Of injustice, innocent death and unfilled love

A lawyer and the best-selling author of 'Courting Injustice: The Nirbhaya Case and Its Aftermath', Rajesh Talwar, comes out with two novellas that, while being very different, bring to light two very urgent and serious issues of war and justice.

A tale of inequity and injustice, 'How I Became a Taliban Assassin & The Murder That Wasn't: Two Novellas' (Bridging Borders), conveys the horrors of war and explains why ordinary Afghans joined the Taliban.

'How I Became a Taliban Assassin' ,explores it in the context of the war in Afghanistan whereas The Murder that Wasn't, the second novella focuses on the criminal justice system in India.

Talwar knows for his non-fiction work that ranges from books on legal literacy and human rights to those on sacred feminine and world culture. His most notable books in this category are 'The Judiciary on Trial' and 'The Third Sex and Human'.

Talwar talks about his latest work in conversation with 'The Hans India':

You have been writing for over two decades across genres; what genre do you find the most interesting to write in?

I find myself equally at ease in both fiction and non-fiction. Within fiction, too, I am equally comfortable writing plays, children books and novels. It is both exciting and challenging to stretch myself as a writer. Thus far, for instance, despite having written so many books, I have yet to publish a collection of short stories. I plan to remedy that sometime next year. It will be a first for me, just as the two novellas are a first for me, as I have just published a novella in paperback. What I find challenging is writing poetry. I am not sure if I can take out a meaningful collection of poems with literary merit, but perhaps someday I will give that a shot too."

Your current book is a collection of two novellas; what threads them together?

In both novellas, innocent people die. I have dedicated this book to the innocent dead. In the second novella, not only are the dead innocent, the alleged killers, too, are innocent. Furthermore, an important theme that both novels focus on is that of unfulfilled love. The principal character in the first novella and the main protagonist in the second novella love a female character passionately and intensely, but their love cannot come to fruition.

Finally, although the settings in the two novellas differ vastly, they both dwell on injustices in our world. In the first novella, injustice exists because the story takes place in a country beset by war and conflict, where there is little possibility of getting justice. In the second novella, injustice exists because of a justice system where trials take decades to conclude and the judicial machinery is woefully underfunded.

'How I Became a Taliban Assassin' is set in the year before Taliban took over Afghanistan. How much of it was from your experience in the UN, as the detailing in the story is exceptional?

Some authors have attempted to write fiction in a setting they have personally never visited, and sometimes they are successful, but more often than not, they are unsuccessful. The writing doesn't carry the stamp of authenticity, you see. I had a few blind readings carried out of my first novella before I ventured to publish it. These readers who were not aware of who they were reading all observed that this was clearly written by someone who was familiar with the setting and had lived and worked in Afghanistan. There is, in fact, a great deal of personal experience that enriches the first story because, for many years working for the UN, I had a ring-side view of events as they unfolded in Afghanistan. Of course, the newspapers will tell you from time to time that there is a NATO or American airstrike that went wrong as a result of which innocents died, which is all covered within the expression 'collateral damage.' But this novella will bring home to the reader, as a newspaper report may not be able to do, what happens after that. How do the relatives of the innocent dead cope with such enormous tragedies; howthe young, in particular,are driven into the arms of organisations such as the Taliban, as an unfortunate consequence. The principal narrator in the first novella despises the Taliban with all his heart, but then the killings of his relatives leave him with no option. I should mention here that he is different from other indoctrinated jihadis and is seeking revenge against a specific individual. He does not want to kill innocents himself.

Your second novella, 'The Murder That Wasn't' is loosely set on the Aarushi Murder Case in Noida but with a very different spin to it? You have covered the case in another book of yours. How did this fictional spin come about then?

Yes, the story is connected to the Aarushi case. It is, however inspired by the case, not based on it. It is purely a work of imagination. As you observe, I have written a non-fiction book on the Aarushi murder case. During writing that book, I came across many fanciful theories advanced by the investigating police. For instance, one of the conclusions they drew was that it would not be possible for a single person to carry the dead servant's body to the terrace. My novella shows that it is perfectly possible. They claimed that an outsider couldn't have gained access to the apartment. My story explains how it was indeed possible. The police could not explain why there were fingerprints of an unknown person on a bottle of Ballantine whisky. My story suggests how this could come about.

You have over 35 books to your credit – How do you work on multiple stories? It would be interesting to get some writing tips.

In writing fiction, you need greater immersion because you are transporting yourself to a fictional world, aren't you? I, therefore, work on my plays, novels and children's stories only during the weekend because the weekdays I have a job to do. However, I work on my non-fiction projects on working days before the office begins and after it ends, sometimes at night. The other thing is that sometimes I work on more than one book simultaneously, but I try to take up one non-fiction and one fiction. Tips for writing? Write about what you know to begin with. You can start to write about what you don't know through research and imagination, but that will come later. Writing is a craft. The more you write, the better you will get at it. Third, listen to the market, it's good to know what is trending or doing well in the publishing world, but don't be driven or directed by it. Finally, do not copy anyone. Find your own style, your own voice.