At the second edition of the Crime Literature Festival in India in Dehradun, writer Surendra Mohan Pathak won the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the genre of crime writing with over 300 novels. Pathak chats with Garima Sadhwani about his work. Edited excerpts:
Why did you start writing crime fiction in the first place? Where did your inspiration come from?
There was no inspiration as such. I started writing crime fiction as a job. I worked a government job too, but every chance I got, I’d start writing a novel. When I began, there was no destination in my mind that I want to write 200 books or 300 books. Writing gives me happiness and I love it.
My inspiration actually came later when my audience and my readers started appreciating me. The reception I received was my inspiration. If they rejected me, I would have been no one and nowhere.
Does writing about crime take a toll on the author as well?
I don’t have to go into graphic detail about the crime or the act of violence. I wrote crime books but the crime was always used as a peripheral tool. My stories would begin after the crime had already happened, because the reader is not interested in gory details; they are interested in the mystery that follows in solving the murder.
What do you think about the evolution of crime literature? You had said a few years ago that crime writing is not taken seriously in India, do you think that is changing now?
Crime writing was, for the longest time, considered an ugly aspect of the literary world. Now, a lot more writers have started writing crime fiction. Many of these are the same people who used to say that crime writing is not good writing.
The attitude of writers and critics have both changed. But I’ve always been saying that the way crime writing was looked at was uncalled for. Even if some people didn’t like it, a vast majority of people actually read crime fiction because they found it interesting. This, of course, was an advantage for writers like me who kept publishing crime fiction books despite what the others said.
Going ahead too, there’s great scope in crime fiction for all mediums. This genre will only grow in the future.
How has your writing evolved?
I’ve always followed a basic structure while writing. My stories and characters have only changed when I felt my readers have had enough of this kind of writing. The diversification of my stories has always been reader-driven. I don’t write for myself, I write for my readers.
Do you still write as actively?
Not anymore. I barely write half of what I used to back in the day.