After Sunset

Here's my interaction with writer Sudeep Chakravarti, who has brought to the fore the dark underbelly of a land we only admire for it's sun and sands, in his book Once Upon a Time in Aparanta

"Goa has its charm and follies, its greed and grouses, its colourful characters and peerless natural beauty, debates of a colonial past and post-colonial future, and its seamy side that can rival any banana republic. Goa is larger than life, almost fantastic," writer Sudeep Chakravarti says. With palpable passion, he talks about the land that forms the subject and setting of Once Upon a Time in Aparanta, his second novel after Tin Fish (a story about a turbulent time in India's history told through a growing up saga of a bunch of boys) and Red Sun (a non-fiction work about Marxist revolutions in India). "Once Upon… questions the idea of 'paradise' and what happens when a self-proclaimed 'paradise' comes to face itself in themirror. In the end, it is, for me, a celebration of spirit, it's as if the land has had enough, and wants to reclaim itself from marauders and abusers," he continues, summing up the premise of his book. Chakravarti's long journalistic career and his zeal for intimate story-telling come together beautifully to create a rich, nuanced world ofcolours, flavours, smells and characters that inhabit the "timeless" Eden, and to make an earnest plea to save this paradise from losing its soul. What comes through clearly is his deep personal and intellectual association of 20 years (he moved to Goa in mid-2004) with the "land at the horizon"."While the discovery of the soul of Goa is an ongoing process, and one that will likely take a lifetime, living here has increased manifold myengagement with Goa. This is natural and organic. It is vital to me. And it impelled me to tell this story," he says, dismissing critics who accusehim of being an 'outsider' writing a book on Goa and questioning its institutions. The story, though lyrical, sets out to create an impact. Though the book's primary target readers are those, for whom, the story evokes a personal nostalgia of Goa and who can actually help save it, Chakaravarti tells us of interesting responses he got from non-natives. "In Mumbai, it was interesting to see the actor Tom Alter, who read brilliantly from the book at its launch, be moved to speak of his childhood home of Mussourie, another 'paradise' that has experienced the cycle of death and partial resurrection. The expatriates as well as others, who've visited or lived in Goa or such 'paradises' across the globe, were present at the launch. They knew exactly the context of the book," he states. Chakravarti knows the impact that a journalistic article or a well-researched piece of non-fiction can have. Yet, he chose fiction to address a contemporary socio-political problem. "To tell the story that I wanted to, bring alive the son et lumiere aspect of Goa, discuss society, history and politics, portray anger and aspiration, expose the rot and provide a platform to the future, it had to be fiction. The genre of fiction provided the necessary distance from daily happenings and imbue soul. A novel takes a story beyond the boundaries of a particular publication's readership," he explains. So was there, at any point, a conflict between the well-informed journalistic trying to make a point and the impassioned story-teller trying to bring alive a world of characters and their relationships? "Only in the beginning, as I wrote the first draft. I realised that sometimes, reportage was seeping deeply into the narrative. While reportage is vital as it provides authentic background, colour, speech patterns and such, I had to tone down the baldness of plain fact to weave it into the story," he replies. The writer is currently working on the second book in the Tin Fish trilogy and is planning two more novels, and a collection of short stories.