‘For me, the street is not to be evaded; it is to be enjoyed’

Could you give us a history of Peter and Jende? Do you intend to explore their collaboration further?
The story of Peter and Jende begins with Altaf Tyrewalla, who was editing an anthology called Mumbai Noir; he asked if I would like to write a story for it. I love noir in all its manifestations, whether it is French or American or the noir of Hindi films; I said yes immediately and then didn’t know how I could do it without a dead body at the heart of things. That’s how a short story called They happened.

When I was asked to write a story for the seventh anniversary edition of Time Out Mumbai, the second Peter and Jende story happened. And then Ravi Singh (publisher, Speaking Tiger) asked if there was a book in my head somewhere. This was around the time the Supreme Court, in its undiluted and magnificent wisdom, struck down the judgement of the Delhi High Court (reading down Section 377). Those two came together and Murder in Mahim was born.

The writing of Murder in Mahim was not easy, to say the least. I kept finding holes in my own story. How does he know that? Who led him to see that? Why does he say that? Each time, I had to work on a solution and then fit it in, as seamlessly as possible. I may be tempted again but it would need to be a huge temptation.

How much did your background as a journalist help?
At my classes in SCM Sophia, Mumbai, where I teach journalism, I always ask the students, what do you think a journalist needs? It’s a trick question, of course, because they start out by saying: a good vocabulary, a way with words, a love of truth. I think the answer lies in an ethical curiosity. Curiosity on its own is a savage force; it leads to gossip, it leads to invasion of privacy. But when you want to know what another person’s world is like, you ask questions, you talk to people, you find out, you write, you have turned the naturally evolved function of curiosity into an act of empathy. That’s the best part of our practice; and it is only when we forget it, that we turn rapacious. In all that I have done, in all that I have achieved, journalism has been central to my education. Just talking to people, just listening to them, just sitting with them and observing their worlds has made me aware of the sheer richness of human experience.

How did you train your eyes and ears to pick up the details around you?
I think one part of it is who I am. I want to know. I love the details. Another part is: I was born before the Walkman, the Discman, the iPod and the mobile phone. So I do not plug myself up to something and evade the street and the tedium of getting from A to B. For me, the street is not to be evaded; it is to be enjoyed. I don’t care too much about getting to B; I try to be punctual but I also try to work in enough time to stop and smell the sonchafa (magnolia champaca) under your feet or to take a breath, pause and look at Malabar Hill from Marine Drive; it will blaze through the summer.

What are the types of crime fiction that you enjoy reading?
I’m omnivorous. I can read George Simenon and I can read Elmore Leonard. I can read Agatha Christie and Patricia Cornwell. I loved The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin and Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time; I loved the deadly sins series by Lawrence Sanders; I loved Ed McBain and, in small doses, Andrew Vachss. I consume great big chunks of Nordic noir and Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. And then, the big questions surge up. Does The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh count as crime fiction? How about Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky? There’s a murder in Hamlet; and at the end of Othello, not to mention the bloodbath of Titus Andronicus: rape, mutilation and, finally, the cooking of someone’s children and serving them up in a pie to be eaten by the parents.

What do you think of the crime fiction scene in India?
We have a long and colourful history of crime writing; and while we’re on the subject of fiction, let me say, fact often has clear advantages. You couldn’t write Cyanide Mohan into a work of fiction. But what a non-fiction book it would make.

If you ask an author, are there enough readers, the answer is always going to be ‘no’. I think every book will find its reader but more books would find more readers, if we would simply invest more in libraries. How shameful it is that at a supra-uber-megapolis like Mumbai has no public library.

Over the years, you’ve written poetry, non-fiction and fiction and done translation, often simultaneously, it seems. What does it take to make these shifts?
You have to give yourself permission to fail. It’s not easy. When I started translating, I kept thinking: why are you doing this? Why not stick to what you know? When I got involved in MelJol (an NGO that works with children), I kept asking myself: how can you go to a village school and determine whether the kids understand what child rights mean? This does not mean that every risk I take has been successful. I have failed more often than I have succeeded. I have taken on jobs that were unsuited to my spirit simply because I thought I could. I have tried to write to demand. And I have often failed.

Do you feel there are certain kinds of crimes that are rarely addressed in our stories?
What is written about and what is read: which comes first? Why does Nirbhaya strike a chord and Khairlanji leave us cold? Is it because we like to read about ourselves or is it because we have been taught, inadvertently, that some lives have more meaning than others? Would we ever be able to write crime fiction about communal passions? Why has no one ever written a convincing account of the mind of a terrorist? The stories that are not told in crime fiction are the stories we won’t tell in any other mode or mould.

In what ways has your life changed since you published Em and the Big Hoom?
Em and the Big Hoom will always be my gold standard. I wrote it. I am proud of it. I am proud of the awards, all four of them. I love the fact that I get letters about it. I try to respond to every one of them.

But I like writing. So I will write on and try and ignore the pressures of expectation, most often generated within. I will try and have fun and say what I want and work with words and play with them and see where the next word takes me.

I am trying very hard not to believe that I need to write Em and the Big Hoom each time I sit down and write. I’d screw everything up if I did that.