Farrukh Dhondy returns with a new book, Prophet of Love, and weaves a thrilling tale of a Godman (who bears more than a passing resemblance to Osho Rajneesh), his intriguing past and a journalist in search of the truth. In an interview with Rohini Nair, the London-based writer talks about weaving a fictional narrative from fact and why he has no tolerance for fake gurus.

Is Bhagwan Saket, the Prophet of Love in your book, modelled on Osho Rajneesh?
Prophet of Love originated in the trip I made for a British journal to report on Rajneesh and the ashram (in Pune).
I interviewed Rajneesh and attended his lectures at the ashram. I only moulded the experience into the fiction more than 20 years later.
The novel is precisely that, and any similarities to Rajneesh are the function of the liberties fiction has to take if it’s to illuminate truths.

You are also present as one of the narrators in the book. When you insert yourself as a character in a story, what are some of the limitations of that as a storytelling device?
The device or conceit forces you to stick to the plausible. For instance, the narrator can’t suddenly acquire superhuman powers or acquire skills that the reader won’t believe in. This narrator had to be a writer and journalist who spent his boyhood in Pune in the sort of house which is described.

Which was the most interesting character for to you to write in this book?
I suppose Saket; I had to invent a plausible but unusual twist of mind and speech (for him). The character is “cleverer” than the others in the book and for dumb writers like myself, inventing clever characters is interesting.

In the book, the character Farrukh is very accepting of so many different types of people. Why isn’t he then as accepting of Saket?
Because Saket is an ingenuous fraud and passes of facile constructions as “philosophy”. His diarrhoeatic verbal outpourings are poor substitutes for the hard work of the real philosophies and ethical systems built by Eastern and Western traditions and religions. It makes me angry.

In Prophet of Love, Saket’s followers believe they are on a spiritual quest. What has been the great quest of your life?
To speak clearly and to never allow my emotions and needs to dictate my beliefs.

What it’s like when you’re working on a book? Do you follow a very regimented schedule, or does it all just happen when the “muse” strikes?
Writers work differently. I allow a “book” to lie about in my subconscious till it matures. Then there is no regimen of research or of writing for fixed periods a day.
With columns for newspapers it’s different — there’s always inspiration from the news or from some stray thought and then there’s the deadline and the demanding “wicked witch” editors at some reach in the ether!

Where do you like to write?
At my desk in my study at home. It has bookshelves and French windows opening to the garden and lots of clutter.

How different is it to write for children as compared to writing for adults, since you’ve done both?
Children overlook the invention of a central conceit or myth. Jack can have a magic beanstalk, Harry Potter can belong to a school that has the regimen of Tom Brown’s Schooldays and is yet set today and in the sky.
If you invent stuff like this for adults, you have to be as crafty and meaningful as Kafka or to pass your work off as “magic realism” which is quite difficult to do and very often… is unconvincing and gauche.
So both genres have their difficulties and challenges. What would James Joyce or William Faulkner have written if they set out to write for children? You’d possibly recognise their distinct voices, but the form would have to be simple.

What are the books by your bedside as of now?
The Quantum Story by Jim Baggott and Clive James’ English translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

And the one book or writer you keep going back to?
Shakespeare.