C.V Murali is an Indian author by choice and engineer by profession. His debut novel, Dreams die young, was published in 2007. Recently his second novel, Prisoners of Hate, has been published. Lakshmi Rajan caught up with C V Murali in an exclusive interview for GingerChai.com
From engineering to writing, what made you take the quantum shift?
Well, it’s not really been a shift-since I have always been into writing-though not in a professional sense.
Naxalism in your maiden novel “Dreams die young” and Terrorism in “Prisoners of hate” any particular reason to touch such sensitive, dark subjects?
Both my books deal with conflicts which are very near to us and affect many of us and could affect many more if we do not find answers soon.Yet,as a society we are still grappling with them and perhaps do not want to accept them as problems at all. These conflicts trouble me and force me to probe and look for probable causes.
Do you consider writing a passion or outburst of your anger and frustration at society?
I wanted to express myself on issues which concern me (and many of our countrymen/women, I hope) e.g conflicts in class, caste, religion and the reasons thereof and writing offers me a great medium to do so. I also discovered while I started writing that I had the ability to craft an engrossing tale to captivate the readers till the end. So, yes writing is a passion but more importantly it represents the angst of our generation.Therefore,I write stories set in our midst-which besides entertaining my readers would also make them pause and think and as one of my readers said disturb them.
How would you describe “Prisoners of hate” to readers?
I would like to describe this book as a wake up call to our society but primarily I would like to believe that this is book about Hope…To quote from the Sutradhar of this book-
“I hope that one day, not too far away, we will speak. Hope, that we will all speak together and its reverberation will shatter this deafening sound-the sound of silence, which I hear today. Hope that these reverberations will echo throughout our society and stop this madness. Hope that future generations will be wiser and learn from our follies. Hope that our children and their grandchildren and their children will one day see and live the dream of a frail old man who had defied the odds and had dared to speak out…”
In future do you expect to touch light weight subjects?
Definitely yes-am working on one now.
How do your family and friend react to C V Murali as an author? Any strong criticisms?
The reaction has been quite favourable so far, indeed very positive-though there have been murmurs that my books are far too dark and need a touch of romance…
Have you encountered any interesting incident that has to do with you as/being an author?
I do not know whether you can call this an incident-but a couple of my acquaintances(who don’t read anything other than the stuff concerning their work) picked up my book with great disinclination but did nothing else but read it for the next couple of days-till they finished the book. Today they have become my greatest fans…But what gives me more pleasure is the fact that I have introduced some very reluctant people into the wonderful world of books…
What next?
I am actually toying with a couple of subjects- one, dark like my other books and the other a light hearted take on the rat race in which we are all caught today. Have progressed a little bit on the latter.
Any particular author who has influenced you a lot?
Quite a few authors actually as I progressed thru school, college and work-I would like to mention a couple of them-Amitava Ghosh and William Dalrymple-both for their distinctive writing styles but more for the passion and human touch which comes through.
Few of your contemporary authors are flirting with Bollywood, do you have any plans?
Actually, a couple of reviewers of my first work did mention that there was a cinematic quality to my writing and the adaption to the cinematic media would be a cinch.So, to answer your question…why not?
For the review of Prisoners of hate click here
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Hey! you should have also asked his opinion on GInger Chai… .
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Some tips for us Mr. Murali? By the way, welcome to Ginger Chai.
welcome Journo Mr R….u r just v.good…
Dank you ! Dank you !
[...] winning entry will be selected by C V Murali, the author of the books Dreams die young and Prisoners of [...]