Lagaan

Hello everyone tonight we have Anirban Nanda. Thanks Mr. Nanda giving us some of your precious time.

1. Where did u grow up?

I grew up in Haldia, a small town near Kolkata.

2. When did you decide to become a writer?

From childhood, I always got drawn to comics (Tintin, Nonte-Fonte, Hada Voda, Batul the great are my favorites), fairy tales (Thakumar Jhuli),short-stories, novels etc. But I was a typical engineer (was among thetoppers of my class), doing engineering projects and everything. And in my leisure, I used to write poems, mostly in Bengali. Last year I got a chance to publish a short-story and it was liked by many. From then on, I have written more stories, read 42, explored more and I don’t know when I secretly started loving this whole thing. And this is how I decided to become a writer.

3. What was the first story written by you?

It was about a person and his extreme love for his smartphone titled ‘Im-mobile’. I wrote that when I was in 2nd year of my engineering course.It was partly inspired from ‘Ajantric’ (not mechanical) by Subodh Ghosh.

4. Do you have a specific time to write or how is your day structured?

I follow the most unplanned routine. Perks of student-life :D. I read whatever I feel like reading. I work on multiple stories at the same time and so I write whenever I get the feel for writing.

5.Have you written any other novels in collaboration with other writers?

No, I have not had the fortune yet to write anovel or contribute in anovel. But I have contributed few short stories in few best-selling anthologies.

6. Is there a message in your novel or storythat you hope readers will grasp?

Always. That’s the whole point of writing stories. You convey a message indirectly via stories. The messages are quite known to everyone (tell the truth, follow honesty, help women, be just, be sympathetic etc) but it’s the way of telling what attracts me.

7. Which books have most influenced your life?

‘Chander Pahar’ by Bolaichand Mukhopadhyay was the first novel I read and this book was the reason of my sudden falling in love with stories. Then the next book would be ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ by James Joyce which has changed my view of writing. I am more affected by short stories than novels. Few stories I recommend everyone to read: Franz Kafka’s stories (The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, The Hunger Artist, Blumfeld: an Elderly Bachelor, The Great wall of China, Report to an Academy), Ryunoshuke Akutagawa’s stories (Rashomon, Green Onions, HorseLegs, The Story of a Head That Fell Off), Rabindranath Tagore’s stories and James Joyce’s Dubliners (all of them).

8.Which is the most difficult part of writing a book /story?

I believe it is making the readers feel for the characters and get them involved with the story. When a writer becomes a master in those two areas,nothing can stop his/her book from becoming a bestseller.

9.Why did you particularly choose Lagaan as your story?

Readomania came up with an interesting theme for writing stories i.e. what would happen if you write the story after the end of your favorite movie? Lagaan is one of my favorite movies. It gave me everything a writer needs to build a story: intriguing context, unexplored characters, and an incomplete end. (Link to the story is here )

10.How difficult was it to keep the characters intact and yet go with the flow?
Yes, it was tricky. Firstly, in the movie, the characters were alreadydeveloped and so I couldn’t change them. Also, I had to link the previous story (which was about winning a cricket match) with the new one. So yes,it was tricky, I’d say.

11. What are your plans this year?

This year, I plan to read 100 books and write all the story ideas (19 to20) that I couldn’t write last year. Also, as I am a plotter, I’ll plot and develop all the characters for my first novel.

12.Name any 5 of your favorite authors.
1. Franz Kafka
2. James Joyce
3. Ryunoshuke Akutagawa
4. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
5. J.M. Coetzee

13.Any 4 favorite books.

1. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
2. To the Lighthouse.
3. Midnight’s Children
4. One Hundred Years of Solitude

14. Tell me about your stories published in‘Defiant Dreams’ and
‘When TheySpoke’.

Defiant Dreams is an amazon rank #5 anthology by Incredible Women of India in collaboration with Readomania on everyday women, their struggles, their extraordinary stories of their ordinary lives. My story ‘Amlanation’ in it is about acid attack and its effect onboth the convict and the victim.When they spoke is an amazon rank #1 anthology themed on personification.
In this book, you’ll find 29 stories told by 29 inanimate objects. My story in it is about child abuse told through a veryignorable item.You can find stories/reviews by me here.