The author of Those Were The Days, Mr N. S. Ravi interacted with Spectralhues about his debut novel, his attempt to plug the information gap — to make the people of his generation to share with what they call as a young India of below 35 years, the literary and logistic challenges that he faced at the time of getting his book published, and a lot more. Below are the transcripts of the interview:
1. Tell us about your debut novel, ‘Those were the days’?
It is a sincere attempt to plug the information gap (in the form of a book) that I feel exists as to how our country has grappled with its problems and evolved itself to be where it is today in the course of the last fifty years. This is mainly for the present day young generation to feel proud of the country’s achievements.
2. What were your goals and intentions when you first thought of writing this book? Do you think you have achieved them?
My goals and aims were simple – to make people of my generation to share with what we call as young India of below 35 years, of how the country has evolved over the last fifty years and in the process enthuse them to know more about their own country and if need be use my book as the starting point in this exercise. From my side, I have achieved what I set out to do. How far this will go only time will tell.
3. Most authors go for popular themes among readers like teen fiction and mysteries. Non-fiction is something uncommon. Why did you choose this genre?
I am an accidental writer, hence the decision to go for non-fiction was not a choice I made. The genre literally selected itself for me once I had decided what I wanted to write about.
4. What is the biggest thing that people don’t know about non fiction that they should know?
The single most important thing about non-fiction is that in general it is educative as opposed to fiction which is not always educative. I do believe that many people do not know this, but this is changing, if we see the posts being made by people in social media, which, for me, is an E-age, the equivalent of non-fiction writing.
5. What did you find most useful while learning to write? What was the least useful or most destructive?
Simple English which was insisted when we were in school was the most useful tool while writing. As far as I can recollect there was nothing destructive or least useful that I encountered.
6. Who are some of your favourite authors? What impact have they had on your thought process as a writer?
I had a liking for many writers and this liking evolved and changed over the years, either because I outgrew the genre or the authors stopped writing due to one reason or the other. For example, as a college student, I use to read a lot of American westerns as a follow up to the characters we used to like in the school-age comic era like Billy the Kid, Kid Colt etc. Soon I outgrew reading westerns. I used to love Christie, Chase, Gardner, Wodehouse, Rex Stout, etc., but this had to yield space to others when the availability of books by these authors dried up. They were replaced by more modern authors like Wallace, Uris, Maclean, Sheldon, Follet, Forsyth, and Higgins etc.
I do remember, in my days, books were not easily available and buying was also an expensive proposition. We were of course lucky to have the concept of book lending libraries which helped in our reading.
I do not think any of these have had any influence either in my writing style or thought process . Whatever you see before you -good and bad – is purely my output and contribution. It would be grossly unfair to attribute it to anyone.
7. A much-debated question I want to ask: what do you feel about print books vs. e-books?
I am not from the e-generation and hence personally prefer printed books, since I love to feel the book and also boast of a good collection among friends.
But E-books are for the future -again, I can say this from my own experience. I was away from India for nearly four years very recently and lived in Gabon, where the only Indian news channel I had an access to was the NDTV, which again was a special international transmission. I used to hence get most of my India centric news from the e-newspapers. I would read my e-paper using my iPad while travelling just as one used to do in India- reading newspaper while being driven to work. I revert to this habit even now, subconsciously, though I have access to the printed newspaper. I, hence feel it is a matter of time before printed books gets relegated to a place below e-books.
8. What were the literary and logistical challenges that you faced, like every author does, in bringing your book to life?
The challenge I faced in giving printed life form to what I had written was the process of getting acceptance by a publisher. I had absolutely no idea on how the process or the system worked. We are fortunate that due to technology we can get access to so much information now, by sitting in front of the computer that I was able to overcome the hurdles slowly and steadily. Sometimes the replies received from publishers were disappointing, but I was able to ride it out. My final publishers Leadstart (Frog books) were from the beginning proactive and it was a morale booster.
9. What was your favourite chapter/part to write from your book and why?
The last chapter is my favourite. Even now I get goose
pimples when I read it. It would be difficult for modern generation to understand the feeling since they would not have gone through what we all have had to go through (I sincerely pray they do not have to). Imagine being told in a restaurant that you can eat only so much of rice since we were short of the commodity and today the country exports rice. Today, we talk about prices of onions making the item beyond reach. You can still buy some by reducing your intake. Try matching it with non-availability. A youngster can walk into a mobile shop and walk out with an instrument and connection. Compare it with his father having to wait for a landline connection for ten years.
Our country has come a long way and we have to appreciate this with all sincerity and be proud of the achievement. Do not forget to factor in a tripling of population in the same period and boy, it is a mind boggling feat.
10. The theme of your book is very uncommon. What inspired this theme?
The theme may seem uncommon, but if you read the introduction to the book you will understand and appreciate the reason why the theme was selected. I feel sad that we, in general, do not appreciate the country sufficiently and often do not understand and appreciate our responsibility to the country and our fellow citizens. While I have not tried to do anything in this direction, I feel that if all of us appreciate how much progress we have made we will get the impetus to take it to the next level easily. This, in a way, was the indirect inspiration for the theme.
11. Finally, is there any message you want to share with your fans and/or all the struggling authors out there?
A very simple message: Be proud of your country and love it with all your might. We are a great nation and will go places.
Thank you so much for interacting, sir!
Tags: author Interview Leadstart publisher N. S. Ravi Those were the days
