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“I don’t think PR does **** to sell books” : Ashok’s Tehelka interview

These are excerpts from an inteview I did with Sonia Faleiro for Tehelka, which appeared in the issue dated July 2, 2005.

Hats off to Sonia Faleiro, whom I had never met before in my life, for asking the tough questions and having the guts to record the tough answers I gave her.

You emerge only when your books are released, but are inaccessible otherwise.
I don’t think pr does shit to sell books. Even if it did, I still wouldn’t do it. As a writer you should write the best damn book, and for me to do that, I need isolation. I don’t talk to the press because doing so when one has nothing to say is trivial pursuit at its worst.

Your reticence extends to the Mumbai literary circle. Mixing with them is not PR.
Well, it is. Look at contemporary Mumbai writers. They are all part of this artsy-fartsy circle, a clique of people who meet once a week to support and promote one another. They are so heavily into pr themselves, yet they criticise other writers, and accuse them of drumming up publicity.

You’ve been accused of manipulating the press with regard to the advance you received for your Ramayana series.
How can a guy sitting in a flat in Mumbai manipulate the media machinery of the entire country? And why does my advance matter? At the time, The Week asked me about it, but it was premature. I had signed the German and US contracts, but was in the process of signing the UK film and language contracts. I said, “I can give you a specific answer in three months but it has passed Rs 1 crore and could be as much as Rs 10 crore.� Today, I can confirm that the advance for all six books has crossed Rs 3 crore but is less than Rs 4 crore. All the contracts have still not been signed though.

The controversy generated great dislike against you across the board. Why do you think that happened?
Very simply put, I told journalists to screw off. I told them if you only want to talk about the advance, get lost. Bombay Times wanted to shoot me in a dhoti, with a bow and arrow, on Marine Drive. I turned them down, and they said, “But we’re bt. bt is bt.� (Laughs) And you know what cnbc wanted? To sit at Bandra Bandstand, reading from my Ramayana, for a story titled ‘Flogging a Dead Horse’! For which they would interview people asking, why the hell do we need another Ramayana. (Laughs). I’m nobody’s whipping boy.

Do you regret your reaction?
It’s stupid to play with the media like that. I don’t do it anymore. But because they hated my guts they left me alone to write. I don’t suffer fools gladly. I’ve had fools reviewing my books without reading them. Someone said Byculla Boy was about the ad world when it’s about a kid growing up in Byculla in the 1970s. I’m far more critical of my work than any critic. I don’t think I’m a very talented writer, but I have passion. What I lack in stylistic or linguistic dexterity, and sheer artistry, I make up for with fecundity, fire, and feel. I don’t write for money. Otherwise, I’d still be writing thrillers.

You have an aversion for foreign media.
Yes, I’ve refused a Washington Post Book World cover feature, an interview with Salon, and The New York Times. I didn’t want to become one of those writers who panders to the foreign press and fights with the Indian press. Pankaj Mishra is a very good example. He writes so much for the foreign press his perspective is stilted. He’s very conscious, stylised and very mannered. I don’t want to become like that.

You must be a lonely writer.
It does get extremely lonely. I long for the company of other writers, if only to discuss things like how the hell do you deal with an agent? But there’s no guarantee they will respond to me. I would have to put myself out on a limb. Sometimes, this loneliness turns to animosity and hostility. I become a porcupine and porcupines are lonely creatures.

Vertigo was “the” Bombay book. Now Maximum City and Shantaram are.
It’s an affectation of the media to name “the” Bombay book according to which writer is in the news. Gregory David Roberts is very willing to pander to the press. Ditto with Suketu Mehta. I read something very interesting in Tehelka, where Vidhu Vinod Chopra talks about his dislike for Suketu. Why didn’t other journalists write about it? Because they want to interview Suketu again. If an author is willing to be on Page Three their book is a bestseller.

You had a Hindu father and a Catholic mother. How did that affect you?
I fell through the crack. My father’s family would say, “his mother’s a meat eater.” And my mother’s family would refer to me as “that Hindu boy.” My mother converted to Islam to get a divorce. Then she remarried and that ended too. Till her death she tried to keep in touch with all three faiths. She had reached a point when things happened to her–she got pregnant by Mahesh Bhatt and had to have an abortion, then she was drugged and raped. I know who raped her. I was the only person she could talk to who wasn’t part of society in the larger sense. After the rape she descended into psychosis. She was in nursing homes, and when she came home I was the one cleaning and feeding her. She was a mess, and I was regarded as a “poor kid,” then a roadside chokra, a drug addict and a punk. People who knew me then are shocked my sanity survived. But my mother was so crazy, I became sane by default.

Your first film Beautiful Ugly is her biography. Does the reaction concern you?
When she died, people insinuated that she deserved what came to her. They can’t say anything worse. I want people to know that she was wonderful and bright and full of life. And someone abused her and abused me, and destroyed us. And I want that to be known. I want to set the record straight.

Have you spoken to Mahesh Bhatt?
No. He was smashed in those days. It’s very possible that my mother and he had some kind of liaison without him knowing. I don’t need any closure from him. He’s a footnote in the story.

There must be some resentment towards your mother.
No. There was no space for anger. What I resented was that our families wrote me and my mother off. They dismissed us as though we would magically vanish. I resent that after I got a little fame I got calls from cousins in England and Australia and Santa Cruz. My father didn’t give me money to buy my mother a coffin and my step-father washed his hands off us. What kind of family is this?

This entry was posted on Monday, July 4th, 2005 at 2:55 am. It is filed under Ashok. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.