‘I’m interested in the overheard, misheard, or noticed things’

Amit Chaudhuri talks about switching genres and mediums, and his bittersweet relationship with the city he grew up in.

5 min readFeb 11, 2014 12:14 AM IST First published on: Feb 11, 2014 at 12:14 AM IST

In Mumbai recently to launch his book, Telling Tales, an anthology of his non-fiction works, Amit Chaudhuri talks about switching genres and mediums, and his bittersweet relationship with the city he grew up in

Telling Tales: Selected Writings, 1993-2013, is an anthology of your non-fiction work. How did you decide on its contents?
It’s partly my insistence but also the editors’ decision. It is unlike my earlier book (Clearing a Space) of critical essays arguing for a way of writing, clearing a space for authors like myself who are at an angle to a mode of Indian writing in English, which seems to be conflated sometimes to historical writing or epic narrative. Here, one of the things to explore was if everything that has consciously or otherwise preoccupied me as a writer can be written about. Which is why it also includes some aborted projects. I’ve always been interested in the overheard, misheard, or noticed things. My columns in various publications have essentially been about those; many of them are a part of this book.

You grew up in Mumbai. Do you still have a connection with the city?
It’s a city that I arrive into thinking of the roads that I have travelled thousands of times, but also look upon it as a ghost because I have no place here. Also, living in Kolkata has in some ways made it clear to me how much I was formed by Bombay. Some of the most egalitarian writers I look up to are from here, such as Nissim Ezikiel and Arun Kolatkar.
The Bombay I grew up in wasn’t so much connected with power or money. It was then a socialistic state, so there was only so much money one would have. But some things used to put me off as well, like the emphasis on English. As someone who had learnt about the richness of Bengali at home, I realised there was no recognition of this whatsoever in Bombay. People who spoke in Marathi were called vernacular — a word that’s been turned into a term of mockery.

How, then, didn’t Bengali become your language as a writer?
To do so, one should know the language well. I didn’t learn Bengali at school; at home I learnt it only fitfully. There was, however, a point before I went to the UK to study when I started to learn it seriously from a private tutor. I also started writing prose and poems, but then I left for the UK and that stopped.
What language you should write in is also a red herring. I believe people are bilingual just as they are creative in more than one form. But different languages close down certain opportunities and open others. I suppose, I would write differently in Bengali than in English because you become a different person when you speak in a different language.

How did you retain strong roots with your culture, which forms a large part of your writings?
My parents contributed to that. My father remained grounded despite his success in the corporate world and my mother, who is a musician, is now being recognised as a significant singer of Rabindranath Tagore’s songs. At 15, I didn’t understand modern European poets but I had this love for modern poetry, which I didn’t realise at the time. I also felt angry with the way English was the sole marker of educational sophistication in the city and of wealth in the ’70s. These are some of the ideas that formed me and I reacted against.

How do you switch between being a writer and a musician, and how do you submit to each with honesty?
I was quickly drawn to writing as a child because it was concurrent with education, literally so. I was very unhappy in school. When I was in kindergarten, my parents would speak to me in Bangla and I spoke in Hindi to the help.
It was at Cathedral that I learnt English through comics and Ladybird books. As for music, I started learning guitar and Western pop in the early years. By 16, I was learning Hindustani classical. My impulses have been fitful and I have surrendered to each. The whole business of becoming a professional novelist was an anathema to me. I won’t be happy sticking to one form.