1. What are your thoughts on contemporary Indian writers writing in English?

Contemporary literature is widespread. There are lots of books coming in English. There are many Indian writers writing in English, but I must make the strong statement that “an Indian writer can express his innermost emotions better in his own language and not in English. The best of Rabindranath Tagore’s works came in Bengali and not in English; the best of Premchand came in Hindi and not in English.”

2. So, would you suggest that Indian writers who write in their local languages are far more expressive than writers who write in English?

Literature needs a genuine expression. When you don’t have dreams in English, you can't write in English. R.K. Narayan, Raja Rao, Vikram Seth, and Amitav Gosh had all written good stories in English, but I cannot say that they are greater than Rabindranath Tagore or Kuvempu. The best of Indian writings came from regional languages, not from English. The best of Indian emotions is clearly depicted in the works of Kuvempu, Premchand, and other Gujarati writers, Tamil writers, or Assamese writers. Any regional writer is more profound than Indian writers writing in English.

3. Should India then segregate from the English language completely?

I can't deny the fact that for business, we need English as a medium for communication. We must keep English for that section only, not for literature. Literature is a very personal expression or emotion exchanged between the writer and the reader. There is no one between the writer and the reader. Other popular arts are different; when it comes to cinemas or plays, there will be a lot of people involved, but in literature, it is the writer and the reader. “Literature is an inquisitive art; it should not compete with other popular arts.”

4. Would you agree that the best of Indian literature is before us?

I don't think genuine classics can be written in English but in the regional language instead. Therefore, I don’t think the classical era of Indian literature will come again.

5. How important is the cultural root of a writer when it comes to self-expression?

My second novel, ‘Nunni’, is about the Christian missionaries of Prem Nath Ashram, Kolkata. Although I wrote about them in my novel, I was not able to contemplate the cultural roots of the people there. It was as if I was just using it as a peripheral thing in my literature since I was not able to understand the cultural roots of Kolkata. In relation to this, we can consider James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ to be all about Dublin, since the novelist is so accustomed to the place. There is cultural conditioning that influences writers, and contemporary writers are not culturally conditioned.

6. What is the state of literature in India today, according to you?

People have now reduced the position of literature to a mere entertainment product and should rather not treat books as a means of entertainment. If you wish to come to books, there should be some ethno feeling. The ethno feeling should attract you towards books. If you are getting poor entertainment from reels, you would expect the same from books. Literature has now become a fifteen-minute scroll, which is wrong.

7. Do you think it is possible to be a full-time writer in India?

There is ample space in English literature, but as far as I know, even the biggest publishing house in India publishes only a thousand copies per print. Writers like Amitav Ghosh have connections with the western world—the first-world countries—but even he can't say that he earns from his books alone. In the US, they know how to turn everything into finance, but we do not have that kind of enthusiasm for literature.

8. What alternative would you suggest to the readers and writers of the modern period in the context of writing, reading, and perceptions towards literature?

Writing should come from our inner emotions; I cannot be commissioned to write a series of books like ‘The Lord of the Rings’. My kind of literature does not work like that. A screenwriter has some aim and will have some boundaries. A writer does not have that. I do not have any goals. My story does not have an aim, but my characters do have intentions. It flows freely in my story. True literature should sensitize our senses. It should sharpen our senses. True literature cannot do anything greater than this.

9. Are there any other art forms that could reiterate the same?

Any art form that can exceed literature is music. Music has crossed the barrier of languages. Literature is the servant of language because it is the medium of expression, but for music, there is no medium of expression. The limitation of literature is language itself; whatever the translation may be, the English translation cannot be true to my own writing in Kannada. There would be so many layers, foam, and cultural roots embedded in the language. We all have individual expressions in our regional language that we cannot express in a true sense in English.

10. What are your thoughts on cultural conditioning? If a writer bridges the gap between expressing deep emotions, do you think it would have an impact on contemporary Indian writers?

In the long run, each and every corner of India will become cosmopolitan. Eventually, our expressions would be cosmopolitan as well. The cultural regional conditioning is gradually disappearing, so the cosmopolitan condition will become a very normal thing. Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer, writes in Japanese, but his writings are not just about true Japanese cultural conditioning but more about cosmopolitan-brushed Japanese culture presented in the west. Even after seventy-five years of independence from colonial power, Indians never truly converted into a cosmopolitan mindset; we are neither truly concentrated on our conservative sense. We are not into anything now, so we are in a very confused state of mind, and even the literature is confused. I hope better literature will come that can bridge the gap, so it will become different all together. Someday, it will come.