Evolution of a writer-Ankur Kalita

The voice of the Foreign Office is more often than not associated with the nitty-gritties of international politics. Navtej Sarna has brought an interesting digression from the ordinary by displaying his prowess as a writer par-excellence.

Born in Jalandhar, Sarna did his schooling from Dehra Dun and Delhi before obtaining his graduation degree from Shri Ram College of Commerce in Delhi. After completing his law degree from University of Delhi, Sarna joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1980.

Bureaucrats are usually associated with high-brow academic publications and few have turned novelists. ”Books on political or social issues are usually written by retired bureaucrats. It’s very difficult to comment on such things while in the service,” say Sarna.

Asked about Aftab, the protagonist of We Weren’t Lovers Like That, Sarna say, ”Aftab is a very withdrawn kind of person who can’t stand up to anybody.” The novel sees Aftab’s evolution from a person who does not know his whereabouts to one who has got a clear vision of what he wants.

Scott Fitzgerald and Joseph Conrad are writers who have been both an influence as well as an inspiration to Sarna. Asked whether he found Joseph Conrad a colonialist and an imperialist, Sarna comments, ”That is looking at his works from a political point of view. But as works of art and as literature, his books are masterpieces.”

Navtej Sarna has written a number of short stories that have appeared in London Magazine and in the anthologies, Signals and Signals2, as well as in the BBC World Service. Ironically, very few of his stories have been published in India. Sarna’s book reviews appear in the Times Literary Supplement, Biblio and other journals.

Asked about the relative difficulties of writing novels and short stories, Sarna replied,” Each is a challenge in its own way. You can’t afford to make a single mistake while writing a short story because of the constraints of length. One mistake can ruin the plot. Novels on the other hand have their own challenges. The plot has to be written in such a way that there is continuity throughout the whole book.”

Navtej Sarna’s career as a diplomat has seen him represent the country in Moscow, Warsaw, Thimpu, Geneva, Tehran and Washington DC. That translates into seeing a lot of life and also a lot of anecdotes related to those experiences. But, instead of anecdotes Sarna would rather talk of the various stages of evolution of a writer. Only a genius can wake up one day and write a novel straightaway. For lesser mortals it is an evolutionary process. I began by writing articles for newspapers, then came book reviews, then short stories and finally I have written a novel. One has to grow with the experience, says Sarna.

With a book on Guru Nanak in the pipeline Navtej Sarna is on track to touch greater heights in the field of literature.