“A writer is nothing”

Not that the years of pen scratching ensured an easy entry into publishers’ favourites list. “I have consciously experimented with genres,partly to check if I can generate what publishers want to publish,” Desai confesses. So what started as a short story snowballed into a novel,all to the end of getting published. “I think I am capable of writing about anything now,” he laughs. Dejection at writer friends not getting published,no replies to manuscripts and nine rejection letters later,his dream was realised. “The publishing scene here needs to become more confident. There is experimentation,yes,but the field of thought needs to become more diverse. Indian writers today have cut loose from their angst-ridden and heavy literary style to re-define their from and language. But if all that gets published is the I-went-to-college-got-drunk-fell in-love sort of stories,then it’s like moving from one rut to another,” Desai says.

Desai’s affinity to crime fiction was spurred by the scarce population of English thriller writers in India. “I am greatly attracted to crime fiction because it allows for so much writing on human nature,” Desai says. He ascribes to the ‘Golden Age’ of 1920s to 1960s of detective fiction writing as the most fertile period of original story-telling in the genre. “I think this genre will come a full circle now.”

His novel aspiration now realised,Desai is not very surprised that his second book too has been picked up by another publisher. “A writer is nothing. It’s extremely difficult to get through,that has been my experience. Once you are in,then it gets easier.”