India in Its Entirety Remains Elusive to Most Writers: Aroon Raman

Talking Books with ‘Skyfire’ author Aroon Raman.

We all want to know what our favourite authors read. There is this sense of camaraderie in knowing that they also love reading authors we love to read and dislike reading authors we don’t think much of. I think it stems from a place of familiarity and comfort.

Aroon Raman is one of the country’s prolific historic thriller writers and has now written Skyfire, which almost has one foot in the past and another in the future. Here is him talking to us about his favourite books, what he reads when not working, and what he reads when he is.

Q: What books are currently on your night stand?

Aroon Raman: I read eclectically and I have a number of books across a variety of genres piled up on my sideboard next to the bed. A sampling:

Fiction: The Magicians by Lev Grossman - A Harry Potter-ish tale of a magic school and its inhabitants.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Marquez - Strangely have not got around to this masterpiece despite its presence on my bookshelf for a long time, but decided now’s the time!

Rishi Moolam by Jayakanthan - This is a set of two disturbing and profound short stories by the Tamil writer Jayakanthan who passed away recently. The brilliant translation is by KS Subramanian.

Non-Fiction: Indica by Pranay Lal - A wonderfully illustrated account of the geological origins of the Indian sub-continent.

From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman - Arguably the best introduction to the convoluted politics of the Middle-East that has ever been written in recent times.

The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf - A critically acclaimed life of the great explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Q: What was the last good book that you read?

Aroon Raman: Mohammad Ali: The Life and Times by Gerald Hauser. A wonderful account of an epochal life. I also revisited the The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan - one of the great action novels of the 20th century.

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Q: What genres do you love reading and which are the ones that you avoid?

Aroon Raman: I read across the board. But my favourites are thriller, detective and adventure novels.

However, I tend to avoid psychologically and socially involved novels, especially those involving the Indian diaspora. I find it hard to get under the skin of the characters and a lot of it seems self-serving, regurgitated stuff. With several honourable exceptions, of course!

Q: If you had to give every Indian a book to read at this time, which one would it be and why?

Aroon Raman: Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh. Every Indian has to re-acquaint himself or herself with Partition as a prism to situate the present state of the nation.

Q: Which books according to you explain the current situation in India most appropriately?

Aroon Raman: I can think of none which do so. It’s my view that very few commentators (if any) understand the country deeply enough and that’s partly due to its very rapidly changing dynamics at every level. Few predicted the recent UP elections and fewer still are able to hazard any vision of what the future will bring.

There are books on economics, social analyses, politics, but none are able to give us a compelling feel of the nation as a whole and what is shaping contemporary India in its entirety. It is as if we are seeing just a series of super-imposed images on a screen, each blurring into the other, giving us a hazy picture. India in its entirety remains elusive – at least to all writers and columnists that I follow.

Q: What books people would be surprised to find on your shelf?

Aroon Raman: I’m predictable in my tastes!

Q: Which is one of your favourite books that most people haven’t heard of?

Aroon Raman: Watership Down by Richard Adams. This extraordinary classic adventure story was written in the 1970s and has gone on to sell millions of copies right down to the present day – but I still find most people I talk to haven’t heard of it.

Q: What do you read when you are working on your books? What kind of reading do you avoid while writing?

I read a number of non-fiction that sort of pertain to the plot/backdrop of the thriller I’m working on at any given moment. This is not just for the research, but also for nuggets that crop up and inform the plot. For example, when writing my latest thriller, Skyfire, my research on child kidnapping as also weather manipulation threw up several other facts that I could introduce into the plot to make it more gripping.

I generally avoid reading other thrillers when I write as it tends to throw me slightly off-balance mentally to absorb myself in the same genre that I am writing in.

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Q: How do you organise your books?

Aroon Raman: Completely at random. But this is giving me headaches as I’m often unable to locate specific volumes. I have a resolution this year to bring order to my bookshelf – by ordering the books by subject matter: history, biography, spy fiction, adventure and the like. But doing it on my growing Kindle collection is something I haven’t figured out!

Q: You are organising a literary party. Which 5 living authors would you invite and why?

Thomas Kinneally - author of Schindler’s List, arguably the best oral storyteller I’ve met; William Dalrymple – his presentations of his books are splendid and absorbing as I’ve had occasion to experience in many of the lit-fests; Tarun Chhabra – author of The Toda Landscape, the greatest living authority on the Todas of the Nilgiris and a wonderfully evocative speaker whose work speaks to the whole of a life lived for a higher purpose; Pranay Lal – author of Indica, he’s someone I have never met, but given the depth and scope of his book, seems a must-meet-and-hear author; MT Vasudevan Nair – the titan of Malayali literature. I had the fortune of listening to him at last year’s Ooty Litfest. A deep, if reluctant, speaker, whose talk was filled with nuggets of insight and wisdom.

Q: Whom would you want to write your life story?

Aroon Raman: No ambitions on this whatsoever!

Q: What books are going to be read next?

Aroon Raman: I’m going to revisit old classics in Indian literature. Writings of Mahashweta Devi, Asokamitran, Kalki. I’ve also made a resolution to read some the masters of modern Hindi pulp that have sold millions of copies unlike us English writers!! A good example is Surinder Mohan Pathak.

(Vivek Tejuja is a bibliophile who breathes, eats and lives books.)

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