Post winning this year’s DSC Prize for South Asia, Cyrus Mistry told Utpal Kumar that Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer is loosely based on a story he heard 20 years ago while researching on the subject for a documentary film
Cyrus Mistry may have won this year’s DSC Prize for South Asia for his book, Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer, which made him richer by $50,000, but for him it’s life as usual. Soft and warm to the fault, he is, quite unlike his writing, a man with very few words. And given a chance, he would like to remain elusive from the prying eyes of the media. On being congratulated for getting the award, he says he is happy because it will allow him to write full-time without worrying about money. After all, “writing in India doesn’t pay well,” says he. Excerpts from a free-wheeling interaction with Mistry:
What is Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer all aboutIJ
Well, the title of the book appears grim and somber with focus on death and corpses, but it is not a difficult book to read. If there’s one thing I have to say about the book, then I will say it’s a very readable love story about the son of a priest who falls in love with the daughter of a corpse bearer, and becomes a corpse bearer himself to be with her. I say this despite the fact the book primarily takes place within the confines of the ‘tower of silence’ where corpses are brought and the last rites of a dead are done.
The book is apparently a true story. How did you stumble upon itIJ
Perhaps it was a mistake on my part to claim in the ‘Author’s Note’ that the book is based on a true story. It is just loosely based on a story I had heard 20 years ago while I was researching on the subject for a documentary film; the book doesn’t graphically follow the story. In the book, Phiroze, the main protagonist, is the son of a priest who falls in love with a girl belonging to the corpse-bearing class. In the real story, however, the boy doesn’t belong to the priestly class; he was a layman who falls in love with a corpse-bearer’s daughter and is forced to marry her because of some problems between the two families. This was the only idea the book was based on, and I developed it from there.
What was the research that went into this bookIJ
Frankly speaking, I didn’t have to do much to prepare myself for this book, as I had already done my homework during the making of the documentary film.
The book might have been an intense love story between Phiroze and his wife, but one thing which has fascinated me as a reader is the intense relationship Phiroze shares with his father. For me, that is the high point of the book.
Yes, I agree with you that the father-son relationship comes out very strongly in the book. I remember many people telling me how they can’t forget the scene where Phiroze meets his father for the first time after his marriage; he looks at his father and thinks that he has forgiven him. But when Phiroze hugs him, he finds no love lost between the two. So, the father-son relationship is quite intense and powerful. But that wasn’t intentional. I believe when you start writing a book, you go in a flow. In that sense, I am not a very conscious writer.
What’s other incident close to your heartIJ
There’s another particularly poignant episode when Phiroze reflects on his reaction to the contractor’s sexual advances and realises that he didn’t find the experience abhorrent. ‘Strangely, I felt, after a very long time, human again; grateful to Buchia (the contractor) that he saw me as more than just some cadaverous, unclean thing whose very breath it was undesirable to commingle with,’ he says. Phiroze feels good even when he is approached by a loathsome guy because he feels like being a human after a long time.
While reading the book, I felt that the character of Phiroze’s wife was both underdeveloped and underplayed, though she was main reason why this novel took place. Was it deliberate on your partIJ
I too felt the same way, but I didn’t know what to do with it. Maybe it’s the failure of my imagination that I could not develop that part of the novel. But in a way, I didn’t even try to do it because she was dead. In the very first chapter you come to know that she was dead. And as Phiroze says later in the novel that you can’t remember the dead after they are gone, I got away with that failure of mine.
I believe that has worked for you in this novel as it has helped create an enigma around your characters…
Yeah, you can say so (laughs).
Tell us about the corpse bearers. Many people don’t know that such people exist among Parsis.
This side of the Parsi story has been kept under wraps, as it is not a pleasant story to know. According to Parsi scriptures, anything which is dead is contaminated, and this contamination automatically gets implanted on those who deal with dead bodies. They are thus segregated from the rest. This was severely observed in the past; now it’s not strictly followed. So, things have improved. I have mentioned this in the book because it deals with the large time frame from the 1940s till today.
Do you think Parsis can come out of the existential crisis they are facing todayIJ
Although I wish this to be the case, I don’t see anything positive coming out in the near future. The reason is more because the Parsis don’t realise the gravity of the situation. They have no outside threat — like the Jews had in Hitler — to push them out of their slumber. They need to come out of the hold of the orthodoxy to survive.
Very few people know that it was your 1977 play that pushed Rohinton Mistry to take to writing very seriously. Tell us about your famous brother…
Yes, Rohinton started writing only after he saw my play. It gave him a sense of direction. I was then writing about my life, my community, my locality. He once conceded this when he said, ‘I realised from Cyrus that stories don’t have to happen in london or Paris. It can happen right in your backstreet.’ So that gave him the impetus to write and he has done very well over the years. Now we don’t meet much as he is well settled for a long time in Canada and doesn’t come too often.
What’s the next book you plan to writeIJ
Writing in India doesn’t pay you well. So, initially, I had to take up a job while simultaneously pursuing my passion. Now, after the winning the DSC Prize, I can relax and write more freely.