Reflections Through Writing

Tall and statuesque, Raghu Karnad appears elated. He’s just won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2016 for his debut novel. This has thrown open a distinct avenue that involves authoring fiction and non-fiction novels. As he contemplates which direction his next novel would take, he chats up with RITZ about the world of writing and being eminent director, writer and playwright Girish Karnad’s son.

- Priyanka Golikeri

“World War II is the biggest military experience our country has ever had. Over 2.5 million people were involved. Those people had volunteered to serve in the army and had made the army a place where the middle class could become officers, something unheard of during the Raj,” states Raghu with the historic precision of someone closely connected to that adventurous era of the 1940's. “Yes, indeed that time period was adventurous and even romantic and dramatic. Then there was also that moral dilemma of fighting for the (British) Empire, when the rest of the country was battling against it.”

Listening to Raghu speak, you could perhaps think that the towering personality sitting opposite to you has a close connection with the armed forces. He does have a military connection. But not a close one. An ancient, distant and an indirect one. “My grandfather and two grand-uncles had gone off to fight for the Empire during World War II. One was an air force guy, the other a doctor and the third was a combat engineer.”

And these three gentlemen are the key characters of his first award-winning novel, Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War. Sipping a piping hot cappuccino, he says that despite being a journalist and a history student, he’d never really heard about this larger story of India in the Second World War. A family conversation about his grandfather and granduncles ignited the idea that the country’s role and the sacrifices of its sons and daughters in the World War needed to be told.