“I write about eating oranges on the rooftops in Gangtok more than anything else”

PRAJWAL PARAJULY IN CONVERSATION WITH NOW!

Intro: Prajwal Parajuly has become the youngest Indian to sign an international book deal. An alumnus of Tashi Namgyal Academy, Gangtok, he agreed to an interview with NOW! on his writing and his inspirations...

NOW: How did the interest in writing develop? And how did you arrive on the theme of Nepaliness to stitch your stories together?

PRAJWAL: The interest in writing was probably always there. I went to TNA and was fortunate to have some excellent English teachers. A weekly called the “Weekend Review” was launched when I was in Class Nine. I’ve always maintained that two big events made reading cool for Gangtok kids -- the launch of the Weekend Review and the reopening of Rachna Books in its present avatar. The Weekend Review was a newsweekly, but it had Crossword competitions, caption contests and encouraged submissions by young people. I happened to be among the youngsters whose writing career the paper may have unknowingly launched. What puerile articles I wrote, and what fun it was to write for a publication that almost every senior student in school read. The recognition that comes your way in a small town like Gangtok when you’re barely 15 was incentive enough to keep writing. Mr. DS Nadik at TNA also appointed me the editor-in-chief of the school’s newsletter when I was in Class 12. See, these little things added up. There were people out there encouraging you in ways big and small.

The theme of Nepaliness was a natural thing for me to do. My family is from Kalimpong, I grew up in Gangtok, and my mother is from Nepal. I knew well about life in these places, and encapsulating what I knew in a book seemed like the right thing to do.

Something about growing up in Gangtok... Now that you are a global citizen, what is the connect you feel with ‘home’?

Gangtok is always home. I write about eating oranges on the rooftops in Gangtok more than anything else! It’s easy to take what you have for granted. I think people should be more appreciative of Gangtok. Look at what’s happening to Manali and Mussourie. We are perhaps the only hill station in the nation that’s not going downhill. And look at how far along we’ve come in the last decade. Gangtok may not have the beauty that God bestowed on, say, Mussourie or Ooty, but we decided to take matters in our own hands -- the cleanliness, the garbage collections, the MG Marg are all good examples.

I grew up in a simpler Gangtok - the time you headed to Tripti’s to eat pastries, to Cafe Tibet for pizzas and ate aloo-chewra until you had an upset tummy. The people were content, stress-free and lived well. Gangtok to me is the happiest place in the world. We have faced big challenges this year, and the way we’ve tried to overcome them has been heart-warming. The way people, especially the youth, participated was wonderful. The Sept. 18 group on Facebook and Friends of Rachna, among various other groups, were successful in rallying so much support. How tight-knit we are as a community is evidenced in the fact that villagers were engaged in rescue efforts far before the NDRF was. How do I know all this? Simply because the more global one becomes, the more conscious one becomes of one’s background, language, culture, etc. In a sense, and I don’t know if I sound silly here, the more global one becomes, the more local one gets.

Who are your inspirations in the literary field?

Vladmir Nabakov, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Tom Wolff, PG Wodehouse. We also read some amazing Nepali stories in our ICSE textbooks. Indrabahadur Rai’s “Kheer” comes to mind.

The book-signing has admittedly been a dream come true for you. When was it that you seriously started considering the possibility of getting published and what was your immediate reaction when it came through?

It was an exciting time, of course. Once we could gauge the interest the book triggered in publishing circles, Susan Yearwood, my agent, and I became sure that we’d get one of our preferred publishing houses. I Googled Jon Riley, the editor-in-chief of Quercus, before meeting him and immediately liked what I saw -- the man had been editor in chief at Faber and Faber (a publisher I have great respect for) and had been editor to a ton of writers whose works I highly respected. Once we discussed how he worked with his writers and how I preferred to work with my editor, I realized we were the perfect fit. The rights, money and other stuff, Susan handled. Thank God I don’t have to deal with all those things. I was in Gangtok for a five-day stay when news arrived that the contract was only waiting for my signature. Because it took a good month and a half for the terms of the agreement to be finalized, there wasn’t a moment of “Oh, yes, this is it. It’s done.” I now realize things happened a lot quicker for me that do for other writers. The publishing world moves so sluggishly. I am thankful I didn’t have to spend too much time waiting.

The Lhotsampa issue is not something that one gets to read about in India media, and yet, some of your stories feature the Bhutan situation. How did you discover that thread and what convinced you to include stories about the Nepalis of Bhutan?

Yes, one of my stories is about the Bhutanese refugee situation. I’ve always wondered why the Indian media has not covered the story as well and as frequently as they should have. Here is a real situation that has displaced 1,06,000 people, it has real repercussions, but we’d much rather cover the royal wedding and gush about what a beautiful couple the king and his bride make. It’s frustrating!

What’s next?

For now, I will work on the second book, after which I don’t know. I have a few small plans like writing a screenplay, perhaps writing a children’s book or teaching. What I really want to do -- and as big a project as it may be, I’d like to do it with my own money -- is to start a centre for the brightest among the poorest children of Sikkim and Gorkhaland. What would happen if these children were all brought together in a comfortable house and sent to the best schools in the region? What needs to be made clear to these is that each one of them, once grown up and financially stable, needs to, in turn, “sponsor” ten other brightest among the poorest children. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot these days. People often ask me of the feasibility of the idea, and I think if started small and managed well, it can work very well. I like that the Sikkim government has been instrumental in picking out bright students from disadvantaged backgrounds and admitting them into the best schools in the country. A good education goes a long way, and I am glad the higher ups recognize it now.