KNOW YOUR AUTHOR : Nishant Kaushik

Nishant Kaushik is the author of 'Watch Out We Are MBA' and 'A Romance With Chaos'. He is also putting finishing touches to his third novel which will be due very soon for public introspection. Nishant is not only a writer but also a musician too like yours truly. Nishant is based in Malaysia and on his official visit recently to Mumbai we got an opportunity to catch up and discuss on his journey so far.

So how would you like to sum up your journey so far?

I’m two novels old, and the third is underway. As is my case usually with anything that has nothing to do with the laws of physics or calculus, the experience has been wonderful and very, very exciting.

What made you take up writing or rather what was your inspiration behind you turning a writer?

I have been fond of writing since very early days. I don’t recall what might have been the motivation, but I used to dabble in writing even back in school. In fact, I’d like to think of myself as an author, and then a part-time corporate employee.

What was your family's reaction to you taking up writing?

My family is extremely supportive of whatever I do. In fact, I think they have much more faith in my abilities than I myself do. When I told them tentatively I considered writing a book, they actually prodded me to ultimately take the leap.

What are your views about writing as a career?

I think it’s a splendid idea provided you are sure you have ample to write about. Lack of ideas are often more frequent than occurrence of ideas. If that happens, it could get a little disappointing as a career.

Among writers who has influenced you during your growing up days?

Frankly, I have never been what you would call a very voracious reader. My reading habits have been very sporadic, and I have not really had a particular author’s work that I have clung to. But the immediate names that come to my mind are Agatha Christie, John Grisham, Khaled Hosseini, etc.

How did your first book ‘Watch Out We Are MBA’ came into being?

When I joined my MBA program, I came across a lot of colleagues with eclectic tastes and interesting perspectives on their lives and careers. I was intrigued by them and created a book loosely based on some of them.

Can you tell us the incident or thought process that gave birth to your second novel ‘A Romance With Chaos’?

It was wonderful, very enriching. The economic debacle of 2008 got a lot of us thinking about what we were doing with our lives. That gradually translated into this book.

Don’t you think there are many books about MBA, IIM and IIT college pass-outs in the market? How different are your books from others in the same genre?

I have not read a lot of these books, so I would not know much about what them. But I think this splurge of books on this subject has something to do with the emotional transformation a lot of us sense in this phase of our lives and our desire to share those experiences with the rest of the world. ‘Watch Out…’ deals with a sensitive subject of a boy stranded between adolescence and maturity, between the threshold of a big career and basic expectations from his so-called friends. In my head, this is a unique subject that every reader can relate to.

 

Every writer subconsciously molds his characters on himself, so are your characters also inspired by your real life persona?

Save for a few comical incidents that I may have mentioned, I won’t say the characters are in anyway related to me. That would make for a very boring narrative if true. Inadvertently, some context is always created out of our own lives, but the story at large remains fictional.

Among your two books which one was difficult for you to write?

‘Watch out…’ being the first book, was certainly more difficult to write, because I also had to deal with the uncertainties of the publishing world and its related anxiety besides worrying myself about writing the story itself.

What’s your next book all about and when is it scheduled for a release?

As I am still in the process of editing the book and closing the publishing formalities, I think it is still early days to put a finger to its release or its content. But I will surely be talking about it soon.

Indian Retail Business is experiencing an all time boom however recently there was an article in one of the leading newspapers showcasing the falling standards of Indian literary works, where many books by newcomers were full of spelling mistakes, grammatical error etc. So do you think we are sacrificing quality for quantity?

While I have come across a few novels which don’t meet minimum quality standards, it would be unfair to form a generalized opinion on the overall quality of Indian literature. We have stalwarts in our industry who always raise the average! Every book must be judged on individual merit. And a lot is in the hands of our publishers to judge the quality of a manuscript before publishing it.

Your views on today's writers using colloquial language in their books?

No harm doing so, as long as you maintain basic grammatical sense and semantics. Excess of colloquialism, though, can be annoying in my personal opinion.

Whom do you think is the best writer among your contemporaries?

I would like to think that would be me!

What genre of books catches your attention?

There isn’t a fixed genre, I read assorted.  

What is your advice to your fans and budding writers?

Write for yourself, and not for your readers. Much as you might do for them, there will always be a certain lot that won’t like your work. But if you believe in your own story, you have won half the game already.