Bali and the Ocean of Milk

"A mysterious ailment afflicts Indrah, reducing the  omnipotent king of the gods to, well, not quite the man he used to be. To add to his woes, the Holy Trinity threaten to fire him for dereliction of duty. But Indrah’s troubles wilt in comparison to those of his asura counterpart, Bali, ruler of Tripura. Even as Indrah's its fretting over his delicate health, an assassination attempt on Bali leaves the asura on the brink of death.There is only one thing that can save both these men from certain doom: amrit, the mythical nectar. But to secure it, the gods and the asuras will have to cooperate and churn the Ocean of Milk together… Will Indrah and Bali be able to put aside their ancient enmity, or will old rivalries keep them from pulling off this epic feat? Bali and the Ocean of Milk reimagines the eternal conflict between the gods and the asuras in a  whacky thriller littered with bad jokes and corpses."Full disclosure: Nilanjan works for the Azim Premji Foundation. I had read the manuscript when he was still scouting for a publisher. I loved his irreverent sense of humor and the not so thinly veiled digs at actors on the political stage - past and present using mytholgy as a garb. So I have endorsed the book. I thought I would chat with Nilanjan about his methodology and beliefs about writing. So here goes.Abhijit: Describe your process of writing. Do you write every day? On weekends.? At your desk? In a different spot every day? On a laptop? By Hand?Nilanjan: In a word - opportunistic. I write wherever and whenever I manage to find some time - which doesn't come easy with a full blown job, family and occasional forays into theater. In short, and regrettably, there are no patterns to my writing at all. In my previous job I used to travel a lot and I wrote a fair bit on the unending journey to Bangalore airport (in the back seat of cabs), at airports, flights and hotels. I also try and make maximum use of weekends and holidays and end up getting dirty looks from family and friends. Most of my writing is done on the laptop.

Abhijit: What can one do train oneself to write better?

Nilanjan: I think one should be completely non-critical and non-judgmental of one's writing in the first draft and let the thoughts and words just flow out, however awful they may seem. Then re-write it all over again - this time with a high degree of intolerance for anything shoddy, shaky or suspect in the language, characters, motivations and so on.Secondly, like someone said, writing a novel is akin to crossing the Pacific alone on a bath tub. The temptation to stop or turn back can be very high. Put another way, starting a novel is a bit like giving up smoking - its so easy that you can do it many times.  But it's important to stay the course and finish what's started - and that requires discipline and self-belief (both of which I am personally short on). Finally, reading widely and regularly is very important.

Abhijit: Who is your competitor? What do you do better than competition? Who is better than you in the same genre?

Nilanjan: I don't think I ever thought of that at all - just getting to play the game seemed good enough until now. However since Bali was launched, several people have compared the book with other mythology based writing that has come out recently - "Aah I see - just like Amish Tripathi's Meluha series" is an almost instantaneous reaction. Devdutt Pattnaik and Ashok Banker's names have also figured in such conversations.However, at the risk of sounding like some Hindi movie starlet, I would venture to say that Bali is different. If there is a genre like "mythological satire/black comedy",  I suppose that's the closest that it gets to. Or at least, that's the way it was conceived, designed and written - a few examples of what I think are the points of departure (and deliberately so) from other such writing - mythological "accuracy" is unimportant to me. The purpose of  mythology has been to trigger the imagination, to juxtapose the familiar with the new and provide colour and fragrance. Puns, word-play, PJs and situational comedy are used in what is essentially a political allegory about power and its pursuit.I don't think that there are too many Indian books like that. Internationally, Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud, could be considered as good representation of the genre that Bali aspires to belong to - of course, I would be the first to acknowledge that Bali is nowhere close to being as good as Bartimaeus but then one can always dream...and try, right ?On a different note, TV, the internet, films and trashy newspapers are really the main competitors to books these days.Abhijit: Do you have the entire or at least most of the story worked out and then write? Or do you write an outline, detail the characters etc kind of approach that some writers use? Nilanjan: Though my tale had some sort of wobbly spine when I started, I hadn’t plotted the entire story or all the characters from beginning to end. So the act of writing was a little bit like walking in the fog or a game of chess with visibility being limited to the next few steps or moves only. Characters emerged out of the fog, hazy to begin with but slowly sharpening and quickly taking on lives of their own, in a weird manner that Stephen King has described beautifully in his excellent book on writing. I also found it easier to think in terms of scenes or frames of a film and discovered that one frame often led to the next. But all said and done, I did have a basic outline and some of the major characters in mind when I started.Abhijit: Five books everyone must read before they die?Nilanjan: Tough one - here's a feeble attempt1. The Mahabharata2. The Old Man and the Sea3. The Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister Series (please count as one)4. Malgudi Days5. The Harry Potter Series (please count as one)****************************You can hear some excerpts from the book being read out <click here>

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