If The White Tiger was a searing portrait of ?an India of light and an India of darkness,? Aravind Adiga?s new novel Last Man in Tower puts the spotlight on Mumbai, maximum city, where he zeroes in on the greatest obsession the city has?real estate?and spins a devastating tale around it. ?The great Mumbai story is neither mafia nor Bollywood?it is real estate,? says Adiga. His debut novel The White Tiger won him the Booker Prize in 2008 and for a book that was panned in India it went on to sell 2,50,000 copies. But as Last Man in Tower, published by HarperCollins, hits Indian bookstores, Adiga tells FE?s Sudipta Datta what India and Mumbai mean to him and why he has decided not to write a book on contemporary India again. Excerpts:
You are a small-town person writing about the biggest?and probably the most challenging?city on the earth. When and how did you fall in love with Mumbai enough to write about it?
Mumbai is the most welcoming city on the earth to outsiders?the rents are high, and life can be harsh at first, but sooner or later everyone who stays here falls in love with the city. The ocean, the beaches, the cuisine, and the great history of this city?all of them enchant you. On a personal note, I arrived in Mumbai as an unemployed writer in late 2006, having quit my job at Time Inc to finish The White Tiger. I came with almost nothing, and within a year and a half, I had won the Booker Prize. Mumbai made me.
Anyone who has lived in Mumbai knows how important land or shelter is to its people. Is that why you chose to set your story around a housing complex, landlords, builders and middlemen?
From the day you arrive in Mumbai, you realise that real estate is a greater obsession here than anywhere else on the earth. Where you live, and how many square feet of living space you have, define you in a way than in any other city. People think of Mumbai as the city of cinema, but the real dream merchants here are the developers, who convince people to pay crores of rupees for a tiny flat in a skyscraper. Every evening on the trains, if you listen in, you?ll hear people talk about square feet, carpet area, 2-BHK, and 3-BHK. The great Mumbai story is neither mafia nor Bollywood?it is real estate.
And yet it fits into the larger Indian story as well, as the debate around land gets darker and more complex. Was this playing on your mind as well?
Mumbai is the laboratory of India, in many ways. Whatever happens here, will happen in other parts of India, too. In 2007, I read a newspaper article about an old building here in Mumbai which had received a fantastic offer of redevelopment; one old man in that building was opposed to the offer, and was holding up everyone else. I was fascinated by the core issue?does one man have the right to thwart the dreams of his neighbours? What is the greater democratic principle here: minority rights or the happiness of the majority? This seemed to be a crucial issue not just in Mumbai but in all of India.
In The White Tiger your spotlight was on the India left out of the mainstream. What are the characters you are drawn towards in Last Man in Tower?
The characters in Last Man in Tower are, for the most part, solidly middle class?these are the people I grew up with. Dharmen Shah, the developer, is a rich man. So I don?t think these characters are marginal. I was trying to shift my focus on to the middle class.
Some critics found The White Tiger one-dimensional. Were you conscious of this because most of the characters here are complex, not to talk of Masterji or even the landlord?
I think Dharmen Shah, the developer, is my favourite character. He is a surrogate for the writer, in one sense?because writing, like developing, is a transgressive, amoral act. You have to grab people’s life stories, mash them together, and construct something new, a novel. I don?t see Shah as the villain or Masterji as the hero. One does not represent old India and other does not represent new India. Masterji is an atheist, a free thinker, and he is modern in his own way, while Shah is superstitious, and traditional in some ways. Both of them are ?new men?. I think the clash between these characters is inevitable; the writer?s task is only to dramatise the conflict.
Are you concerned about the impact of globalisation on our society? Is the India growth story doubtful or is it just that you want to chronicle lives left out of it?
I do not think India is an unjust or unfair place. I was born here, raised here, I love it here, and do not want to live anywhere else. I am not an activist or a social critic. My stories come from within me. These are subjective narratives, and are explicitly presented as such. I thought that the framing device of The White Tiger, and the bombastic?even demented?tone of the narrator, would have made it clear to most readers that Balram Halwai was not me?his vision of life was schematic and limited, and it was not mine.
I do believe that the capitalist boom we are going through is releasing tremendous amounts of amoral energy?in the form of people like Balram Halwai (in The White Tiger) or Dharmen Shah (Last Man in Tower). I am both attracted to this new energy, and repulsed by it. I grew up in a very conservative small town in south India?my life was structured around shame and guilt. It was always ?don?t do this, the neighbours will talk, don?t do that, your headmaster will find out.? An India without shame or guilt?this new India around me?it both fascinates and worries me. My novels dramatise this ambivalence.
After a Booker win, how difficult is it to get back to writing?
The years after the Booker Prize have been some of the hardest of my life. The support of my friends helped me get through this period, and to keep writing during it, as did the backing of my publisher, V Karthika of HarperCollins India.
How difficult was it to research Last Man in Tower?
Most of this novel is set in a middle-class building in Vakola, Santa Cruz (East) that closely resembles the real building I stayed in during the writing of The White Tiger. So the research was just keeping my eyes and ears open. I did meet Mumbai developers, spoke to real-estate lawyers and activists, and consulted books, about some of the legal issues involved. But the main research was just going about the city and taking notes, since Mumbai is the real protagonist of the novel.
Who are the writers you are influenced by? Critics say you remind them of Dickens and Naipaul.
The writers I read as a child are the ones I keep coming back to?people like RK Narayan and George Orwell. These are greater novelists than I could ever hope to be, but I hope that by re-reading them, I can improve as a writer.
Were you surprised at The White Tiger?s reception in India despite most critics running it down?
The White Tiger has sold at least 2,50,000 copies in India?and many more in pirated copies. I am grateful for all the support I have received here. I am well aware that if I were living in any other country in South Asia, I?d probably be in jail by now for having written a book like it. I am more grateful than ever to live in a liberal, tolerant, multicultural nation like India.
What do we expect from you next, another India unshining book?
I don?t think any of my books has been about India unshining?it is an unfair charge, and one that wounds me. I love India very much and I don?t wish to hurt people. I?ve decided not to write about contemporary India. I?ll write an inter-generational novel about arranged marriages set in the 1950s?the publishers will give me crores of rupees, people will line up for miles outside Crossword to see me, and everyone will be happy.
Extract
?The morning after the storm, Masterji paced about his living room. The compound was full of storm water and slush. He had just washed his brown trousers in the semi-automatic washing machine, and they would be flecked with red and black if he took even a few steps outside.
He knocked on Mrs Puri?s door, hoping for a cup of tea and some conversation.
?You?ve become a stranger to us, Masterji,? Mrs Puri said, when she opened the door. ?But we have to go to SiddhiVinayak temple soon, Ramu and I. Let us talk tomorrow.?
It was true that his neigbours had not seen much of Masterji lately.
Parliament no longer met because of the rains; and, in any case, all the talking now took place behind closed doors. A hush of covert business had fallen over a garrulous Society. Amidst the silent germination of schemes and ambitions all around him, Masterji sat like a cyst, looking at the rain and his daughter?s drawings of Vakola, or playing with his Rubik?s cube, until there was a knock on the door and Mr Pinto shouted, ?Masterji, we are waiting, it?s time for dinner.?
A man?s past keeps growing, even when his future has come to a full stop.
Though the men and women around him dreamed of bigger homes and cars, his joys were those of the expanding square footage of his inner life. The more he looked at his daughter?s sketches, the more certain places within Vishram?the stairwell where she ran up, the garden that she walked around, the gate that she liked to swing on?became more beautiful and intimate. Sounds were richer. A scraping of feet somewhere in the building reminded him of his daughter wiping her tennis shoes on the coir mat before coming in. Sometimes he felt as if Sandhya and Purnima were watching the rain with him, and there was a sense of feminine fullness inside the dim flat.
Published with permission from HarperCollins India
Last Man in Tower
Aravind Adiga
HarperCollins India
Rs 432
Pp 658
