Narcopolis: Sin in the city and Jeet Thayil

Given that Jeet Thayil spent two decades of his life as a drug addict on the streets of New York and Mumbai, it’s ironic that he has the lissome limbs and unlined face of an ascetic who has spent the past few years living with Tibetan monks.

Thankfully Thayil, whose debut novel, Narcopolis, has impressed the literary world with its relentlessly poetic tale of several characters living in Mumbai’s underworld, now lives a more salubrious life in New Delhi where he is at work on a second novel.

When, before our interview, I tell him I’ve only had time to read the prologue and several chapters of Narcopolis, he seems pleased that I’ve even got that far.

“You got past the prologue?” he says. “Good, that’s sort of like a test. Some people can’t manage that. If you can get past the prologue then you’ll be fine.”

The reason some readers might find the prologue a challenge is because it consists of a breathless, six-page-long single sentence that sucks you immediately into the squalor of the story.

It is a bravura opening, giving us an indication of what we’re in for: a journey into the depravity and tumult of the frenetically paced Bombay (as Mumbai was then called) of the late 20th century. Not since Gregory David Roberts’ 2003 book Shantaram has a novel set in the city’s underworld been so enthusiastically received.

A guest at the recent Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, Jeet spoke candidly about his writing, the rapidly changing face of India and the 20 years of drug addiction he has often referred to as “embedded research”.

You’ve leapt from poetry, which you were writing for years, to the much longer form of the novel. What took you so long to do that?

One word: drugs. I was doing drugs and alcohol on and off for about 20 years, and the thing about the kind of drugs I was doing is that there’s no way to do them and live a normal life. So there was no way I could do any kind of long-form writing.

Poems happen in a burst. Similar to journalism. You spend a couple of days [on an article] and you’re done. I did start on a couple of novels, with one I wrote about 10,000 words, but I abandoned it because of ill-discipline and the lack of resources or space to pursue any kind of long-form writing. I quit drugs in 2002 and started writing seriously in 2004. That’s no coincidence.

Were you a drug addict in Bombay, as well as New York?

And Hong Kong. I’ve taken heroin all over the world. That’s something drug users take great pride in. Put me into any foreign city where there’s heroin and I would be able to find drugs by the end of the day. I was in Zurich a little while ago and I was walking down the Langstrasse and I could smell it. I could see these guys and I knew they had some. I wanted to check if I still had the skill, that edge to do it.

Narcopolis consists of several interconnected narratives. Could it have been a book of short stories?

No, I knew it had to be a novel. Although at this point I do have material that could be in short story form and I am thinking of a collection of shorter pieces.

Short stories are closer to poetry. It wouldn’t be such a big leap for you, as a published poet.

Absolutely. Compression, discipline… You need a real talent to write short stories and it’s actually more difficult than writing a novel because your canvas is tiny.

Do you have any kind of book deal to write your next novel?

I would rather not have one of those deals, because it puts you under tremendous pressure. It’s like you’re in a bit of a hurry to put that second book out and I’d rather not have that and just take my time with the book and give it in when I’m done with it. Otherwise what happens is you rush through your second book, you get very frazzled. It’s happened to a lot of friends of mine.

You’ve been compared to some brilliant writers including Thomas De Quincey, William Burroughs and Denis Johnson. Did you have them in mind when you were writing Narcopolis?

Of course, I knew De Quincey very well, but I never thought I’d be compared to him.
I also know Burroughs very well. I’ve read pretty much everything he’s written. But my book is completely different from the Burroughs cut-up style, and I never thought that I would be compared to him either.

And I know why a reviewer would make those comparisons, but I don’t know if I would necessarily agree with them. I mean, the only similarity with Burroughs, for instance, is the fact that [Narcopolis] is a world centred around opium.

Who are the writers at the literature festival you were keen to meet and hang out with?

I was thrilled to meet Roger McGough, Simon Armitage and Ben Okri. These are all writers I’ve been reading my whole life. It’s great to hang out with poets. They really don’t give a damn. It takes some badass perversity to live the life of a poet.

Do you have any formal academic literary qualifications?

I do. I have a master’s in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College in New York, though I don’t know if that’s a literary qualification [laughs]. It’s the best I can do!

With all its social, cultural and economic changes, is this an exciting time to be a writer in India?

It’s definitely a good time to be a writer in India. It is one of those places where, if you write fiction, nothing you could possibly make up out of your fevered, crazy imagination would ever match what you read in the newspapers. It’s insane! So in that sense it’s amazing, in terms of material, it’s jumping out at you. And it’s a society that is being transformed from week to week and you can see the transformation happening in front of your eyes.

Is that one of the things that brought you back to India?

Well when I came back to India it wasn’t like this. This was just starting. I came back to write. You can’t live in New York without a job. In India we have a tradition of living off our families, so I knew I could go back and live with them while I worked on this book. I was completely broke when I worked on Narcopolis. I had a tiny income. But in a way it was the best thing that could have happened. I was completely immersed in this world.

So your parents were very supportive?

Yes. They had seen me destroying myself for 20 years and didn’t know what to do. But then they saw me come out of it and when they knew I had quit my [journalism] job in New York and was coming back to India to write, and they knew it was something I wanted to do my whole life, they were completely behind me.

Why are you now based in New Delhi?
I love Bombay, but it’s very difficult to live there. It’s become impossible for many reasons. I was paying 37,000 rupees [Dh2,500 a month] for one room in Bandra. For almost the same amount in Delhi I have a garden, three rooms and a kitchen, facing a park.

Do you think you’ll stay there?

No. You know where I’d love to live? Shanghai.

But presumably you’ll base some kind of story in Delhi before you leave.

Yes, the book I’m working on next is set a lot in Delhi.

Do you think the bad press that Delhi has had recently after the rape cases will affect the way you write about it?

What I have already written stands true after that. Anyone who knows Delhi would not be surprised by what happened. It’s a really unsafe city for women. Even if you are a man walking with a woman you can feel it.

You’ve been nominated for the Man Booker Prize and won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Apart from money, how important are these accolades to you?

The thing is, when you come back to work, it doesn’t mean a thing. All those anxieties that were there when you were working on your first book will be there when you start working on your second. How it does help is to make your work more visible. People who may never have seen your book before will pick it up. That’s a huge thing and I’m grateful to the prizes for that, and I always will be.