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Writing is a journey: Sagarika Ghose
Journalist Sagarika Ghose, whose new novel "Blind Faith" hit stands here this week, compares writing to a journey.
Journalist Sagarika Ghose, whose new novel "Blind Faith" hit stands here this week, compares writing to a journey.
"Every time I go for an assignment, I think I must write this in a book," Ghose, who was in Chennai for the launch of her book, told IANS in an interview.
"Blind Faith" (HarperCollins India) is set in 2001. It was the year of the Mahakumbh, a spiritual congregation on the banks of the Ganges, attended by over 50 million people.
Coming to the fair was a spiritual excursion for all, said Ghose, whose debut novel "The Gin Drinkers" was published in 2000.
"A fakir (monk) at the fair, with a postgraduate degree in mathematics, told me that the only function of spirituality in our lives is action. It is not about ritual, it is about how you can act," the author said.
"The congregation brought to the fore a discussion on religion," Ghose said. "The Mahakumbh is an event without god, without mantras (chanting). There was no particular head priest presiding over the gathering. It was a dialogue between the river and the pilgrim."
There to cover the Mahakumbh, history student Ghose ended up writing a semi-philosophical sub-text where the fair became a central figure, the event a resolution of the duality in man, an ever-flowing continuity as well as the ephemeral and the non-existent that has always threaded sub-continental philosophy.
So Ghose has created several chimerical characters like Vik-Karna and Mia-Maya, the Mia Farrow kind as well as the Mahabharata kind.
Indi or Indira, the book's prima donna, is also the name of the goddess of bounty, the mother who provides as well as that of the "alpha woman", like Indira Gandhi, one of India's powerful woman leaders.
The second important incident that marked 2001 was 9/11 that left a profound impression on the world. "That too sparked a debate on religion, extremism, the orthodox and the violent as well as the inclusive," Ghose said.
"Traditional, orthodox religion is anti-woman. It is steeped in hatred for woman, no matter what the religion is," she added.
Mid-way through the Rs.295 book, a bit of feminism does surface but "Blind Faith" cannot be called a reiteration of feminist fundamentalism. It is not another attempt to explore the ideology of the 21st century Indian woman.
Words have not been used to hit hard in this surprisingly descriptive book though the picture painted is often of extreme violence, mental as well as physical.
Agony at its worst, isolation at its best, the nowhere-ness running headlong and relationships hanging by gossamer threads are made up of snatches of poetry, "like a beautiful tree nymph" or "a magenta cloud leaping in the blackness".
