There is an air of smug self-confidence in the voice that is reading a passage. The venue is an upscale Mumbai cafe situated in a once-dilapidated cloth mill. It's been over 28 years since the Great Bombay Textile Strike that started on January 18, 1982 and changed the face of the city that was once called the Manchester of the East.
The voice you hear is not of a person from Manchester. It belongs to a man from London. You know this not because you are an expert on British accents but simply because Google says so.
Geoff Dyer has written about jazz (But Beautiful, which won him the Somerset Maugham Award), photography (The Ongoing Moment that fetched him the International Center of Photography's Infinity Award) and his humorous travelogue Yoga for People Who Can't be Bothered to Do It has been a bestseller.
Having traveled quite a bit in India, Dyer is fascinated by Carnatic and Hindustani classical music. He says he prefers the latter these days but he still knows his Bombay Jayashree from L Subramaniam.
The British writer is in Mumbai to promote his book Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. Call it a really cheeky take on Thomas Mann's Death in Venice or just a case of a firang going overboard; it offers an interesting, even if a colonial, take on a part of the present-day India that we perhaps simply forgot to develop.
Dyer -- who has spent by his own definition 'a big chunk' of time in Varanasi -- has uniquely linked Venice and Varanasi together in twin novellas because he says he finds them similar. He speaks to rediff.com's Abhishek Mande about the Indian experience, book readings and his fondness for classical music.
Why do authors have book readings?
I wasn't being fatuous when I said if I could get rid of the writing part, it would be a great life. These days there are a lot more literary festivals and readings. So there are more opportunities to do these things. It's fun actually and since I'm very sociable, I don't at all find it painful. I like meeting new people and am always happy to go to new places. There is nothing not to like especially when you have an audience.
Poor Salinger he sure missed something, didn't he?
Yeah! It's funny how for some, these things are just misery. There are others who tell me they don't like it. But I don't really believe them. Salinger though was an extreme case.
Could you tell us something about the book?
It's a book in two parts. The first part is narrated in the third person and the second in the first person. Jeff in Venice is set in the opening of the Venice Biennale of 2003 during the heat wave where a disillusioned British journalist meets an American woman. It is a version of Death in Venice though the love is consummated in my book. Part two picks up some of the themes and relocates to Varanasi. And to me it seems like the two watery cities offer reflections of each other.
Why Varanasi of all the places?
Some of the brilliant photographs by Michael Ackerman, Raghubir Singh and William Gedney of the city drew me to Varanasi. And when I went there it was not because I wanted to write the book. I was initially thinking of writing a small book on Venice when I realised that the second part of the book could be set here.
What struck you most about India in general and Varanasi in specific?
It was during my second or perhaps my third visit to India when I visited Varanasi. On my first trip, like everyone else, I visited Goa, Kerala and Hampi. My interest in Goa was because of the trance scene there. I was very much into electric music then, you see. So it was a very gentle introduction to India because like many people say Goa is not really India. We stayed at a lovely place in Kerala and perhaps the most intense we got on our first trip was in Hampi. India came across as overwhelming and incredible as the advertisement goes. What I thought of Varanasi it is there in the book.
How did you get drawn into Carnatic music?
I wasn't 'drawn in' per se. But I was quite intrigued when I first heard a record of L Subramaniam's violin. Then like one would pursue a subject I followed the trail. I heard his brother Shankar whom Zakir Hussain had accompanied. I discovered that Zakir played with Sultan Khan and that was how the trajectory went.
Why have you taken a somewhat colonial approach in your book?
It is an allegation that I would be hard pressed to defend myself against. I think there are many young people from cities like Delhi and Mumbai who find Varanasi as weird as I find it. Besides, if I were writing about modernity of India, Varanasi definitely would have been an odd place to start.
Are you working on another book?
I am writing a lot of essays these days. I don't have the time or the space to begin another book. It is all a part and parcel of leading the literary life I always wanted to.
