Memory’s train ride-Sanjay Austa

DIPLOMAT SPOKESMAN OF EMOTIONS, DREAMS AND FEARS OF THE AVERAGE MAN


THERE MUST be something in the post of the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs for its incumbents to have an artistic gift or two tucked up their bureaucratic sleeves. Pavan Kumar Verma, a former spokesperson was a cultural czar of sorts having penned highly acclaimed books such as The Great Indian Middle Class. Then there was Nirupama Rao who fielded the barrage of queries from the media with as much finesse as she belted classical notes. So it seemed it was only a matter of time before the present incumbent Navtej Sarna summoned his muse and put his creative act together.

His debut novel, We Weren’t Lovers Like That (Penguin) has done more for him than he had bargained for. Sarna is in the unenviable position where he has to keep up a hard – boiled, no nonsense, upto- the – point demeanour of a diplomat in the face of his no holds- barred, brutally honest aesthetic self. From being just a mouthpiece of the External Affairs Ministry he has also become the spokesperson of the emotions, desires, dreams and fears of the average man on the street.

But then the act of writing, Sarna says, was an accepted thing in his family. His father Mohinder Singh Sarna, an accomplished Punjabi short- story writer, was an early influence. So even though Sarna had cleared his UPSC examination and had embarked upon a high-flying diplomatic career which took him to countries around the world he was still grappling with his muse. Like almost all writers of novels, Sarna tested the literary waters by writers short stories. He managed to get a few published in some literary magazines abroad along with his book reviews. The idea for the novel itself did not come easy.

“It takes a lot of time and effort to know how stories are written. I studied how novels are made for a while before beginning to write one.” He says. Ten years ago, ideas for the novel had been churning in his head and three years ago when he was posted in Washington he began writing We Weren’t Lovers Like That, which begins grimly with these lines,” I am leaving. Doing the one thing I feel I am still good at: running away.” The rest of the pages become the running ground where the weary, tired and dejected protagonist runs his sad course.

Yes it is another book of nostalgia. And for the lovers of nostalgic literature there is dollops of it. There is the past looming over the present. There is the world weariness. There are acts of omissions and commissions. And here memory is the skein on which the thread of the story rolls. In short this slim book has all the traits of the typical Indian book obsessed with the past.

Aftab, the 40-year-old protagonist takes a train from Delhi to Dehra Dun Saharanpur, Roorkee and Haridwar In the six hours or so it takes him to reach his destination he has nothing to do but reflect, mediate and introspect. He rakes up his memory for the reader. It’s a memory full of love and longing. Of desires that have not been laid to rest. Of ghosts that peep into his present from time to time via the e-mails he surreptitiously reads in office away from the prying eyes of an overzealous  office secretary. Of  the 14- year old marriage that came to naught abruptly one day when his wife walked out on him with his closest friend.


Had it not been for Sarna’s minute descriptions of events, characters, places and events We Weren’t… would have ended up as just another cloying nostalgic kitsch. Indeed for Sarna has an eye for details and that makes his narrative quite powerful and smooth- flowing. The evocative description not only transports us to the places the protagonist longs to relive or forget but it also informs. It takes us down the well of emotions with the protagonist who is confused but on the verge of accepting his position in the world. It bears mention however that sometimes the passages do become overly sentimental to the point of being maudlin.

“There are people like that in the world”. Sarna says in defence of his weak- kneed protagonist. One can’t ignore them. My protagonist is just a character in the book who tries to maintain a lost way of life, ”he says.

Besides this fictional novel Sarna has just finished a book on Guru Nanak, touching all aspects of his life from his teachings to his personality. He also likes to experiment with his SLR camera and has captured varied cityscapes of the many places he has travelled to as a diplomat. Most of them are in black- and white and look down from the walls of his office in Shastri Bhawan. But for lovers of fiction there is another novel that Sarna is working on. No, he is not spilling the beans about it just yet.