Though the title of his new book is The Immortals, novelist Amit Chaudhuri deals with mortals and their ordinary lives in it. It’s about two families in Mumbai of the 70s and 80s joined by their common pursuit of music. Interestingly, you would find glimpses of Chaudhuri’s own self in the protagonist, Nirmalya Sengupta. The overall outline of the book is similar to his experiences of growing up in a middle-class Bengali household in Mumbai. That was the time when he nursed ambitions of being a Hindustani classical musician.
“Through this novel, I was kind of revisiting a certain terrain. I am a classical musician. During my stay in Mumbai, I saw what corporate middle class life in the city was all about. The late 70s and early 80s was the period when music began to commercialise. That’s when I developed a certain interest in music by playing the guitar and playing in public,” says Chaudhuri, who launched the book some time ago at Crossword Bookstore.
Chaudhuri took a great deal from life in this novel. He says, “I did not like the Bombay I was growing up in. It had opulent flats and huge drawing rooms. It was quite ambiguous. However, that was the world where I discovered my passions for literature and music, especially Western music.”
Now, based in Kolkata, Chaudhuri’s most recent music project — This Is Not Fusion — is an experimental musical project that has received an overwhelming response upon its inaugural performance in Kolkata in January 2005. Since then, it has travelled to concerts in Delhi, the Indian Embassy and the Museum of Indian Art, Berlin, the theatreschauspiele, Frankfurt, the Lille 3000 Festival in France, the School of Music, University of East Anglia, Norwich, the British Museum, London, and the Palais de Bozar in Brussels.
However, what’s surprising is that for so many years he was most popular as a literary heavyweight. Rarely did anyone hint at his music credentials.
Chaudhuri says, “I’ve never publicised my music credentials. Only recently it became public with my book jackets mentioning that I am a musician too. Moreover, with my world tour, I couldn’t keep it a secret anymore.”
