by

Sanjay Austa

Tarun Tejpal… writing of love, sex, myth and fantasy

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, known for his acerbic comments and condemnations, is all praise for 'Alchemy of Desire' - the debut novel of his protégé and friend Tarun Tejpal.

Even when one is leafing past the last few pages of the 518-page tome, the ten-word endorsement on the dust jacket hovers over the reader like Caesar’s ghost. " At last –a new and brilliantly original novel from India." This ecstatic blurb seems somehow more overwhelming than the book itself. It bludgeons the reader to form a pre-conceived notion before he has turned the first page of the Alchemy of Desire the debut novel of Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal.

The gushing endorsement comes from none other than Nobel laureate Sir V. S. Naipaul. The venerable man of letters who is almost always introduced as the greatest living writer writing in English, is better known for his acerbic comments and condemnations not praise and plaudits.

Even the professional book reviewer is intimidated. After all, who can dare to contradict the I–know-it-all Naipaul. Little wonder that Tejpal is thrilled to bits by this extraordinary and uncharacteristic act of kindness from his muse, mentor and friend.

"Naipaul is not the kind of man who says or does anything he does not believe in. He does not need to. Every writer in the western world would give his or her writing arm to get an endorsement from him. But he has not done it. Therefore the statement means a lot to me," says Tejpal comfortably ensconced in his tastefully refurbished Tehelka office in Delhi’s upmarket Greater Kailash area.

Having got the pat on his back from Naipaul, Tejpal feels he has passed his litmus test of good writing. He can afford to junk the collective wisdom of the others reviewers and opinion makers. " I don’t think there is any culture of reviewing in India. I don’t much care for anyone’s opinion to be honest," he says.

So does Tejpal’s concoction of love, sex, colonial history, myth and fantasy in Alchemy of Desire measure up to the loaded Naipaul blurb? For a moment one has to pause. Did not Naipaul, sometimes in interviews to (who else) Tejpal himself maintain that he has neither time nor patience to read the Indian writers particularly the growing tribe of Indian writers writing in English? So with whom is Naipaul comparing Tejpal’s book?

" I’m sure he reads Indian writers. He may say he doesn’t and that he is not interested but I am sure a man like him keeps abreast of everything. He is one of the master’s of the twentieth century," says Tejpal.

But then this is not the first time Naipaul has contradicted himself. He famously declared the novel a dead form but went on to write a Half A Life a few years later. However everyone who reads the books knows his blurb is not so much in praise of Tejpal’s book as it is a sharp censure of other books by Indian writers.

Though Tejpal’s book will always be read in the shadow of Sir Vidya’s blurb, the debutant author knows that no amount of fulsome praise or even literary prizes would matter in the end. " This is all fluff. Time is the only test for a book," says he.

Tejpal adds he dreamt of writing books since his days as a fledgling reporter in Chandigarh. He was also haunted by what the doyen of Malayalam literature O.V. Vijayan said to him 16 years ago, " He told me that a journalist’s life is consumed by day-to-day reporting till one day he realizes he hasn’t written anything. This rang in my head for years."

But it took him 20 years to finally pull it off. Like the narrator in his novel Tejpal also made many false starts but for him the struggle was to find the right tone. " It is strange that the tone came to me in the most difficult time of my life," he says.

Battling court cases and a vindictive political regime following the sensational tape-and-trap drama by his portal Tehelka.com, Tejpal regurgitated his literary energy into his laptop in airport lounges, on extended travels and in hotels. Within 16 months he had submitted the manuscript to his publisher.

The first line of the Alchemy of Desire, " Love is not the glue between two people, sex is," gives a fair clue to the reader about what to expect. But after all the years of waiting for the right tone Tejpal did not want to write what he calls a `safe book’. He believes the original mandate of literature is to push boundaries and by writing about sex in a country living in self-denial his book might have done just that.

" Love and desire are the fundamental engines of life. My fundamentals of life are not a bigger car or a bigger house. Love and desire are what shapes the world. One of the greatest achievements of the book is that it manages to address these issues---emotions, passion in a very even-eyed adult way which I don’t think India writing in English has ever done," he says in self praise.

The description of the amorous coupling of the characters in the book fills many chapters and sometimes borders on sleaze. But Tejpal maintains they are far from voyeuristic. " I don’t think there is a single voyeuristic line in the entire book. Except some reviewers who seem dowagers from 1930’s –no one even mentioned the sex in my book," he says.

The book released in India recently will be launched in Italy, France and England this year. It has also been translated in several languages and made available for the non-English speaking nations. For India The Alchemy.. is this years first work of fiction to spice up things for readers.

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