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Summer of 72

Veteran ad man and now debutant author, Ananda Mukerji discusses his muse and methods of writing with NANDINI NAIR

PHOTO: V.V. KRISHNAN

LIFE WITHOUT A PLOT Ananda Mukerji in New Delhi

A conversation with Ananda Mukerji, (born 1934), author of "And Where, My Friend, Lay you Hiding" (HarperCollins) evokes Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello's play "Six Characters in Search of an Author." Describing the writing process of his first novel he says, "You don't want to interfere with the lives of your characters too much. You want them to live life on their own. There is a duality. You are the writer, yet you are not that involved with their lives." Pirandello's play is about characters looking for an author to tell their individual stories. The Father of the play seems to voice Mukerji's own belief, "One may be born a character in a play."

Mukerji's book deals with the practice and sacrifices of writing through the character of Anjan. Of his own writing process he says he allowed the characters of his book to come alive spontaneously and not through intrigues. He explains that the book didn't have a plot. "Life doesn't have a plot. We don't know what is going to happen next year, so I let the story develop like that. I like to write it that way, as the unknown unfolds."

Pleasures of the process

"I didn't write for some months and was very lonely without my characters," he says, referring to his suffering from spondylitis. For three years he woke up early, made his tea and sat down at the table to write for a couple of hours. This strict routine led to distinct pleasures. The first was the pleasure of creation. Asking for a black coffee, he says, "A euphoria sets in at the end of three-four hours of writing and then I don't write till the next morning." The second pleasure was to live with people you know. And the "last tremendous pleasure was the pleasure of pondering over and finding the right word."

For this ad man, who has worked extensively in all the metros, the book is drawn from nostalgia and written with love. It is vivid in descriptions of rural Mirpur and urbane Allahabad of the 1950s. Adjusting his spectacles and straining to hear, he re-creates his memories. "In the 1950-60s, Allahabad and Delhi were lovely places to live in. If one stood in the centre and took a bicycle in any direction, within half an hour, one would hit cultivation. That's what I miss. That's what I treasure."

Even while working in Kolkata he would take a hopping flight through Lucknow to reach Delhi, just to see the landscape of Lucknow. Having been born and bred in Uttar Pradesh, he describes his joy in trekking and swimming in the Ganga. This love for the countryside is brought out gently and reverentially in the book.

Talking about drafts, he says that Tolstoy revised "War and Peace" eight times. Mukerji ads simply, "I did five revisions of the whole book. But then, who am I?"

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