How Tharoor wrote his books against all odds
Ashwani Kumar
abu dhabi — Shashi Tharoor’s love for language is well known. He has authored 18 bestselling works of fiction and non-fiction. What many do not know is how he penned his first novel — while having to handle his twins who were the ‘world’s most terrible sleepers’.
For the Indian politician, writer and former diplomat, it was while working in the UN that the satirical novel The Great Indian Novel came to be.
“It was the 1980s. I had small twins. And when they would sleep for a few hours — they were the world’s most terrible sleepers as babies — that was when I would write,” he told the audience at the first Hay Festival in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.
He termed his first novel as a ‘hugely ambitious task’, which he had a lot of fun finishing.
Managing his works at the UN and love for writing was difficult, he said. “Fiction requires a sustained commitment. I found that my laptop was littered with half-begun manuscripts. It was ridiculous.”
That was when he switched to non-fiction with the next 14 books. “Non-fiction was interruptible. If you were caught in middle of crisis at work and returned to what you were writing, since it’s your own thoughts, you would know where your mind was heading and you could pick the arguments, even if it was a week later.”
His non-fiction works include Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India, The Paradoxical Prime Minister and The Elephant, The Tiger and the Cellphone.
Hay Festival will continue at Manarat Al Saadiyat till Friday.
‘Sense of horror as Delhi burns’
Tharoor said he was ‘hurt’ by clashes in the capital city of New Delhi. He said there was a
‘sense of horror’ as opponents and supporters of India’s new citizenship engaged in clashes that left at least 21 dead.
Tharoor was apologetic about being at Hay Festival when Delhi is burning. The present-day India, he said, isn’t the one he grew up in and cherished.
“It hurts to see this happen to my country,” he said.
Fiction requires a sustained commitment. I found that my laptop was littered with halfbegun manuscripts.”
Shashi Tharoor
Indian politician, writer, former diplomat