Author Kiran Nagarkar with Aamir Khan at the release of God’s Little Soldier at a hotel in New Delhi. Khan read out excerpts from the book to an appreciative audience

Kiran Nagarkar is visibly tired. “I haven’t slept for days,” he mutters, rubbing his eyes and resting his head against the chair. That’s hardly surprising because the kurta-clad author has been criss-crossing the country on one marathon book launch after another. But he has had some help ? actor Aamir Khan flew from Mumbai to Delhi to do a reading from his latest novel God’s Little Soldier. “Aamir Khan is fond of my books and has read everything that I have written. A copy of God’s Little Soldier was sent to him and he read the book when he was shooting in Poland,” says Nagarkar.

In the literary world Nagarkar is highly rated even though he isn’t very prolific. He published his first novel in Marathi back in 1974 when he was just 32. Today, after 32 years, there have been only three more novels and a couple of plays. To earn his daily bread, Nagarkar worked in the trailblazing advertising firm MCM and rose to be its creative director. “Some writers are lucky and some are not. I cannot make a living out of writing. It is not enough to pay for my food and rent,” he says

The fact is that he finds writing a struggle. In 1974, for example, he wrote his first novel Saat Sakkam Trechalis, in Marathi. The book was later translated into English as Seven Sixes Are Forty-Three. “It took me six years to complete the book,” he says. His first novel is said to have re-defined Marathi literature.

“I am not the sort of writer with a burning desire to write. Writing is a struggle, it’s a constant effort that I have to make,” says Nagarkar.

In addition, there’s also the problem that his books have never been big sellers even though he is highly regarded. Take his first book for instance. Nagarkar reckons that the book has barely sold between 1,700 to 2,000 copies in over two decades. His second novel, Ravan and Eddie, a hilarious story of Ravan, a Maratha Hindu, and Eddie, a Roman Catholic, growing into adolescence, took him eight years to write. This book fared slightly better and Nagarkar believes that about 10,000 copies have been sold over the years.

Critics say Nagarkar is a ‘born storyteller with an unerring eye for detail’. Cuckold, his third novel took him three years to complete. The tale is set in the early 16th century, in the Rajput kingdom of Mewar, when it was a powerful force in north India and locked in battle with other rivals for power like the Sultanate of Delhi. But the historical setting serves as a backdrop for a triangular love story and also the tale of a battle for the throne. Cuckold won him the prestigious Sahitiya Academy award.

Now, after a gap of nearly nine years, he has come out with God’s Little Soldier, a story of Zia Khan, a gifted mathematician who finds himself torn between the tolerant views of his parents and the unquestioning certainties of an aunt. Many twists of fate later Khan goes from being a fighter in Afghanistan to become a die-hard Christian in a monastery in the Sierra Nevada range in the United States. Contrasted again Zia is his brother Amanat, who is moderate in his views and a completely different personality. One reviewer remarked that there are enough ideas in God’s Little Soldier, “to fill three or four novels”.

The critics also praise Nagarkar’s versatility. He studied in Marathi till the fourth standard and writes comfortably in the language. Also the plots of his novels are always completely different and he’s never in danger of repeating himself. “No book of mine resembles the other,” he says. Nevertheless, he also admits that it’s tough to “escape writing about oneself”. “Therefore, there is a need to distance yourself. But my characters are all so different. I struggled a lot while writing the book and in getting the characters right,” he says.

But Nagarkar’s struggles haven’t only been with words and characters. He has also faced a hostile environment in his home state of Maharashtra. In 1978, his play Bedtime Story was “extra-legally banned”, as he puts it. Hindu fundamentalists began putting pressure to ban the play even while it was being rehearsed. The result was that the play was not performed till 17 years later. “They don’t know the content of the play. When they have not read the work, they just politicise it,” he says.

He believes that the Marathi press has always been resentful of the fact that he started writing in Marathi and then switched to English and therefore his works were ignored to some extent. “They made sure they did not review any of my books,” he says. “They don’t like the fact that I write in English. They ask me why do I choose to write in English. It upsets me,” he says.

Perhaps he might have had an easier time if it had been possible to make money from his writing. But he was always torn between his craving to write and the need to do a full-time job to support himself. “I was poor. I had no money. I was trying to do a job and write at the same time. I was so caught up that it left me no time to look into my writing.” To keep the cash coming in he also did some freelance work with Arun Kolatkar, the Marathi poet who died last year and who also coincidentally worked in advertising. Both Nagarkar and Kolatkar were close friends and felt they shared the same fate because they were highly rated by literary critics and yet their books did not sell much.

Nagarkar loves watching movies and has just seen Capote about American writer Truman Capote. And, he’s too drained now to think of another plot for another novel. So, perhaps we’ll have to wait for a few years before the next one.

Photograph by Prem Singh