Weaver of words | Interview

ANUP PRAKASH

"Writing a story is like having an affair and writing a novel is like a marriage," said Manjushree Thapa in one of her articles in a daily newspaper. Keeping that statement in context Bali Rai, a British author has been married fourteen times and is far from giving up. The award winning British author of what the marketers like to term as teenage fiction, he was flown into the capital by the British Council for a week long workshop on fictional writing this February.

As his first memory of writing, he recalls penning a story about two friends kissing each other in junior school at the age of six. A self-proclaimed annoyingly inquisitive child, Bali's love with reading and fascination with seeing words on a blank sheet of paper found him constantly writing stories; at times even on paper kitchen towels.

A graduate in politics with a one time desire to be a journalist, his journey to a writer reads out like the initial stages of a paperback novel. His very first novel was (Un)arranged Marriage, the tale of Manny, an 17-year- old Indian boy in living in Britain and his forced marriage. His debut novel was widely acclaimed when it came out in 2001 and went on to win him three prestigious literary awards. Since then, there has been no looking back for the author. With a JD Salinger type of feel in his tales,

Bali's days are divided between talking to teenagers from different parts of the world about writing and weaving stories on various topics prevalent in the South Asian community in Britain. Bali puts more importance to the thought or the purpose of his writing rather than the presentation. "If the message is strong enough, it will connect with the reader no matter how the presentation is," he said.

"Teenagers around the world are the same- funny," says Bali who associates with the humor and widely incorporates that into his writing. "They are imaginative and are open but one thing that stands Nepali children apart is that they are very well behaved," comments the writer who too was rebellious and somewhat arrogant at that age.

Bali also believes that writers are created rather than born. "Though it's a mixture of both, I think writers are created as we are taught to write to start with and then go on to imagining and expressing," he explains.

A writer who still writes as a hobby, Bali's advice to anyone who wants to be a writer is practice. "Apart from making a habit of writing, one should also read a lot," he recommends. "That helps in understanding a book not just in terms of stories but structures and other technicalities of writing as well."

Currently working on his latest history-based novel, Bali chooses to define his writing style as realistic. "I like writing about hard-hitting, multicultural issues based on real life experiences, many of which have happened around me," he elaborates. His usage of real life experiences and events probably explains the tendency of his stories to disturb his own South-Asian community in Britain. But Bali wouldn't have it any other way.