‘Writing a novel is a breeze compared to journalism’

A murmur breaks out through the audience when poet, musician and author Jeet Thayil walks over to the podium to read out excerpts from his debut novel Narcopolis at The Hindu Lit for Life (held in February). For this is no ordinary reading. The seven-page prologue from which Thayil reads out two pages is one continuous, all-embracing sentence! “Bombay” he begins, “is the hero or heroin of the story...”

Thayil’s fascination with Bombay began when he landed in the city many years ago as a young journalist. “The energy, the vibes and the people make this city very addictive,” he says after his dramatised reading.

Sitting on a wooden bench outside the auditorium in a crisp white shirt, he adds, “Everyone who visits the city feels that way. The sea especially makes a very beautiful backdrop for a book.”

In Narcopolis , Thayil dives into an ever-changing world of squalor, drugs, poverty and sex. Stories of marginalised characters – pimps, eunuchs and gangsters – are woven together while their lives in the dark underbelly slowly descend into ruin. The smoky opium den in the opening chapter is a familiar place for the author.

“I was a user and abuser of drugs for twenty years. I tell people now that I was doing research for my novel. Of course it’s a complete lie,” Thayil laughs. “I didn’t know that I would be writing a novel back then but I have tried to imbue some dignity and meaning to those years through this book.”

Thayil’s prose, unstructured and feverish in the book, reflects his skills as a poet. He has also flirted briefly with journalism, which he calls “the most difficult job” but which “helped him greatly” in his research.

“I don’t think I was cut out for journalism at all. But you bring your journalistic skills into writing a book. Compared to journalism, writing a novel was a breeze.”

Narcopolis , says Thayil, was never intended to be a fictional account. “It started as a book on Indian religions. One day, I wrote a chapter that was very obviously non-fiction. That started a wave and then the rest of the book just followed.”

The first Indian to win the DSC prize for South Asian Literature, Thayil says that awards play an important role in an author’s career graph. “Awards bring attention to a book. The money that comes with the award especially helps for the next book.”

Internationally Narcopolis was very well-received. The Guardian hailed it “a blistering debut”, The Financial Times called it “compelling and often exhilarating” while other reviews have described it as “hypnotic” and “enthralling”.

India’s reaction to his book, initially frosty, suddenly reversed when the author was short-listed for the Man-Booker Prize in 2012. Thayil doesn’t know what changed the Indian response.

“There are people who write with an audience in mind but I think that’s a bad strategy. It can be crippling. I let the story tell me what to do,” he says.

While more people queue up for the author’s stylised signature on their copies, Thayil speaks excitedly about his next book, Sex Life of the Saints , and informs me that it is due to hit the stores next year.

(Radhika studied in Stella Maris College, Chennai, before moving on to the Asian College of Journalism.)

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