Zitat des Tages von Vikram Seth:
I think it's possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.
You have to learn a few things, which you do along the way, but basically, poetry is a matter of the ear. Iambic pentameters or what constitutes a stanza comes naturally - your ears will know.
I rarely listen to music while writing. If I don't like it, it bothers me, and if I like it, it absorbs me so much I can't write.
The fact is that at different stages of your life, and under the influence of different inspirations, you write different things. The point is not necessarily to find your voice, which grinds out the same sort of thing again and again, but to find a vehicle for people who are far more important than the author: the characters.
Why do writers, say, give up a job in economics and decide to write poetry? Or, why do they give up a job in a bank and decide to paint, like Krishan Khanna? They want to convey something.
You can talk good ideas out of existence.
I love speculating about solutions to problems in mathematics. I have no interest whatever in sudoku. But I do look at chess and bridge problems in newspapers. I find that relaxing.
I don't think people give Indian society enough credit. We may not like to talk much about things but we do, basically, want to live and let live.
I just love music - by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.
If you were to ask me to pick my favourite author, well, there are so many of them, I'd really just have to say the first names that came to mind, and I'm sure that I'll later think 'Oh, I should have mentioned that one.'
If I'm compelled to do something, I don't shy away from it simply because I haven't tackled it before.
I'm actually a very lazy person. Most of the time, I'm happy to sit around and stare. Or watch bad TV soaps. It's quite rare for me to get inspired by anything, but it could be something small. A view of the Serpentine. A snatch of music. Or a little shred of conversation overheard on a bus, such as, 'You also will marry someone of my choice.'
Realism hasn't fallen out of favor with most people, who are interested in people's lives rather than gymnastics of style or literary trends. It's a certain kind of academic who undervalues realism, largely because it is not amenable to endless exegesis.
Of course, I have to consider that I've written a lot of prose, but I do in my heart think of myself as being originally, and still primarily, a poet.
I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.
I am careful about fiction. A novel is not a tract or an essay. If I want to write about land reforms, or Hindu-Muslim relations, or position of women, I can do it as it affects my characters as in 'A Suitable Boy.' I could only write about issues specifically through essays. But I'll do that only if I have something worthwhile to say.
The problem with too beautiful a view is that it's alright for the mulling stage. But for the writing stage, you want to be somewhere without a view, especially if it is very different from what you're writing.
I often feel newspapers are just filling up space. Of course, I also know people who write really long books.
I have a reputation for being hermitlike. I'm not. I'm just obsessed with my work.
I tend to follow a scattershot approach to reading a lot of very diverse subjects interest me, and I'm quite happy to read stuff on any of them.
My main motivation is not to get bored. I'm just hoping I get a vaguely maverick reputation.
I want my books to sell, to be read. I'm not interested in being obscure.
I'm not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
The thing about inspiration is that it takes your mind off everything else.
As for what I listen to after writing, it could be anything - but I've noticed that if the current book contains music from one tradition, it is music from another tradition that most relaxes me.
Good music is good music, but it has to be good.
