On a journey to find routes to collide with reality

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Rs 399

After his Masters in mathematics from Yale University, Anjan Sundaram “broke” with America. Having made up his mind in favour of journalism, he landed in the Democratic Republic of Congo that “consumed” him. Mathematics, he writes in the book, “was pristine, but it offered no stimulus to the senses”.

Mathematics’ “relations to the universe were numerous, but fortuitous”. He writes: “It was man’s brilliance and vanity at play. I started to feel lost”. This feeling led to an urge to find routes to collide with reality. The result is Stringer. Sundaram’s collision with the real world continues as he is now in Rwanda, working on a book on yet another African nation. Sundaram has reported from Africa for the New York Times and the Associated Press. He has received a Reuters award for his reporting in Congo.
Excerpts from an interview:
Q: Stringer gives an incredible insight into the country the world has “largely rejected”. Was the book on your mind when you had landed in Congo?
A: Not at all. I went to Congo because I had read that 4 million people had died — the death toll now stands at 5 million — and that there were not many reporters there. When I arrived in Congo and found a job with the Associated Press I became one of the four international reporters in a country half the size of Europe — Congo is larger than Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, all put together. Imagine, just four journalists reporting from this massive country experiencing the most deadly war in the world. The desire to write Stringer only came as I was leaving Congo, after a year-and-a-half there. The experience had been devastating. I felt the need to share it.
Q: You write in the book that you had left for Congo in a “sort of rage, a searing emotion”. Tell us more about that rage. Did the trip also had to do with your moral concerns? Or the sheer thrill of seeing history unfold?
A: There was certainly a sense of thrill at being witness to history. I was 22 years old. I wanted to see the world in its fullness. I lived with a family that had very primary concerns, there was often no food in the house, the baby was sick. I ate once a day, like them. As a journalist I met warlords, I saw mass graves, and went on military patrols with the UN troops. I was embedded with UN soldiers as they attacked rebels in the Congolese jungle. All of this taught me a lot. And it fulfilled a need to see the world, feel a part of it, and understand something of its depth and extent. I felt powerful emotion in these places. There was certainly a moral concern as well. Why did we hear so little from this place called Congo in which so many people had died? Why did the world turn away from this war, hardly visit it, and reduce it to 200-word report at the bottom of newspaper pages? There are still too few journalists who live in Congo, experience it, and write from that experience. Too many of the stories we read and hear are by reporters who visit Congo for just a few days.
Q: After your stay, what conclusions did you reach about Congo’s people’s response to crisis and the various ways it has made them what they are?
A: My preoccupation was to understand what we could become. People are incredibly resilient in the face of disaster. People in Congo often resorted to black humour — they would ridicule themselves and their country — in order to surmount the catastrophe around them. The incredibly grotesque rapes in Congo are also a result of the enduring crisis. There is a sense of impotence in a place like Congo, and human beings react very badly to this. We all have the need to mark our presence in the world, to feel we have a soul, that something in us is permanent, and lasting.
Q: It was extremely challenging to have lived the life you lived in Kinshasa. Did the small, personal tragedies ever deter your resolve?
A: On a number of occasions I wondered if I should leave Congo. After I was robbed at gunpoint I thought I would have to leave because I couldn’t afford to stay on. But I think these experiences test your resolve. Each obstacle strengthens your vision, makes you ask yourself why you are there. I wasn’t in Congo merely for the thrill of it, the sense of fun quickly subsided, and every day was a test. I wouldn’t have stayed on if I didn’t believe that there was something incredibly important that I needed to see and experience. Eventually I felt I had to share what I had seen and felt, and Stringer is the result.
Q: You mention the links between peace in Congo and the world economy, how it is in the interest of the world to keep the conflict in Congo going. Do you foresee a resolution of the Congo crisis?
A: Illegal mineral trafficking networks have been set up in Congo with entrenched business interests that will suffer if the war were to end. Neighbouring countries control Congolese mines and profit directly from smuggling that thrives in the conflict. There are dozens of wealthy Indian middlemen traders in Congo dealing in conflict minerals. The United States, despite its massive contribution to the UN peacekeeping force, supports the Congolese operations of Phelps Dodge, a large mining firm. They refused me permission to visit the mining company site. What did they want to hide?
Q: Since Stringer is your first book, did you have to work on the book’s voice, texture and tone?
A: Stringer is the result of four years of writing. It took me a long time to find the voice for the book, and also to shape it, to sift through the many experiences and find the ones that moved me most powerfully, and that needed to be conveyed.
Q: What do you make of the parallels with Naipaul and Kapuscinski? Are they among your early influences?
A: An interview with Kapuscinski I was given in Manhattan inspired me to travel to Congo and work as a journalist. I kept a book by Kapuscinski in my backpack as I travelled through Congo. Naipaul I discovered several years later, as I was writing Stringer. His fiction struck me first. Reading him taught me about the process and craft of writing, and I still go back to him when I have questions.