Matching yarn for yarn

In his story on storytelling, writer-journalist Omair Ahmed creates fascinating characters who hurl tales at each other, keeping the reader riveted

"India is a land of conversation. We've all got our stories and we keep changing and exchanging them," says Omair Ahmed, whose novella, The Storyteller's Tale, will be released in the city thisu00a0 evening.

Using exquisite imagery, he weaves a many-layered tale of love, loyalty, anguish, betrayal, sacrifice and loss, drawing inspiration from the Panchatantra, the Bible, the Quran, Japanese folklore and more.

The story, set in the 1700s, unfolds after the forces of Ahmad Shah Abdali have destroyed the glorious city of Delhi. Abandoned by fate and fortune, a storyteller, who has left the city behind, finds himself at a lovely casbah. The begum of the casbah invites him to be her guest and share a story. His story provokes her into responding with a story of her own, and together, with their duel of tales, they transport the reader to an unforgettable world.u00a0
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Why did you choose to set your story in such a turbulent time in history?
Omair Ahmed: When I wrote these stories, they were not set in any period or place in history. The casbah was just a house in the wilderness. But my editor at Penguin suggested that I put the story in context. At that time, I was doing a project on Delhi as the city of poets. I was fascinated by the great Urdu poet Mir Taqi Mir and I loosely based the story on Mir, who left Delhi for Lucknow after Nadir Shah's invasion but, of course, he never encountered a beautiful begum! After the book, people think I am a Delhi-ite. I'm not. I encountered Delhi for the first time in 1998 when I went there as a student of JNU. Like Mir, I was an outsider and, like him, I understood Delhi and empathised with the city.

Did you keep the story short to appeal to the reader?
Again, I have to thank my editor for that. The Storyteller's Tale was part of a much longer manuscript but my editor suggested that we publish it as a novella. Why would I argue when he offered to publish two books of mine in place of one?! Seriously, had I added more length to the stories, I would have ruined them. Like I tell my friends, this is a one-coffee book!u00a0

Talking of coffee and conversation, where do you find inspiration?
I'm frightfully curious about people. I love to 'people-watch'. One of my girlfriends was annoyed that I could sit inu00a0 a coffee shop all day and watch people go by! I am curious about my country and my people. We need more writers to chronicle the changes of our times because we live in interesting times. I know that scholars like Ramchandra Guha are doing it. Our generation must catch ideas before they disappear.

Back to Mir then, you've used his couplets in your story...
ome from a family of doctors and engineers, but my whole family loved Urdu poetry. We lived the Western life, we ate caramel custard for dessert, but we read Ghalib and Mir. I grew up studying in international schools but was always rooted.

The Storyteller's Tale has no glossary of non-English words. The Western reader isn't your target readership, then?
I spent my life in international schools, learning their language. Now, it's time they learnt mine! An Indian reader may take away more from my book than a Westerner but I'm all right with that. It's not necessary for me to explain India to expats who don't take the trouble to do some independent research.

You've signed a four-book deal with Penguin. Tell us more.
The first is a travelogue and a narrative history of Bhutan. Then, there's a novella 'Jimmy, The Terrorist', which is about the politics in the Muslim community between the 70s and the 90s. It is set in a fictional town in eastern UP. The third is a book of interlinked short stories on my dad's town, Gorakhpur, where the stories are told from the perspective of a farmer, a policeman and a dog. The fourth book is a biography of my grand-dad's brother, Pakistan's high commissioner to India between 1948-52, who retained his Indian citizenship but of course, those were more accommodating times. I set my stories in small towns because I know small town India. Not many people write about small town India, do they?

Be there, watch that
Omair Ahmed has given up his job as a journalist to become a full-time writer. He was political advisor to the British Government and has also worked for the Conservative Party on international security issues. He has also prepared the brief for the India-US nuclear deal. His novella, The Storyteller's Tale, published by Penguin, will be launched at the Crossword Bookstore on Residency Road at 6.30 pm today. The launch will be followed by the screening of a film on Sufi shrines.