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Paris on the page

Abha Dawesar shares her thoughts on the term `diaspora writer', even as her third novel, `That Summer in Paris' hits the bookstands

A NEW DAWN Abha Dawesar says she doesn't like to look at herself as a Diaspora writer

Leafing through `That Summer in Paris', as you see Maya come to life, somewhat mysterious, somewhat troubled, and at times so simple, you tend to take a few fleeting looks at the black and white still of the author on the jacket flap. Just by impulse. With a healthy lock of wavy hair adorning her young, light features, looking at peace with life, and as if afloat in a half reverie, Abha Dawesar almost looks like Maya, her creation.

Well, you need Abha herself to shake you out of this maya. "I don't have any such close relationship, intellectual or otherwise with any towering literary figure as Maya has with Prem Rustum in the book!" Abha exclaims. "Honestly, I don't relate to Maya personally. The writers in the book have different and complicated relationships to their work, and to books, and those are things sometimes I've either felt or could easily imagine feeling at some point. But the only thing in my book that is real is not character-specific; it is the love for writing and art and Paris," explains the three-book-old author.

Absorbing situations

A Delhiite now based in New York, Abha has set the novel, as the name suggests, mostly in Paris. It revolves around Prem Rustum, an ageing literary luminary of Indian origin in America, his friendship with a fellow stalwart of a writer, the French Pascal, and his attraction to a budding writer on a fellowship in Paris, Maya. Rustum follows Maya to Paris and the book takes its readers through a number of absorbing situations.

For a writer who says, "beauty took me to Paris", (and many times at that), for a part-time painter who "reflects" on the phases she has gone through as a painter, Abha's descriptions of the city's streets, food, paintings and people give readers enough confirmation of both her facets.

Though hints are being dropped about her possible sources of inspiration for the Maya-Rustum love affair, she defends it: "The book is fictitious, but more importantly for me, Rustum's character is entirely fictitious. It would have been very difficult to base Rustum on any number of writers who exist, because I would never have had this kind of access to the inner life of someone of his stature." As it is, writing about two men who were so much older than Abha was "a challenge", she says, taking her to the extent of interviewing a few older men to make sure she had got it right.

Having started her literary journey with `The Three Of Us' in 2000, Abha took five years to come out with her second, `Babyji', which fetched some awards. She explains, "I started writing the beginning of my second novel even before my first one was published in the U.S. However, I changed jobs in late 2000 and had a very high-stress Wall Street job for almost two years which made it impossible to write. Once the book was done it took time to sell and then very long to go from contract to publication."

So there was time in between to do the final draft of `That Summer in Paris'. And also to dabble with paints. Her first art exhibition opened in New York this past Thursday. "I am thrilled!" she writes over email a day before the opening. Looking at herself as a writer, Abha shares, "I am in a different space with my writing than before." Though she has two books in two consecutive years, she is not aiming to write one book a year. "Novels have different life cycles, some only start brewing in the consciousness once one starts writing them while others are on the mind for years." And perhaps that's why, though `That Summer In Paris', recently released in New Delhi by Random House, is on the stacks now, she is not able to forget her characters.

"I get very involved with my characters and there are lots of times that they return to me; Prem and Pascal in particular because they represent an older wisdom of experience." That technology has thoroughly permeated our culture is evident in Abha's pages. She sprinkles them liberally with Internet surfing, software geeks, e-chats. Rustum traces Maya on the Internet. Explains the Harvard graduate, "This was one thing I did ask the older people I interviewed after I wrote my draft. Many more people of Rustum's generation have taken to the Internet in ways that one wouldn't necessarily imagine."

Visual perspective

Though for most writers, a book is born from the notes, Abha interestingly resorts to photographs. "If I feel like some material is turning difficult or stale in my hands then changing my mode of existence from verbal to visual gives me fresh perspective," she elaborates.

Abha's earlier books have been translated into foreign languages and she hopes that some day she is read in an Indian language too. "One of my regrets is that I am not in a position to write in any regional language," says the half-Kannada, half-Punjabi author.

"I speak Hindi and some Kannada and there are so many beautiful ways of expressing oneself in these languages that simply have no equivalent in English. I still dream of being able to read enough Kannada one day to enjoy the regional literature that has not been translated at all."

For someone who began chasing the American dream at age 17, it is some longing.

SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY

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