I don't read my books: Novoneel Chakraborty

Since the trilogy is over, have you started writing something new?

 

Yeah. I have already started a standalone novel this time. It’s a psycho-sexual thriller…working at it right now.

 

Are you trying to move on from the romantic thriller genre?

 

No. See, basically I’m trying to get into that thriller genre only. Sometime it’s going to be a romantic thriller, sometime it’ll be a psychological thriller, but that thriller element has to be there because that’s what I think I’m good at and I’ll play on my strength.

 

 

What about the movie (a screenplay by him) that you spoke about the last time we met?  

 

It’s still in the pipeline, it has not gone to the production stage as of yet. So it’s there. It’s happening and yet not happening, in-between. I have written the screen play and my part is done. It’s just that the production part is awaited.

 

What is this movie all about?

 

It’s too early for me to say anything because I don’t have their permission. It’s the producer’s prerogative…so not right now, but it’s a thriller.

 

The last time I checked, you were reading ‘Aiwa Maru’. What are you reading right now?

 

I have just started reading a thriller called ‘Charlie Presumed Dead’. I have just started it and it has been sometime that I have read a thriller. I have been writing thriller, but like I said, it has been sometime I had read one, so I thought I might as well give it a try. You know with all these work, life has left me very little time to read these days, and I don’t like it at all. I have got my Kindle; I have got my hard book, so wherever I go I try to read at least two or three pages.

 

If I’m suppose to bump into you at any given point of time, what’s that one book I’ll find Novoneel reading?

 

I generally don’t go back to books and it’s very rare that I go back to one particular book. If you still insist, I will say Paulo Coelho’s ‘The Alchemist’, just to read the lines once more. I will also go back to Ayn Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead’ and maybe Tagore’s works. I read a lot of translated works. I may not read the entire story, but a few lines or a particular scene. So, these are the three books you’ll find me going back to.

 

 

 

Getting back to the trilogy, have you found your real life Revennah Banerjee, the character in the book?

 

Real life Revennah Banerjee…yeah, of course. It’s not one person though. Revannah, the character itself stemmed out of my observation of so many girls who live outside Kolkata. Girls, who have left their home and have gone to other cities and are fighting it out there, so there’s isn’t just one Revennah, I have got so many of them. But if I have to zero down to someone, there are three people. It has to be a great serendipity or coincidence to meet exactly that character. So, these three forms the puzzle that Revannah is. Two of them is from Kolkata, one is from Patna and she lives in Gurgaon.

 

How did you come in contact with these three girls?

 

All three were my readers and we started talking. One of them started sharing all her life problems with me. She thought I’m some kind of love guru or something and will be able to solve all her problems. As I started talking more, I kind of started to know her as a person and from there on the character of Revennah took shape. It happened very subconsciously.

 

You have completed this trilogy, so tell me, while writing did you always have a fixed story line, or it kept on changing?      

 

When I started, I had the beginning… I had the end with me. I did not have the middle, how to go about it. I knew what I was going to say, I knew where exactly it’s heading. But I did not know how I’m going to say it, because my style of writing is a little stream of consciousness writing, so it’s like, if I’m working on a book today, I don’t know what I will write tomorrow. So, I sit and I discover. Though I knew the beginning and the end, I did not know how it will play out.

 

Do you still feel the chill before the release of a new book?

 

I’m not scared, but I’m shit nervous. I’m very nervous, especially with this book because it’s the end of a trilogy and people have a lot of expectations. See, it’s one thing to read a book where you don’t expect much and it’s very different when you like it and start expecting. I know half of them will open up Forget Me Not Stranger thinking that in the first chapter itself I will tell them who the stranger is. And with that kind of a mentality it’s very difficult to understand or to read a book the way it should be read. You read it with a filter of expectations, which is very scary for me as an author. Because I know then you’re not seeing what I’m doing, you are just going with your preferences.  

 

 

 

How many times did you change the 'final' draft of FMNT?

 

Quite a lot. It’s a very organic process and what happens is, you keep working at it. So, I never count how many times I have worked on it, but, it’s always several times.

 

 Does it get frustrating at a certain point, when you go through one of these phases?

 

Yeah, it does get frustrating, until you discover something more to the story. The moment that happens, you again are charged up and say I got it, I’ll write again. But sometimes when you are struck for a week or ten days, not knowing where to go, won’t say it’s frustrating, it’s just that mentally you start shutting yourself out. You start procrastinating, and that is scary.

 

Do you get that feeling while reading your books that I could have written it a lot better?

 

I don’t read my books. That is precisely the reason why I don’t read my books. I’m in a point in life with all the mental and emotional make-up where I’ll write a story in one particular way. Five years down the line, I know I’ll be writing it in a different way. There’s no two mind, because, by that time, I’ll be matured and will be seeing a lot of things in life and I know for a fact that I will be seeing it in a different way altogether. So that always happens.

 

So, the last time your advice was “Listen to your heart, if you want to write”. We are meeting almost after a year. What’s your advice now?

 

Go with your instincts and heart, and, read a lot. I would say, try and observe things and try and interpret them the way you are as a person. Because, when that happens, only then your individual personality will come out. There are so many authors writing books, you should not read like someone else. For that, you need to interpret things according to yourself, whatever, be it good or bad. Leave it for the readers to decide.  

 

Going back to that last question, you said you will write it differently after five years. Tell me, in that case, will you regret whatever you’re writing now, if you happen to pick your book and read it?

 

I still regret. For that case, I look at my second book, ‘That Kiss In The Rains’ and I regret. I know I could have done a better job now. For the other books though, I thought at that point of time, I could have done that much only. That regret is there, but you cannot do anything about it. It has been published already.

 

 

Are any of your novels going to get translated into a movie?

 

Negotiations are on for the Stranger trilogy and Ex. Nothing concrete about it though. 

 

What’s the biggest myth you have come across involving you?

 

Someone told me that I have lived all the sex scenes I write about, that I have experienced them first hand. Not that I’m saying anything, but I have never clarified it.

 

Okay, so do you want to clarify it here?

 

No, I don’t want to clarify it. Some myths should remain myths. That’s why they are myths. If I clarify it the myth will go.                 

 

 

 

(Images by Subhodeep Sardar)