This post was written in the run up for the publication of the Dutch translation of Hotel Arcadia. The Dutch and English editions are now available for pre-orders from the links above. I wrote this current post for Hebban.nl so you can read it in translation here. I had a quite an unusual childhood and it continues to impact my writing today, in terms of themes, styles and content. I hope the customary readers of the blog will find this post interesting. And perhaps new readers will get a little insight into my life and my writing.
A final memory. I am
five and the Tibetans are teaching me to remain still. They are soldiers and
monks so the lesson is two-fold, for physical survival and spiritual progress.
I protest that stillness is frustrating, difficult, may be even futile. They
tell me I can only master the enemy, the world, and myself when I learn to be
still. In my writing, and my life, I am
still trying.
One of my earliest
memories is of sitting near a bonfire, amidst mounds of snow, watching Tibetan
soldiers clean their weapons. Even now,
in my mind’s eye, I can see the eerie brightness that snow creates at night, the
orange-red licks of the flames, and the glint of metal against the olive green
of the uniforms. Over the fire, a massive petrol can had been repurposed for a
cauldron into which all leftovers were chucked, and its perpetual bubbling
yielded the most delicious ‘everything’ soup.
And most of all, I remember the terror and sorrow, although I only
understood it as an adult.
The year was 1971, and
the soldiers were part of a specialised unit of the Indian army that my father
led. They were heading to war and many – and I have never stopped missing them
– never returned.
Another memory rises.
From later in the decade. Of a bamboo hut with dirt floors and a freshly dug
snake trench. At night, I would peer
through the green mesh that formed the walls, watching for the wolves and foxes
that came to forage in the garden. When
we came home from playing, my mother would make us stand beyond the snake
trench and empty out our pockets before letting us into the shack. With no
toyshop for miles, wildlife – often of the creepy-crawly kind – tended to be our
playthings.
Much has changed
since those early days of living in cantonment towns and remote border
posts. By the time I entered my teens,
my father had changed his job, albeit still within the Indian government.
Instead of isolated villages on the Indo-Tibetan border, we started moving to
places like Islamabad, New York, Windhoek.
Yet some things
remained the same as the family grew, and moved. My parents were always most
excited about travelling, exploring, learning, and these are loves they passed on
to me. I remember learning basic Swahili by candlelight with my father in that
bamboo shack because he was being prepared for a posting that never
materialised. And then doing the same in light of a storm lantern for Urdu, and
then in the brightness of an camel skin lam, and with greater difficulty, for Xhosa.
For many years now, I
have travelled on my own, although my parents get perhaps more excited about my
trips than me.
I used to think that
those early days had been left behind, that I had outgrown those early
memories. But increasingly my writing goes back to those impassive, kind faces
that I loved and lost as a child. I want to know those lives, if only in my
fiction, and learn about what they loved, wanted, feared. And I want to
understand where they found that silent, unending well of courage.
