‘I write the way I want to’

Writer Amish tells a captive audience about his books, writing habits and his love for the gods

MORE ON THE TRILOGY Amish and Baradwaj Rangan at the session. Photo: R. Ravindran

When Amish Tripathi conceived The Shiva Trilogy  (“as an MBA-type,” he puts it), he said he made a strategic plan on how to write it. “I read self-help books, made character sketches, a summary of the story chapter-wise and a date-wise plan on how many words to achieve each day. It was a lovely, McKinsey-type plan and also a super flop,” he said, amidst laughter from the audience. Allowing himself a smile, Amish then credited his wife for helping him out. 

Amish who began writing about 10 years ago said that  The Immortals of Meluha  began as a philosophical thesis that arose out of a debate with his family on ‘what is evil’. And later, he “wrote it with the humility of a witness. I followed the story the way it came to me and I accepted that the decision was made for me,” he remarked. While Amish breathed no word about his forthcoming book, Baradwaj did manage to get out from him the information that the new book would be part of a series. 

“Writing is the best part of the process and it’s such a wonderful world I get to enter. There is no pressure while I’m writing — I don’t care about anyone and I will write the way I want to. If the next one flops, I’ll go back to banking,” said Amish casually, adding that it’s the marketing part that brings pressure. While he doesn’t follow his crazy strategic plan to write anymore, Amish said that he is an early morning person and does follow a routine to an extent. “I sit down to write till the words flow. On some days it stretches for eight-nine hours and other days it doesn’t — I guess Lord Shiva is busy with someone else.” On the subject of writing, he said that music played an important role as well (one of his favourite albums include 

Kandukondain Kandukondain ).

Talking about including a message as a writer, Amish said that a story is driven by a core philosophy. “For me, a story without a philosophy is like a body without a soul; a writer must convey to the reader what he strongly believes in and I believe in women’s empowerment. Women are genetically stronger due to the presence of two X chromosomes and in ancient Indian culture, women were respected.

There are Maharishikas in the Rig Veda ; there are Smritis in support of women. By respecting women, you are actually being Indian and by putting this in my book, I’m doing my bit as a writer,” he said.

Answering Baradwaj’s question on why he didn’t face protests for depicting Shiva as a weed-smoking, cool hero-type person, Amish said that the trilogy was a tribute to Indian liberalism, “we have a rich tradition of modernising and localising stories,” and offered the 

Ramayana  (

Ram Charit Manas  and 

Kamba

Ramayanam ) as examples.

Finishing the session in true Chennai-style, Amish confessed to being a big fan of Rajinikanth. “The first time I saw Chandramukhi , I saw it in Tamil without subtitles and I realised that one doesn’t need to understand Tamil to admire Rajinikanth; he’s a rockstar, man.”