Comic book timing

Parismita Singh's debut book The Hotel at the End of the World recreates folklore in a language that will stay with you long after you turn the last page. Exclusive excerpts and an interview by Alpana Lath Sawai

Graphic novels are in vogue in India. A senior editor at Penguin says everyone is writing one. You are considered fashionable if you happen to be at a bookstore just standing in front of a shelf of them. Writers in the west have already disowned the term though, some have even called it pretentious; there, graphic novels have gone back to the name they were first called by: comic books.

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Comic book timing

Have a Word Normal people in normal situations tell magical tales

That is how Parismita Singh defines her first book, The Hotel at the End of the World. "It's a comic book, although not for children." This is the only definite thing one is able to get out of her. This, and the fact that she is 29 years old she doesn't do the clichu00c3u00a9 of being mysterious about it.

The Hotel at the End of the World is the story of long-haired Pema, who runs the hotel. Parismita interjects, "Did you think this is Pema's story?" Of course we did. Parismita smiles mysteriously, so we do a quick rethink. Maybe Pema is just a thread that stitches the story together.

Many travelers pass through the hotel, although where they are going, if they are at the end of the world already, is not known. An odd collection of adventurists gather. Some in search of Utopia, others of bridges to far away lands. Meanwhile, Pema, her husband and their daughter provide food and shelter... Parismita interrupts again: "Do you think she's their daughter?" Alright then, the plot thickens. We're going to have to read the book again and even then, there will be only clues not the whole truth. The changing truth of Parismita's story reminds us of the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books that were popular in the 80s. You never knew where you would end up and the story changed every time you read it.

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This is also similar to verbal storytelling traditions where something changes or is tweaked every time the story is told. Parismita aims to bring this slightly cryptic quality to her book and to everything she says, and leaves out. A well thought plan. But she does not take herself too seriously either. She just wants people to read her book. Any attempt to build her up as the new nib on the block with profound, authorly things to say is wasted.

"The book just happened, I am wary of looking back upon everything and giving it an interpretation." Her candour is refreshing.

You write because you must, because you can do nothing else, said Orhan Pamuk. One imagines Parismita slaving away over her book drawing, redrawing, shading with charcoal and so on... not quite bearded and disheveled, because she's a woman, but choosing writing over eating, and meeting people, perhaps. Instead, she admits you cannot write on an empty stomach and was quite happy that her book had already got the go-ahead from Penguin, along with her cheque.

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The book was done simply to see if she could. She had been doing smaller visual pieces and wrote The Hotel at the End of the World not because there was a story in her head that simply had to be purged, even if that sounds romantic. Another author said somewhere that the first novel usually has elements that are autobiographical, because that is the world the writer knows best. What is personal to Parismita in this book is not evident and she's not telling. Instead, she asks you what you think might be inspired by her own life and watches as you flounder.

In the book, a young girl is constantly made to cook, clean and ends up firing a cannon from an abandoned war-time tank. You don't want to think that this might be Parismita's own story, so perhaps it's just the story-telling tradition that is personal then. All the characters at the hotel at the end of the world have a story to tell. Maybe these were the stories that Parismita heard from her own family, while growing up.

She admits hers was a story-telling family and remains so. But inspiration from folklore was minimal and skeletal. Like Kona and Kuja. They are two friends; one has legs that end at his knees and the other can see far-off things but not what's in front of his nose. Kona and Kuja exist in certain verbal folklore. But, says Parismita, her retelling of it in their wild adventures to China and then to find the floating island are hers alone. She also recreated the Nightwalker, a character found in different storytelling traditions, poignantly.

Parismita says her intention is not to keep tradition alive. "I owe them everything but I am competing with them," she says. "The stories I chose were the ones that wouldn't go away. They sit in your house with you while you are working."

The ones that haunted Parismita seem to have been delightful. This is odd because not everything that happens to the characters is fun or funny. There is pathos from personal tragedies and yet, the way her characters tell their stories in the hotel is fun. Parismita's drawings of their personal adventures not in any one style and the sound effects penciled in are captivating.

Parismita's editor Diya Kar Hazra (also Penguin's editorial director and rights director), talks of the frames that struck her the most. "The one with the soldiers and the falling snowflakes the pace of the story had slowed down and the snowfall showed the slowness. She's gifted."

Now that the book is done, Parismita is using her talents in the field of education. She is doing a research project in Assam, where she's from, and shuttles between there and Delhi.

The Hotel at the End of the World brings to mind Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. And Parismita says she knew people would bring it up. She tried to think of other names for it, but somehow nothing else suited it quite as much. So she decided to live with it. End result? The Hotel... is really nothing like The Restaurant... but just as graphic and worth your time.