No story exists for me without a context, and that’s where politics comes in. The politics of religious communalism or difference has always been on my mind since my first visit to India.
Novelist’s story of love and politics knows no borders
A Delhi Obsession
M.G. Vassanji
Penguin Random House
Toronto’s two-time Giller Prize winner M.G. Vassanji’s latest novel, A Delhi Obsession, follows widowed Toronto writer Munir Khan on a journey to India in search of connection. Once in Delhi he discovers a city and a woman of contrasts. It’s with that woman, the married Mohini Singh, that he begins a love affair.
A beautiful tale that travels effortlessly between Canada and India, A Delhi Obsession delivers a love story set in the midst of rising modern Hindu nationalism and the lurking threats from fanatics. It is both a timely and timeless story.
Vassanji, who was born in Nairobi and raised in Tanzania, took some time out of his travel schedule to answer a few questions about his work and his new book.
Q How do you go about starting a new book?
A Just an idea, which ferments for some time, maybe a few years, until I feel that it is a time to commit.
Q I believe this is your seventh novel. Does it get any easier?
A I don’t think so. Research is easier because you can find stuff, including maps, online. And you can purchase books or find out about them. I remember carrying historical tomes from Robarts Library (at the University of Toronto) in dead winter. But the writing — maybe a little, one becomes more proficient, though that in itself is scary. You lose rawness and authenticity, might begin to sound like a product from a writing seminar. It’s hardest when I’ve finished, and have to go over it, because I must.
Q This book is a multi-layered story of passion, rebirth, political commentary and faith. So with so much on the plate I was wondering which story or narrative came first and sort of pulled the train?
A The love story, I think, but no story exists for me without a context, and that’s where politics comes in. The politics of religious communalism or difference has always been on my mind since my first visit to India. The Delhi setting — there’s also a Toronto setting — also came early on, when I thought it would be fun to set a novel in this club I’ve been staying at for the last decade or so. It cried out for a novel.
Q It’s interesting how the private Delhi Recreational Club (a major setting in the novel) has a sort of historical holdover. Why did you want to use a club like this in the novel?
A It’s a scene I know well and came almost at the same time as the idea for the novel. It provided a microcosm in which such a passion can be set neatly. A story about two people. Any other setting would call for a bigger novel, which I did not conceive. There was a lot to focus on emotions and history to explore, the tensions in the relationship, Munir’s relationship with his past. And of course, Mohini’s conflicts.
Q This affair between Munir and married Mohini moves quite quickly. Why is that?
A I conceived of a short, focused novel. The two of them live far apart, and a longer novel would have required many visits by Munir, over several years. That didn’t seem practical. And the politics of cow-protection and women’s virtue-protection were immediate. I had just read Death in Venice, which is a short novel. There’s an Indian novel Samskara, about a love across caste lines, and that is short.
Q Mohini is both modern and traditional. Is she a kind of metaphor for the city, for India perhaps?
A I didn’t think of that consciously. But of course the idea applies to India — sending rockets to the moon and Mars, and looking for modern scientific advances in the ancient scriptures. There are many examples. As far as Mohini is concerned, I am aware of quite a few women like that — going to university to teach William Blake, returning home to make chapatis and coaching their kids.
Q Would you say you and Munir share geographical similarities? What else do you and he have in common? Is he like you?
A Our Indian backgrounds are very different — Punjabi versus Gujarati. But I knew enough about Nairobi to be able to place him there. He is like me in much of his thinking.
Q I don’t want to ruin the ending, but wow. What led you to such a dramatic finish?
A The recent divisive politics is so alien to the India many of us have loved, and so hurtful — the violence has been so gross on one hand and casual on the other — I decided that this was not the time to sound ambiguous or be subtle or draw epiphanies. I would be extra-literary if need be.
Q When you think about India, what comes to mind first?
A Gee — as they say. Or used to say. There’s no one thing. Satyajit Ray. Gandhi. The moment when I first stepped down on Indian soil and wondered what had changed. Reading about the violence of the “riots” during that first visit and how shaken I was. The Indian mystical songs we were taught as part of our religious teaching.
Q What do your two Giller Prizes and the many other award nods you have received mean to you?
A I suppose they mean recognition that I’ve done a good job. Prizes are good for promotion, and that’s what today’s fiction writing has become, to a large extent. But they are also a trap. And they are agony, because you know you do not write for prizes, yet once shortlisted, you can only want to win — even when you know it’s a crapshoot, as Mordecai Richler would say.
Q What are you reading for pleasure these days?
A For pleasure I read mystery novels. I’ve rediscovered Agatha Christie and learned to appreciate her; and I really like Georges Simenon’s Maigret novels. I’ve read all of John le Carré, some of them more than once. But for writing that stirs me and makes me jealous, I’m currently reading José Saramago’s The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.