Anjali Joseph: Grace and Beauty

Before her debut novel had even come out, Anjali Joseph found herself on The Telegraph's 20 Writers Under 40 list for her 'Sharp yet lyrical' writing in Saraswati Park.

Caught between Bombay and Bethnal Green, she occupies a dreamy space of textured language and well-drawn characters brimming with pathos.

You can judge for yourself now whether she is deserved of the list (we think she is) as the book is out now.

We talked to her about Saraswati Park, her plans for the future and her favourite Bombay moments.

> Saraswati Park is the book. How would you describe it in a Tweet?

Saraswati Park is a Bombay story of lost dreams, family recovered and the still spaces in a vibrant city.

> How would you describe it if you had a bit longer?

The novel follows three central characters: Mohan, a middle-aged letter writer who loses himself in second hand books scribbled with marginal annotations; his nephew, Ashish, a college student who’s trying to get a boyfriend; and Mohan’s wife, Lakshmi. When the novel opens each of them has his or her unresolved hopes or dreams. The year that ensues sees how they skirt around, navigate, and sometimes even achieve those dreams within the experienced texture of their daily lives.

> You were named one of the top 20 writers under 40 in the country before your debut novel came out. How did you cope with the weight of expectation?

It’s very nice to know that someone, or more than one person, liked the novel enough to include it on the list, but other than that I don’t think any expectation really attaches to it. Besides, the book was written if not quite published when the list came out, so there was no question of somehow altering it to fit in with an external expectation.

> A lot has been written about Bombay, particularly about the criminal and homeless aspects. How did you go about writing something so new and fresh about the city?

It’s kind of you to say that. I started writing the book when I was away from home and missing Bombay. It was initially a way of recapturing the city I’d lived in as a young child, visited on holidays when I was older and, more recently, lived and worked in as an adult. So I drew on my experiences of Bombay, which only peripherally included an awareness of the underworld or some of the other social issues. Those things are there, but not in the foreground of the book, because they’re taken somewhat for granted by the characters, even if they do also evoke some compassion. The Bombay I wanted to write about was the one I’d experienced, in which quieter streets, old trees, raucous birds, the life of one’s neighbours, taking the train to work, family, the newspaper, and above all books, were important.

> What is your favourite thing about Bombay?

The sea is the one thing about the city that’s so obvious that a Bombayite only misses it when he or she is elsewhere. The east-west sea breeze reminds you of it wherever in the island city you are. I associate the sea with a certain joyous nihilism that is unique to Bombay. Even though the city is full of problems and life isn’t easy for most people who live there, there’s a cartoonish humour and a specific insouciance that are intrinsic to people’s sensibility. Everything in Bombay is heterogeneous and impure, from the Hindi we speak to the smell of the city, which I’ve tried to describe in the book: the scent of rotting flowers, fish, and laundry drying in the wind.

> What is your favourite piece of literature about Bombay and why?

The Bombay poets – among them particularly Arun Kolatkar, and Adil Jussawalla – seem to capture something about the city that is less frequently found in prose fiction, though there are exceptions. Kolatkar’s Kala Ghoda Poems, set in a specific junction of south Bombay, feature some of my favourite Bombay residents: crows, street dogs, beggars.

> You write about the middle-classes in India and in a way there’s a bit of cross-over thematically with something like Monsoon Wedding, in the mixture of joy, sadness, comedy and tragedy. Was this what you were intending with the book?

I didn’t think of that film, though I have seen and liked it. But the mere adjective ‘middle-class’ makes me smile for the mix of opportunity, essential comfort yet intrinsic aspiration and frustration that it seems to encompass. There’s also a certain basic decency implied in it for me: the middle-class are less likely to behave in a really cruel or deliberately unkind fashion than the very rich, in such a reckoning. I’m really just extrapolating from the kind of milieu I grew up in and which I later saw around me, not making a large-scale social statement, though of course the middle class is growing in India, at least in the cities. If being ‘middle-class’ is somehow middle of the road, then it makes sense that such an experience does include all the emotions and conditions you mention, rather than the traditional (and obviously suspect) categories of tragedy for noble characters and comedy for base ones. But I was most of all concerned with being true to my own experience: the type of joys and sorrows, reversals and upheavals that the characters experience are ones I’ve often seen around me.

> What was your writing process in finishing the book?

I began writing it while studying for a master’s in creative writing at the University of East Anglia, and finished it a year and a half later. The last year of writing and rewriting was while I was working at Elle in Bombay, so I’d go to work in the day time, then come home and write in the evening or at weekends.

> Who is your favourite Indian author?

Among the novelists are: R K Narayan, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Amit Chaudhuri. Among the poets: Arun Kolatkar, Adil Jussawalla, Eunice de Souza. I’ve also really enjoyed translations that I’ve read of Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s novels, and Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee’s two Apu novels in the last year or two.

> What is next for you?

I’ve no idea, but I’m working on another novel, which is set serially in Paris, London and Bombay and follows a few central characters through their twenties as they work out who they are and find a sense of self amid the things they never thought they’d do and didn’t imagine would happen to them.