JOHNNY GONE DOWN (32 page)
A note of gratitude for Jackie Kennedy’s immortal quote used at the beginning of the book. Finally, I’m greatly obliged to all the films and novels which inspired
Johnny Gone Down
, both in terms of research and ideas. There are way too many to mention all of them here, but a special word of appreciation for
Forrest Gump, Cocaine Cowboys, Oldboy, Travelers and Magicians, The Deer Hunter, The Killing Fields, City of God, Elite Squad, Bus 174, Crime School: Money Laundering, The Novice, Lucia, Basic Teachings of the Buddha, Voices from S-21, Children of the Killing Fields, Amores Perros, Second Life for Dummies, English August, Delhi is Not Far, Bangkok 8, Bangkok Tattoo
and many, many others. I’ve travelled extensively in most of the countries these books and films originate from, and have been amazed at how well they capture the ethos of the environment they are set in, something I aspire to emulate in my writing.
Excerpts from an editorial interview with Karan Bajaj
Q: First things first, congratulations on publishing your second novel. From India to Cambodia to Thailand to Brazil to the Silicon Valley back to India, you’ve covered quite a bit of ground in a pretty slim novel!
KB: Thank you. Yes, the story does run through several countries, but since the intent was to follow the protagonist rather than to make any comment on the historical or political context of his environment, the size of the novel didn’t increase with its span. In Thailand, for instance, the story remains within the four walls of the monastery where the protagonist becomes a Buddhist monk.
Q:
Johnny Gone Down
is very different from your first novel,
Keep Off the Grass.
I know writers hate this question but I feel compelled to ask - do you like one more than the other?
KB: I guess the correct answer would be to say that I like both equally as a mother loves both her children or something. But I will be honest and say that I have a stronger affection for
Johnny Gone Down.
I was young
when I wrote
Keep Off The Grass
, both in terms of age and experiences. I think I’ve grown up since and this is a deeper, darker, more heart-felt novel with a much stronger story.
Q: Yet
Keep Off the Grass
was a significant commercial success and reasonably well-reviewed. This leads me to my next question. Literary critics have come down heavily on the new generation of Indian writers. Does criticism bother you?
KB: On the contrary, I think criticism is tremendously helpful. When your novel is reviewed by seasoned critics, who’ve read everything from Salman Rushdie’s epics to Salman Khan’s biography, you get a free education of sorts. I deeply valued the feedback I received from critics as well as the hundreds of readers who wrote to me after reading
KOTG
-
and consciously acted upon it. Given the mixed reviews on plotting, I focused heavily on
JGD’s
plotting while trying to retain the pace and freshness that made
KOTG
a success.
Q: How long did it take you to write
JGD?
KB: I usually start with a big theme in mind and allow the story to work itself in my head for a while before I put pen to paper. The theme I was playing around with for
JGD
was around success and whether living a stable, even-keeled life is better than a rich, interesting life with towering ups and abysmal lows. During this time,
I was also backpacking for a year in between jobs and travelled to some pretty interesting places and ended up meeting quite an odd assortment of people on the road and in youth hostels. Somewhere in the middle of the trip, I began to realize that no matter where I went, whether Cambodia or Brazil or Mongolia or India, there seemed to be more similarities than dissimilarities in people, feelings and ideas. Hence this intercontinental journey of the protagonist began to fuse with the original theme. So I guess the story was playing around in my head for almost a year, but the actually act of writing took four or five months which began when I joined my new job.
Q: So you wrote while pursuing a full-time job? Do you find it difficult to balance your corporate career with writing?
KB: No, I don’t think my corporate career is coming between me and the Nobel Prize for Literature! The lack of skill and ideas limits me more than a lack of time. I’m lucky that I’m in a very fulfilling line of work which actually infuses my life with energy rather than sap it out of me. I work in Brand Management, which requires a lot of leadership, teamwork and creativity and you work with a lot of diverse, interesting folks -advertising agencies, design agencies and such - which always keeps things interesting.
I also feel that having a steady career makes me a better writer. I can choose to write what I want to
and compose from the heart because I don’t have to cater to the latest publishing trends or specialize in the genre I’ve written in before or lobby for author awards or worry about networking for film deals. I don’t really need the money from writing, nor is writing my only source of self-worth.
Q: From a film deal perspective, your first novel was optioned by a Hollywood studio and received a lot of Bollywood interest as well. Do you envision a similar response to
JGD?
KB: I don’t know. It occurred by happenstance the first time around as well. The book was picked up casually in airport and hotel bookshops by the directors who contacted me. I hope something similar happens this time, but ultimately writing has to be its own reward. Rather than a great film deal, I’d probably feel a greater sense of accomplishment in writing an honest, engaging book which touches some hearts.
Q:
‘Write about what you know’
is said to be the mantra for good writing. Have you lived through any of the varied events that happened to the protagonist in
JGD?
KB: No, I’ve never been a drug lord, a Buddhist monk, a genocide survivor, a homeless accountant, a deadly game fighter or even a software mogul! I’m more of a believer of ‘Write about what you can feel’. I deeply relate to Nikhil, Monk Namche, Coke Buddha, Nick,
Johnny and the other avatars of the protagonist. In various stages of my life, I’ve experienced the same sense of displacement and failure as also the unconditional love and friendship that the protagonist experiences. Of course, my life has never been this dramatic but then these leaps of fancy are what make fiction so compelling.
Q: Who are your writing inspirations?
KB: I’m inspired by both films and literature.
Johnny Gone Down
, for instance, was inspired by the dark, futile mood of films like
Oldboy, The Deer Hunter
and
Amores Perros
as it was by the incredible journey of
Forrest Gump
(which is one of my favorite novels and a mighty decent film as well) and the surreal adventures of Sonchai Jitpleecheep, the Buddhist detective-protagonist of John Burdett’s Bangkok novels,
Bangkok 8, Bangkok Tattoo and Bangkok Haunts.
Closer home, Ruskin Bond, Upamanyu Chatterjee and Mohsin Hamid are among my favorite contemporary writers.
Q: Indian writing in English has gone through a great transformation. What do you think about Indian publishing today and where it’s going?
KB: I’m too small a person to attempt a knowledgeable answer to this big a question. All I can say is that like any other era in Indian publishing or anywhere else, I think there are a few good novels and many more bad novels.
Q: What is your next novel about?
KB: I’m not sure yet. I’m getting interested in mysticism and occult sciences as also in the importance of charity and giving back so it’s likely going to be some combination of these ideas. But that’s all I know right now. Before I begin writing another novel though, I think I need both silence and some new experiences to nurture the substance within. Otherwise I’ll end up recycling the same ideas in a different story.
What do you do when you are a twenty-five-year-old Yale graduate making half-a-million dollars a year as a hotshot investment banker on Wall Street? You bust your ass, and become a millionaire by thirty, of course. Not if you are Samrat Ratan, born in the USA to immigrant Indian parents; you quit and enrol in business school in India instead. Samrat’s rollercoaster journey begins at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bangalore, where he spends his time getting high on marijuana while his grades – and self-confidence – plummet. Soon, Samrat’s quest for identity turns increasingly bizarre as it takes him places he hadn’t planned on visiting – prison, for example – and makes him do things he hadn’t banked on doing: ‘meditating’ stoned with a sexy Danish hippie in the Himalayas, hanging out with a cannibal on the banks of the Ganga, and peddling soap to the formidable Raja Bhaiya in Benares.
Does Samrat – Yale valedictorian, investment banker, convict, pothead – survive his fall from grace?
Read Karan Bajaj’s hilarious, yet introspective debut novel,
Keep Off the Grass
to find out.
‘A racy and entertaining account of a romp through an ever-changing yet timeless India…wild, witty and wicked!’
R
USKIN
B
OND
‘An unlikely, remarkable story…It’s well worth following Ratan on his journey from New York’s high life to incarceration in India.’
P
UBLISHERS
W
EEKLY
, USA
‘A most interesting and unusual pursuit…a fascinating and entertaining look at life in India.’
A
MAZON
T
OP
R
EVIEWER
‘Pacy, unpretentious and great fun to read!’
O
UTLOOK
I
NDIA
Karan Bajaj is the author of
Keep Off the Grass
, which has been on bestseller lists in India since its release in 2008. The book was a semifinalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Indiaplaza Golden Quill Award, among other honours.
Johnny Gone Down
is his second novel.
Born in 1979 into an Army family, Karan studied in various schools in New Delhi, Shimla, Lucknow, Jabalpur, Assam, Ranchi and Bangalore and regards his interest in backpacking and travel as key writing inspirations. Besides writing, he pursues his Brand Management career with Kraft Foods, New York and was named a ‘Top 40 under 40 US Marketer’ by
Advertising Age
in 2007. He can be reached at
[email protected]
.
First published in India in 2011 by
HarperCollins
Publishers
India
Copyright © Karan Bajaj 2010
ISBN: 978-81-7223-786-8
Epub Edition © June 2012 ISBN: 9789350294949
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Karan Bajaj asserts the moral right to be identified as
the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
Publishers
India.
Cover design: Bhautik Siddhapura
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