In Other Words-Samita Bhatia

Clearly, there’s more to Indian diplomats than meets the eye. It wasn’t long ago that Nirupama Rao, additional secretary, administration, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), surprised Delhi with a full-throated concert. Now, hot on her heels, Navtej Sarna, joint secretary, external publicity, MEA, and its spokesperson, joined the growing breed of Indian writers in English. His novel We Weren’t Lovers Like That (Penguin) was unveiled to a packed auditorium, and to some appreciative reviews. 

Written during Sarna’s stint as minister (press) at the Indian embassy in Washington between 1998 to 2002 before he took up his current assignment, We Weren’t Lovers Like That took him three years to complete. As he explains, “Given all my commitments, I couldn’t write everything.” This is Sarna’s second book and comes a decade after Polish Folktales.

We Weren’t Lovers Like That revolves around middle-aged executive, Aftab Chandra, and the unpredictable nature of human relationships, the choice people make, their regrets and how they deal with mistakes. It’s about the mechanical nature of today’s world and the nostalgia for a world which appears to have been lost. It traces the life of Aftab who is deserted by his wife of 14 years for his best friend, Rajiv.

Sarna’s rather candid protagonist says it just like he sees it, describing people, places and things just the way they are. Sarna smiles, “It helped that I was writing much before a diplomat and can today very easily separate my two personas. I am not a diplomat when I am writing and it becomes easier as I write fiction, which does not conflict with my job.”

Sarna is author of countless short stories which he began writing some 15 years ago. He has written on a variety of themes- humour, travel, fiction (“ but no more than four pages”) and book reviews. These have found their way to magazines in India and UK.

And then he found that he had run out of short stories to tell and decided to explore a different format altogether.” I knew then that I had to write a novel,” he says. So he began on the story of a man poised at the turn of the millennium. With no pre-conceived notion of where he would lead his protagonist, Sarna let Aftab tell his own tale.

Sarna says that the protagonist’s voice and tone- a rather despondent one- is the reflection of his circumstances and his state of mind. “Aftab must reach deep into his recesses for those hidden aspects that are embedded in his psyche,” he explains. And in the process, he finds himself face- to- face with his fears and weakness.

Sarna explains,” By the end of the novel Aftab can be brutally honest and can look at himself clearly. He realizes that he is not a superman but is fallible and that it is time to stop feeling ashamed. This was the emotional honesty that I was trying to achieve in the novel.” The book is also about daring to hope even when everything seems to be lost.

But ask Sarna why he chose to make his protagonist downcast and cynical and he shoots back,” We must face up to reality. What is the point of writing about ideal love relationships when they are not so; or writing about an ideal Delhi which is in fact crumbling?”

Like a miniaturist, Sarna has filled the 214 pages of his novel with graphics details of everything that he writes about. Not only does the prose speak volumes about Sarna’s own sharp observations but offers an insight into how people around us behave and why. He laughs,” Since the book was released I have begun to lose some friends as they worry that I will write about their quirks or idiosyncrasies in my next work.”

He explains that his love for detail goes back to the days when he wrote short stories.” Detail is the most important aspect in a short story and in just a paragraph writer can give the reader a pen-portrait of a person,” he emphasises. According to him it is essential to load a sentence with as much meaning as possible so the reader gets the idea of a place, the mood and dialogue.

The book offers glimpses into the writer’s own life. Sarna sighs,” It is inevitable that a writer’s persona permeates through his work.” He says that a writer cannot divorce himself from his experiences, his observations, the landscapes familiar to him, the schools he has studied in or the times that he has grown up in.” All these form the raw stock that a writer begins with,” he adds.

We Weren’t Lovers Like That has a strong resonance from Sarna’s childhood days. The book veers between Dehradun (where Sarna grew up and studied) and Delhi (where he shifted to subsequently). For Sarna, Delhi has always been home. He has enjoyed the city, has walked its streets, seen it as a student, travelled in its buses, so that today he knows all the nooks and crannies of this great city. "But today I feel a sense of loss for Delhi that was a few decades ago,” he sighs

The novel also gives a detailed account of a train journey between the two places, since Sarna himself made the trip countless times. As the protagonist passes through the stations of Saharanpur, Roorkee and Haridwar he relives, in the present, the immediate and distant past, the different aspects of his life. The story also meanders to Washington where Sarna was posted last. But neither the story nor the protagonist is culled from Sarna’s own life.” On the contrary Aftab hates the civil services- which is another subconscious way of distancing him from myself,” he smiles.


Ask him what makes a writer of a civil servant and he says,” The foreign service offers an exposure- a kaleidoscope of experiences-that is conducive to creativity.”

However, the writer in Sarna was perhaps inspired by his parents- his father, who was in government service, and mother were both Punjabi novelists. Sarna did part of his schooling in Delhi’s Frank Anthony Public School and passed out from Dehradun St.Joseph’s School. After he finished school he relocated to Delhi where he graduated with a degree in commerce from Sri Ram College of Commerce. He subsequently joined the Law Faculty and earned his LL.B. degree (“but was not to become a practicing lawyer”), did a diploma in journalism and eventually appeared for the civil services and joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1980. 

During his stints abroad- Moscow, Warsaw, Thimpu, Geneva, Tehran and Washington- he has stayed in touch with himself and written whenever he can. He says ruefully that he doesn’t have the luxury of time to write books.” I have always written with little time to spare- late at night, in the early mornings, through weekends, on planes, trains and by sleeping less,” he smiles. His wife Avina, a medical doctor and children, Satyajit and Nooreen, did not mind as he burnt the midnight oil to finish his novel. His wife was also the first critic of the book who read it in the making. 

But Sarna has also managed to squeeze in a short non-fiction work- Book of Nanak-into his schedule. A part of Penguin India’s series on spiritual masters, the book is due for release in October.

He rues the fact that today he doesn’t get enough time for reading either. All he can manage is reading the books that he reviews for Indian and British publications.” I enjoy reviewing books as it helps me to stay in touch and keeps me abreast of the newest releases,” he says. Besides fiction, Sarna enjoys reading “writer’s writers” so he can observe their techniques and style of writing. Joseph Conrad, Scott Fitzgerald and Somerset Maugham are favorites.

Now he is looking forward to returning to Dehradun “for some book readings” and going back to what he loves best – writing. And this time around, it will be a well researched historical novel, he promises.