Strange shadows fall on poet-novelist Jeet Thayil’s face as his photos are clicked. Stranger images appear. In one, his face looks too dark, almost invisible. He likes it the best. After all, he has negotiated many shadowy labyrinths in his life, in his work. Thayil whispers that he always feels grateful whenever poetry comes to him – considering one never knows when a verse will arrive, or if it ever will.
The conversation was to start with his latest book, The Elsewhereans: A Documentary Novel, where family history, geography, memory, and imagination come together, resisting any categorisation – and beneath it all, a peculiar longing. However, it refused to be linear, just like his works. Excerpts from a conversation with many pauses, several beginnings, and no conclusion:
Considering The Elsewhereans is based on your parents’ lives and archival material, did writing it change your perception of your own family – especially after the writing process was over?
What changed things was the fact of my parents’ passing in the last year of writing the book. I saw my parents for who they were – small-town Indians finding a way in the world, fearless in many ways, making the most of their street smarts and native skills, trying to do...
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