Keeping the Faiths

A bad review is like a slap on the face, says William Dalrymple on the release of his latest book, Nine Lives

Q What happens to the subjects you depict in Nine Lives, now that your book on them is done?

A Well, I’m on a world tour with some of them. We’re planning to hold a cultural event where the bauls of Bengal and the other artistes who I write about perform while I go launching my book. The book launch is tied with the music programme of these artistes. We go to the UK, Australia and some other countries. It’s going to be a lot of fun actually.

Q Your book has people from diverse states in India. Do you understand these languages?

A With each one of the stories, I had someone to speak the language and also an interpreter. I’m quite sure no one in this country can speak all the eight languages in this book.

Q Some of your most noted work has dealt with the Mughal era. Do you speak Urdu or Hindi?

A I’ve been learning Hindi for the last 25 years, but it is still not as good as it should be. (Laughs). Not only did I have translators but also people who were close to the contexts and experiences of these people as well.

Q Does being a successful author make the job of finding translators, interpreters and leads – the entire network – easier?

A No. But having lived here for 25 years and having made friends around the country makes it easier. In some ways, it is an advantage not knowing the language, as it has always pulled me to find people who are really close to the experiences of those I wrote about.

Q What’s the big point of Nine Lives?

A You make it sound as if I’ve got a scoop. I don’t. It’s a literary work. It’s a book of non-fiction short stories about the way Indian religion is changing in the midst of modernity. It is nine portals in understanding how Indian religion is changing. The pleasure was in discovering eight different Indias, which happen to be in self-contained worlds and these are internally different worlds too. The world of the devadasis is quite different from the world of Jain nuns. Even if the Jain nuns live in the same state (like Karnataka) and even if they are women from comparable backgrounds, their lives and thinking are quite different. You’re looking at it the wrong way if you’re looking for new revelations.

Q Why have you deliberately left out any sense of critique when it comes to these stories?

A Yes. I deliberately kept myself out of it. It doesn’t make much sense for to stand in judgment. I would still not know how to judge the people, some of whom have left their jobs to lead a religious way of life. It’s closed to me.

Q Do you ever tend to be judgmental in your writing?

A No. Throughout my writing I have found it prudent not to judge. You shape the readers opinion by how you present the evidence, like a lawyer presenting evidence in court. But you’re not the judge. You’re not there to pass judgment or hand out sentences. I’m there to observe and to show. The same is the case in my history books. I don’t hand out a sentence on Bahadur Shah Zafar in The Last Mughal. The thing to do is to let everyone speak. In a way this book is very close to The Last Mughal, in that I’m not judging, only observing and presenting case studies.

Q Aren’t you tired of that technique?

A No. In fact, I’m very pleased with this book. Obviously it hasn’t worked for you! (Laughs) Can’t please everyone, can one? I think it’s very fresh. The reviews so far have been good. I’ve found a lot of Indians who actually have found the book fresh. It’s surprising how many Indians don’t know about the community life of the Jains or the life of some other community apart from their own. Also, the Keralites might know their religious music form of theyyam but not the music of the bauls of Bengal and vice-versa.

Q Having been born and raised in Scotland how come you haven’t written about that country?

A You seem to, if I may so, to be telling me what I should be writing about. (Laughs). Well, I’ve lived here for the last 25 years. As a writer I have the right to choose my subject, my interests. I find the bauls more interesting than what happens in Scotland, though I love the Scottish Isles. Plus this book is already going to be out with 35,000 copies in hardback. There are enough reasons for me to indulge in my whims! (Laughs)

Q After all this success as a writer do you still have to work and re-work your manuscripts?

A Of course. I began thinking of a book like this after finishing a documentary series in 1997. I was approached to write a book, but I hesitated because everyone expects a firang journalist in India to write about religion or the maharajahs or the slums of Bombay. I wanted to find a way of doing it which escaped the obvious pitfalls. When Chiki Sarkar of Random House India sent me off to do a story for The Aids Sutra project, (on the devadasis), I found the form. I had to tell the life-story of people like these, through one person. That was the form. It avoided falling into the obvious pitfalls that Westerners writing about India slip into. And this form is no great revelation. I also think religion is as much a legitimate subject for inquiry, in the way novelists concentrate on sex as a way to understand the human heart. People’s religious choices are an equally telling indicator of humanity. All these people in the book have had their life formed and determined by religious choices they have embraced. There is a tendency among middle-class Indian journalists, if you don’t write about Bangalore, Cyberabad or politics or a world that is recognizably middle-class India, then, it is not legitimate. Writer Pankaj Mishra said this book was the India he grew up in and had not read about. So I would defend this book as an entirely legitimate field of enquiry, something that has not been hugely written about. About how Indian religion is changing and it provides an insight into eight ways of being an Indian today.

Q Were there other stories that didn’t make the final cut?

A Lots. About 20, but came down to nine.

Q How different is the end product from the first draft?

A Totally different.

Q After all these books do you still have to fight your way to present things and to write the things you want and the way you want to?

A No. Actually, I’ve been very lucky, because my books have always sold and sold internationally. My least commercially viable project was the two-three months researching the monasteries in the Middle East for From the Holy Mountain. But it’s probably my best reviewed book. So I’ve never had to fight. If people suddenly stop reading my work I may have to find a more commercial way of making a living. But at the moment I’m lucky.

Q What matters to you more: a great piece of writing or a very successful book?

A I’m very happy to do hack journalism if a newspaper offers me a large sum and I will hammer out an op-ed piece by tomorrow night. But I will never put anything between hard covers unless it as good as I can make it to be. I think that is very important. Book writing is as serious as it gets.

Q What in your opinion is the best piece of writing you’ve done?

A I’m always most fond of my most recent baby. The book I’m told by readers, publishers and others around me as my best is From The Holy Mountain. It’s my only non-Indian book and on a subject I know the least well. I haven’t spent a huge amount of time in the Middle East.

Q What’s your method of writing?

A As a chapter or story progresses, I have the chapter by my bed. In my writing phase, I wake up by 6 am and go to the terrace and read through that chapter every day. It roughly takes a month for me to finish a chapter. At the end of the month that same chapter would have been revised 30 times. In the end, you stop it when it comes to a satisfactory stage. I don’t do drafts. I also send out my stuff to friends who I trust. I set off a dialogue going among them. If two of those people agree that some portion has to go or is not clicking, then it has to go.

Q What matters to you more: appreciation in the West or here?

A I’d like both. I’m a vain creature. And a bad review is a slap in the face. Of late, though, I haven’t had many bad reviews. The last book which had a mixed reception was City of Djinns and now it’s available at traffic lights in pirated copies! It had a very wobbly reception here. But if I were writing a book about India and the West liked it and people didn’t like it here, I would be very worried. No question. This book, because I live 10 months here, was written keeping an Indian audience in mind. This is obscure stuff to a Western audience. My mom would get very little purchase out of it, as was the case with the Mutiny book and From Holy Mountain. During the editing process for this book, my English editor said I had assumed a level of knowledge my English audience will not have. So the glossary is also detailed. I don’t write with audience in my mind but subconsciously I wrote this with a desi audience in mind.

William Dalrymple