Between Reading and Writing
You can read a hundred novels, yet writing one is a different experience. He started writing his first novel with a vague story in mind; he was not sure how to write a novel in the first place. The best way to make a start was to create character sketches; characters he would see around him in his daily life. It was only in the second draft, he attempted to connect the characters and then the story unfolded.
Musharraf Ali Farooqi is a Pakistani-Canadian writer, translator and journalist. Unlike his first novel, his latest work ‘Between Clay and Dust’ was written with a different approach which started with a plot and then the characters unfolded. The author considers ‘Between Clay and Dust’ to be his most important work so far - it took him ten years to complete the novel.
Even though my shelves are filled with books, I have considered reading novels to be a waste of time – until last weekend. It was then, my good friend Anil Emage asked me to focus on fiction along with other books I normally read related to leadership, management, etc. The idea was to give flair of storytelling to my writing. Anil gave me S. Aini’s Bukhara: Reminiscences and I purchased Sidney Sheldon’s The Sands of Time and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening from the bookstore. Like S. Aini tells in his book about his ‘first spiritual revolution’ after reading Akhmad Donesh’s Remarkable Events, reading the novels gave similar feeling to me.
It was at this time an opportunity opened up to attend a Book Reading session in SAP Labs Bangalore campus as part of their author-interaction club. The book-reading club coordinated by Mr Sumeet Shetty, Program Manager at SAP Labs, in the words of Lipika Bhushan of Harper Collins is “sort of unique” and highly organised. The club has so far invited writers with varied taste and outlook – the names include Mark Tully, Vikas Swarup, Anita Nair, Shashi Deshpande, Shobhaa De, Alice Albinia, Abhijit Bhaduri, Advaita Kala, Mukul Kesavan, Rana Dasgupta, Sarnath Banerjee and CP Surendran.
Thanks to Global Shapers Karnataka; even though the book reading session is a closed event, students of several colleges got a chance to be a part of it, where they interacted with the author, and got the complementary books signed by the author.
It is at this event which happened on 13th of April 2012, that I met Musharraf Ali Farooqi. His face was unearthly peaceful; he was witty and shared important chapters of his life and work with the group. The author spoke about the hardships of translating the Urdu classics, The Adventures of Amir Hamza (2007, Modern Library) without a grant or any publisher in the vicinity. Musharraf Ali Farooqi appreciates authors who experiment with their writing; let it be in terms of their style and the subjects; it is something which he has done from his first novel to the latest work.
I felt like a student again waiting to get his book ‘The Amazing Moustaches of Moochhander, the Iron Man and Other Stories’ signed. My first book reading session was an amazing experience. Like the journey between the clay (birth) and dust (end), one need to travel a bit from reading to writing; there are experiences that you need to gather, characters you need to observe and be open to accept the hardships and move on.
* A chat with the author on Twitter
