Kaushik Barua's novel Windhorse is a fictionalised account of the Tibetian freedom struggle. He told Iknoor Kaur that it being his first novel, he had an information overload
When Kaushik Barua decided to pen his first novel, he wanted to keep it simple. He thought of a light-hearted story based on his undergraduate years in Delhi University. At that time, he himself didn’t know that he would end up writing something that was contrary to the word simple. His book Windhorse (HarperCollins) delves deep into the modern history of Tibet through the lives of two boys.
“I wrote some short stories but they were rough and shoddy. I hadn’t shown them to anyone. However, six years ago, when I was on one of my holiday visits in Dharamshala, I stumbled upon a book store and asked for a recommendation on modern history on Tibet.
The gentleman at the bookstore was lhasang Tsering and he recommended a book to me. I read it and at the same time started getting sensitised to the suffering in Tibet and the struggles of people in the area.
In the book, I also read about the guerrilla resistance force which was this armed resistance force that was set up by Tibetians during Chinese occupation. I was fascinated by the story. So I went back to the book store later and realised that lhasang Tsering was himself part of the resistance. I heard his story was extremely inspired. Since I always wanted to write fiction, I ended up writing a fictional account of the resistance,” he explained.
Though the book is fiction, a lot of events mentioned in it are real, added Barua. “Most subject matter is based on my research. However, the personal narratives and characters are fictionalised. The Tibet issue and movement for freedom and self expression has inspired me. I wanted people to read and understand the struggle in Tibet for freedom,” he shared.
The research was the toughest part. He said, “Initially, I met lhasang Tsering and two surviving members of the resistance force. Then I met filmmaker Tenzing Sonam as he had made a movie on this issue and his father was in the force. later I went and collected material and read a lot of historical work that had been done on that period. I did so much research because it was my first novel and I didn’t want to take a chance. But after a point I had enough facts and had done enough research about the period to write an authentic novel.”
At one point of time Barua even felt an information overload. “In my first draft I had dumped a lot of information on the novel and it was reading very heavily. The narrative was slow and the research seemed to overpower the characters. So what I did for the second draft was that I cut back on a lot of research. I just put enough of the context and the historical details that could release the buried leaf from under the characters. I wanted to make it a character driven novel,” he elaborated.
The two main characters in the book are lhasang Tsering and Norbu. Though one of the names in the book is same as the bookstore owner’s, Barua said that he only did that as a tribute to the man. “The name lhasang was inspired by my meeting with lhasang Tsering, but the character is fictionalised. The second character came to me automatically and I named him Norbu,” he added.
According to Barua, the characters play a very important role in structuring the book. “lhasang grew up in a small village in Tibet. After the Chinese entered he was forced to leave home and flew to India where he’s staying as a refugee. On the other hand, Norbu’s character is from a rich Tibetan expatriate family which is based in Delhi. Norbu grew up in Delhi and has always been surrounded by Indians. So he is like a modern affluent young person who doesn’t have a real identity because he’s neither Tibetan nor Indian.
As he becomes an adolescent, when he goes to university, he becomes aware of the issues in Tibet and meets a lot of refugees in Delhi. Then he starts realising that his identity is Tibetan too. So what I have done is that I’ve constructed two parallel narratives — one that goes from the inside to the outside, lhasang travels thousands of kilometers to reach Delhi and one that is outside and wants to go inside, Norbu is the outsider who doesn’t have a sense of identity but is drawn towards resistance and Tibet to find his roots.
So there is one who has lost his roots and another who never had roots. This dual narrative helped me structure this novel,” he said. At present, Barua is working on a dark comedy set in Rome. “After all the research and emotional involvement in Windhorse I wanted to write something where I could relieve some tension. That is how the dark comedy came out. I also want to work on non-fiction and relate it to poverty and development in India,” he added.