Subcontinental Drift

Is your dominant image of Bangladesh floods and immigrants? Well, here’s another: youth and drugs

Is your dominant image of Bangladesh floods and immigrants? Well, here’s another: youth and drugs

Q First, who do you think you’re writing for? Do you need to know who your audience is?

A I think as one writes more and more, one becomes conscious of who one is writing for. Right now, I’m writing for a global audience. Though the book deals with the experience of Bangladeshis, it has been written in a way that anyone anywhere can read and relate to it. I think my next book will have a more specific readership in mind. I think it matters to know who you are writing for, so that you know how aware your readership is. This book is something people can pick up at an airport and finish by the time the plane lands.

Q You spoke of a writer being ‘accepted’. As a writer, does that matter? What does this acceptance mean?

A I don’t exactly know what that means. But, yes, I do know that I do want to be accepted. I’d want to be ‘accepted’ by the writing community. People want ‘acceptance’ all around, but don’t know what that means. Acceptance, to me, would mean my work is liked and perhaps understood.

Q Your novel deals with adolescent angst and drug addiction in young, urban Dhaka. How close were you to the experience? Did you do any drugs?

A No. I never did drugs. But I researched a great deal and was close to the experiences of addicts. As a trained social psychologist, I studied people who had addictive personalities. The tragic part about them is that none of them knew they’d get hooked to cocaine in no time. It is much harder to go off cocaine than tobacco.

Q How different has the final product of your book been as compared to your first draft? Are you happy with the way it has turned out?

Interesting question. The first draft came out in one writing spasm. Later, I had to knock off 30,000 words. The intention was to ‘simplify, simplify, simplify’ and still try and capture the nuances of Bangladeshi life in the English language. The challenge was to maintain a fine balance between keeping things simple, without becoming simplistic.

Q As a writer, do you think you had total freedom to say what you want and how you wanted it in your book? Or did publishing demands make you change the manuscript?

A No. I wrote freely.

Q There’s a fair amount of sex in your book. What do you think is the difference between good sex writing and bad sex writing?

A I guess the difference is the one between good sex and bad sex! (Laughs).

BangladeshdrugsShazia Omaryouth