*** Special Feature - December 2019 ***
Quick Recap:
1st December - Stories that numbers could tell
8th December - Excerpt from A Marketplace for Murder
15th December - Meet Lena from A Marketplace for Murder
22nd December - Short Story: Policy Custody
About the Book:
Is murder of human body the only kind of murder? What about murder of a dream? Or, murder of identity? This who and whydunit crime thriller explores the three questions through the unravelling of a web of lies, murder and deceit that threaten to bring crime very close home for Leena, a business journalist. The alternating first person voice of the unknown killer and third person narrative takes the story across a modern-day Bangalore and a strange discovery at an archaeological expedition with characters you would have seen around you. One of them, of course, is not who they seem to be.
Book Links:
Goodreads * Amazon
An Interview with Debleena Majumdar
When did you first realize that you wanted to be a writer/ a storyteller?
Consciously, a few years back. Unconsciously, stories have been part of my life since forever. Growing up in Kolkata, we often had powercuts. And in the flickering light of the candle, we would gather outside in the balcony, and my father, the original storyteller in my life, would share stories. Sometimes, we would sing. And when the lights blinked back to life, I would return to the real world, reluctantly. That’s the most visceral memory from my childhood.
Of course, every book fair, every book shop, my mother’s college library, would find me a constant fixture. I read, compulsively. And our home had books as the only ornament of decoration. But, while I loved reading and admired authors, I never thought I could become one. That happened, much later.
A combination, perhaps of seeing life, a bit too closely, deciding to chuck a safe job to become an entrepreneur, in Education and Storytelling, finding my voice as an investigative journalist, a supportive husband who not only lived with my craziness but decided to chart his own entrepreneurial and discovery journey and a bookaholic daughter, who quickly ran out of books of her age, and declared that the stories I made up for, were the best, she has ever heard. Completely biased of course, but they edged me towards writing.
Seriously speaking, I have always been a rebel, with or without a cause, mostly without a pause. And writing, I feel, is the only sphere where questioning feels natural. Even essential.
What inspires you to write?
As I look at the world outside me, I see fragments, pieces of a giant puzzle that someone, somewhere is stacking up. It could be someone driving in a car. It could be someone splashing about in the rain. It could be a company closing down. It could be a forgotten moment from history. As I see and I read, I imagine. What could the next page hold for each of them? If the road they were travelling on, suddenly shifted, how would they react? Sometimes, some of those characters and scenarios stay with me longer than others and they become stories.
What kind of research goes into your book?
I love research and analysis. I studied Statistics and Finance and always worked in roles requiring investigation of numbers (investment management, investment banking, venture capital). Now, as an entrepreneur (I co-founded two companies, Kahaniyah, where we work on data-driven storytelling and StoryEd, where we work with youth who are out of formal education and employment systems and help them get school certification and initial income), I need to find answers to questions. As a journalist, (I write on Education and on Mergers and Acquisitions for Economic Times Prime), I need to ask questions. I also love History, and have a strange passion for reading about obscure historical events and visiting places no one has even heard of. Wikipedia would offer me a loyalty coupon if they had one.
When I write fiction, some of this ongoing research finds its way into the plot, the character development, even in the choice of characters. History and crime, my twin fiction passions, both require research. And that’s partly why I love them. Of course, at periodic intervals, I need to pause to sprinkle a dose of humor.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am working on 2 ideas. One, actually is a suggestion from my brilliant literary agent, Suhail Mathur. My grandfather was a famous criminal lawyer in a small town near Kollkata. I am trying to write about some of his most interesting cases as remembered by my father. Mystery, intrigue, passion; these cases are no less than any murder mysteries.
The other one I am writing (actually still researching the historical aspects of this currently) deals with the idea of personal and political freedom. I am using two time periods and parallel plots here. One is the story of a freedom fighter, set in pre-independent Kolkata and the other is the story a modern day student in a premium college in the country. These stories intersect and become a quest that the characters take the reader on.
How did you come up with the idea for your current story?
I have been an entrepreneur and working in the Impact Investment space, mainly in Education and in Financial Inclusion for quite a few years now. Through this, I have met and worked with many investors, entrepreneurs and heard about their stories, their challenges and their dreams. I also wanted to explore the idea of masks people can wear online and how our digital identities, can cast long shadows on our presence and how easily they can be manipulated. A germination of these thoughts resulted in the book. The voice of the killer is the one that popped up in my head. And the rest followed.
Please share three interesting facts about the characters in your book.
One of my characters, has a habit of sharing idioms, translating them, to hilarious results. Humor is sometimes not felt to be an important ingredient of a crime story. But I feel, crime stories, more than anything else, are an exploration of human identity at its most vulnerable. And humor from characters like the ones I have tried to develop, peek out, amidst all the darkness.
The characters in my book share different kinds of love. Though it’s a crime novel, or maybe because it is one, our strong feelings of love and hate are never far away from our thoughts. And I explore different facets of these feelings – friendship, love, across relationships, hint of possible love, hate and fear.
A lead character in the book has a habit of tripping over things. I wanted to create characters with real, identifiable quirks. And in the book, that quirk becomes an important part of the story.
If you could pick any famous author to review your book who would you pick and why?
In my dream, Agatha Christie and Saradindu Bandopadhyay, two people who wrote crime and were as fascinated by history as I am, would be sitting together and writing a joint review of my book.
Have you read any books that have inspired you to improve or change yourself in any way?
Each book I read moves me in some way. That, I guess is the real power of words. I also see a shift in my reading. Earlier, I just immersed myself in the story, in the characters. Now, if I love a book, I re-read it as writer and try to absorb more. How was a scene constructed? How were some dialogues just so sharp? How did some characters just feel so relatable? I read and try to imagine how the author would have thought about it. So yes, if I read earlier for the just the story and language, I read additionally to absorb the craft of writing that some authors have perfected so beautifully. The irony in Somerset Maugham’s writing, the dialogues in Margaret Atwood’s writing, the lyrical prose in Anita Nair’s writing. I read the books again, just to absorb the craft. And hoping to imbibe a fraction of that when it comes to my stories.
Name three things that you believe are important to character development?
1. The characters need to think, feel, talk, live like real, living people. They may be flawed. Have quirks. They may be unlikable. But you want to know more about them.
2. There is a sense as a reader that either the character knows more than you (think of the unreliable narrators) and you are caught in a game of guessing or the reader knows more than the character and you wish you could warn them, tell them of the danger you know is lurking around the corner, which they are still oblivious to
3. The author’s voice does not overpower the character’s voice.
Do you ever experience writer’s block? If so what helps you to get over it?
One positive side effect of having multiple gigs – from entrepreneurship to writing to journalism, is that there’s always work to be done, and there are people to be met. I immerse myself in these and when the kernel of a new story idea emerges, the words seem easier to find. So, I write, once I have a sense of journey my characters will embark on.
What part of the writing process do you enjoy the most?
It starts with the research. I love researching on history, travel, business and love finding answers. Call it a professional hazard. But the minute an idea sparks my curiosity, I have to compulsively read everything I can about it. Obviously, in writing fiction, most of that cannot appear as is. It’s that background knowledge, as filtered through the eyes of the characters that makes the process so daunting and yet so interesting. I love that process of discovery.
Do you know the ending of your books before you finish writing them?
Not completely. I have an idea of the journey the main characters would take, where it could start and some sense of where it could lead to. But, the pitstops along the way could end up leading to someplace I had never imagined. And that’s the beauty of writing fiction. The more we lose ourselves in it, the more visceral the journey is.
What is the best piece of advice you have received, as a writer, till date?
This is what a writer had shared with me a few years back. Brutal, but real. “No one is waiting for your book. The world can go on without it. If you want to write it, you make it happen.”
What is the best piece of advice you would give to someone that wants to get into writing?
If any of you hated exercising, you would remember that first day at the gym or your chosen method of torture. You felt like giving up, a hundred times over. Each sore, forgotten muscle that you suddenly called into action, rebelled and protested. And if, you returned back, the next day, and the day after, suddenly, exercise, started shapeshifting from a dreaded chore to a need, almost an addiction. Writing, is a lot like that. We can read about writing, talk about writing, but unless we start the daily, difficult task of actually writing, the writing muscles don’t really work. And they need to, overtime, for us to be considered as writers.
Anything else that you would like to share with your readers?
Read my book. At 165 pages, a plot that keeps you guessing and characters you would have met, and seen around you, its more than a crime novel. It’s a slice of life many of us could find ourselves reflected in. And your feedback makes my work real.
You could win a copy of A Marketplace for Murder.
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