The Compleat Tehelka Interview With Richard Crasta
The Booker as Mind Control, Etc.
[Author's Note: Tusha Mittal of Tehelka magazine is a fine journalist with a talent for asking thoughtful questions that bring out the best from a subject; and as I spent much time thinking about and penning the answers to her questions, I wish to make the entire interview--not all of which could be printed in Tehelka because of space considerations--available to those who wish to read more than what was printed. ]
Q: What is the origin of the Revised Kama Sutra?
It originated in my decision that I had a story to tell and it had
to be told. It was a story of a lot of little children, of many men, of many people growing up in the third world. Besides also being, partly, my own story. So I decided to become a writer--inchoately, at 10. And then, at 16, when I had read Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage” and Saul Bellow's "Herzog", it became certain I would become a writer, it was simply a matter of finding the time and the means.
As for sexual repression: I did not even know how babies were born until I was 14 years old. When I first experienced puberty at 13, I was flabbergasted. I thought I had a medical problem I needed to go to the doctor about. Sex was that hush-hush then. "The Revised Kama Sutra” is funny, because when one looks back at all the disastrous things that have happened, they are indeed funny. As someone said, Humour is disaster and humiliation recollected in tranquility.
The Revised Kama Sutra was a comic take on how repressed we were, and still are to a large extent. Instead of Mira Nair’s fantasy, Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, it was Madan Nath’s or Balbir Singh’s KLPD: The True Story of India.
Q: It was the experience of trying to market The Revised Kama Sutra in New York that led to your next book. Talk about the events that inspired The Killing of An Author.
A: Well, "The Killing of an Author" is my sixth published book; there were four other books in between. But I started writing it in 1993-94, just after my first book was published, but only completed and published it in 2008. Well, it seemed very unfair, it seemed like literary apartheid and double standards that just because I
was brown, I was expected to write in a certain way. Whereas, if you
are white you could write anything you wanted to do. It was 1991 when I
was trying to sell The Revised Kama Sutra. By then there had been at least
20,000 sexually uninhibited books, including some by reputed literary authors, published in the United States. They were not willing to publish my book because I was an Indian writer and expected to conform to a certain kind of style.
.
Q: What style were you expected to conform to? So you believe all Indian writers published by the west have conformed to a specific style?
Not so much a style as a certain formula, attitude, and limitations on content: certain areas are marked ‘Dogs and Brown Boys Not Admitted in Here.” In the expectation of a cultural-social-spiritual-exotic biriyani, good for an evening out for the White Masters, not too hot, not too aphrodisiac, an Anglo-friendly masala, not politically or sexually impudent.
Have you noticed that teddy bears don’t have sex organs? They want us to be their literary teddy bears, pettable and dispensable at will. As an independent, autonomous human being with sex organs, I refuse to be a Western reader’s teddy bear! But many of us oblige; as our BPO masterminds and others have proved, Indians are second to none at sensing what the West wants and delivering a good product.
As for me, I confess I am more tiger than teddy bear. India has over 1500 tigers left, but far fewer literary tigers. I hope we start a campaign soon: “Save Our Literary Tigers!”
Q: What is the message you are trying to give through Killing of an Author. You've described it as a campaign for freedom?
The freedom to be who we are. I speak especially of Indians and Third World residents’ freedom not to be cultural or literary slaves of Western publishers or publics. The freedom to express ourselves, our real inner selves, and not to be punished for it. Punished not just by Western editorial masters, but also by their Indian henchmen. It’s another matter that we do back-office operations or technical support for the West, that’s just business, everyday work, international trade in skills. But our creative writing is an expression of our souls. Our literature, our intellectual freedom, our souls are sacred—these should never be up for sale at any price.
I think Indians need to be aware of this issue as well, and its operation in India. Denial of distribution to a bestselling and critically acclaimed Indian writer, to one who Kuldip Nayar has said “must be read,” is a crime and a national shame—it is a blot on freedom and democracy. Indians should not permit it. Period.
Q: Do you hope to find a Publisher soon? Has it been difficult finding one in India too? How come?
I was in negotiations with a major Indian publisher only two weeks back. The Revised Kama Sutra hugely impressed the editor-in-chief, who said “This book should never have been out of print. It should always be available.” The editor (and an associate) was also excited by a second book proposal of mine, consisting of sections of a half-written book. (Responding to a concern of mine, the associate, a woman, responded, “Don’t worry about making it politically correct; we have too much of that going around these days.”)
Consider: if David Davidar bought my novel for the second highest advance at the time to a first novelist (or so he told me), and if most Indians and critics who read it loved it (Khushwant Singh included, who called it one of the few unforgettable books of the previous twelve years), and with most of my most fervent readers of my other books being other Indians (we are after all a hugely diverse country of one billion), why shouldn’t Indian publishers publish all of my books? I am sure, in a country of a billion, one can find at least ten Indian editors with balls. Which is what, I must admit, it will take to publish some of my books.
But after The Killing of an Author, in which I have explained how the job of publishing is crushing my soul and snuffing out my books-in-progress, and after Kuldip Nayar’s powerful statement that “This book must be read,” (and what part of “This book must be read” does anyone not understand?), I think it would be decent of publishers to take on all of my books and relieve me of this burden so I can finish as many of the remaining books as possible in the short life left me. Luckily, the profession is now getting more committed professionals with integrity, whose loyalty is to free expression and democratic pluralism and nothing else—even profit is secondary.
As for a Western publisher, yes, I hope so. My rehabilitation in India may make it possible in the West. My audience may be partly Indian, but it is also international. It is time for Indians not to be passive, but to demand that their uncompromising authors also be included in Western publisher’s lists (just as they have shoved thousands of their controversial books and remainders down our Third World throats).
Q: You've said that you think Indian literary output is controlled by the West. How so?
Unless you're Kushwant Singh or Shobha De or Chetan Bhagat, what an average serious literary Indian writer earns from writing for an Indian publisher is still not enough for a living. You cannot be a fully professional writer unless your main focus is on the western market or a western publisher. That's how they end up ruling us, taking away our autonomy and our independence. My idea of a true writer is one who writes for himself/herself. One who writes not to be sold, but because he has to write, even if he/she finds it very difficult to continue to make a living and survive.
Another method of control: the Booker. Think of how much we think of and worship the Booker. The Brits, the unequalled masters of the Colonial Game, always gave prizes, honors, and titles to well-behaved brown boys who served their purposes. Rao Bahadur this and Order of the British Empire that. Who the hell are they to give us prizes and titles? Why don’t we give them prizes: “The Cooker Prize For Docile, Well-Behaved Brit Writers” and “The Order of Lalu”, whose recipient will have to kneel while Lalu knights him with a Bihari danda?
Q: Where would you place yourself as a writer? You find yourself negotiating the space between the racy and the refined?
I don’t try to be racy or refined, don’t even think about it. I just write, and what comes out is what you get, edited only for readability, style, and pleasure, for my own literary pleasure. Besides, for me raciness is not at the cost of truth. In a sense the raciness is truth. I am a sexual being. If it were not there in my writing then I would not be honest with myself. If I were to write a book that's completely asexual, or homo-erotic, or sadistic, it would not be me. Pornography is dull; it is mechanical (and often improbably superb) sex without the redemption of thought, feeling, character, humor, passion, failure, humanity. I don’t think I can ever be accused of that, just as you cannot accuse Henry Miller of being pornographic; anyone who accuses either of us of obscenity must have a dirty mind.
Q: The Killing of an Author has been termed an 'autobiographical literary thriller'. Say more about this new genre of sorts. Would you place your other work in the same genre?
Well, The Killing of an Author reads like a novel, it is the story of an imperfect and passionate character, in search of something: justice, love, fulfillment, understanding, free expression. Ditto The Revised Kama Sutra, where, though there are many complex interweaving stories, plots, and themes, at some level the character’s quest is simple: how to get laid in this screwed up land! Of both books, people have told me, “I read it nonstop.” I think that describes a thriller: you can’t put it down, you want to know how it is going to end. “Autobiographical” and “literary” are self-explanatory: many thriller writers (John Le Carre excepted) make no pretense of being interested in literature.
Q: What books and/or authors have inspired you?
Kamala Das’s My Story. Philip Roth, Henry Miller, John Cheever, Don DeLillo, Salman Rushdie, Celine, Naipaul, Martin Amis, Christopher Hitchens, Harpers Magazine, Saul Bellow. Autobiograpies and Journals that reveal the vulnerability of the writer (as in John Cheever’s amazing posthumous journals). Too many to mention. [Post-interview addition: How could I have forgotten: James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, Charles Dickens, R. K. Narayan! Not to mention Joan Didion, Erica Jong, Anais Nin, Virginia Woolf.]
Q: What are your future plans? Are you working on another book?
I would urge a philanthropist or a tycoon to invest $10 to $20 million in Invisible Man Books, or any other independent publisher along the same lines, giving it an Indian and a Western arm. Anybody can manufacture cars or steel (and if one person doesn’t, another will), but imagine how this money, which is peanuts to many mega-billionaires, could transform the landscape of world publishing and change thinking! Such a publishing company (and we could have two, five, ten of these, easily) would have not just one Richard Crasta, but twenty different variations, men and women who write from their hearts and without fear, are given advances such as keep them committed to writing, and are projected fearlessly and aggressively in Western markets.
Meanwhile, I have five different books in progress! Because of this responsibility, I want not to be personally involved in publishing for another day (except in an advisory capacity, for 2-3 hours a week, if I am well paid for it). And I have been using a website, http://www.richardcrasta.com/, and a blog, richardcrasta.blogspot.com (and others) to communicate with my readers in the absence of distribution, and to frustrate censorship.
Q: Some of the biggest challenges you've faced in your journey so far? (Besides the struggle to find publishers)
Staying strong, fighting against darkness, ignorance, the “success” and commercial mindset, and trying to stay alive and positive.
Q: What are some of the themes that interest you most? Any you wish to explore further?
Sex and love, intercultural sex and love. Justice. Fathers and sons. Betrayal. Massage. Men and Women. Games people play. Politics. Colonialism and resistance.
Q: Any regrets?
The risks were inherent in my quest, as they are inherent in any refusal to compromise one’s integrity. It would be silly to wish I was someone else, or to speak with hindsight. If I were someone else, I wouldn’t have written what I have: the books of the Freedom Trilogy (The Revised Kama Sutra, Impressing the Whites, The Killing of an Author.). I would be in some five-star hotel suite, and a velvet-voiced woman would be calling from the bedroom, “Honey, I’m waiting for you . . .” Tempting, but writing is not a trade or a business for me, as these trader-publishers of ours fail to understand; it is a sacred calling.
