A Writer's Dharma

Fifteen years ago, Suketu Mehta claimed his place in narrative journalism and popular culture with Maximum City, the seminal book about Mumbai. His next, This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto, has a wider lens, and an important purpose—a call to compassion and tolerance. He talks to Shruti Rya Ganguly about why he had to write it and what he hopes it achieves.

- Shruti Rya Ganguly

SOME OF MY FONDEST NEW YORK MEMORIES HAVE INVOLVED UNOFFICIAL DEBATES late at night at Suketu Mehta’s NYU apartment, where groups of us have discussed race, identity politics, or watched old Bollywood music videos, over glasses of whiskey. Or, at times, we have ventured out to try a new Azerbaijani or Georgian restaurant deep in Brooklyn. I am so grateful to call Suketu a close friend, confidante, and a fellow adventurer. His latest book, This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto, is a testament to this writer’s deep connection with humanity, his indefatigable journalistic integrity, and a sense of urgency to wake us all up.

SHRUTI GANGULY: You’ve been working on an epic New York City book for about a decade, and then surprised us with This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto, in the interim.

SUKETU MEHTA: There are two people you want to be smarter than yourself—your shrink and your editor. I’m still waiting to find the right shrink, but my editor is really wonderful. He’s the one, along with my agent, who encouraged me to write this book, while I’ve been working on my New York epic, and this is a response to a present worldwide emergency. Mass migration is going to be the defining human phenomenon of the 21st century. In the book I talk about the four ways that rich countries stole the future of the poor countries—colonialism, war, climate change, and corporate colonialism. With this book I feel like I’ve done my dharma as a writer.

SG: What are the visceral images or memories you had when you were a new immigrant in America?