Trailing in blind alleys

HYDERABAD : In the murder-mystery, ‘Ritual’ (Pan Macmillan India) author Uttaran Das Gupta, who teaches as an assistant professor in Jindal School of Journalism & Communication, Sonipat, unravels some dark truths set in a Communist Calcutta of the 80s with a tightly-woven plot and impressive characters. He was supposed to travel for a multi-city launch which is on hold given the Covid-19 lockdown. In a conversation, he talks about his book, the research methodology and more. Excerpts:

How long did it take you to finish writing this crime thriller?

What were your research sources? It took me about two years to write ‘Ritual’. When I had first begun writing it, the novel was supposed to be about 30,000 words, and I had thought that I would finish in a month. I don’t think a novel can be written like that. There are a lot of historical sources that I looked up to recreate Calcutta– this is the name I prefer – of the late 1980s. I have listed all of them in my book, but I would like to mention two here: ‘Calcutta: The Living City’, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, my teacher at Jadavpur University, and Gunter Grass’s ‘Show Your Tongue’.

Why did you choose Calcutta of the late 80s as the setting of this book? In 1989, Calcutta was terrorised by the Stoneman Murders. I was only three years old, but I can still recall its terror. This is what I wanted to recreate in my novel-that grim atmospheric narrative.

The mention of Caucasian women as the bodyguards of the Yogi somewhat draws parallels with Gaddafi of L i b y a . C o m m e n t s ?

Gaddafi was the inspiration. Some Yogis in our country-like religious leaders everywhereare deeply power-hungry and fascistic.

thread connecting East Europe and Calcutta through communism?

In 2018, I had received the Robert Bosch Foundation India- Germany Media Fellowship, which helped me travel to Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Belgium, France, and Poland. To those who have grown up in a communist state, like West Bengal-similarities with the former communist states of east Europe are quite evident. On my first night in Berlin, I was going to take the UBahn. The underground trains seemed very familiar to me. Later, I found out that the Calcutta metro was designed with the help of engineers from East Germany. I do not write about this in Ritual, but in a short story called ‘Rain in Prague’ available online.

Your novel documents the rise of a right-wing fanatic leader. How do you juxtapose this with an upsurge in the communal polarisation in the country?

I think it is impossible to not write about the communalisation of Indian society, with the full sanction of the ruling dispensation. Ritual was published in mid-February this year, days before protests against the discriminatory Citizenship (Amendment) Act snowballed into anti-Muslim violence in Delhi, where I live. This did not happen overnight. It has been happening for the past several years. How can one not write about it?

This book has elements of same-sex relations. Did any incident incite you to pen it?

There was no incident that inspired me, but even as I finished writing Ritual, the Supreme Court decided to decriminalise those parts of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that penalised consensual same-sex relations. There was no plan for two men in the novel who love each other. It happened quite organically. — saima@newindianexpress .com @Sfreen