It’s hard to find anything of sentimental value on Manu Joseph’s desk. The desk itself is something that someone in his colony in Gurgaon was throwing out. It is made from solid dark wood with drawers along one side. The top is scattered with books (“I don’t permit any books on the desk I completely dislike”) and a row of vitamin supplements (“I want to live beyond 100”). There’s also a laptop, a cricket ball and a bland desk calendar. Above hangs a clock that doesn’t work and a small framed photograph of himself, his wife and their daughter.
“Well, that’s personal,” I say, pointing to the photograph. “I put it up three days ago,” he says. “It’s the first frame in my life. Facebook popped it up and I decided to print it. There are no frames in this house of the people who live here.” And the clock? I ask, thinking it could be a relic from a maternal grandmother. “See,” Joseph says, “My room is negligent in terms of interiors because I don’t see the point. Whatever nobody wants, I get. The clock was being thrown out. I took it.”
Joseph, who was previously editor of Open Magazine , says that one day, he may get a fancy desk, but he’s never really needed one. When he had a fulltime job, he did most of his writing at work. Since he quit, he’s worked from this room, making do with a chair or a bed. Two of his three novels, The Illicit Happiness of Other People and Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous , were written here. Nothing about the aesthetics of space is important to him except having the space itself. “Whatever is allotted to me, I’ll make a room out of that and work there.”
“Sorry, this is boring for your article,” he says. “I’m kind of desk agnostic. The important thing is having this space. I like the control I have over this room, in the sense that I can lock the door.” I turn to look outside at a sturdy row of bamboos that offer a pleasant dappled light. “And you have a nice view,” I say. “Yes, it’s nice. The neighbours complain that our bamboo is killing their plants because it blocks the sun. Recently they sent their medical reports through the colony’s leadership, claiming that their plants are Vitamin D deficient because of my bamboos.”
Joseph laughs and says that he too is Vitamin D deficient like many Indians (and his neighbour’s plants), even though he runs most mornings. The days he runs he gets to writing later. The days he’s not running, he’s up early, drinking chai, and he’s either at this desk or on the sofa downstairs. And the cricket ball? I ask. There must be a story there? He picks it up and yes, unbelievably, there is a shift in tone. Softer. Adoring. “I just love it. I think it’s one of the most beautiful things on earth – the leather cricket ball. I just like holding it. Sometimes if I’m not running, I go and bowl. Just me on the pitch. I can bowl pretty well. The boys in my daughter’s class are pretty impressed with me.”
Outside the room, there is a table tennis table, which Joseph considers an extension of the room. When he gets stuck he goes out there and hits the ball against the wall. He is not fanatic about cleanliness. There are no writer rituals — no incense burning, no little altar of flowers. What about Internet addictions? Only one: online chess. If I had to write a report I would say — Subject is a highly content individual who makes the best of everything. Has a tic about things being disposed of. Needs to be active – mentally and physically. Will not give an inch to any kind of sentimentality beyond hanging his daughter’s old clothes on the walls because he can’t bear to throw them away.
This summer Joseph tells me he spent a few months in a studio in Amsterdam on his Dutch publisher’s invitation. It was a wood-panelled apartment with a desk and a window that looked out on to the city centre, and from the third floor he could see people moving around and the edge of the canal. He didn’t write much but he thought a lot, and when he wasn’t running or cycling, he was sitting in the room. Sometimes he’d glide his chair over to the window and hang his leg out and the people passing by looked at him and smiled.
“The problem with beautiful spaces and me is that I don’t write in them, but I can write in Gurgaon,” he says. “Gurgaon is the best place for me. It’s a match. Because it’s ugly. I also feel people should come here to die instead of Switzerland. In Switzerland you’d feel bad that you’re leaving all this, but in Gurgaon you’re ready to go. In Gurgaon I just enjoy sitting in this room. It’s a good place for me in terms of writing.”
