MUMBAI, January 15: Sir Vidiyadhar Shivnarain Naipaul has come to India in a new avataar: as a tourist. On his last trip, nine years ago, he produced the deeply insightful, India: A Million Mutinies Now, a better part of which was devoted to tracing the ascent of rightwing Hinduism. But this time round as India goes to vote, probably to power the same forces that Naipaul wrote about so perceptively, the author and his new (relatively) bride Nadira will be travelling in South India, ``visiting Belur, Hampi, Badami Tanjore...as ordinary tourists,'' he says.Naipaul has just finished writing Beyond Belief, a sequel to Among The Believers which will be out in May. ``It's a fat book and he needed to rest after writing it. Plus, I had never seen India and Vidiya was keen to show me around,'' says Nadira, the Pakistani painter-turned-columnist, and now ``just a housewife.'' In Mumbai till the weekend, the Naipauls have been doing the usual touristy things and meeting friends like Dev and Anuradha Benegal, who
screened English, August for them. That this is not going to be a busman's holiday is clear when you ask Naipaul his impressions of Mumbai nine years after his last visit. ``I haven't even looked around,'' says the author.
Nadira, obviously protective and more eloquent when it comes to interviews that is instead talks about her project to allow some of his books to be filmed. ``We have been approached by several people, but so far, only the rights for Mystic Masseur have been sold to Ismail Merchant. And Channel 4 will be doing A House for Mr Biswas.''
Negotiations are on to do a full-length feature film on In a Free State which won him the Booker Prize in 1971 for its evocative description of the cultural diaspora, a book that Nadira describes as ``made for filming.''
``Vidiya was not too keen on these books being filmed, but since I am younger and more wicked, I got around that,'' she laughs. ``Besides, I think more people read the books after they have seen the film.'' Her one criterion, though,
is the director. ``He has to be very very good,'' she says decisively. In an interview to a local television network, Naipaul had said that it was difficult to analyse how his marriage to Nadira hadaffected his life. But their happiness is evident.
Nadira, who reportedly walked up to him and kissed him the first time she met him, has almost taken over as his spokesperson. ``Oh! That entire incident has just been picked up by the press,'' she protests laughingly.
``I am not an air-head who goes around doing such kind of things. It's just that at that time I was extremely depressed by the happenings in my country and when I first saw him, I just couldn't believe that it was the author of An Area of Darkness. Then, I just felt a kind of reverence. " Moreover, he seemed to me to be a very lonely and intense kind of man, so I went up to him and kissed him. And Vidiya of course understood why I did it. He just doesn't say much. You know he doesn't blabber like we people do. He really measures his
words.''
That is evident from the brief interview. Ask Naipaul how he feels about the prospect of a BJP government coming to power and he says, succinctly:, ``That's really part of the million mutinies. It's part of a historical process and it would be foolish to ignore it.''
But would such a government resolve some of these mutinies? ``Ah! You ask a big question. It can't be answered just like that,'' says the man of words - few words.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
