Interview with Author Ayan Pal

The first conversation on my blog is with Author Ayan Pal. 


Author Bio- Ayan Pal is an alumni of St Joseph’s College, Kolkata. He completed his Engineering in Electronics and Communication from Dr. AIT, Bangalore and obtained a degree in Education

Technology from SDSU, California. He has since accumulated over a decade of experience in the IT Industry across CISCO, Wipro, and IBM.
Ayan is an author known for his acclaimed short stories in the Amazon Bestsellers ‘Chronicles of Urban Nomads’, ‘21 Tales to Tell’, ‘When They Spoke’, and India’s first composite novel – ‘Crossed and Knotted’ – which garnered him an entry into the ‘Limca Book of Records’ under Literature. He has also contributed to ‘Upper Cut’, ‘Her Story’, ‘Rudraksha’, ‘Arranged To Love’, ‘Tonight’s The Night’ and ‘Long Story Short’ respectively. He is a columnist at Delhi-NCR based lifestyle magazine ‘ThnkMkt’ and blogger at South Asia’s leading literary magazine ‘Open Road Review’. He is passionate about public speaking & leadership and involved with Toasmasters International. He loves reading, listening to music, and binge watching his favorite TV Shows. ‘Confessions on an island’ is his debut novel.

Thank you for conversing with me, Ayan.

1       Tell us about the school and college days of Author Ayan Pal.

I did my schooling from St Joseph’s College, Calcutta (yes, my school is officially known as a college) where I was an introvert and rarely mixed with others. My favourite place in this Irish Brothers run convent school was the library! While studying Engineering at Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Technology, Bangalore, I suddenly transformed into a whole new person! I wore coloured contact lenses, and brazenly came out of my shell to emerge as an extremely friendly and extrovert person. My favourite place was anywhere but the classroom!

2.       When was the first time that this author picked up the pen?

For a creative writing contest at school. I was in Class 7 and came second in the inter class competition for my story ‘The day I was trapped with a dog in the lift’. I have been dogged in my pursuit of getting lifted into higher echelons of creative writing ever since!

3.       Tell us something crazy you have done. Like a ragging incident or kissing a stranger when drunk.

I danced bare bodied in a Dhoti to ‘Jiya Jale’ for a solo dance competition while at college - they had to stop my semi-naked performance mid-way in order to control the shocked / unruly students! I also wrote, directed, and starred in some whacky and provocative plays while at IBM, one of them being ‘Tarzan Jawaan, Naagin Pareshan’. True story!

4.     How did the idea of Confessions on an Island come up?

The idea came from suddenly finding a connection, nay a pattern, in several things that have happened to me in the past. The book, in a similar vein, is about the coming together of a jigsaw puzzle called life, which I hope reflects my belief (to quote from the film ‘Signs’) – that there are no coincidences in life.

5.       How different or similar are the protagonists from Author Ayan Pal?

They are inspired by real people, many of them close acquaintances. Most of what they feel, or seem to go through, are from my own experiences. So I would say they are similar to me in many ways, but also different. A confession - I have, as an author, put myself in their shoes, and felt a gamut of emotions that made it difficult to distinguish between reality and fiction while writing. The process was both emotionally exhausting as well as cathartic. You need to read the book to decide how much of me slipped into the pages!

6.       There are a few scenes of sexual violence in the book. Do you think the world and men in particular, are doing enough to bring a change in ending violence against women?

Nothing much, I am afraid. Violence, be it kinky sex (‘50 Shades of Grey’ anyone?), or for that matter open misogyny, a prime example of it being a recently appointed head of state, and worse, some of his many detractors who decide to focus on his model wife for a not so model way of trumping him down, are simply mirrors to dark recesses of our patriarchal minds. The problem, I believe, starts with the watching of unrealistic cinema be it erotica or pornography, and then trying to imitate the same in real life, leading to often disastrous consequences. Education, alas, does not seem to be having much impact against such actions!

7.       If Confessions on an Island were to be made into a Bollywood film, who would you want to star in it. Remember he/she has to perform the intimate scenes.

That’s a very difficult question to answer! But keeping the ethnicity of the characters’ in mind, Radhika Apte / Alia Bhatt as the woman, Fawad Khan / Randip Hooda as the man, and Amitabh Bachchan / Irfan Khan as the voice of the Island.

8.       Do you have a writing routine?

Yes I do actually! While writing, my routine involves listening to music before I begin, followed by locking myself in my room and writing till the scene/chapter has been completed. I try to follow the routine regularly which is usually late evenings extending till the wee hours of the morning, or from early morning till noon. I generally avoid the afternoons. I do not read anything apart from the newspaper during this period.

9.       What are good writing and bad writing according to you?

Good writing from an author’s perspective is anything that achieves its purpose be it sales or acclaim, and from a reader’s perspective is one which either makes them think, or makes them feel. Bad writing is one which does neither from either perspectives.

1   What is the next from Author Ayan Pal?

A sequel is in order! I will be starting it hopefully this year. Fingers crossed!

.   A message for new / budding authors.

My message to them is simple – to read. Nothing compares to reading in order to be a better author, be it from your own genre, or across. Keep reading, and the rest will automatically follow!

Rapid fire –

Worse book you have read?

‘The Plague’ by Albert Camus, for a rather strange reason. I had started reading the book on a train journey to New Delhi along with a Toastmaster friend to attend a conference. The conference turned out to be really hectic, making it impossible to pick up the book. When I tried coming back to the book, I had lost the bookmark and became completely confused by the many characters, most of them Doctors. This unfortunately became the reason behind the book being one of the few I could not complete, and the experience of reading and re-reading one of the worst.

Worse film you have seen?

There are quite a few actually that will probably win that honour. But to pick a recent one, it would be ‘Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania’. I had the misfortune of watching the film while on a date with my wife (then fiancée) on her Birthday. My rather scathing review of the same however made it to the film’s most liked review on IMDB! So it wasn’t that bad after all!

Worst kiss?

My first kiss with my wife (with whom, for the record, I naturally also share my best kiss), where I did not seem ‘tongue tied’ at all, leading to a rather embarrassing situation when she asked me to stop… talking!

That one person you want to unfriend/ block on social media?

Going forward, my manager(s), because they always seem to think I am doing everything else apart from work!

That one political leader you despise – no Donald Trump please. Too obvious.

I actually despise the Canadian Prime Minister - Justin Trudeau. He is an insanely unbelievable combination of smouldering good looks, sharp& sound mind, and genuinely generous heart. I despise the fact that there are NO leaders like him anywhere else in the world! It’s a shame really, don’t you think?