Writers have secrets…

"It takes two things to successfully develop a character. One: a leap of faith, where you strive, faithfully, to understand a character’s circumstances, motivation and aspirations. Two: a leap of imagination, where you render him/her indispensable to the plot and the premise,” said author Murzban F. Shroff at the launch of his novel Waiting for Jonathan Koshy. He was speaking to a full house of readers on December 10, 2015, at Crossword Bookstore at Kemps Corner in Bombay. Shroff, author of Breathless in Bombay, who publishes regularly in the US and UK and is a Commonwealth Prize shortlisted writer, was in a panel discussion with TV presenter Harsha Bhogle, states an email received from Shroff. The discussion kicked off with Bhogle asking Shroff whether it was he who met interesting people or would interesting people congregate around him. Shroff proceeded to explain his fascination for ‘character types,’ whose traits would engage him.
This fascination for ‘character types’ led Shroff to create an essentially character-driven novel at a time in his life when he was going through a particularly troubled phase. A criminal complaint had been filed against him for using the word ghati (colloquial reference to a Maharashtrian) in Breathless in Bombay. After two-and-a-half years of intense litigation, the author was exonerated by the High Courts and by the police, who held that his work had a unifying, not a divisive effect. "I needed a character larger than myself who would keep me entertained and amused even while I waited for verdicts in the courtrooms of Bombay and Madurai,” he said.

(L-R): Murzban Shroff, Harsha Bhogle; audience at the launch

Intended as the second part in his Bombay trilogy, the new novel, Waiting for Jonathan Koshy is set in the Pali Hill area of Bandra, and revolves around an old bungalow holding out against rampant development. It is here that four friends await the arrival of Koshy who has been exiled from his beloved Kerala for his temerity in upsetting the daughter of the mistress of a local politician. That the four friends are from four different communities is no coincidence – the author is once again attempting to define the fundamentally secular and cosmopolitan character of Bombay.
Shroff read out engaging sections from the book which captured the beauty of Kerala and the long forgotten history of Bandra. When asked to reveal his methods of research, he impishly replied that, writers, like bachelors, have secrets they never reveal. But he did admit that he was obsessive in his research, choosing to collect more information than he would eventually use. In the course of the discussion, Shroff revealed that he had deliberately drawn on a postmodernist style to unravel the anarchy that’s modern day India.
The launch ended with a book signing that went on well past the closing hour.