Hungry for adventure

Author interview

For a writer who says he is more restless than competitive in both his professional and writer’s avatars, Karan Bajaj has been quite a success. His first novel, Keep Off The Grass (2008), not only sold over 40,000 copies but was also picked up by a major Hollywood production house for film adaptation. And his second novel, Johnny Gone Down, has recently been released with a first print run of 50,000 copies, claimed to be a record for Indian fiction.

But Bajaj, an IIM-Bangalore alumni and a brand management specialist based in New York, sounds modest enough when he sidesteps a question on whether his publishers, Harper Collins, has pitched him as a competitor to Chetan Bhagat, arguably the biggest-selling commercial fiction writer in India today. Bajaj, in fact, is quick to point out that his and Bhagat’s subjects and writing styles are worlds apart, and hence there is no scope for competition.

But like any young writer of this day and age, Bajaj too is image and media savvy, not content with just his small biographical note at the back flap. Along with it, he gives not a mug shot of himself, but a whole front profile shot with what looks like the Mayan ruins of South America forming the backdrop. Add to that, his email id for readers to contact him, and a self-formulated author Q&A in which he gives replies to what can be the FAQs about him.

His protagonist Nikhil Arya, one might argue, is a bit like him. He too is young, an Ivy League scholar and loves travelling. But that is where the similarities end, as Bajaj stresses that there is no autobiographical streak in Arya whose fast-changing fortunes forces him to play a dangerous game of survival across nations.

For Bajaj, writing this novel has been as exciting as the adventures of his protagonist, but bigger excitement was in store from him after giving the book to his publishers. Says the intrepid backpacker (something which reflects in the backdrops of his stories), “I was more surprised and excited than nervous when I was told that they would print 50,000 copies. I think it’s a big, bold move from Harper, more so as Johnny Gone Down is a completely different story from my first as well as the adolescent urban fiction genre doing well in India now.”

Bajaj describes himself as neither too competitive in the corporate world nor in the literary world. “This is not because I am a great person but because I have an innate restlessness, probably due to the displacement that comes with an Army background. All my free time and mind space is occupied with planning work sabbaticals so I can travel; exploring various religious and spiritual philosophies to understand myself better; consuming meaningful art, theatre, literature, films, etc. The quest to be in control of my own life leaves very little time to focus on someone else’s journey,” says the 1974-born author.

Ask him if there is an autobiographical streak in Arya’s character, and Bajaj gives a philosophical reply. “I think emotionally all novels are autobiographical. So in that sense, I deeply relate to the displacement, loss and failure that the protagonist experiences as I can to the unconditional love and friendship that he receives. The situations in the novel are less autobiographical, but somewhere or the other, I have experienced somewhat similar things. When I was backpacking through the Philippines, for instance, a sudden violent protestation broke out in front of me as I was ambling aimlessly down the streets. People were shot and killed and I had to run for cover. Those kinds of events do make you wonder how fragile life can be and how one unexpected event can set off a chain of events in motion that can alter your life completely. That’s what happens to Nikhil, a sudden event in a vacation leads to his bizarre, almost surreal 21-year journey.”
Bajaj, however, does not agree that his novel is a critique of the corporate world of which he is a citizen. He explains,“The comparison of the protagonist’s life with that of a corporate cog is a less significant component of the story, and I used it only as a readily comprehensible device to emphasise the bigness of the protagonist’s life and his eventual realisation that perhaps, Johnny hasn’t gone down after all,” he explains, adding that he “quite loves” his corporate job, “probably because I work in Brand Management, a very fulfilling, creative line of work which actually infuses my life with energy.”

The author says that his next book could be a combination of subjects he is getting interested in — mysticism, the philosophy behind occult sciences and the importance of charity. In that sense, he is always looking forward, a trait that also comes through when he says that he is not keeping track of the film adaptation of Keep off the Grass.
“I feel my job is done when I finish writing the book and the film adaptation is completely the filmmaker’s discretion. Personally, I’m indifferent to adaptation, choice of actors, etc, as I have no desire to be involved in the filmmaking process. Nor do I find Bollywood particularly fascinating or glamorous,” says Bajaj, whose only interest is in seeing if the filmmaker is able to finally transfer the broader emotional and philosophical thoughts in the novel into film.