissance art in Italy was commissioned by patrons like the Medici family, bankers and businessmen. Why did they bother? We have had stories told down the ages about kings and queens, their infidelities, filicides and parricides. Books, plays, oral storytelling arts were supported by the nobility or very wealthy merchants for most of our history. Why did they not insist on censoring all stories so that the nobility was only cast in benevolent light?

This might be for multiple reasons. One, truth itself is powerful. Those who wish to remain powerful must retain an acquaintance with the truth. They may serve disinformation to the rest of the country, but they themselves must have access to correct information. They may not invest in mass access to the arts, but they themselves must have access to the vision, the beauty and even terrifying clarity that artists bring. Two, lack of truth is associated with breakdowns of all kinds. What do we recognize as a loss of sanity? It is a state in which you can no longer tell what is real and what isn’t, what is harmless and what isn’t. Individuals who lose touch with the truth react in unpredictable ways. A society cut off from the truth, and from truthful art, starts to lose itself in similar ways. It becomes unpredictable and does not necessarily act in self-interest, much less underwrites someone else’s profit. Alternately, the truth goes underground, leaving the powerful in the dark and, this is worse for them. Look at any society where truth and art have been suppressed, and you will see that it is a sick/sickening society or a nation at war. I don’t think this state of affairs suits too many people, not for too long anyway.

The full interview is available here: 

https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/annie-zaidi-on-culture-of-protest-identity-and-expression/368316

A new short story and interview

I have a new short story out in the Massachusetts Review. The story's called Mallika Reflects on the Events of Discount Monday. The journal also ran an interview for its blog about the writing of this story and my writing in general. Here's a brief extract and a link:

What inspired you to write this piece?

Well, I’m a woman and I wish I could say that I am the sort of woman who rejects all norms around femininity. But I do go to a salon once in a while. In India, there are all kinds of salons, more frequently known as ‘beauty parlours.' Parlours come in all sizes and cater to all classes. Many women operate from their own homes or rent little shops in neighborhood markets. I’ve seen some of the fancier ones too, though I usually go to a ‘normal’ parlour, which caters to the average middle-class woman.

Women sometimes go to a parlour looking for some kind of life affirmation, for emotional reassurance rather than physical plucking and primping. I remember going to a fancy salon once for a haircut, having just recovered from a bout of malaria. I was alone most of that week and feeling quite shaken. I needed to treat myself to something. The haircut cost five times what it would in the place where I usually go. The stylist told me that my skin and hair was in bad shape, and that I needed to buy fancy shampoos that cost ten times my normal shampoo, which she wrote out as a ‘prescription.’ I walked out feeling angry and have sworn off the place.

I’ve overheard some strange and sad conversations over the years at various parlours. I see beauticians trying to coax you into spending much more than you can actually afford by thrusting fresh norms, which they’ve picked up from Western (usually North American) magazines, upon their clientele. I also see women coming to the same place for years, never pushed into trying anything beyond the thing they came looking for. The story was an attempt to capture some of these conversations and experiences.

Here's a link to the whole ten questions: 

https://www.massreview.org/node/7724

Prelude to a Riot: excerpts, interviews and reviews

An interview with the Huffington Post, India about my new novel: Prelude to a Riot

An excerpt published in Scroll.com:

Annie Zaidi’s new novel takes us to a south Indian town where trouble is being brewed

Scroll describes Prelude to a Riot as 'immediately affecting, often harrowing, and sometimes hopeful'. 
"...a painful read, not because of the prose, which is exquisite, nor the narrative, which never flags, but because it invokes the troubling subject that is closest today to any sympathetic Indian heart" 

https://scroll.in/article/947357/annie-zaidis-novel-paints-a-searing-picture-of-how-communal-disharmony-affects-each-of-us


A review in The Hindu: 

Prelude to a Riot is an accurate, fearless and gripping account of the divided and uncertain times we are living in

A review in Open magazine:

Zaidi’s emotionally intelligent novel is remarkable in the complexity it manages to convey

A review in Hindustan Times:

Prelude to a Riot has the depth of reportage and a deep understanding of the human condition

A review in The Hindu Businessline:

Her skill lies in etching the attributes of each character with finesse, without ever forcing the reader to be judgemental.

Interview in the Indian Express about the roots of violence and the personal being political:

https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/a-lot-of-violence-comes-from-the-fear-of-losing-control-6055098/

Interview in the New Indian Express about violence and its impact:

http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/2019/oct/16/the-truth-sayer-2048093.html


A review in The Mint Lounge:

https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/the-beginning-of-an-end-foretold-1568374224159.html

Another review on Jaya's blog: 

http://www.jayabhattacharjirose.com/prelude-to-a-riot-by-annie-zaidi/

A profile of Akhil Katyal, bilingual poet and rising star on Delhi's literary horizon

By now, he had published his first poem in the school magazine. It was written in Hindi, during his “Casio phase”. He had been taking private music lessons for a few years, tabla in Dehradun and Casio (the keyboard) in Lucknow. A man came to their Ganga Sinchai Puram home and taught him and his brother to play simple Bollywood tunes. “It was songs like “Roop Suhana Lagta Hai”, and “Didi Tera Devar Deewana”. I played these tunes at public events, especially at the colony’s officer’s club, where children would perform at dinners.”

It was the 150th-year celebration of their school, and both his brother and he took ill. He was still keen on participating somehow, so he wrote a poem for the school magazine. It was called “Ghar”, and he admits he had help with it. “I wrote the first six lines and my keyboard teacher wrote the second half.”

Over the years, his language skills were getting sharper but so was the pressure to focus on science. “My mother is a double graduate. My father went to IIT before he joined the state irrigation department. Most of the men on either side of the family were in engineering or the air force.”

Katyal ended up studying science for another two years, but it was a miserable time. After school, he was sent to a private coaching centre, full of young men preparing to crack the big entrance exams – medicine and engineering. He began to cut classes. “I would take my moped and wander around Lucknow. I’d go to the imambara, or to the riverside. I rode far out, waiting until it was time to go home.”

He fared badly in his 12th board exams and failed the IIT prelims. His parents finally took him to a career counsellor who tested his aptitude and told them that the boy’s interest and talent clearly lay in English literature. “She said, ‘Take him to Delhi University and let him study literature’.” By now, his older brother had been put through the grind and ultimately allowed to go his way, into hotel management. “So I was a little freer to do this non-serious thing, literature.”

Read the whole thing in GQ India: https://www.gqindia.com/magazine-story/delhi-based-bilingual-poet-akhil-katyals-fresh-new-voice-literary-landscape-deserves-attention/

With gratitude, some good news

A script I wrote recently, Untitled 1, has won The Hindu Playwright Award for 2018. I am glad and grateful and feel very lucky. 

Here is the announcement of the prize: 

https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/annie-zaidi-wins-the-hindu-playwright-award-2018/article24661130.ece

And here is an interview with some detail about themes and characters in the play:

https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/theatre/untitled-1-the-luxury-of-privacy/article24611939.ece

Some reviews and interviews of Unbound: 2,000 years of Indian Women's Writing

Here are some reviews of the anthology I have edited: 'Unbound: 2,000 Years of Indian Women's Writing' (Aleph, 2015)

"Zaidi's project is sound without being pretentious, a welcome diving-board for the uninitiated who, hopefully, would want to test the waters further" - From a review in the Hindustan Times

More review links:

A review in Business Standard

A review in The Hindu Businessline

A review in DNA  

A review in The Indian Express

A review in the The Kathmandu Post

Snippets from interviews:

I wanted to keep it wide open, to be as inclusive as possible while also being selective from a literary viewpoint. I was not commissioning fresh work but choosing from what’s already out there. So I had to think not only about which particular writer to represent, but also which poem, what passage from which story should be included. I wanted readers to experience the whole spectrum of literature produced by women writers in India. - An interview with The Hindu

The only sections that can be said to be particularly associated with women are ‘Children’ and ‘Food’. Most of the other themes – spirituality, love, sex, marriage, work, politics, war, death – are as much the stereotypical domain of men and male writers as of women. In fact, some of these themes are often not associated with women at all (in a stereotypical sense)...  I wanted to showcase the complex – the human! – relationships women have to food. It is not just that women purchase or cook food. They help to grow it. They can be seduced through food as much as through flowers and candles. They think about the politics of it, as Nilanjana Roy does in her essay on meat-eating (we’ve included a short extract). One of my favourite extracts is from Nayantara Sahgal’s novel Mistaken Identity, wherein she describes a group of prisoners going on hunger strike. It is one of the most evocative passages I have ever read about food or eating.”
From an interview with Verve

Each book that I've picked extracts from (and many others read for research) taught me something new about a different part of the country, a new culture and the troubles of people (both men and women) at a particular moment in history. It has given me a new lens with which to look at India, especially women's history. It has also taught me the significance of writing not only as self-expression but also as a form of unsilencing, as a tool of engagement with our past and future. Irawati Karve's essays in Yuganta do all of the above. Reading the memoir of the ruler of Bhopal, Sultan Shahjahan Begum and Gulbadan Begum, author of Humayun-nama (not represented in the anthology) taught me how important it is for women to not just do all kinds of work but to be seen to be doing all kinds of work, including power play and governance.
From an interview with Scroll

On writing, getting published etc

I often get approached by aspiring authors who want to know how to get published, and what my own experience has been like. So I thought I should collect my thoughts into a single post that will serve as a response to all questions that I am able to answer. Treat all advice, however, as general advice. Each writer has a different journey and therefore different points of view on the publishing process.

1. Finish a manuscript. There are no fixed rules about how long/big a book has to be, but you have to know that you will be satisfied with a book of 'this' particular length before you take it to a publisher.

2. Edit the manuscript to the best of your ability. Format it properly, check grammar and spelling.

3. Send a query letter directly to a publisher. You will know of most publishers if you are a reader (and if you are not a reader of books, I don't know what you are doing trying to become an author).

4. Most publishers have websites. You just have to run a google search. Many Indian publishers these days do encourage you to query directly, so send an email. Try and make sure your email has complete sentences and full words instead of sms-ese.

5. Find an agent if you are confident that you will get a good advance. India has very few literary agents but Siyahi and Writers' Side are two examples. For foreign agents, you will have to again send out query letters. I am afraid I don't know anything about finding foreign agents. I don't yet have any agents myself.

6. There is some good advice, from those who are clearly more experienced than me, here : http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/getting-published

SOME MORE

I recently talked to Cosmopolitan (India) magazine about how I got published. Here's the Q and A, which might be useful to some readers:

1) What made you take to writing? What were some of your motivations, aspirations, goals etc? Anxieties, concerns too?


A - I do not recall ever making a conscious decision to 'take to writing'. I wrote a bit in high school, but mainly essays or my speeches for debating contests. As an undergraduate, I used to participate in all extra-curricular activity - song, dance, drama, fashion show. The college had an extempore (on-the-spot) poetry contest and I participated, and to my surprise, won. I began to take writing a little more seriously then, mainly because of the encouragement I received by my English Literature teachers. Soon I began to co-edit the students' magazine. By the time I finished college, I knew I could write decently, and didn't know if I could do anything else. I had no clear ambition or, indeed, motivation. But I did write quite a lot of letters, diaries, poems. Mainly to express myself, I think. Nor did I have many anxieties in the early years. I had the arrogance and confidence that very young people often do have. I think I needed it knocked out of me, and that happened very quickly when I moved to big cities and my reading widened to include contemporary Indian writers who was clearly leagues ahead in terms of both creative expression and basic knowledge of the world, society, culture and so on.

2) Did you start by getting feedback from your inner circle? How did the aspect of support and encouragement from family/ friends play out?


A - I rarely sought feedback in college, though I did show my poems to close friends. It was only a couple of years after college that I began to think about what I could do to get better. I began to read a lot more contemporary work from India as well as translations from everywhere else, then it began to sink in that perhaps I was not ready yet. I began to seek peer review groups and found a couple of places online.

Friends and family are reasonably supportive, though I do not show my work to them while it's in process. Unless these friends happen to be writers themselves. We've had well-known writers in our family before (my maternal grandfather), and in any case, cultural growth has always been encouraged in my family.

3) Were there steps involved? A progression? Diary...blog...digital...publishing/ author conventions & seminars...networking...print? Would you recommend that to aspiring writers?


A - Yes. Like I said, I wrote a lot of letters and essays initially. I began working for newspapers and magazines and wrote almost daily from the year 2000 onwards. At home, I would try to work on fictional stories though none of them came to fruition. In addition, I blogged a lot, from 2005 on, and was offered my first book deal on the strength of those posts.

I don't think seminars or writer conventions helped in the publishing process. I am not good at networking and when I attend, I do so in a quiet way. However, it is always good to hear other writers speak of their ideas, and be introduced to new kinds of writing through such seminars. Writers come in all kinds of personalities, so what they take from a gathering of writers depends on what they came looking for.

4) What's the best way to pitch/ put together a proposal and make oneself stand out in the clutter?


A - I wish I knew. I've rarely attempted book proposals, and when I have, I have not been successful. I prefer to just write the whole book and then try to get an editor interested in the manuscript.

5) Could you please dwell on the writing process itself? Timeline, schedule, any experimentation involved? Learnings from the process? What was particularly fulfilling/ frustrating? What to guard against?

A - I like to experiment with genre. I want to try and write in as many kinds of ways as I can, so I give most genres at least one shot. I also get rejected a lot, and some of my work is a failure even in my own estimation. My main learning is that you've got to keep at it.

I don't have a fixed schedule, but I try and write regularly, and I read regularly too.

What's most fulfilling is when I've finished something - a poem or a story - and it is just where it needs to be. For now, this is the best it can be. The feeling that I've said what I wanted to say in the genre I chose. Most frustrating is not being able to do this - to start something and then not finish it as I'd hoped.

6) How would you summarise the publishing and writing industry in India currently? Is it a good time for first time writers and is there a general openness towards new voices? In your opinion, what are the challenges first time writers are likely to/ can potentially face in this setting?


A - There is a fair degree of openness. But this is not a good time for everyone in a commercial sense. Writers whose voices are very experimental, or who do not translate easily for foreign markets must be content with very small print runs and very few readers. The Indian English market is very crowded, and there's not just a lot of intellectual laziness and creative stasis, there's also a lot of below-average writing available at a very low cost. It is easy to be lost in the crowd.

7) Do you think it's tenable to be a full time writer in the Indian context? How do you manage it? Tips on how to follow one's calling and also keep the roof up?


A - Not easy if you're a fiction writer. Impossible if you're a full time poet or playwright. I have thus far made a living from journalism and related media formats. But I continue to struggle, so I really should not offer anyone any advice.

8 - What was the response to your first book like and what's in the pipeline?


A - There were decent reviews when 'Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales' first came out. I'm not sure how much it's sold but it did go into a second edition, which was good news. I'm trying to work on a novella and also editing an anthology for next year.

9) Any general pointers/ insight that you'd like to share that's not been covered in the questions above.


A - General advice - read. Read constantly. Those who live in the world of words must be familiar with the landscape. Reading is what you want others to do, when you write. You better know the worth of what you're offering before you expect anything from readers.

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If you're looking for more details from my own personal experience, here is another interview:
http://www.bookchums.com/blog-detail/author-interviews/bookchums-interviews-annie-zaidi/NTc3.html

An interview with poet Vijay Seshadri

Seshadri, born to Tamil- and Kannada-speaking parents, did not study Indian literature or the epics, but as a teenager in the US, he did engage with mythology and some of the ancient scriptures, as he had opted for Religion as one of his classes in school. That was when he first, he recalls, read the story of Yudhisthir and his journey to heaven. “What reading Indian mythology gave me was a taste for the imaginative and the fantastic. Indian stories are so imaginative, so wild. Like the stories from the Bhagavata Purana. I’ve always had an attraction for the imaginative, even among writers.” 

And what about his love for poetry, where did that come from? “There is no such thing as poetry out there,” he counters. “You fall in love with a poem. So I fell in love with certain poems. As the number of those poems kept growing, my interest in the art grew.” 

In the early years, though, Seshadri thought he wanted to write fiction. He made an unsuccessful attempt at writing his first novel, and, he says, out of the failure of that came his early poetry. As his appreciation of poetry grew, he also found encouragement from his professors for his own poems. However, his vocation did lie in the realm of storytelling. There is a definite narrative running through each poem and much of it is, mercifully, quite accessible. 

Read more: http://forbesindia.com/article/recliner/poetry-is-the-most-democratic-of-the-arts-says-vijay-seshadri/39043/1#ixzz3KXHRxvsX

Heartwards ho!

"Love Stories # 1 to 14... enters this terrain with such assured grace and insight, the reader is completely absorbed in the experience of the characters, scouring the depths of loneliness that come with being in love, and without it...  The tone here is always compassionate and the feeling you get at the end of the book is uplifting."

From a brief review-cum-interview with Sakaal Times.

And this interview, also for Sakal, was done with Smriti Ravindra for "The Good Indian Girl".

Figuring out the short

From a recent interview with other writers, on short stories:

Yashodhara : What do you personally find most challenging about writing a short story?

Annie - The ending. I usually write short stories with a single image or character as a starting point. I begin to work my way through the story from this character's perspective, or an event I am trying to explain. But I often don't know what to do with this character and how to let go of her/him.

Altaf - Beginning with a sense of infiniteness, to let the reader settle in, and then quickly bringing the end into focus. This is always hard. Only when I have fully exhausted a theme in my head do I decide to make it a short story. Otherwise, it would be a novella or novel. Knowing that what one has begun must quickly end, this makes the whole exercise seem futile in a way. Conflicting impulses: the impulse to write, but also the impulse to stop writing.

Y : And on the other side, what do you like best about this format?

Annie - I like the freedom of being able to work on a small scale. It is like zooming into a small corner of a large painting, and realizing that you don't have to see the whole picture in order to make sense of it.

Altaf - I like that I can put a short story at the service of a larger theme. I try to avoid writing random stories in isolation. This way, if I ever decide to throw these shorts together, they can read like a coherent whole.