Author Interview - Debasish Das

Author Interview - Debasish Das

 1. Tell us a short description about Red Fort: Remembering the Magnificent Mughals

The book is a celebration of the fusion of different cultural strains: the rhythm of fertile native cultural traditions and the incoming foreign culture. Be it Mughal food, architecture, dress, festivals, perfumes, functions or games, we see the assimilation of exuberant native styles with foreign influences. Far from what many would think of Mughals today, the syncretic symphony of cultures – like the Purnaghata or Kalasha motif in the Shahjahani baluster column, the celebration of Holi and Diwali along with the Persian Nauroz in the Red Fort, the massive multilingual translation of Indian epics from Sanskrit to Persian, cultural seepages due to Rajputs marrying into the Mughals, to name a few – is the highlight of my book. Rather than promoting prejudices of any one culture against the other, I tried to stitch together history of monuments and structures and the lived culture to narrate history that would appeal to all, on the period from the inauguration of Red Fort in 1649 by Shah Jahan to its virtual destruction in 1857 where Bahadur Shah Zafar was tried and exiled to Rangoon.

2. I have read about you that you are a History Aficionado, so what excites you about history?

To paraphrase the popular saying, “Man proposes, History disposes.” Naturally, the amazing twists and turns of the past are told by crafting narratives anchored around famous personalities or monuments. What interests me, instead, is a bottoms-up approach of the history of lived culture, how the common people’s lives were molded for better or worse, instead of awestruck fan-boy accounts.  

3. Apart from History, what is your favorite genre?

I like reading fictions, travelogues and books on life philosophies – particularly Nichiren Buddhism books by Daisaku Ikeda.

4. Where do you get your information or ideas for your books?

I derive my ideas by reading a broad spectrum of books and then from personal experiences. 

5. What do you think makes a good story?

A good story should add a new perspective. Insights from a solid research may be the pre-requisite of sorts, but the narrating style and putting across those facts in an interesting format are the hallmarks of a good story.

6. There is a story behind every author. What is your story?

One of my childhood hobbies was establishment of a home library where I accumulated lots of story books and magazines. The joy of reading stayed with me throughout and at some point, there comes an urge to say something as well, to write from your point of view and to make a tangible contribution. The struggle is in acknowledging and overcoming the tension between ‘now’ and ‘would be’: from moving from having a passive interest to a project for posterity such as writing a book, in the face of the eternal problem of ‘no time.’  I started a blog on history in 2015 that has now become popular with readers from almost all countries. The book is a continuation of the writing journey.

7. Who is your favorite Author and whom do you follow?

Too many to list as I tend to experiment with authors rather than stick with few. I also like to read authors from various cultures and countries which give me fresh insights. The other day, I read that the Deep Learning software GTP-3 producing human-like texts, so who knows, one day we will have perfect authors penning exactly as we would like a story, all done by language prediction software. But thank God, that day is still far off, and I have enough moth-eaten books to give me company on quiet days.

8. What do you like to do when you're not writing?

Now a days, social media and Netflixing hardly leaves much time for most of us, but I always try to carve out some productive time, e.g. reading, spending time with family, catching up with relatives and friends, or planning vacations though the current pandemic has grounded everyone for too long now. I also find it motivating to upskill myself from various MOOC or open online courses like Coursera. While I am currently doing an introductory course on Chinese history, there are too many interesting topics out there to explore – from Egyptology to Digital Democracy.

9. How to be motivated during a bad or hard situation?

We all have problems and sufferings. What is important is to view difficult situations as opportunities to determine and expediate out our past mistakes or ‘karma’ so that our future is better. We need to find our own middle path: neither surrendering to a supreme power who would solve our problems, neither to be over confident on the self so as to feel there is no need to change ourselves, but to look inside and improve ourselves. Happiness is not controlled by the changing external situations, but by a strong inner self.

10. A message for all the aspiring authors and writers. Also tell us something about your journey with BecomeShakespeare.com. How have you enjoyed your publishing journey so far ?

The struggle of getting published is common to perhaps all debut authors, so it is indeed double the effort that one should make on how to make your research and narrative stand out. Eminent Chagatai poet and writer Alisher Navoi (1441-1501) from Afghanistan wrote: “Happy is the man who has been hurt by a thousand thorns, / And finally found the flower of his spirit and soul.” In my case, after the usual struggle of more than a year, I got connected with BecomeShakespeare.com (BSC), who immediately took over the project with lot of energy and speed. I am happy with their project execution, global distribution on e-commerce platforms and marketing initiatives on social media.

Thank You! ✩