My Friend Sancho, by Amit Varma: book review and interview with writer

Review of the book:

Journalist and well-known blogger Amit Varma’s first novel, written in 2008, is out on the stands. Looking smart and new in a grey paperback cover carrying an embossed lizard and shocking-pink heart flaunting the title “ My friend Sancho,” the book really calls out to be picked up and read. The shock is not over, yet, as you find on reading the first few pages of the novel:
“I should introduce myself now. My name is Abir Ganguly. I work for a tabloid in Bombay called The Afternoon Mail. I am 23. I eat meat. I am heterosexual. I don’t believe in God. I masturbate 11 times a day. I exaggerate frequently, as in the last sentence. I am ambitious in the sense of what I want to be rather than what I want to do….”
Sometimes, such frankness in expression, when it stems from a deliberate desire to shock, can put me off, but I read on for good reasons: (a) The adventure or fantasy hinted at on the back cover had made me curious enough to go on. (b) My desk training held me back from judging it too quickly. (c) This novel, I knew, had been nominated for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008! Amit Varma was in the longlist with promising Indian voices such as Tulsi Badrinath, Daisy Hasan, Salma and others whose books I had read before.
So I continued, and soon I found myself sinking into a fast and entertaining story of the life and thoughts of Abir Ganguly, the tabloid journalist. Abir, who has been put on a crime beat, is called over by one of his sources, Inspector Thombre, to cover, during action, an arrest he and his men are planning to make. Waiting outside as the cops enter the supposed gangster’s house, Abir and his camera man are stunned when they suddenly hear gunshots… the suspected criminal has been shot, they realise! Abir gets a clue that it’s a mistake, when they hear the inspector mutter, “…at least, it’s only a Muslim,” as if that would mitigate the consequences… Abir and his colleague beat a hasty retreat. Things may have ended there, if not that he is asked to do a big story on the same crime. In this manner, he gets to know the daughter, Muneeza, of murdered Mohammed Iqbal, and also gets to see the workings of Thombre’s mind. The rest is about the developing relationship between Abir and Muneeza, narrated in a very unsentimental, witty, style in the cyber language of the day!
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Amit Varma was born in Chandigarh in 1973 and was educated in Pune. Starting as a copywriter, he got his first break into cyberspace, as managing editor of Cricinfo, India, in 2003. He then started blogging at India Uncut, in 2004, which soon made news -- picking up the Best Indiblog award (2005 Indibloggies) and nominations for Best Asian Blog (2006 Bloggies) and the 2008 Weblog Awards. A regular writer of op-eds and columns, his weekly column for the, Mint, called “Thinking It Through,” won him the prestigious annual Bastiat Prize for Journalism in 2007. In 2008, he gave up regular employment to focus on his first novel, My Friend Sancho. Now he is a based in Mumbai and is well into his second novel.
As things went, My Friend Sancho was not the winning entry in that competition; yet, it is unique and deserving in many ways. It is worth celebrating the author’s rare gift of being able to make the reader laugh out loud in places. One can feel the force of the new-age Indian English writing in it and celebrate its promise of the emergence of a generation carrying no memory of the wounds of the partition.


Interview with Amit Varma:


1. It was a lovely experience to read My friend Sancho. Did you have to rework many times to make it sound this spontaneous?

Once I hit upon the voice of the book, it flowed naturally from there. The book is a first-person narrative by the character, Abir Ganguly, and once I established the character and got his voice, all I had to do was stay true to it. After that events dictated themselves, and I merely followed Abir where he went.

2. How did you hit upon this concept?

I began with just a character and a setting —Abir Ganguly, this young, smart-alecky journalist, and his tabloid newsroom. I wanted to take him out of his comfort zone and see how he changed in the process. So the story evolved to have him meet this girl he would otherwise never have noticed, if not for these circumstances. His attraction to her makes his reexamine many things about himself, and that's the central drama in the book

3. Were you always sure that you wanted to be a writer; can you tell us about the chief influences on your writing?

Yes, I've wanted to be a novelist almost since I first learnt to read. I've procrastinated over the years, done various other things along the way, but I've never seen myself as anything but a storyteller, a person who writes one novel after another. I'm glad that I've finally gotten down to it.

There are too many influences on my writing to pinpoint a few. But what I aspire to do as a writer is bridge the gap between popular and literary fiction, with books that are both entertaining and thought-provoking. Other writers I can think of like that include Haruki Murakami and Nick Hornby.


4. What does (or did) journalism mean to you? How did it shape or affect your creative writing?

I used to be the managing editor of Cricinfo and have written for the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and the Observer, as well as many Indian publications. I used to write a weekly column for Mint and a fortnightly column for Mail Today. However, I gave it all up to focus exclusively on writing novels last year, and that is what I'm doing now.


5. I have seen the reference to your blog (www.indiauncut.com) in the novel. What is the role of blogging today?

Blogging is a very versatile medium for writers of all kinds, and allows a writer an opportunity to connect with a readership in near-real time. I enjoy it a lot, and am fortunate to have built up a decent readership. It has nothing in common with writing novels, though—these two are totally different disciplines.

6. How does it affect writing and sales of books?

I think it helps. Look at these literary blogging sites, they actually increase the appetite for reading things you like. Unlike the media, blogs have more space and are not constrained by word limits or anything. If you wish to write a three-hundred word review or a forty-word one, it’s entirely up to you to choose.

7. The cover design is really a different idea. You can actually feel the embossed lizard and wonder what this character is going to do in the story. Did you think of the design too?
We actually used the blog to post a cover-design competition for those who are trained to do cover-designers but are not professionals. We announced a prize for the best design and this is the one that we found. Hachette has managed to identify some excellent cover designers in this process, too.


8. How much of the story is real? Is Abir Ganguly is based on yourself and your journalistic experience?

Very little. My experience in journalism is very different. I was never in the newsroom or on a crime beat. I used to write on economics and politics. Abir is a 23-year-old full Bengali and I am a 35-year old half-Bengali. In terms of setting and so on, yes, it is familiar from my life. Otherwise Abir is a very different person from me. He is young and story traces a sort of coming of age of this guy who doesn’t take life too seriously and has no definite moral compass…

9. As a first time author, it must have been a struggle to get past the filters of publishers... or was it?

Actually it wasn't. I believe if you tell a story well, it speaks for itself. I had offers from four publishers, and finally chose Hachette India.

10. And what a success!! You were in the longlist for the Man Asian Literary prize!!! How does that feel and how has it affected your life and working style?


I was delighted to be longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, but the validation I really want is the enjoyment of my readers. Now that the book has been published, I'm waiting to see if readers enjoy it. If they do, I shall feel fulfilled; if they don't, then awards won't help me feel better. I write books for readers, not for awards.

11. About the recent boom in Indian writing…

India is not just a single country, it’s not even two, it is a population of a billion people each with their own story to tell. So there really are many stories to be told.