Manil Suri
Author
of The Death of Vishnu talks with Robert Birnbaum
 Posted:
(Date Unknown), 2000
Copyright 2000 by Robert Birnbaum
All photos by Red Diaz / Duende Publishing
Print this interview.
Manil Suri, who is a professor of applied mathematics
at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has published his
first novel, The
Death of Vishnu. Suri, who was born in Bombay, India, in
1959, came to the United States in 1979 to pursue his academic studies
and career. Along the way he had dabbled in fiction writing and
began The Death of Vishnu as a short story in 1995. Although
he has published 50 mathematical research papers, his fiction has
only appeared in two places. An excerpt from the novel appeared
in The New Yorker on February 14, 2000 and a story, “The
Tyranny of Vegetables” in the Bulgarian language journal Orpheus
in 1995.
Professor Suri has taken workshops with Jane Bradley, Vikram Chandra
and Micheal Cunningham and has been a fellow at the Virginia Center
for the Creative Arts, The MacDowell Colony, and the Fine Arts Work
Center in Provincetown. His novel has been praised by distinguished
writers such as Chandra, Michael Cunningham and Amy Tan and garnered
attention by national publications such as Time, Entertainment
Weekly and The Washington Post's Book World.
While the setting of The Death of Vishnu is the microcosm
of an apartment building in Bombay, it encapsulates the riveting
complexity of modern India. The vivid interweaving of Hindu mythology,
religious and ethnic rivalrys, the pervasive Indian film culture,
caste and class conflicts, and India's struggle with modernity,
are presented in a singularly masterful narrative.
The story begins as the lowly Vishnu of the title lays dying on
the Bombay apartment building stairwell that has been his home for
many years. Around him swirl the hectic, melodramatic lives of the
building's tenants. These are intermingled with his own recollections
of his life as we are presented with the possibility that he is
the current incarnation of the god who is, in Hindu mythology, Keeper
of the Universe. Both the novel's compelling resolution and setting
of modern India, which is skillfully presented as a relentless experience,
provide a powerful and illuminating narrative.
Robert Birnbaum: You began this book in 1995. You have spent
years on it, and now it has come to fruition, and it is getting
favorable publicity, and you are going out to talk about it. Has
any of your thinking about the book changed since you finished it?
 Manil
Suri: I had a pretty clear idea of what things I wanted to say
in the book. The nice thing about it is that when I finished it,
I had managed to get it the way I want it. It was like some Rubik's
Cut. It just fit into place. And I don't think that's changed really.
When I talk about the book, sometimes the challenge is to bring
up some of these things. In terms of whether I interpret it some
other way, I don't.
RB: More than a few writers have said to me that they write
the book and then they wait for people to tell them what it is about.
MS: No, I think I had a pretty clear idea of what it was
supposed to be about. That's what was satisfying about writing it.
That I felt that I had said it.
RB: Place this book in a category for me. Is it an American
novel? English novel? Indian novel?
MS: I was just in India, where The Death of Vishnu
was first launched. One of the very interesting and, for me, very
pleasing, things was that people there thought it — they
certified it — to be an Indian novel. The danger
was that being in this country for the last twenty-one years, who
am I to write a novel about Bombay or India? The press there really
accepted it as an Indian novel and that support was very heartening.
RB: Isn't there resentment directed to emigrant Indians
by Indians who are still living there?
MS: We are called NRIs. Non Resident Indians. People in
India love abbreviations. So that's what I am. There is not really
resentment. There is more like wariness in some ways. The resentment
would have been more prevalent a few years ago. There is so much
of the West in India and globalization seems to have reached out
its tentacles everywhere. I think that it is not as prevalent. But,
I might be wrong...
RB: The loop seems to be continuous. The fact that you have
gone back…I don't know how frequently you go back. It would
seem that as long as there is that back and forth then there is
more contact, less separation…
MS: What has happened is that there was this massive drain,
emigration, and now those same people are bringing back resources
into the country. They are starting off businesses. So it's not
a negative thing anymore. On the other hand, especially where writing
is concerned, there are several very good Indian writers who might
write in English or various Indian languages, their work is not
as widely disseminated and not well known in the West. That is something...it
would be nice to address that in some way and until that is addressed
I can see that people would be sensitive to the idea of someone…
RB: There are Indian writers that are well known in India
but not well known in the West?
MS: I'm not sure how well-known they are in India. There
are Indian writing awards that are given out every year. But those
authors might not be published in the West.
RB: Hasn't there been an Indian mini-boom in the US? Arradunti
Roy…
MS: The God of Small Things has been the only book
by an Indian author that has been on The New York Times Best
Seller list. That's the book that started this interest in Indian
writing. It did so well and got so many readers. But since then,
there hasn't been anything that has reached that level. One reason
that there is this interest in Indian writing is because it is so
accessible to the West. This is a country full of people who are
educated in English. It's pretty much their first language. And
so anything they write you don't need a translation...
RB: I would contest that. There are many nouns in your book
that I do not know what they are. While I like your writing, I had
the same difficulty with your book as with, for instance, a Russian
novel. I can't pronounce the names, therefore I can't remember the
names, and so I have difficulty with the plot and continuity. In
your book, the unfamiliar words interrupt the flow of my reading.
And despite the fact that this is English, there is American English,
Canadian English, British English, and I wondered if there is Indian
English?
MS: There is. I would probably not characterize my own English
as that. It was. When I first came from India it was very different
from the English here. But I have been writing for so long. I have
been writing mathematical papers, which has really changed my English.
At least, if you took those nouns out that you didn't know — which
are usually things that I try to put them in context — so
that the reader has some idea of what they are. And they usually
can't be translated anyway… If you take those [words] out,
then my English is not different. It is interesting that you brought
that up. While I was in India I was interviewed by the BBC Asia
and the interviewer criticized me for not using enough Hindi words.
She suggested that I was pandering to the West. She said, "Salman
Rushdie uses so much Hindi why haven't you used it?" So that
was some bizarre criticism.
RB: Would you do what she suggests in subsequent editions
or work?
MS: No, I put in what I needed. I wasn't thinking about
whether this is the right amount. Hindi is not really spoken by
the whole of India. People in the South don't know what these words
are either. So it's not a valid thing to do.
RB: Why is there a fascination with India?
MS: There always has been. It's not like in the UK. There
is this wave of Indian color that is crowding the market. People
are wearing Indian bangles, they're wearing nose rings, scarves
and what have you. That you don't see here. There was an article
in the Philadelphia Enquirer about something similar, wearing
nose rings and drinking chai. But it doesn't seem like a wave to
me.
RB: A few years ago Madonna...
MS: In fact, Madonna was mentioned with photographs of her
with a bindi (the red dot on the forehead…)
RB: When I look at photographic collections of India, the
imagery is profoundly dense and complex. The informational content
of the photos is overwhelming…there is so much…
MS: That's amazing that you say that. I'm not good at names,
but a couple of years ago, there was a very famous Indian photographer
who passed away, and in his obituary in the New York Times,
the same comment was made. And this was something he said. In India
you don't have this same focus on one thing. You won't have this
one perspective that you have perhaps in American photography. You'll
see a lot of different things happening. And that's the way it is
there. Life is like that. You are just thrown into it and things
and people are just coming at you from all sides. And there are
a lot of things happening and I think you adapt to that, that you
can really take all of that in and see that photograph with not
just one point of perspective but several centers of activity. And
you learn to process it, too. In a way, when you see all this, you
can make sense or order out of things and maybe get out the stuff
that is most relevant.
RB: You have been here half of your life. How American are
you? What's your point of view as you write fiction set in India?
 MS:
When I was writing this book, I did try to put myself in the place
of the characters and try to think like I would have when I was
back in India. But certainly the emphasis in certain points and
the point of view has been changed by my being here. So that is
something that does go through the book. On the other hand, just
looking at the reaction in India, it wasn't strong enough for people
to notice it there. Because they thought it was an Indian book.
I feel that I have changed a lot since coming here. My mother thinks
that all Americans are very cold people and she sometimes tells
me that, "That you've become cold too." I don't think
that's totally true, but when I compare myself to what I was before,
I think I have learned to react less emotionally to various things.
So that's a definite change.
RB: The Death of Vishnu is specifically Indian in
coloration by way dealing with Indian mythology, politics, films,
but lift out the particulars and you still have a universal story…
MS: I did a reading to a mathematical audience last April — at
a conference — afterward this one professor came
up to me to explain his theory of fiction. He said all of fiction
can be broken up into some basic components. Just like radio waves
can be broken up into sine series. He said that creating a piece
of fiction is just combining these components in different, interesting
ways and coming up a completed signal.
RB: Had he written any fiction?
MS: No he hadn't, but he was very pleased with his theory.
I can imagine him going back thinking he had solved the central
theorem of fiction.
RB: I have to ask. Other than being published in The
New Yorker you have been published in a Bulgarian language journal.
How did that happen?
MS: I was at a reading of an informal writers group. And
we decided to have a reading. We invited this one writer. I don't
remember his name. He was in the audience, and it turned out he
was an a honorary editor of this one Bulgarian journal. So he invited
several of us to submit to this journal. We went for brunch and
he took photographs of us. Luckily these photographs appear in the
back of the journal. By matching that with the actual letters of
the title, I was able to tell which article was supposedly mine.
I never had it retranslated. I don't even know if the name of the
journal is Orpheus or Orpheum.
RB: What are the languages your novel has been translated
into?
MS: Lot of the European languages, Spanish Italian, German,
French, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Dutch. Portuguese. There is a
separate Brazilian edition. Then the new ones are Catalon, Hebrew,
Polish, Greek…
RB: Why do you think there has been such international interest?
MS: I'm hoping that it struck a chord in people. That are
aspects of this that contain the universal components of fiction.
Maybe that's what it is? Also, let's not forget The God of Small
Things, which did very well in all these countries. That book
opened doors.
RB: How much does your study and presence in the world of
mathematics have to do with your writing?
MS: The interest is like action/reaction, equal and opposite.
I need something to balance that. I was in my first year as a mathematics
professor when someone came in who is a mathematician and a bridge
player and he gave a talk. A senior member of our faculty dismissed
the talk, saying that anyone who does something else like play bridge
can't possibly do good mathematics. There is this very strong feeling
that you have to do one thing. You have to spend all your time doing
mathematics research. I heard one colleague criticizing another
because he taught too well. Saying how does he get so much time
to spend on his teaching? There is this amazing point of view that
you have to stick to… so anyway, I just found that I couldn't
conform to that. It was just to get away from mathematics and have
something else in my life that I started dabbling in it. And it
was truly dabbling because I would write one thing and then not
write for a year. And then just write something else. That went
on for many years. But I kept it a secret. I wasn't going to tell
these people.
RB: Your first public foray into writing was at the Fine
Arts Work Center [in under Michael Cunningham]?
MS: Before that I had met people who wrote, and I had been
to several writing groups. And then the first course that I took
was in '95. And it was very helpful. And then I took another course
with an Indian writer, Vikram Chandra, who did a semester long workshop.
And then the FAWC came in '97.
RB: By the time you started these workshops you had already
been writing for a five years?
MS: Actually, more than that. I started in '83 or '84. I
took my first formal workshop in '95.
RB: As a student…
MS: I used to write. I enjoyed that. When I was just home
my mother pulled these all Campion reviews — Campion
was the name of my school — and there were these
book reviews. One of them I saw was this horrible flashy review
of Wuthering Heights.
RB: Is there encouragement to pursue a life of writing and
literature?
MS: Not as a profession. To pursue it as a hobby. In India,
if you are good at studying, then you are pushed to the sciences.
And if not the sciences then business and commerce. It's only if
you can't get into either of those then you go into fine arts or
art.
RB: How rigid is the class structure?
MS: Very rigid. But it is class structure not caste. People
often confuse the two. I've heard people say that Vishnu is of a
lower caste. But there is never really any mention of caste. It's
really a socio-economic thing, what you do and how much money you
have and what family you come from. There might be more elements
of caste in villages but I am only familiar with the Bombay experience.
In Hindi there are three ways of addressing people. There is Aap,
which is someone higher than you, there is tum, which is
someone the same level as you and tu, which lower than you.
In French there is tu and vou. But there you would
use vou for everyone you didn't know.
RB: Familiar and formal use…
MS: Right. But here it's really… like you would use
tu if you had a servant. So it's not symmetric, and that
something that always trips me up.
RB: Your description of how students are guided into certain
professions leads me to wonder who becomes creators; writers, artists
and filmmakers and journalists? Not the academic cream of the crop...
MS: There are some people who are so dedicated or so know
exactly what they want to do that they would go into the arts. Another
scenario might be that there are families where the father is well
known as a writer or something and that might lead to similar things.
This definitely something where you aren't encouraged to go into
the arts because it is harder to make a living. Just in practical
terms that's something that is not encouraged. I'm talking about
when I was growing up, which is many years ago. I don't know how
things are now, but I suspect it's similar.
RB: Are books expensive?
MS: They are very expensive.
RB: Therefore there aren't many published? Only a few people
get to read them? What's the effect of costly books?
 MS:
I don't think the limitations come from [the expense of] books.
By books, I mean novels, like my novel. But there are other books
that are much cheaper. While I was growing up, I only bought books
that I absolutely had to, books for school. The idea of going out
and buying a novel would have been preposterous. Even now a book
like mine costs half of what it costs here, but people make a tenth
of what they make here. What people do — they belong
to circulating libraries — you go in and you rent
a book. Your choices are limited because they are best-seller type
of things. That's what I read growing up. It's changing now because
people have more disposable income. Already in the last five or
six years there have been actual bookstores like Crosswords which
have opened several branches in India. The projection and the hope
is — coming from David Davidar — who
is one of the people in charge of Penguin India — he
feels that in about fifteen or twenty years there is going to be
enough of a market that it will equal Australia. It will be the
third largest English-language market. Right now it's not there.
RB: As in the US and France, films have such a central place
in the pop culture of India.
MS: It's even more so than either of the other countries.
India is the largest producer of films in the world and has been
for many years. Certainly when I was growing up there wasn't any
TV. And film was the one thing that everyone saw and it was a common
frame of reference. But you also have to remember that the films
are very escapist, and one theory is that people go either to forget
about their worries and get carried away or to cry and weep for
the characters and have some sort of catharsis. What you are saying
is absolutely correct. Film stars are it. If you open an Indian
newspaper the color sections are always full of film stars, their
lives and this and that. They are often called the common man's
entertainment because they are very inexpensive and everyone could
go and see them. Even on TV now one of the most popular things are
film songs and things related to film.
RB: In the 60's and 70's in this country the Indian filmmaker
was Satajit Ray. What is his place in Indian culture?
MS: It depends on who you are. He's from Bengal. And the
Bengalis certainly do revere him. When I was growing up his films
were not being shown in Bombay. Maybe they were shown once or twice.
RB: Beyond the occasional bursts of Indian trendiness do
you feel that non-Indians get how complex India is?
MS: It's very complicated…
RB: Right, we are agreeing, but do people in the West grasp
that?
MS: Well there is always this… the most absurd comment
I've heard was… there was this television series A Jewel
and the Crown. A colleague of mine came up to me and said, "Well,
now after seeing that series I finally understand India." He
is admitting that before he even had a more simple version of India…
it's hard. There is just so much and so little filters in, into
this country, into an other culture that… often while India
is exotic with a capitol E you never see elephants or snake charmers…
I've seen one snake charmer in India my whole life… that was
at a place frequented by tourists. So people have this weird…
they haven't been there.
RB: There are obvious connections with India and English-speaking
countries. What about India and China? India and the Middle East?
MS: India and China view each other with great suspicion
because of the war that they fought. Historically, there must have
been… chai comes from China and so on…
RB: Even as China has entered this incredibly entrepreneurial
era?
MS: Actually, when I was India recently there were newspaper
articles complaining that the Chinese were infiltrating the Indian
market. There is trade and economically there are ties. India and
the Middle East… there is so much exchange. The state of Carola
has exported so many people to the Middle East and Indian films
are very well known there… they are translated into Arabic.
RB: What of the Hindu-Muslim animus?
MS: It's amazing that even though there are these controversies
between India and Pakistan. India and Arab countries have always
had extremely good relations. With Pakistan it's territorial…
it was one country and there are all these issues.
RB: The influence of the West seems obvious, but are there
other cultures that have affected India beyond the homogenization
of globalization?
MS: Like the influence of Brazil, say? That's harder to
see. There are pockets in India. The Portuguese were in Goa, so
you would see that. The French were in Pondicherry…but beyond
that it's only people who came as historically as traders and so
on. There are those influences which remain. Other than that, it's
really the Persian influence — the Mugal influence — I
don't know that there's been that much from other countries.
RB: And the Western influence by way of the computer industry?
MS: Yes, that has a big thing. I want to back-track and
answer — you had asked about China and India. If
you go to Bengal, which is quite close — much closer
geographically — there are influences there. There
is a large Chinese community in Calcutta. And I was just looking
at an exhibit in Bombay this group of painters at the turn of the
century who painted in a very Chinese/Japanese style and even wrote
their names with Chinese characters. There have been some influences…
RB: During the Cold War years there was some resentment
towards India here in the US because of its policy of non-alignment
but that didn't seem to translate to a distancing of American pop
culture?
MS: Politically being non-aligned but embracing the West
in terms of culture? Western culture is very pervasive and very
insistent and it's hard to…
RB: Other than the French no one has set limits…
MS: I know that's the thing. I grew up on Mad magazine
and Archie comics. The British were there, and a lot of the
intelligentsia had strong ties and aspirations to be like them.
And they're in everything — the judicial system,
the constitution, their fingers have been everywhere. So it was
natural to look westward rather than somewhere else. By extension
the British set up things and than the US took over once the British
Empire waned. That's why there is this strong cultural bias toward
the US and the UK.
RB: How important is an understanding of Hindu mythology
to the comprehending The Death of Vishnu?
MS: The basics are very clear. Vishnu is the preserver,
the preserver of the Universe. That's the only thing you really
need to know to understand the story. If you do know a little more
you might see things or see connections or make your own interpretations
which might be different from someone who is reading it for its
story line of characters. Whether you do or you don't might change
the way you look at the book. But it's not essential.
RB: You haven't written this book with a concern for the
reader's expertise?
MS: No, my aim was to put in enough that the reader would
know what is going on and then perhaps if certain readers are more
curious about it, then they might go out and read more about. It
was more to tantalize people — this is what Hindu
mythology is like, here's a little taste of it, there's a whole
world out there if you want to explore it.
RB: At what point did you decide you wanted to go beyond
this book and create a trilogy?
MS: It was around the fourth or fifth chapter. It was almost
a word game — there are three gods in Hinduism, three
faces of the trinity, Rama, Shiva and Vishnu. The cycle is life,
death and birth. So just match these three up and you get three
titles. That was all I thought. Unfortunately, I haven't progressed
that much beyond that.
RB: So it is not a trilogy in terms continuity, of prequel
or sequel?
MS: Yes, it will be different, there will be different characters.
RB: Is it a burden when as you are writing you are going
to extend it beyond the boundaries of the present work?
MS: Right. The thing is that these three gods represent
such different chunks of the Universe that it's actually quite nice
to have this outline. Otherwise I would be grasping for what to
do as a second novel. Now I know I have taken care of the whole
idea of care taking and Vishnu looking after the building and so
on in the first novel. And now let's look at Shiva, who stands for
asceticism and withdrawing from the world, and the world dwindling
and waning because of that. And create characters related to that.
RB: How religious are you?
MS: I was born a Hindu. Right now, I would characterize
myself as an agnostic. My father is very religious. I feel that
having written this book I have started thinking more about various
spiritual aspects. Which you have to, I can't imagine not having
done that. I have stated questioning a lot of things that wouldn't
have before. The whole idea of ego, of materialism and so on. So
in some way you could say that… the Bhagavad Gita, that's my
ideal. If I could follow some of the things in that that would be
great. That's what I am working towards in my own spiritual development.
RB: As an expatriate Indian, does writing this book make
you more Indian? Does it bring you back in touch with your ‘roots'?
MS: It's been amazing how that's happened. I would have
never predicted this. That this man Vishnu who died on my steps
five years ago pulled me back into the country in some ways. Exploring
all this, thinking back on my life in Bombay, trying to extract
things out of that… there's a real connection there. Life here
will never change. Every time I go back I feel that even more.
RB: What's it like to talk to fellow NRIs who have read
your book?
MS: I don't know that many people of Indian origin here.
I do think the reaction of people will be different based on whether
they are second generation or first generation. There is a completely
different experience between the two. The people of the second generation
are really Americans, who have grown up here having to bear taunts
or whatever just as someone who's different but very much of this
country. People who have grown up here are trying to find a connection
with the Motherland of their parents. It's not clear how that will
work out. There's a big emphasis in this country to look at your
roots and have an identity. Which is good but not the way I feel.
I just take it for granted.
RB: When someone asks you what you are?
MS: I say Indian-American. That covers both bases.
RB: If you are from Chicago you are a Chicagoan or from
New York a New Yorker. What is someone from Bombay?
MS: That's very complicated. The name has changed now it's
Mombay. It is used to be Bombayite now its Mombaykar. That's much
more complicated and it would be correct. If people from India asked
me where I'm from. That's not the answer they would expect. They
would expect me to say I'm Punjabi. Because my parents are from
Punjab. It's not caste or class, it's this ther kind of thing…
RB: It's regional identification.
MS: Yes, which community are you from.
RB: Do you do any other writing besides fiction and your
mathematical papers? Essays, book reviews…
MS: I've written one or two small things. I just finished
one for the Telegraph in London. Last year when I started
this book, the second one, I couldn't go one anymore. So I started
this short story about something even more exotic and that's a mathematician.
I've written it but I'm not satisfied with it.
RB: Do you write everyday?
MS: No. When I'm writing I try to write five or six days
a week.
RB: Do you think about the ‘writer's life' and the regimen
that is part of that?
MS: Yes, it's terrifying. You're at home and you are writing
and you have to push yourself…the thing is that math is similar.
If you are doing math research there is often things, that you'll
be sitting at home the whole day trying to think of something and
you might have nothing to show for it for days. So there's a definite
similarity… both of these things you have to be prepared to
spend vast quantities of time alone…
RB: …and unsatisfied.
MS: …and unsatisfied. Right.
RB: Do you have a sense of where you would like to be in
five or six years, what you would like to accomplish?
MS: My main goal is to do this trilogy. It's like this book,
I couldn't write the second book because I have to finish promoting
this one. Now I think, before I look at the rest of my life, I think
that if I can finish this trilogy, that's already an enormous mouthful.
Rather than have to go around next year saying, “Trilogy, what trilogy?
I never said that.”
RB: You look at things in an orderly, sequential way…
MS: Yeah, yeah. I have often charted out things. It's much
easier to chart out things and write outlines than to actually do
it. Certainly when I write...like this novel...it was very sequential.
I have to get the beginning right. Then I keep going back and wording
it until it looks right. Then I find it easier to proceed.
RB: Have you stayed in touch with the people from your Fine
Arts Work Center workshop?
MS: That was one of those experiences that while it was
happening you are thinking to yourself is this one of those life-changing
experiences. I could really feel that. And it was.
RB: Thanks very much. I guess in another year or two we
can expect another book...
MS: (laughs) You've got to be kidding. It took me five years
for this.
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