The Writer’s Corner | ‘It shows us our deepest fears’: P S Nissim on horror genre
P S Nissim’s second novella, Pillar of the King, which came out this year, has a distinct Karnataka flavour to it.
3 min read
Working in the IT field as a consultant, Nissim has also long been a literary critic.While authors like Bram Stoker and Stephen King have enjoyed mainstream acclaim in the canon of Western literature, horror media in India has more often skulked around the margins, with occasional gems proving the quality of Indian writing – some of Ruskin Bond’s own ghost stories and anthologies assembled by him pay testament to this. Now, a new generation of Indian writers is exploring this genre. P S Nissim is one of them.
His second novella, Pillar of the King, came out this year. The tale has a distinct Karnataka flavour to it, featuring well-off Bengalureans straying off the beaten road on the way to Hampi, only to find themselves in the midst of an ancient evil. Nissim, who has lived in Bengaluru for the past 17 years, notes that the story could only have worked with the sort of characters who might hail from the city. His previous novella, Brown Boy, was inspired by a Sikkimese folk tale during a visit there.
Working in the IT field as a consultant, Nissim has also long been a literary critic. He notes that his experience as a critic (including in the horror genre) gave him a broad perspective on a number of books. He says, “They say that the average person reads around 3,000 books in their lifetime… I’ve blown past that number already in all these years.” On the horror genre, he says, “It serves a specific purpose. It shows us our deepest fears and lets us delve into that in a safe way.”
Asked about his idols, he cites Stephen King as a genre influence, as well as Ray Bradbury with regard to style (although he was not part of the horror genre). Having always been a storyteller, shifting into the role of a writer then came naturally.
Nissim also notes that the novella format was something he consciously chose to write with. While exceeding the length of the short story, he says that a full-length novel ends up with the problem that all the loose ends are tied up and the plot revealed but a novella can be left with open questions – something he has executed in a prominent fashion with the Pillar of the King. As far as writing habits are concerned, Nissim says that he writes when time permits (such as on the way to work) but also as inspiration comes to home. Both Brown Boy and the Pillar of the King were written in around a month, though the process of editing and refining them took a few more months.
On writing in the city of Bengaluru itself, he says, “The city you write about should be your Bangalore, not someone else’s.” Nissim has two more horror novellas in the pipeline, both of them making use of Bengaluru as a setting.
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