Journalist-turned-author Udayan Mukherjee’s Essential Items is a collection of short stories underscoring how the pandemic has affected every individual in the country—but in very different ways. In an interview with The Daily Guardian, Mukherjee speaks about what inspired him to write and how immersing himself in the project helped him survive the anxieties of the lockdown. Excerpts:
Q: The book is set around the many things, people and opportunities we took for granted in the pre-Covid era. Tell us more about what moved you to write it.
A: The writing of Essential Items began around the first week of April, at a time when it was quite impossible to focus on anything but the unfolding contagion. The scale of the misery unleashed by the sudden lockdown had me thinking continuously about the plight of others who were in a less fortunate position. Fiction is the only thing I can ever imagine writing, yet I wasn’t sure at all if it was a good idea to set about creating fictional worlds based on an unfolding crisis while sitting in the throes of it, as it would entail blurring the lines between immediate reality and fiction. Then, one day, I put some words down on paper and one story blended into another and three months passed just like that.
Q: From young urban partygoers to workers at a cremation ground, the people in your stories come from all walks of life from all around the country. What went behind shaping them and writing about their lives during the pandemic?
A: How were elderly couples dealing with their loneliness or contemplations of mortality? How did shifting realities at the bottom end of the job market affect power equations in families which lived hand to mouth? Would wealthier people respond to this crisis with compassion and generosity? Would the pandemic make people even more inward looking or would it open their eyes to the travails of others whose contribution to their comfortable existence they may have taken for granted? As I grappled with such questions, the characters slowly formed in my head, each unique in their particular settings.
Q: Most stories have an open ending, where the character/s are left thinking, or without a conclusion. Was this a deliberate move to reflect the feelings of uncertainty and despair that the pandemic has left everyone with?
A: An open end urges a response from the reader. If it succeeds, the story can linger in the reader’s mind long after the page is turned, triggered by this absence of a neat resolution or closure. It can make her wonder about the various possibilities, the future of the protagonists. In a sense, the story then becomes the reader’s rather than the writer’s. This emotional transfer can make for a very satisfying reading experience. In the case of this collection, I also wanted to avoid being too judgmental about the moral issues at the heart of the stories, which it may have come across as in the case of too rounded an ending. Finally, everything about our lives and the world at large today is so uncertain and fraught that open endings seem like the natural fit to any set of imagined circumstances.
Q: Many have complained about finding the motivation to work or create art during the lockdown. Did you feel the same? What was your writing process like?
A: For me, concentration, rather than motivation, was an issue during the initial days of the lockdown. I felt disturbed. It wasn’t a state of mind conducive to creative writing and I had apprehensions about embarking on any project. On the other hand, the prospect of staring at those empty days ahead seemed frightening. I had something nebulous in my head and willed myself to sit and commit some words to paper. I wrote every day and it was an immersion as well as a distraction from the horror unfolding around us. The first step was difficult but then the stories sucked me in and provided a kind of refuge.
Q: Plenty of films, stories and art about experiencing the lockdown have been produced this year. What would you say about the role of art and fiction during a global crisis like this one?
A: I think a deluge of pandemic-inspired art in every form is waiting to arrive. It is bound to be the case, as life is the well from which art springs. This is the biggest crisis the world has faced for many generations and it should not surprise us to see it reflected in the creative space. Some writers will respond immediately, others will wait for the dust to settle and then look back from a different perspective. Some will seek to document for posterity, others may subject to moral scrutiny how we held up as a species to this enormous test. That is the role of art: to hold a mirror up to the human soul.
Q: Which books/authors kept you entertained during the lockdown?
A: Typically, I don’t read much when I am writing. But this time, there was just so much time, I did read and re-read a few books, including Your Face Tomorrow by Javier Marias, A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin, The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty, Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus and In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Muennuddin. Right now, I am reading the beautifully written Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart.
Q: What do you wish readers to take back from your stories?
A: There is no great message in these stories. They were written in solidarity, in expression of the welling of empathy I experienced in that period, and if readers can identify with that and share some of my empathy, I will feel grateful.