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Photo: V. Sudershan

DISHY FARE Author Manil Suri talks of food and books over lunch at Cafe Uno, Hotel Shangri-La in New Delhi.

But he would not let words hold him hostage either. Cooking and painting are his “respites from the horror” of being a writer and mathematician. These tidbits highlight his multiple interests.

A mathematics professor in the United States, an accomplished author and an enthusiastic chef – Suri is a perfect candidate for a dialogue on words and numbers over lunch.

On a chilly noon at the Shangri-La, Suri settles for a quick bite at Cafe Uno. The variety is overbearing and the pick either Indian or Mediterranean. A sprightly walk along the winding counters, past the live salad bars, buffet and dessert segments, Suri is left stroking his chin.

“I get intimidated by so many things. Can I have the menu card?” he asks and settles outdoors, before letting you in on a childhood in ‘Bombay’ and life in America.

“In Bombay, we shared an apartment with three other families,” he winds back in search of familiar flavours. Suri was “hesitant to call anyone” to a dingy home where fights were “always about space.”

However, there are pleasant memories as well. The taste of the biryani his Muslim neighbour gave him on special occasions, lingers on. So does that of the “incredible” fish fried with “amazing spices” by another flatmate for Suri and his dad.

But the author keeps his choice for lunch frill-free. With a nagging cough to handle, Suri settles for hot mushroom soup. As for his packed itinerary across India to promote the second part of his trilogy “The Age of Shiva”, he jests, “I took seven years to write, so I am prepared to talk about it for seven months, seven weeks or at least seven days.”

His soup arrives warm. Over spoonfuls and instant approval, he orders a toasted chicken sandwich with a spread of mayonnaise and a glass of soda. Suri’s debut novel “The Death of Vishnu” created ripples and reasons for anticipation about the second. However, success took its time.

A hobby that flourished in childhood, writing was abandoned mid-way.

But Suri finally returned to it after mathematics became a profession. He took time to mature into a serious writer. There were years of trial and error, a pile of rejection slips, sessions at writing workshops and a literary introduction to Bulgarian readers, before the resounding success of “The Death of Vishnu”.

“In a way, I was lucky. All those rejections helped me focus. There are dangers of getting published too soon,” he explains as he starts on the crunchy sandwich. Though struggle materialised into success, he was never really prepared for the change.

“Success can be disorienting. After the first novel, my life changed,” he says.

The second one, with the burden of the trilogy, turned out to be complicated. “For the first novel, there is no audience in mind. But when the second happens, one has to take the audience, the eyes that meet you at readings, out of the mind,” he adds.

Probably, his varied passions help Suri keep the balance. He admits his fiction shadows a mathematical approach. “The first book was mathematical in the sense, there were no side stories. It had an upward movement. But I have stopped myself from thinking like a mathematician in the second,” says Suri.

But Suri never curbs himself when he is in the kitchen. “When I cook, I mix different cuisines,” he says.

He experiments with Indian and French food. His masterpieces are salmon and soy sauce cooked the French way and chicken made with a generous splash of wine and spices.

That Suri is serious about cookery becomes clearer when he reveals his association with a gourmet group. “Our group meets every two months, and we attempt a particular cuisine each time. It was Belgian last time and all of us made one course,” says the chef. Suri will wield his skills for the upcoming Turkish night now.

As he winds up with the sandwich, Suri mutters, “I hope to write down a recipe some day or a fusion Indian cookbook.”

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