You don’t have to be a psychoanalyst to guess the equation between Orhan Pamuk and Kiran Desai. Pamuk is funny, as his first day at the Jaipur Literary Fest proved. And on the second day, Kiran gave us glimpses of her other side, the giggly side. This gives us some indication of the division of labour between the two: Pamuk cracks jokes and Desai giggles.
And at her session, Kiran giggled and giggled. Her interviewer asked her how her writing differed from her mother Anita Desai’s. She giggled. And added convolutedly, “There are those who write and those who write deeply. My mother wrote deeply. In her mannerisms, in her voice, we can see what a deep writer she is. The light through the window in her room is an author’s light. The silence, an author’s silence. I’m messier”. Yeah, right.
There were also murmurs of “Is Orhan really dating this giggle-head?” When the interviewer did mention Pamuk, she giggled and said, “So you finally asked what you really wanted to ask.” He quickly interjected, saying all he wanted to know was whether she identified with the likes of VS Naipaul, whom Pamuk had written about as crossing regions and languages. She giggled again.
When asked why she has not written anything after winning the Man Booker prize, she admitted she is working on another novel. “It’s a mess in progress. I have written some 1,500 pages. But it is going to take more time.” She, however, did not get into specifics. “All my novels are critical of the other. Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard: (her first novel) was very structured because I was unsure and trying to be a novelist. Inheritance… was a reaction to that. It was messy and lacked a cohesive structure, but it served me well. This novel is a reaction to Inheritance…”
She did admit to her deep fear of loneliness. Later, a US resident proposed a solution. “I myself used to feel the same way — very lonely. I am now a mother of three children.” Everyone in the audience waited to hear, to borrow Desai’s comment, what they all wanted to hear. Will she talk about Pamuk. She said, “Congratulations.” And giggled.
