Writer’sBlock
Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty is one of my favourite children’s books. After reading it, I wanted my parents to buy me a horse.
QDescribe your favourite writing space?
I write at my desk facing a blank white wall, sitting on a not-too-comfortable armless chair. Writing can often be a bit like tooth-pulling so the idea is to get it over and done with, and get on with the rest of my day.QDo you have a writing schedule?
I usually write at night when there are no more excuses left to distract myself with.QEver struggled with writer’s block?
Any writing that one gets done is chipped out from writers’ “block”.QWhat inspires you to write? Do you have a secret trick, or a book/author that helps?
All kinds of things. Bits that appear in newspapers, shameless eavesdropping in public places, watching people, films, but mostly a piece of great prose. When I am stuck I read good writing to get inspired.QCoffee/tea/cigarettes – numbers please – while you are writing?
Nothing. It all counts as distraction.QWhich books are you reading at present?
Vinod Mehta’s Lucknow Boy: A Memoir, and Letters From a Stoic by Lucius Annaeus Seneca.QWho are your favourite authors?
J.M. Coetzee, Philip Michael Ondaatje, David Remnick, John Banville, Donna Tartt.QWhich book/author should be banned on grounds of bad taste?
Books should not be banned, no matter how egregious they may be.QWhich is the most under-rated book?
Maggi Lidchi-Grassi’s outstanding retelling of the Mahabharata remains sadly neglected.QWhich are your favourite children’s books?
When I was a child, I won Shankar’s Sujata aur Jangli Haathi as a prize in some competition. It’s a wonderful book about the bond between this girl and a wild elephant. Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty was another book after reading which I wanted my parents to buy me a horse. Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena’s limericks also tickled me no end: Gali, gali naacha karti thi ladki ek Natasha/Garam tawe par paer pad gaya, woh ban gayi batasha/Gora-chitta rang uska hui phool ke kuppa/Use dekha karta tha maali ka beta chuppa/Ek roz uske upar kuch aisi shaamat aayi/Phisla paer, giri paani mein/Di phir nahi dikhai.QWhich classics do you want to read?
The Russians by Hedrick Smith, and for the last four years I have been trying to finish Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. Regrettably I’ve not gone past page 60.QWho is your favourite literary character?
Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby.QWhich is the funniest book you have read?
It has to be more than one. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim and certain parts of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall.QWhich is the most erotic book you have read?
Would lines from Andrew Marvell’s poem, To his Coy Mistress, count? “The grave’s a fine and quiet place, but none I think do there embrace.” Very persuasive.QWhich book do you wish you had written?
Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. It’s a thing of beauty.
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