Writing is about the magic of the lie: Jerry Pinto

“A famous poet once said that a poem is never finished, it is merely abandoned. I feel the same way about my novels,” said acclaimed author Jerry Pinto on the second day of the Times Litfest at a discussion on ‘The Journey of the Novel’ where he was joined by novelist Amitabha Bagchi, Danish writer, Merete Pryds Helle, and Afghan-American author Nemat Sadat.
Pinto talked about his mindset during and after writing a novel. “While writing, I am almost detached. I am not laughing while writing a funny scene, and neither am I weeping while describing something painful. But right after, there is a hollowness, “ he said, adding that, for the same reason, he starts writing the beginning of his next novel while he is still writing the ending of the current one. “And, when I finish the novel, I just hope someone has the empathy to understand that it didn’t come from an easy place,” he concludes.
For a session expected to reveal the truths about writing a novel, it dwelled a lot on the lies and the ‘disappearing truths’ that writers build on. Answering publisher and moderator, Karthika VK’s question on how writers create a novel, Pinto said, “Writing, for me, is all about the magic and mysterianism of the lie. To me, truth is unidirectional and can be a trap.”
Following the same train of thought, Helle recollected how the “vanishing of a truth” she thought was a part of her childhood helped her write the story of her family as fiction. “Recently, I wrote a column describing my mother as a milk maid and describing her work, which I remember vividly. When it got published, she was cross with me and told me that she has never milked a cow in her life. I wondered if it was a blip in my memory or her own but that day, I asked, ’Where is the truth?’ This freedom from truth was important for my writing,” she admitted.
When writing one story over a long period of time, sometimes decades, how does the writer manage to inhabit a world she or he is creating while also living in the present, a member of the audience asked. “It goes without saying that each of these worlds is bleeding into the other. There is a laburnum tree around my house, which has the same, flowing structure of a Pahadi flower that finds mention in one of my books. Are the laburnum-like flowers there in the book because I see them every day, or am I looking at them because I am writing about them?” Bagchi shared.
Sadat touched upon how the character shares an identity with the author, triggering the question from the audience, “How many characters can an author create from his own identity?” Letting them in on her version, Helle said,” I am not the characters I write although they have my traits like anger, jealousy, and others. But they are someone I can understand.”