Heart to Heart Conversation with Amitava Kumar

[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Heart to Heart. Joining me on the show today is author and academic Amitava Kumar. His most recent novel, A Time Outside This Time, tells a story about news in the time of propaganda. His last novel, Immigrant Montana, was named among the notable

[00:00:24] books of the year by the New York Times and was also included in the best books of the year by the New Yorker. If that wasn't enough, former US President Barack Obama included it among his favorite books of the year in 2018. Amitava has written several works of literally

[00:00:43] non-fiction and one I've particularly enjoyed reading is Husband of a Fanatic, a title that is so fascinating that you can't help but pick it up. In today's polarized world, it's refreshing to meet an Indian married to someone from Pakistan. Amitava was born

[00:00:58] in India and moved to the US where he fell in love with Mona, an economist and academic herself. So as a father and husband, raising an interfaith family, a family still deeply connected to the subcontinent, Amitava and Mona have made the US their home.

[00:01:15] Amitava, thank you for being on the show. I have very much been looking forward to having this conversation. Amitava Kumar What's up? Thank you. So Amitava, you grew up in the state of Bihar in India. Do share with us some childhood memories

[00:01:32] that you still hold up very close to your heart. Amitava Kumar I now live in upstate New York and my younger child is 12. He just turned 13 actually. And he said the other day that dad, did you know something about Bihar?

[00:01:44] I said no. And he said he had come across a meme which said that in Bihar, the main career path open for kids is crime and more crime. And he thought it was funny, but I, well,

[00:01:58] only a part of me thought it was funny because I thought we are there is a certain idea, you know, certainly among people outside Bihar and it has been popularized by films recently,

[00:02:11] you know, the gangs of Vasipur kind of image of Bihar as a place of incredible violence or my writer or my publisher too in India, the Indian publisher David David always keeps saying to me that you must write a novel that talks about the violence of Bihar.

[00:02:32] So when you ask this very innocent question, memories of growing up, my mind immediately went to that idea of the general perception that people have about Bihar. You know what I'm saying, which is that of, I mean, I don't know whether you had that sense, but

[00:02:50] certainly in the 90s, for example, people would say that the only industry in Bihar was that was growing was kidnapping. And so I always whenever people ask me anything about Bihar, I'm always

[00:03:04] like, Oh my God, they are thinking of that. But you perhaps are not. And so that gives me a chance to say, Yeah, growing up in Bihar, it was, you know, I grew up.

[00:03:15] My most of my memories are from the 70s. I was a small boy then. And Bihar at that time, you know, for example, I went to my father was a bureaucrat. He was appointed.

[00:03:28] He went to Jamshedpur as a district magistrate. And I encountered Parsis for the first time. So this idea of a slightly bit more westernized, more cosmopolitan Indian identity, the idea of going to clubs and watching movies. That became a part of my childhood.

[00:03:51] And the other part was that of a link to a village life. My village, my ancestral village is not too far from the Nepal border. So that link to another country. And to another history where people would go to Nepal to bring goods back to India,

[00:04:09] because this is remember, this is before liberalization. So the idea of smuggling women, putting little, you know, like chiffon sardis under there, the sardis that they were wearing and bringing it back across the border. All these small mundane things were also a part of my

[00:04:27] childhood. That's a little glimpse. I know I one last thing I'll mention is that our school was run by Irish missionaries. So I always think of these people who had left their homes and for

[00:04:39] whatever reason, partly to do with religion or whatever else. But they were there in the heat and humidity of the genetic plane trying to educate us, giving us the gift of language. You know, they were teaching us English, you know, generous people. So all these

[00:04:54] mixings, all these things are a part of the memory I have of Bihar. You know, I had a very sheltered childhood growing up and I never for me, Bihar, I never thought of it

[00:05:03] as violence or anything. I think it was just like for me, it was any other place where for me, it was only a few years ago really that's the first time I heard of that. But

[00:05:14] I was like, you know, yeah, so thank you for sharing that. And in a lot of ways, I mean, you did the same like, you know, in terms of moving away from home, right? Because

[00:05:22] you moved from India and you moved to the US as well. Yes. And what made you move to the US? I had felt that my education wasn't going anywhere. I was not a very good student or at least my

[00:05:36] teachers weren't that great. This was in Hindu College in Delhi. I had great friends, some good people. There was a journalist friend whose father also had a journalism agency, Janathan Thakur. And then I thought, you know, I would like to be a broad

[00:05:50] reading for two years. And I thought I would come here, do some kind of book. But here the quality of education and the engagement or at least the way in which my professors engaged me

[00:06:02] and the fact that what I was reading had something to do with the street outside. You know, I always say to people in Delhi, for example, up university special, you're you know, in the past, you're being taken to the university, you would pass Negambod

[00:06:16] Ghat and the which you could see a father, for example, with his dead child wrapped in a little cotton shroud being taken for burial or for cremation. I don't know what it was, but

[00:06:26] there was no sense that what I was reading, let's say in politics, I was a political science student had anything to do. The names that were offered to us in our classes, Hobbs, Locke, Russo, had anything to do with the life on the streets of Delhi outside.

[00:06:42] I didn't think anyone made an effort to link what we were studying with the life outside. And suddenly I came to this country and I certainly felt that my professors were teaching things that

[00:06:54] had to do with my real life. So I really responded well to that. And although I had earlier planned to go home, I thought, no, no, now I have done so well. I'll do a PhD also. And then you

[00:07:07] get used to things. And then, you know, things have so changed that you have gotten used to new circumstances or may have feeling hapa rehaegya. So that's another story. Amitabh, you're staying in

[00:07:19] back in the US probably had some, you know, something to do with the fact that you then met your wife now Mona in the US as well. Can you tell us a little bit more about

[00:07:30] the day you met her? How you met her? And also I was listening to an interview of yours the other day and you were talking about writing a poem for her. Would you happen to

[00:07:39] remember some lines from that? Yes. You know, the occasion was the 50th anniversary of Indian and Pakistani independence. And there was an India Day parade on Madison Avenue in New York.

[00:07:54] And well, this is how the poem begins. And that will give you a sense of how I met her. So the epigraph to the poem is this line that was published in the New York Times. It says,

[00:08:05] India is 50. Where's my Nehru jacket? And so my poem begins. You, however, Surya Hasan Ali from Pakistan whom I have just met, you are not wearing any Nehru jackets today. You have cast your

[00:08:20] Dupatta aside and come out wearing an ivory huge camees with the tiniest mirrors that make your shape look thirsty like shiny water. The parade is not going to pass for another hour.

[00:08:35] Passing my finger down the pale brown line in the middle in a South Indian restaurant two blocks away, I pretend to read your palm. And the poem goes on in this way. But the one line I'm trying to

[00:08:49] remember for you is something that goes something like this. I have lost India. You have lost Pakistan. We are now citizens of general electric. In this country, there are new words, no new words for

[00:09:04] exile. And if you have nothing to sell, you have nothing to say that this or that is indeed you. I don't know what I was trying to say there, but I was trying to say that we had in some

[00:09:17] ways lost the sense of our homelands that we were marooned in this new country where we were citizens of general electric. What am I saying? I don't know. I'm saying, we are in a world of

[00:09:29] commodities. We have left our parents. I was very conscious that I had left my parents behind and that our relationship despite all our love had become more distant just because of

[00:09:42] the fact of distance. I would not even see them during festivals the way I used to when I was a student in Delhi. But here, I was making a connection with someone else who was from the

[00:09:53] subcontinent. So that was kind of interesting. And yes, you're right. My marriage, which happened right during Kargil war gave me a sense that maybe it would be more difficult now for me to go back. So there we are. It's very interesting you say that because

[00:10:14] all our parents are getting older and I feel very torn sometimes. And I think as one gets older, one gravitates towards one's roots. I don't know what your thoughts are. And I don't know what

[00:10:27] that does to people like you and me, the first generation immigrants caught between two very different worlds, the East and the West. But both are an integral part of who we are. Where is home for you? Where is home? I understand exactly what you're saying.

[00:10:47] I do think that most of us who have moved away have moved maybe make not just our world better but to make a better world for our children. And it is true that we are getting old.

[00:11:00] I mean, I am. You don't look very old to me. I know. But yes, I'm getting old. And I, someone just the other day, a friend of mine brought out a book which is a wonderfully

[00:11:09] reviewed book in The New York Times and other places. It's called Stay True. It's by a New Yorker writer who was a colleague of mine here at Vassar called Hua Su and

[00:11:18] a woman in the audience asked him, what do you miss most about the 90s? And my friend was talking about the music that he has written about in the book. And all that while I was

[00:11:28] thinking, what I miss most about the 90s is my youth. When I didn't have to worry about the pain in my knees or something, I'm certainly conscious of my own mortality. I'm more conscious of my

[00:11:41] parents' mortality. I lost my mother a few years ago and my father is nearly 90. And just yesterday I booked the ticket to take my son to meet my father again. It's been some years,

[00:11:51] especially COVID. And COVID was a huge blow to people, especially people who are older than us, especially our parents' generation. And of course the very young because it limited social life so much. So I am increasingly troubled and think about that. But to come to the last

[00:12:07] part of your question, home for me, because I have been writing and my primary identification apart from being a parent or a teacher, is that of a writer? And that's the work I do every day.

[00:12:21] Home for me really is just in language. You know, the language I'm working with and the language I'm giving shape to on the page and the kind of stories I'm trying to tell and the kind of

[00:12:32] stories I'm trying to gather. So you know, just trying to find in the work that I'm doing a sense of genuine movement towards some idea of truth and an identification or a self-identity as a writer. Kyonki, I'm neither an Indian nor entirely an American,

[00:12:56] even though I have a passport that says I am. And I'm sure it's a little bit like that for you also. Yeah, yeah. And you know, sometimes I think I was, I'm quite interested in

[00:13:07] philosophy and I've been reading a little bit of the open issues and it's so vast and it's so intense and I can, I have very limited grasp and understanding. But you know, there is a lot of concept of Janbhoomi and Karambhoomi. And sometimes I wonder is one,

[00:13:27] is there a pecking order to this? Does it have a pecking order? You know, these are things you want things about, you know, but... Yeah, I must say that for me it is not so much the more grandly eloquent notions of

[00:13:45] Janbhoomi or Karambhoomi. But for me, sometimes in a particular moment, you know, let's say you're driving on the road in India, for example. And on the radio, Lata Mangeshkar comes on and the song is,

[00:14:00] You don't know where you've lost. For me, that moment becomes my home. You know, a particular song, a beloved song by let's say Lata or Kishore or, you know, the songs from the film Anand or Mukesh singing something or those things I think those moments which are linked

[00:14:21] to memories and deep effective or deep feeling, those seem home too. You know what I'm saying? I'm trying to say to you that almost chance or little moments are for me

[00:14:37] very powerful and they draw my, you know, they seem to draw me out from some depth into a world of pure feeling. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. And you know, it's lately I've been,

[00:14:52] I've been drawn to that as well, you know, just being in the moment and I found it's very liberating. You know, you just but you know, coming back to your marriage, I mean, you are a Hindu

[00:15:02] from India and Mona is a Muslim from Pakistan. I'm sure they must have been reservations from your families and and yet you both must have felt very strongly for each other for you to

[00:15:18] get married. What about Mona made you realize that she is the one for you? She's the one you want to grow old with? Yeah, that's a great question. I think the idea of someone you want to

[00:15:31] grow old with maybe would have come later in my life. I felt at that time, this is so many years ago, I felt at that time that it was a great thing. It was a nice thing to do or in other words,

[00:15:44] you feel attracted to someone and it's not always entirely to be explained. It just seemed right at that time. The idea of growing old with is something that has been more accumulating over the years because you know, you start living together,

[00:16:04] you choose curtains for your new apartment, yeah, feel a table and you share something and then one day you hear the news from a doctor that you guys are going to become parents,

[00:16:21] you know, and then that's another layer added. And then the years begin to coalesce in a string of memories and associations, you know each other's families and then you start thinking or at

[00:16:35] least that's how it happened in my case. And then you start thinking of the future because at that time when I was young, it was so much about just the present and then the future begins to get

[00:16:47] hold and then you start caring or planning about the future in a different way. I don't know whether I'm answering your question but that's how I'm just describing the process of coming close to

[00:16:58] someone and then sticking with them and then making the bond tighter or stronger and then getting used to each other in more and more infinite ways or not, you know there are complaints always, etc. But you met each other in New York while

[00:17:19] your two countries were at war. How did this affect your relationship at the time? Yes, yes that's a good question too. Actually when we met it was more of a celebratory thing because it was 1997. So we were celebrating 50 years of independence.

[00:17:43] But yes when the issue of marriage came up, it was so coincidental that our countries were also at war and at that time I must say a part of my political self because I had seen the

[00:17:58] outpouring of hate also on both sides. I felt it was a good thing to do to get married. I don't know whether you've read this story somewhere or heard me say it but what happened

[00:18:09] was that it was, you know when I got on the plane to go to visit Mona's parents in Toronto, the newspaper, you know how sometimes airlines leave newspapers on the seats and there was a

[00:18:20] newspaper and the newspaper said that Indian pilots, two Indian jets had been shot down near the Pakistan border and I thought that was a very bad sign. I thought whoa what's happened?

[00:18:30] So that was the start of the Kargil war. It had yet not been called that because it was not yet a war but the week following when we began talking about marriage and all that because that's

[00:18:43] the question that was being discussed when they arrived there. India and Pakistan were meeting in the World Cup and during the semifinal match between India and Pakistan, someone was wearing a sign, a big large sign. It said cricket for peace.

[00:19:02] So when I got married that same day or the day after, I can't remember now, I wrote a little piece for the Hindu newspaper in India. It was called Marriage for Peace. So I'm trying to explain to you that what I felt at that time was

[00:19:15] that if people are fighting, then some word should be offered about love of people from both sides of the border caring for each other or what I did. Of course that had

[00:19:30] other repercussions but I'm trying to say to you that I felt at that time that because the countries were at war it was a good gesture to in some ways suggest that people were also in love with each other from across the border.

[00:19:46] Do you know when of course hindsight is a fantastic thing and over the years, the experience, we see things so much clearer but what in your opinion should somebody look for in a life partner? Do you think is love enough?

[00:20:05] Yes. This is a very heavy question to ask me. I'm trying to think. Well, I'm trying to think. You know, I have a child who is teenager, she's 19 and she has a boyfriend and I'm sure my wife when she looks at this boy

[00:20:25] tries to think, is he caring? And I, when I look at this boy that my daughter is dating, I sometimes think that, oh my wife is only looking at one part of the situation. I think

[00:20:39] my daughter is very smart and I think, is this boy smart enough? Or so those are two very different things sometimes. What should one look for? I really think you know, a very simple situation

[00:20:54] but you see it on mugs of coffee or sometimes on little posters which say kindness matters. I think it's very important for what one should look for in a life partner. First of all, is kindness?

[00:21:09] Is this person kind? And then what one should look for is curiosity. Is this person curious? Is this person curious about himself or herself? Is this person curious about the other person, especially about the other person? And is this person curious about the world? Because that means

[00:21:27] that you have an outward looking philosophy and you will be engaged with the world. You will not be turned in and if you have curiosity, you will discover richness. So I'm a great believer

[00:21:38] in that and I think that's what matters really. Do you think it's tougher for a man or a woman when it comes to interfaith marriages? Or do you think gender does not have a role to play?

[00:21:54] There is also a perception that one needs to change one's religion if marrying a Muslim. Is that true? So there are two questions there. First, is it well, it has become very difficult, especially in India in the current dispensation to talk about interfaith marriages, especially among

[00:22:14] the non-elite because the idea that has been floated unfortunately by our politicians is that of love jihad which makes you think that one religion is predatory and will consume the other etc.

[00:22:27] That is a very harmful notion. Love should always liberate you and it should be a celebratory thing. To think of love and then to immediately think that this is something that is

[00:22:42] going to limit you or it is a design by some people to trap you etc. Which politicians certainly are doing in places like UP is wrong. Now coming to the second part, yes, gender matters. I think the idea that has been broached in India is,

[00:23:01] oh, our women, especially in my community, in the Hindu community, is that our women are being stolen by their men, the non-Hindu community and that's wrong. Finally about conversion, it is true that my own in-laws wanted me to go through a ritual which they did not call

[00:23:22] conversion but that's what it was and that was a very sore point especially for my parents. I must say that I went through it not because I thought I was genuinely converting or anything like that, and not also as a hypocritical act but more because I thought, yeah,

[00:23:40] all of us are converts I felt, not just in terms of one religion or something. I want to explain this very carefully. I felt that we are all converts in the sense that

[00:23:50] we are all porous and pervaded by other histories, what we eat, what we wear, the language we speak is all mixed up. You know I always enjoyed this line by a friend of mine, a poet from Allahabad who

[00:24:05] wrote, I am half Hindu, half Muslim, I am half Hindu, half Muslim, I am the whole of India. He was trying to say in the face of onslaughts of religious extremism from any side, he was trying

[00:24:22] to say that as a secular Indian, he belonged to all faiths. Though I might be wrong, some of your listeners might take issue with this and that's cool. I was of the understanding that I was not

[00:24:37] going to hold back from saying that sure, I am this, I am that, I'm everything. It's okay because our histories are very, very mixed up. You know if anyone wants to believe in a pure faith in India,

[00:24:52] they're in a wrong situation because what we do from day to day, what we eat, what we wear, the language we speak carries influences from diverse faiths. You know it's like Gandhi said,

[00:25:06] he lives in a room but his room has got many windows and the breeze comes in from all the windows. We shouldn't believe in some sort of sacrosanct and impossible idea of purity.

[00:25:17] But you know another thought is when religion is, you know unfortunately we've seen a lot of that particularly in India and actually even across the world, religion is often seen to be a divider

[00:25:31] and not a unifier. It's tough, I think it's tough to belong to two religions. One can respect all religions but one identifies a religion as one's own. As a couple, how have you chosen to raise your kids with, you know, with respect to culture and religion?

[00:25:54] As it happens both of us are not religious people but our families have religious affiliations and you know so we have kept an open mind and we have let them happen open on mind so that

[00:26:06] if they feel so inclined they can do whatever they want. So for example when you know my son when he is with my side of the family, he will go to a temple when he's with his mother's side

[00:26:18] of the family, he has been to a mosque once during Eid etc. It's all good. Now that will not please those people who believe that you can only be one thing, you know. But they are the same

[00:26:31] sort of people who think for example that if let's take the case of President Obama that oh if he is black and he speaks well or something he's also not born here, he's from Kenya and he's not

[00:26:44] either white or black or he's not completely black but the fact is that as Obama himself represents we are all mixed up. That's the point I'm trying to make that it is not one religion

[00:26:57] that one belongs to, one belongs to many religions and those histories are a part of our histories and I'm very comfortable with being that sort of mixed up person. I think that is even proper

[00:27:11] to this world. I mean what is also true of our identity now because we do not live in a world governed by religion, religion is only a small part of our lives. What modernity means is that we don't

[00:27:25] take our cues from the church, from the temple on how to live a life. We also believe in law, we also believe in constitutions, we also believe for that matter in fashion magazines that tell us

[00:27:39] how to live. So our sources are so diverse, our identities are so fragmented that we should all feel a little bit more chill about questions of identity. Discover more what is the essential

[00:27:56] humanity of the person we are sitting across from and how we can have a conversation either in the moment or through life on how we are going to conduct ourselves in this world and find our

[00:28:09] happiness. Yeah I also feel that it's also because we live in a country which is in some ways you know it's a neutral, it's a third country, it's removed. I remember going to, I was in

[00:28:24] Jerusalem and it was the most intense experience I've ever had in my life. You know we had friends in the Muslim quarter who would show us around and then we had friends in the Jewish

[00:28:36] quarter and they wouldn't cross this bridge and they wouldn't cross, one would drop us as one point and we had to cross the bridge and meet the other one and vice versa. And it was the

[00:28:47] atmosphere, the air, you could slice the air with a knife, it was electrifying and it's tension. You know and we were in the holy city and it was, you could feel it, it was

[00:28:59] very palpable and I also, you know friend of mine in India who is a Muslim is married to a Hindu. They're both Indian. She's been disqualified from going to the Hajj because she chose someone outside

[00:29:13] her religion and therefore she's now seen as an outsider. Her older sister got married to a Pakistani and is now settled in Pakistan. She's not seen her sister for 18 years. You know have your views about cross-border, multi-faith marriages changed over time? Do you think it's

[00:29:34] just easier for you because you, the both of you had a choice to live in a third country, to live in the United States. It has been so much easier because of that. I have to tell you

[00:29:47] yeah as I said to you just yesterday I bought my ticket to take my son to India to see my father who is nearly 90 years old but it was difficult to get his visa

[00:29:57] because his mother was born in Pakistan. So a 12 year old, 13 year old boy gets his visa denied. This happened six months ago when I tried to go from London because of his mother being

[00:30:13] Park born. I have met families during, I was writing a book called husband of a fanatic which I wrote soon after my marriage. I have met families who have been unable to travel, who have been divided

[00:30:27] because of this issue. So it's much, I understand it's much easier for me. My own, you know my wife's own uncle for example who was a you know an inspector general of police

[00:30:38] and a very highly placed police officer in India he did not, he was not able to even speak to his mother after his mother died in Pakistan. So he's an Indian police officer, he's on the top of

[00:30:50] the IPS and he did not see his sister for example who had been widowed for many years. I have a piece about, I've written about this and it's coming out in Granta magazine this winter. So it's a

[00:31:04] huge hassle. We have been lucky that way that because we are staying in this third space and what you describe about Jerusalem for example, I don't know whether I feel ever more despairing

[00:31:18] as I do when I think of what is happening there in terms of a global situation. Maybe the Ukraine and Russia conflict will be like that where you think what is the solution because the

[00:31:32] division seems so firm and so insurmountable but in those situations I really think I don't want to paint myself as a hero or a martyr to any cause. I just stumbled into love, I just think in that situation it's wonderful that some people nevertheless despite all those obstacles

[00:31:50] fall in love with each other. I mean for a moment I knew let's think 18 year old and you're in small town in India let's say in Haryana and you see this girl in your class and you have

[00:32:04] slipped her a note and but she happens to be Muslim or she happens to be Hindu if you are a Muslim and you slip her a note just think of how much more difficult that person is making the simple act of

[00:32:18] approaching the other person because this other person is from the different religion and how the parents will respond. Isn't it I think it's I think it's a tremendous act of courage

[00:32:30] to be able to undertake this. You know for me it was very easy we were in America, we were in New York so I must say I raise a toast to these people who are courageous enough and foolish enough

[00:32:45] to fall in love along these divisions. You visited Pakistan and I'd love to know what did you learn about Pakistani culture the people when you visited and what were the

[00:32:57] reactions from people there when they you know when they found out that you know not only are you from from India but also a Hindu and I have you my mother has always wanted to go to Lahore because

[00:33:08] again like you said things have been so in India pre partition you know my my grandparents were from that area and we things are so interwoven you know I mean it was you know

[00:33:22] this there's so much of that and I have a lot of my husband has a lot of friends in Pakistan and we went to India a few months ago and they actually he went from India to Dubai and they came from

[00:33:34] Pakistan to Dubai and they met there but what was your experience in Pakistan and how was that you know tell us more about the culture the people how was it for you. I had decided before

[00:33:45] I went there that I would make my visit not just a personal one but a journalistic one so first I went to Patna where I'm from and had students from my school write letters to Pakistani

[00:33:56] kids whom they had never met or seen and then I took those letters I you know arrived at my school I gave out these sheets from a notebook and had the students write letters and then I went to

[00:34:10] my wife's school in Karachi and I told the principal that I had brought these letters that I wanted to read to the students and I wanted the students to respond and so that was my first

[00:34:22] experience of Pakistan our students by which I mean because you're also Indian I'm saying our students our Indian students had written letters some of them were full of love some of them

[00:34:34] were full of anger and the response was the same you know in Pakistan some of them spoke of love someone some said you're liars you know our students wrote you are terrorists and the Kargil war had already happened of course and others had things to say but in

[00:34:52] both cases or what I liked what I was impressed by that people who had not spoken to each other before were speaking to each other or they had something to say to each other and I think

[00:35:05] that process of dialogue has just not been allowed to take place when I was there most people I thought you know India is a much more diverse country we have a very large Muslim population and those

[00:35:19] things have been in the last few years been being made more difficult for them our society has been much has been a truly secular society for a long time and we have a foundation that is

[00:35:33] strong in Pakistan that idea of diversity is much much more limited so my presence as a Hindu was more of a surprise to most people I met everyone was nice to me they were all welcoming

[00:35:48] but it was a more of an anomaly my presence I thought and people were surprised to find you know me as a presence there at social events where I announced myself I've been invited

[00:36:01] to literary festivals etc but I have not had a chance to go because the getting a visa is a real problem our governments make it very difficult really both sides both the Indians and the

[00:36:11] Pakistanis make it very difficult for citizens to really interact with each other my wife during her last visit had to report to police stations we spent countless hours of these limited few days at police stations in different cities Patna Delhi Gurgaon reporting both entry and exit

[00:36:29] it's a humiliating and stupid process and so what really happens in this political situation is that humanity is both questioned and crushed so that has been the experience of my wife visiting

[00:36:44] Pakistan and of me visiting of my wife is of my wife visiting India and me visiting Pakistan but people at the most common level are very sweet often very sweet very generous very hospitable

[00:36:57] and welcoming you know you you read reports all the time of people when they go to watch cricket test matches in either country you know being given sweets by sellers or not accepting money for clothes that you are buying so people are often you know there's so much

[00:37:13] that unites us it's very difficult always to have to also encounter the bureaucracy and the heartless state I was reading I mean I'd read your book husband of a fanatic because I love the title it also gave me a glimpse of the wonderful friendship

[00:37:31] that you and your wife must share for you to get away with that title she understood that I was being a little ironical huh so you know tell us a bit about your relationship and how it might

[00:37:42] have changed evolved over the years you know when I got married I remember a journalist after my piece came out or maybe after my book came out I can't remember asking me

[00:37:54] if my wife and I fought over Kashmir and my response was no no no we do we do not fight over Kashmir we fight over who is going to do the dishes tonight you know because yeah you know when

[00:38:07] you're living together distant political issues do not weigh on you it is more where is the line of control between two people here inside this house that matters so how has it changed I really think that you know my wife is an economist she teaches at the

[00:38:27] state university of New York here you know she's an intellectual and I think the things that bind us really are our intellectual interests and that's important you know for two people to think ah they're addressing similar questions about the world she's interested in you know a more

[00:38:49] equitable and just world and so am I I'm trying to write I don't I mean the only thing I can think of that has really been a dynamic change over time is the idea of two people who get together

[00:39:00] get married and then children arrive you know and so children both has a challenge because you know you now have to divide your love a little bit but also as a great resource because

[00:39:12] now your love has multiplied more and the things that bind you together is because you have now got these more resources of love flowing in from these little units you have created around you and that has been a wonderful part in our relationship because the children's welfare

[00:39:32] and how we talk about them and what they give to us you know how because of your you know your children or at least my children expect me to be more loving also towards my wife because of

[00:39:45] their existence here you know my child my younger son will always say let's do a group hug let's do a family hug I think that's been an important part of our history doubts and there

[00:39:56] we are long live India Pakistan friendship to do that yes how do you you know so when you're writing I mean you've written some some some wonderful wonderful books and but how do you

[00:40:08] choose what you're going to be writing about next and you know what language do you think in I think some things only come to me in Hindi and I'm translating it all the time I think in

[00:40:19] some ways both you and I are translated people in the sense that English is what we mostly communicated but so many of our thoughts or our dreams or the conversations in our dreams

[00:40:31] also take place in Hindi and so we are in some ways translated people I as a writer have always only just responded to the pressure of the time so for example my last novel that came out was

[00:40:46] about a person being at a writing residency and covid has come you know so I was trying to make sense of how people are responding to covid and the last book I brought out is called

[00:40:57] the blue book which is a book of drawings and diary entries about life during the pandemic I had started as a practice telling my children to do one drawing every day and I started doing

[00:41:08] the same thing you know dry I wanted them because there was so much of news coming from so many different directions and everything was in lockdown I wanted them to be more active rather than

[00:41:18] passive so you are going to be at the you know the newspaper that came I started making one painting over the over the obituary in the New York Times of any covid dead

[00:41:30] man you know just drawing let's say a flower and painting it with gouache allowed me to in some ways be a more active consumer of news and to write a diary which would be a sort of a

[00:41:41] notation about the day and what happened and I was also interested in fake news because the WHO had said that along with the pandemic there was an infodemic a spread of false

[00:41:52] information and I thought I should be alert to that and how could I surround the pictures I was painting with words which deconstructed the fake news and presented some information so I'm trying to answer your question about how I choose what to write by saying that I'm trying

[00:42:10] to respond to history what is happening on me what is weighing on me what is in some ways the pressure of the times is what the writer must creatively come up with to respond to it

[00:42:25] so can I do your your inspiration do you get your inspiration from what you see or is it based on what happens within you as a result of what you see I think both because

[00:42:40] what I see I am recording that but I'm also trying to be observant or self-conscious about what is happening inside me what I've started doing the pandemic also by the way is that you

[00:42:55] know just say every night people write and many people note down what happened that day but what I started doing the pandemic was something called morning pages so when I wake up in the morning

[00:43:06] for 15 minutes I just open you know any journal that I have and I write for 15 minutes it's a way of being more aware of where I am or what I'm thinking so the other thing I've just started

[00:43:20] doing and I've got a book here is I bought a book called The Assassin's Cloak which is diary entries for every day by various people so I'm opening this page at random

[00:43:34] if I open today's page we are talking here and on today's page there is a notation by Mount Batten John Wyndham John Evelyn Anayas named Kenneth Williams these are different people different writers different political figures who across centuries have made an entry for the day

[00:43:56] and it's just for me a way of thinking about diaries so I'm trying to describe to you a process where by consciously keeping a diary in the morning in the night and always carrying a

[00:44:09] notebook with me I'm just trying to present a sensibility that is trying to take in everything that it sees and also be self-conscious about what is changing in response to what one sees

[00:44:24] does that make sense to you yeah I mean a little bit yes you know lately I've been asked to write so it's you know I'm also picking up a lot of tips from what you're saying because I think it's

[00:44:36] it's good to pin things down I haven't got around to doing it because I think as a person I'm a very restless person but I'm seeing you know and I'm learning things from what you're saying

[00:44:46] your writing is also it's so it's raw it's honest it's intense it's nuanced and it's engaging of all the books that you've written which one is the closest to you I think Immigrant

[00:45:03] Montana which is a novel that I was also very pleased that President Obama put it on his favorite books of 2018 I liked it a lot because you know I had spent so many years in this country without necessarily writing about my experiences as an immigrant or even writing

[00:45:21] about this country because I felt all my memories and my in most self had been formed by who I had been in India so this was the my first attempt it was a novel it was my first attempt to write

[00:45:37] about my immigrant experience and to do so in a language that I felt was joyful or exuberant and even sexual because I had come here as a young man and I was discovering not only

[00:45:50] a new country but I was also discovering sex for example and so that book is for me perhaps closest because it was an attempt to give artful form to an experience that I had not written about before

[00:46:06] if you had a set of markers and you were to place them on a piece of paper you know and each marker represented an experienced a moment in your life which had a which was a defining moment

[00:46:20] which had a significant impact on your life where would these markers be there is a writer whom I admire very much who says that much of what you ever write about would have happened to you before

[00:46:33] you were even five years old I've never believed that to be true of me everything I feel that was very defining only happened later in life so my markers would have to include something like

[00:46:49] feeling aimless or lost or futile when I was a young student in Delhi and then another marker would be the shift of coming to this country and suddenly discovering a different way of being a

[00:47:04] writer and of being able to write and then meeting Mona and then that becoming a different part of my identity and the children and then the books you know I'm always not just a writer but I'm also

[00:47:21] a parent I'm not just always only a parent but also a husband I'm not just only only a husband but also a teacher so all that mix of things those are the markers really the movement

[00:47:33] the migration the marriage becoming a parent of the many roles that you play which one is your favorite Amitabh the writer Amitabh the father or Amitabh the husband I don't want my wife to hear

[00:47:50] I think once the children came for good or for bad that became my central concern really and before that it was being the husband and under it all or through all these changes the

[00:48:04] writer has persisted because I'm always making sense of who I'm as a parent also through my writing too you know I try to write about my children in fact my diaries are about what

[00:48:16] they say what they're thinking through I'm doing the same as a husband I'm trying to think about relationships when I write novels with imaginary characters people who are falling

[00:48:30] in love I'm working through my own ideas of my love for my wife really and I think I give to women who appear in my novels parts of what my wife is really and try to think about something so

[00:48:47] I don't know whether she knows this but I'm in conversation with her in the pages of my novels too even though the person there might be named Vani or Nina if you were to give your children

[00:49:00] a pearl of wisdom a mantra something that you hold very close to your heart what would that be you know there is a mantra I always give to my students and that is you must write 150 words

[00:49:16] a day whatever it is and walk mindfully 10 minutes a day so they have to about the mindful walking it is like you have to walk and with every step that you take you think as if you are planting

[00:49:30] a lotus with your feet just 10 minutes mindful walking and 150 words a day so I show them the notebook in which I write and I show them anything you could be describing what is

[00:49:40] happening outside your window but you have to do that what would I say to my children would I give the same mantra no no to them I think it would be simple love your parents

[00:49:50] three words amitav thank you for taking out the time to have this heart to heart with us your conversations much like your books are so so real it's been an absolute pleasure thank you

[00:50:03] and that's a wrap on the second season of heart to heart thank you to my audience for joining me on this journey and I hope this series has touched your heart just like it has touched mine until next time take care this is Anuradha Gupta signing off