Aditya Sudarshan is 26 years and two novels old. He entered the league of young Indian writers in 2007 when his first book A Nice Quiet Holiday was published. His second work of fiction Show Me A Hero is the latest to be released. The novel is set in contemporary Delhi where a group of twentyfour-year-olds are making a film about a cricket star Ali Khan. While on one hand, the “just-out-of-college” youngsters struggle to come to terms with adulthood, on the other, they must deal with the player who’s career has been tainted with match-fixing allegations.
Having studied law at Bengaluru, crime has been Aditya’s forte in his two books. His first work, a detective thriller set in a quiet peaceful town, Bhairavgarh, at the foothills of the Himalayas, was written when he was still in law school. Aditya left his practice mid-way much to the shock of his family to take up writing full-time. “For a writer, writing is more like a compulsion,” he says, “you just need to let it happen. Your mind keeps going in that direction.”
He does not believe his work falls in the group of business school breed of young writers who swear by Chetan Bhagat. He feels his books will connect more with a serious audience. Yet the short and easy format of his work makes a perfect light read. It bears a strong resemblance to the work of popular writers like Abhijit Bhaduri with a metro setting, educated youth protagonists, quick involving story and a slice-of-life narrative.
Aditya admits his novels are not research heavy. “You will not emerge anny more knowledgeable out of my novels. They deal with the analytical and psychological aspects of life.” Aditya, much like the writers of pulp fiction, is not apologetic of the life he portrays. He identifies with the works of Arun Joshi who won Sahitya Akademi Award in 1982 for his novel The Last Labyrinth. “Joshi deals with the community head-on and without a sense of guilt or compunction of being dismissed as pulp or chick-lit.”
Besides the engaging mystery plot, Show me a Hero draws on the theme of hero-worship in India. A Tendulkar fan himself, Aditya says, “It is very easy to be cynical about someone but its a different experience to simply admire someone.” The title of the novel is drawn from the Gatsby-famed Ftizgerald’s note: “Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy”.
Aditya, does not see himself doing a story removed from the Indian context or set-up, “Even if I make it sound well-researched it would seem fake,” he says.
Inspite of his natural affinity for Indian setting he not game for the India shining argument. He describes the Indian condition of the as a “confused” one. “It is difficult to get a sense of who you are, in a country so diverse and vast,” he says. It is a similar difficulty that faces the protagonists in novels. “India still has a long way to go, this is not time to celebrate,” he says
As an author too, he does not carry the sense of having arrived. On lookout for more, Aditya is in Mumbai now, searching for opportunities and stories for a third novel that he aims to base on Bollywood.