They say success is 90 per cent hard work and 10 per cent luck. But in Prajwal Parajuly’s case, the opposite applies. Author of the successful short story collection, The Gurkha’s Daughter, Parajuly admits he is too lazy to be working 90 per cent of the time. “I have to sleep a lot. It is only when I get tired of sleeping that I sit down to write,” he says. “But not without eating, I have to have some chocolates.”
Even before his book was published, the 29-year-old was already a well-known name in the Indian literary circuit. Besides signing a deal with British publishing house Quercus for a collection of short stories, the writer was also asked to submit a novel, The Land Where I Flee, which will be released this December.
In each of the eight stories in The Gurkha’s Daughter, Parajuly carefully and intricately weaves family ties and lays bare a microcosm of human and social interactions. One would imagine the author an avid introspect in his personal interactions, but the writer demurs. “I am not a very social person. The things I have written in my book are things that I know.”
Parajuly admits he was never a good student. He recalls getting a score of 1 out of 100 in his Maths examination and was embarrassed when the teacher told him in front of his entire class that he had actually gotten a 0.9.
To make up for his failure in class, Parajuly started sending his writings to a local paper in his hometown of Sikkim. Once his writing got published, he felt much better about himself. “I learnt that it was important to follow one’s passion rather than choose a course on a whim,” he says of his decision to study Science during his ICSE.
A communications major, Parajuly worked for three years in the advertising department of an American publication house. But when he felt he was whiling his time at the office, he resigned and went on a tour of India with a friend. When the trip came to an end, instead of returning home, out of fear of facing questions from his parents on his decision to quit his job, he went to Manali. It was there that he wrote his story The Immigrants which would later fetch him a book deal.
While preparing for his admissions interview for a creative writing course at Oxford University, Parajuly came to know about the London book fair. At the fair he met a literary agent named Susan and handed her a copy of The Immigrants. Few days later when Susan wrote saying she liked the story and wanted more, Parajuly was in a state of disbelief. He sent more and soon the deal with Quercus was finalised.
When asked how he became a writer he says, “I had nothing to do after I quit my American job. Hence, I wrote to legitimise my existence.”
After the success of his book, Parajuly had to travel frequently. He spent most of last year at airport transits and says he has missed out on his much beloved sleep. This year, too, the author will be missing sleep as he will be busy jet-setting and promoting his new novel The Land Where I Flee.
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