8.1 Atharva Pandit: On Fictionalising Crime Without Compromising Truth

Tara talks to journalist and debut author Atharva Pandit, whose novel Hurda is inspired by a real-life case that briefly made headlines in 2013, and then vanished.

What begins as a mystery about three missing girls from a village in Maharashtra becomes a statement on what gets remembered and what gets buried. 

Atharva shares how a two-page newspaper feature became the seed for a decade-long creative journey. He discusses the blurry boundaries between fact and fiction, and how he built an entire village of voices, each with their own secrets and silences. The episode also delves into the quiet power of clothing, especially that green top that became a symbol of much more. Tara and Atharva explore why rural women’s lives so often go unheard, and how fiction can offer them space, dignity, and depth.

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‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

Transcript

Tara Khandelwal: 0:49

Welcome to Books and Beyond. With bound I'm Tara Khandelwal and I'm Michelle D'Costa, in this podcast, we talk to India's finest authors and uncover the stories. We hide the best written book and dissect how these books shape our lives and world views today. So let's dive in. Hello everyone. Welcome to Books and Beyond. So I'm very, very excited for today's guest. He's a journalist, and actually his debut book. I picked it up at the Jaipur Lit Fest this year. I actually attended a talk with him. I hadn't heard of the book before, and then I saw all the accolades and read the description, and just had to pick it up. His first book, Hurda, is inspired by real life events. So the story begins with these three sisters in the village of murwani, and they are missing and nobody knows what has happened to them. This was actually inspired by a news piece all the way back in 2013 for a very brief time. And obviously, as it happens, things get replaced by the news cycle. But it's stuck with Atharva, and he wanted to write about it, and the story has stayed in his brain for so long. And what I really loved about this book. I really like sort of true crime, but this is so much more than that, because it takes you into rural India. It looks at women's lives. It has so many different characters, so and I love the precision with which each of the characters have been related. So welcome Atharva,

Atharva Pandit: 2:26

thank you. Thank you so much Tara for that wonderful introduction. I'm so glad, you know, you like the book and you know, you found the nuances in them. You know worth your while, yeah.

Tara Khandelwal: 2:39

So I, you know, as I mentioned, like I picked it up with Jaipur. So let's just start with the you know, the most obvious thing is that your interest in the story, which is itself in a very fascinating story, you know, and why did the story, out of all these stories, stick with you, you know? How have you then try to incorporate these elements? Because it's, this is also fiction, yeah, yeah, based on a, you know, it's not sort of like two prime in that way, because it's based on this very real story. But then you completely made it your own right story, and sort of, how does that transpire? So,

Atharva Pandit: 3:15

you know, one of the like I keep saying, one of the reasons I wrote the book was because I wanted to understand why this story. And, you know, why is it that, you know, reading that newspaper report, that two page feature by Sunita Nair in the Indian Express. Why did that, really, you know, affect me so much. I genuinely, you know, did not have an answer for that. And you know, when you don't have answers, when you when you have all those questions swirling around your head, and basically, when you are confused about something, or you know, you you don't know, you don't understand something. As writers, I think we tend to, you know, sort of write about it, try and write about it, one of the, perhaps the most important way that we try and make sense of what we are feeling, and can make sense of the world outside. And I when I read the report, I was 16, and, you know, I had all these ambitions of becoming a writer, and, you know, that sort of then. And I've always been writing, ever since I can remember. I've always been creating stories and stuff like that. So writing has always been a part of and so I wrote about it like, in the sense that, you know, I was very, very, to begin with. I was very, very affected by the story. I mean, by the incident. I was really disturbed and disgusted, and, you know, all of those emotions. But I wasn't really, you know, I wasn't really clear about those emotions, in the sense that, why was I, you know, so disturbed about something that happened so many kilometers away, like in, I'm in Mumbai, this happened in Bandar. What? What has that got to do with so I was trying to find answers to those questions, you know, why? Why is it that certain things, you know, leave you so affected that you you're sort of, you know, you're sort of changed because of, and I would say, of course, this incident sort of changed something in me, even though I did not report on it, you know, or I did not go to the go to the place where this happened at that time. So, but it reading about it basically, really, really drove me to ask certain questions about myself, about the society, about the way we are living, about our opinions, our culture, and, you know, all those sort of things. But this did not happen immediately, of course. The immediate reaction was, of course, I mean, all those emotions, and then trying to, trying to express all of that through, through what. Hours by writing about it. And I've always written by hand. I mean, the first drafts are basically whatever I write there by hand. So I wrote this, you know, the first draft of it by hand. And I remember that first draft was also, you know, I sort of create my own covers and, you know, design my own covers, very bad designs, of course. And then I start writing. And I wrote that draft, but I remember, I mean, that draft was obviously first. Draft was obviously very bad. And I was 16 at that time, so I didn't know anything about writing. I still do by then. But you know, that draft it had. It wasn't the way I wrote. It wasn't very straightforward, you know, not a linear it wasn't a linear narrative. And that sort of, you know, that is something that has carried forward from right from the first draft to the last, that I didn't want the story to be this one linear kind of, you know, structure, the structure had to be different. But yeah, that that's how I reacted to it, and that's how it sort of started. So

Tara Khandelwal: 6:56

basically, you didn't know why that. You know, you were so intrigued by a lot of all the new stories, and yeah, you just wanted to sort of explore that. Yeah, what I liked about the book was that, you know, the book has multiple voices. So, yeah, so the story begins with, you know, the three sisters, the three sisters who were missing. You know each of them have their own personality. And I was really intrigued by the way that you describe the elder sister, because this green top that she was wearing all of the different villagers, from her grandfather to, you know, the middle sisters, best friend, to the teachers. Everyone has commented on this green top, and it became sort of symbolic for something that is quite unsavory, you know. And in other words, sort of the green top is implying that this girl is up to no good. Whereas, you know, we have interviews of a mother and a grandfather and nobody knew what they were up to, in this case, is in real life, also unsolved, and in your book, also unsolved. So yeah, could you tell me a little bit more about sort of that, you know, symbolism of, you know, Anita, the eldest daughter, and how this green top became such a big thing in all of the villagers heads. And why?

Atharva Pandit: 8:18

Yeah, I mean, so as the symbolism aspect of it is, of course, that, you know, I think one of the one of the character also says it as much that you know what? You know, green. What does green mean? It means green signal, you know. So it's, it's like, it's a signal that she was, she was, she wanted it, she was asking for it. So, I mean, of course, that's, it's, it's sort of implied. And this one of the characters says it. But the one thing that I really wanted, like, of course, one of the things that I really wanted to sort of show cars through that detail was the fact. And this was something that I, you know, picked up when I went to the place where this happened, and sort of spoke to people over there. People remembered, you know, what they were wearing, what the girls were wearing, particularly what the elder sister was wearing. But nobody remembers where they like, people remember this, the dressing, the way they were dressed, the, you know, the signals that were, that they were sort of, you know, giving, but the very important details, details, or the observations that would actually matter, such as, where these girls were at certain point in time, and where did they go, who they were with, or whether they were alone, what, what they were doing, and all of those things, those things are, you know, those things? Nobody, nobody remember. Nobody had any interest in that they were they. They remembered the top, they remembered how they were dressed. They remembered all of those things, but the Not, not the things that would help the police with the case, so that that the, you know, the as a society, the things that we sort of prioritize, or the things that we remember, and the things that we should remember, but we don't do that was the sort of, you know, that was one of the things that I was really Interested in, not not revealing, but sort of displaying that, okay, this is, this is how this is what happens, and this is how it happens. And of course, there are other, you know, other sorts of symbolisms about, about the top being green, and Hurda being green, and all those sort of things. But, yeah, I mean, the main thing was that people remembered it because, because of the way they looked at her because of the because what their priorities were while they were looking at her, you know, when, when, when they were observing her, you know, leering at her, that's, that's what they saw. That's what they remember. Then what happened to her, and where was she? And, you know, those sort of details which would actually help with the crime, solving the crime. Nobody remembers that. Nothing of that, and they are not even interested in remembering that. Yeah, I think that was the that was one of my main motives. It was like I was, I was very disturbed, and I was very angry because, and then it also taught me a lot about what we tend to remember, and what we, you know, tend to forget, and basically forget, perhaps intentionally or unintentionally, but you know how our memory sort of works when it comes to things like these?

Tara Khandelwal: 11:16

Yeah, that's that's really interesting that, you know, because they were so worried about, sort of, because it's such a close knit community. There were so many rumors, half truths, you know, and they were more worried about the value system that these girls were displaying than actually, sort of the actual case and where they went. And it was almost like the girls disappearance was almost sort of like warranted, because they were clearly, according to the villagers, up to no good, and wearing these sort of clothes, which was, you know, really sad and completely untrue. Obviously. What I liked about also how you've done the work is the multiple voices, as I mentioned, because there's so many different voices, and each one of them is very different than the other. So you have this Inspector vigoli. He's just completely incompetent. He doesn't care at all. He is very unsavory character. You have, you know, the grandfather, the poor grandfather, who's really sort of trying to look for his three granddaughters, and is getting bullied. Then you and my favorite out of all the characters was Jhanvi, who is the middle sister's best friend, because the way that you portrayed her, you know, sense of loss. She's a child. Her best friend has left her bag, which she never does. Priyanka, the girl who went missing, left her bag in school. And that's very, very weird, because she never does that usually. So they were, they were signs of unusual behavior. And then, you know, later on, we find out, drawing her best friend. And, you know, they obviously shared a lot, and they had some secrets, and at certain points, you almost think that, yeah, she knows something, or she can be the key to this case, but it was never revealed. So, yeah, can you tell me about sort of, like, creating these different characters? And, you know, how, what was your process on, like, getting into all these different voices, because there's so many of them.

Atharva Pandit: 13:11

I'm so glad you found the voices distinctive, because that was one of my main concerns, whether the voices would be distinctive enough. I've always loved all these multiple Narrator novels, because that sort of, you know, it sort of gives the novel a breadth, I think, in terms of, in terms of what the story, the story that is being told, and also how it is being told. So I like, I like the I like the multiple narrate. I have always loved it, and I always wanted to try it like, you know, whether we can pull of something like that. The savage detectives is is right at the top of it by Roberto bolanyo. That was like the first novel that I read, which was like a multiple Narrator novel. And it really revealed, I was, like, blown away by it. And it really revealed to me. I don't know whether this is a trick, but this this trick that you know you don't have to narrate a story in a linear manner. You can narrate a story any way that you want, any way that you like, as long as you keep it interesting. So yeah, I mean, the multiple Narrator novels have always wanted to sort of try that, and I thought so. I wrote a couple of, not a couple of drafts, many drafts which were linear in nature, like first person, you know, third person singular, first person, narrator, and all of those things. But they, they never worked. I mean, they didn't seem

Tara Khandelwal: 14:39

narrator was a narrator, the journalist,

Atharva Pandit: 14:41

yeah. I mean, at one point it was chitranshu, and at that point, chitranshu was sort of a savior, kind of a character who, you know, who goes and who sort of tries to solve the case and but I think I was always clear that this, the case is never going to be solved, you know, irrespective of of the narrator, irrespective of whatever, you know, sort of, whatever structure I give to the book, the case won't, won't be solved. Because that's one of the main aspects that I wanted to explore, the unknowability of it all. But I Yeah, so I tried writing from different perspectives. I tried writing from from third person. Third person was for a long time, third person was something that I went with. But then I thought, I mean, it's not like the way that I was writing the book. It wasn't really, you know, it wasn't expressing what I wanted to express, and it wasn't indicative of the case was all about, and also the things that I wanted to, you know, sort of incorporate in the book. So it wasn't working that way. And then I basically. And I had all these characters, and I thought to, you know, why not let them just have their see, you know, let them just, you know, tell their story, irrespective of whether that story is related directly to the incident or not. It might, you know, it might reveal something about them. It might. And I didn't know. I didn't go in, you know, wanting to reveal particularly something about the characters. Or no, I just, as I went on writing, they just, you know, they just kept on the characters just kept on developing. And, you know, it's sort of, it's, it was sort of giving them the voice that that they wanted to be a little cliche. But then again, the problem was that every character, then, because it was, you know, because the characters were narrating their their experiences in first person and in English, the the narration or the their voices were coming off as very sounding, very unnatural, you know, in the sense that this is not how this person would talk. Probably, this is what I sort of, I realized, and I, you know, I, I was thinking about how to change that. And so the first couple of the first couple of drafts were all in, you know, proper English, so to speak, in the sense that there were no Marathi words or Hindi words, or nothing of that sort, complete pure, sort of English. But that wasn't working, because it is not, you know, it's not it the context of it and the surrounding and the background. It just doesn't work like that, an English novel there, setting an English novel there, and writing it in complete, proper sort of English. It doesn't work. So then I decided, see, anyway, I because I didn't know who's going to, you know, who's going to read it, or whether, at that point, I had nothing, I had no, you know, no inclination or no intention of finding an agent, or, you know, going to a publisher. I just wanted to write the story down. I just wanted it to be correct. Of course, I had those ambitions. Who doesn't, but at that point, my only thing was that I really, really want to get this down, because it's been too long, 10 years. At least there has to be something, some concrete thing that I can like one draft and then fine if I have to work on it again, that's fine. But at least there has to be something, you know, that I can, I can be satisfied. So then I wrote it that way, you know, including all these Marathi words, including all these swear words, and, you know, and it wasn't even, you know, it wasn't even something that was planned in the sense that this Marathi word would go here. No, I was just writing and I was just thinking, okay, maybe this character would say it like this, and when this character, when they say it like this, this would be the Marathi word that would probably be, you know, probably be, probably fit into that sentence, that English sentence. And I just wrote it that way. I didn't have any,

Tara Khandelwal: 18:48

yeah, how did you sort of like, because you've grown up in Bombay, yeah, and big city and all of that. And, you know, the way that you have captured these voices, you know, is so it feels so accurate. It's still literary fiction, but it really feels like, you know, a novel that is set in rural India with that kind of sort of tonality, language. It's very technically all there. So how did you do any How did you do research, like when you say you incorporated Marathi words and things like that, you know, is it just sort of all fictionalized. Did you speak to people? How did you do the deal? So, did you go to that village, like Chitranshu, your protagonist, you know, the journalist went there. I actually spoke to all the stakeholders of that village. Did you also do that?

Atharva Pandit: 19:38

I actually did. And I went there, you know, back in 2018 I because the thing was, I had been writing and working on this for for a long time, five years, and I just couldn't, you know, I just couldn't write it down without going there. I thought, you know, that's something that, that's something that I, I did not sort of with. I was, I always wanted to go there, but I didn't know what the right time would be.

Tara Khandelwal: 20:11

Your experience when you went.

Atharva Pandit: 20:13

I mean, that's the thing. People were sort of, you know, dismissive, in the sense that they were, they were like, this happened so so many years ago. This happened five years ago. Why are you, you know, why are you so concerned about it. Now, what is so there were, and there were some people who were, you know, who were suspicious. Why is this guy here, and why is he going on, going around, asking questions. Because, like you said, it's a small community, right? And it and a lot of people are also moved on in the sense that they had moved away from the village, they had gone to some place else And those who were there, they were like, they were not very interested in talking about it either, because they did not find, find it all that interesting. And there was also this one, I mean, this one theory that everybody had latched on to, I think, which is that it was an accident, not a murder or anything, because the sisters were, anyway, you know, very curious and very outgoing and all of those things. So they might have been curious about the wealth they went in. I mean, they, you know, they, they sort of jumped in, or they, they had an accident at the well, and nobody was there around to pull them out, to rescue them, so they died. That's one, you know, that's one theory that that is floating around. And I think that theory is also something that people, you know, accepted, because it then nobody is guilty. It only the girls are guilty, so then they don't have to feel guilty about it. But, I mean, I went there and I I got this feeling that I was not really, you know, not really welcome there, which is natural, quite natural, of course, because this guy is coming from Mumbai, out of nowhere and asking on about, asking around about a case that happened five years ago. I that's obviously going to, not going to be, you know, acceptable. So then I didn't, I didn't go there with the purpose of, sort of solving the case, or, you know, gathering more details about the case itself. I went there because I wanted to understand the atmosphere of the of the, you know, village, of that particular village, and also the way that people express things, the language that they use. That's also one of the revelations that I had there, which is, you know, we the Marathi that we speak in Mumbai, the Marathi that we speak in Pune. It's a very different kind of Marathi than the one which is spoken in Bhandara, one which is spoken in it's all, I mean, it's all the same universe, right? The language universe is the same Marathi, but, and yet, there are so many differences, like they the way they speak Marathi, it becomes difficult to understand it. It's very, you know, it's very rapid. And that's also, that, also the sort of Marathi that is spoken in different parts of Maharashtra. And so it's very it's faster than the way we speak, it the way we converse. So that was a, you know, Revelation. I know Marathi. This guy knows Marathi. We are both conversing in Marathi, but I can't understand what he said, right? And that was sort of fascinating to me. And, yeah, I mean, so we're going there and talking to these people and understanding the way that they express, the language that they use, the way they use that language. That sort of, I think, helped in terms of the, you know, tonality of the book, and in terms of, you know, building an atmosphere for the book, and also in in terms of, you know, giving different voices to different characters, because I have sort of, you know, jumbled up details, but some, most of these details are details which I've gathered by interviewing people.

Tara Khandelwal: 24:05

So yeah, quite a rigorous process. One thing that you know was really interesting, and I read in another interview of yours, is that you were also a little conflicted, right? Because when you when you sort of read about the tragedy and, you know, and even the journalist character, you know, he is kind of wanting to He's ambitious, and he's sort of really morally ambiguous, and he wants to, sort of like, make a book out of this. And you've explored that through the journalist character, but I just wanted to speak a little bit more about that, because even in an interview, you've said that, you know, you were also conflicted that your first, you know, like that, like you want to write a book about it. So where is the line between, you know, reporting and exploiting grief. What do you think?

Atharva Pandit: 24:51

I think that line is, that line is where your, you know, empathy ends and where your ambition sort of begins in the sense that, and I'm not saying that I, you know, I am, I might not have done that perhaps I might have, in the sense that I was drawn to the case, because I, to a certain extent, I, you know, I empathize with what had happened in one sense, even though nothing of that sort had happened to me or with me. Then, you know, I started writing about it. And, like I said, I started writing about it because that's the only way to sort of make sense of of our emotions and why, why we feel them. But, you know, at certain point, ambition also takes over, right in in the sense that it was my choice to not, you know, send. Doubt the manuscript to anybody. I mean, I couldn't I it's, had, had I been so, you know, so moral or ethical about it, I wouldn't have sent the manuscript out. I would have just kept it in my drawer, and I would have been satisfied, okay, I wrote about it. But I don't want, you know, I don't want it to go out. I don't want it to, you know, be become a book. But this is where ambition takes hold, and this is where, you know, that's that sort of, that sort of moral ambiguity comes in, in the sense that you want to become a writer. Now you are. You're sort of writing this story which has sort of got nothing to do with you, and which is a very sensitive story, very sensitive case. And okay, you started writing because you started writing it because you wanted to understand it, and you wanted to get certain, you know, sort your emotions out. But now you're sending it out into the world. People are buying it, paying your price for it. That is your I mean, that's your choice, right? Ultimately, nobody has, nobody has grabbed it or, you know, stolen that manuscript and published it without your consent. It's all happening because you wanted it to happen, right? So I think that's, that's, it's a very thin line. I don't think ambition is a, you know, it's, it's not wrong or it's a bad thing. I don't think that's it's a bad thing. It's a bad thing if you exploit this kind of a story in, you know, in different ways. But again, exploitation is subjective. How? How do you, you know? How do you quantify exploitation? But I think the you know, the way to tell a story like this is that you you be sensitive as as much as you can. You tell it as sensitively as you can. You tell it in a in a manner that is not, you know, that is not exploiting again, that story or their story. How?

Tara Khandelwal: 27:47

How do you maintain that sensitivity. That's a difficult

Atharva Pandit: 27:51

question to answer. I mean, some books use, you know, use rape and murder and crime, basically, as, you know, as just an entertaining aside and just as a method of or means of entertainment, I suppose, I think, as a writer, you you try and explore, you know, the the intricacies of why this happened, why this keeps on happening, and why perhaps this will keep on happening no matter what you know, no matter what we write, no matter what we make, No matter what we you know, whatever laws we bring in, whatever it will keep on happening. Because that's, that's an this is an integral part of the way that our society has been built, right? So you try and, you know, write about that. I'm assuming that you are writing about it, because at certain point and in some way, you also feel angry about it. So then you express that anger in your work. You You know when, when you write it, have to, sort of, you have to structure that anger into that word. And you have, I think, the at the end of the day, you have to come to that story from a from the right place. Now, I don't know what that right place is, but I think,

Tara Khandelwal: 29:07

yeah, yeah, like more intuitive, and yeah, maybe, yeah. But I felt very sad, like, like, I really love the book, but I also felt very sad like reading the book, because, as you said, you know, this is like a it's a very interesting reflection of society, and especially society that women live in in rural India, which you know, their lives are shaped by this, these invisible rules of safety and caution and but I also want to ask, you know, like, did any character sort of while writing this book, because there's so many surprise you or take on a life their own in ways you don't expect, if you in ways you didn't expect.

Atharva Pandit: 29:45

I mean, I think almost every one of them did that like just Jhanvi, you you spoke about Jhanvi. Jhanvi was a very, I mean, she was a side character. She was a, you know, she was someone who was a friend. But I didn't really give that much importance to her until, you know, she sort of started developing on her own because she was, she was the only friend out of the three sisters. I mean, she Priyanka, only. Priyanka had a friend, and she was like the only friend for the three sisters, like she felt it more. She had that sort of closeness with them, and nobody understood the way that she felt about this, and she didn't understand the way that she was feeling about this, but because, I mean, he all to see that kind of brutal violence and murder and death at that age, and death of a friend at that age, it really, I mean, it would really break. You and so Jhanvi was very, you know, it she, she sort of took a life of her own, and she symbolized, you know, the value of friendships, you know, because she also has a friend in Bushan. And Bushan is one of my favorite characters, because he is someone who is, you know, not interested in all of these cars, and like his brother, is his elder brother, cars and busses and all. He's interested in nature. He's interested in insects and snakes and all of those things. And he has this different world of his, and that world, he has created, that world because of the things that he had seen, and which is similar to, you know, Jhanvi, or the, you know, the art that Jhanvi takes, January is also, you know, she's she, she's also someone who is in her own world, and she's also trying to process what has happened and what She remembers through that, through, you know, sketches and drawings, and, you know, by being alone with herself, that sort of a thing. And these two souls, kindred spirits, sort of, then, you know, get, they have a friendship of their own, which was not something that I had envisioned. It just came through. I mean, it just, it, just while I was writing, it just, you know, it was very spontaneous, so that that sort of surprised me, and that was like I felt the within the world of the book, everything is so violent and, you know, brutal and depressing, sort of, this is something that is, you know, that that gives hope, and this is something that is hopeful,

Tara Khandelwal: 32:33

which was the hardest character for you to get into, hardest

Atharva Pandit: 32:36

character, Chitranshu. Because he, Chitranshu is, to a certain extent, my own reflection. I mean, my it's, it's sort of semi autobiographical. He's a journalist, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's, I mean, similar age, similar journeys. And then, you know, I had to, because while writing Chitranshu, the things that you did, I had to sort of confront with myself, and like you mentioned earlier, the whole moral ambiguity aspect of it, and I had to, sort of, you know, ask myself, Am I this person? And the answers were not really encouraging in the sense that perhaps I could be. I mean, I could go that way. You never know. I mean, we, everyone thinks that they are, you know, sort of very ethically right and morally superior, and we whatever we do, we do, we do the right thing, and all of those things. But there are elements within us, and there are, you know, sort of, there might be instances when we might end up doing something that generally we won't, or something that would, that we would end up regretting not to the extent that Chitranshu does it, but he's also, I mean, because he's a dick, he doesn't really, you know, he doesn't really feel guilty about it, or feels that he has done anything wrong about it, about what he did, but that's that's his. His was the character that sort of made me confront my own emotions and made me confront my own values, and whether I am what I sort of, you know, think I am, and the answers were not very encouraging. So that was very difficult.

Tara Khandelwal: 34:34

That's very interesting, because I would have thought like because, you know, he's a journalist character, and he is the one investigating and all of those things. Yeah, he would have been easier. But that's quite a different perspective. So one thing that I also noticed that, you know, the blurbs in the back of the book. Sonia Feller, I think these are some of my favorite authors. We've interviewed them as well on the podcast. Sonia Ferrero is doing this amazing book, which is really similar to this one, except that this is fiction, and hers is sort of like a two prime but also based on this case, you know, in a rural village, case of a missing, missing girl in a rural village in up. So I wanted to ask, you know, what was it like being part of South Asia speaks and working with Sonia and Prayag, and what kind of inputs did you get from them?

Atharva Pandit: 35:27

It was incredible. And the good girls by Sonia khalero, she it was, you know, one of the, one of the influences behind Hurda. I mean, I was the I I had read the book before. I was, you know, reading it while, while writing Hurda as well. So and it was, it. South Asia speaks is incredible. I mean, they, and I was very lucky to have Prayag as the men as as my mentor, because Prayag is, you know, very chill. And he, he doesn't have this, you know, this school master kind of attitude that you have to, you know, you have to do this within this time frame, you know, to, because he understands that writing doesn't probably doesn't happen that way for everybody. So he was very chill. He we used to discuss books, we used to discuss films, we used to discuss writing. And you know why this person is his favorite writer, but this person, I hate this person as a writer and those sort of thing. And I came to South Asia speaks actually, at a time when I wasn't really very sure about my fiction writing abilities. I was under confident I'd been writing for for quite a while, but I was under confident about my ability. And I was like, this is the sort of the last attempt to get, get the fiction writing sort of going, fiction going. So zautesha speaks was actually a push towards that, because it's sort of when you discuss all of these things, books and, you know, writing and the technicalities of it and the misery of it and the joys of it, you sort of get somehow, somewhere, you get inspired, you know, you start thinking about writing again. And that that, I think that was one of the biggest contributions in terms of, you know, in terms of how South Asia speaks, help my writing. It basically by discussing all of these things and by debating all of these things, it sort of made me excited about writing again, you know? And that, yeah, and that, of course, it was complimented by the fact that Prayag is very like you write, and then you send me whatever you've written. And he's a good critic. Also he's a very, sometimes he can be very, you know, a harsh critic, which is needed. But he, he criticizes in the manner that you, you know, you never get hurt about it. So that that was really helpful.

Tara Khandelwal: 37:58

I'm sure you would be a really good mentor. And so Sonia, they're just fantastic authors. So, yeah, I mean, this book took you a really long time to write, and I can see why, you know, it's so multifaceted. It's so rich. I really also like the fact that you have kept the case unsolved, because when I was reading it, I kept, kind of, like, also like the way it's written, you kind of almost feel like we're getting somewhere. We're getting somewhere. It's going to get solved. It's going to get solved. Like, is this a clue? Is that a clue is, is, you know what, this person said something, but then it all kind of leads to nothing, and the case doesn't get solved, which is exactly what happens in real life. You know, it's real. It's not like a neat little bow that, oh yeah, you know, they all these cues and they add up and, you know, that's it. So that's what I Yeah, that's what I really like. And I love how the book did that. I love the social commentary. So, yeah, what are you writing next now? What's on your mind right now? That's,

Atharva Pandit: 38:53

that's a difficult question. I mean, there are things, there are, you know, there are things that I'm writing, there are things that I have been thinking, but I think I I've come to accept the fact that I'm not. I'm not, I'm not a writer who is very, you know, who's going to be churning out one book every two or three years. That's, I don't think that's going to happen with me, because I procrastinate a lot. I'm very lazy. I don't have any, you know, any schedule at such for writing. I also have a full time job, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I was job is what? But you know what? I'll tell you what I do get some time to write, apart from the job, like, sometimes the job can get hectic, but I do get time. But within that time when I should be writing, I'm scrolling on Instagram and watching, watching reels on Instagram, and I'm like, should I go and I should go and write, but should I and so I sort of procrastinate. Sometimes it so happens that you, I'm so charged up that you I just go open the laptop and tap, tap, tap, tap it out. But I mean to write a book. I think it it takes, it takes a different sort of commitment, which I could commit once. Now I'm like, I'm taking some time to commit for that again. So, I mean, I hope it happens whenever it happens, but I think I would come, I'll come to accept the fact that, okay, it will happen when it has to happen.

Tara Khandelwal: 40:31

Yeah. But then the books that you do, right, they want to win prizes, and they do so well, so then, yeah, it's all about worth it, yeah, at the end. And like, the kind of like you got Jerry Pinto got, like, sort of talking about and then I really like books like this, because it's something different. You know, I don't really come. Across multi character books. I don't come across book set in this kind of a place, you know, I need a lot of sort of, like single protagonist novel set in open India, open Settings. So it was a very refreshing and, yeah, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Unknown: 41:07

And thank you. It's been a real pleasure. I didn't even know when we got it's 350 or the conversation just closed. Hope

Tara Khandelwal: 41:19

you enjoy this episode of Books and Beyond with bound. This podcast is created by bound, a company that helps you grow through stories. Find us at down India on all social media platforms. Tune in every Wednesday as we peek into the lives and minds of some brilliant authors from India and South Asia. You.