Interview | Human society works on self-interest, with ever-going, dynamic power-struggles: Damyanti Biswas

Mumbai — the city of dreams — is a complicated story in itself. Behind the beautiful beach drives and the lofty buildings, there goes a game that indulges in power, glamour and administration.

Human society testifies to the historic assertion permitted by humans upon humans, and the inequality of power and capabilities among its members. This divide is further widened in a cosmopolis, as is the case with this maya-nagri (city of illusion).

Damyanti Biswas has beautifully brought out this power play and its subsequent impacts on the lives of those who are at the core and the periphery of a visibly anarchic yet organised struggle for survival and domination. It includes police, bar dancers, politicians, businessmen, et al, all playing their respective parts as the chess pieces on the board.

In line with these, we have with us Damyanti Biswas, herself, answering those questions that come to an aghast mind which has just been a roller-coaster ride of emotions and incidents.

Excerpts:

Where do you find Arnav between a dutiful professional policeman and a man living in nostalgia?

Arnav is a dutiful professional when at work, and even when not. Having spoken to Mumbai police officers, I’ve understood that they carry their work with them 24×7. Their phones, which are always multiple in numbers, never stop ringing.

Arnav wouldn’t last long at his job if he weren’t a dutiful professional, but I think what makes him exceptional in some ways is his past and the way he carries it with him.

He lost his sister to suicide when he was barely a teenager. His father took to drinking and died, and his mother couldn’t bear the losses and fell prey to cancer. The girlfriend of his youthful years disappeared on him. So Arnav is essentially without a family when we first meet him on the pages of The Blue Bar, but he carries his memories of them wherever he goes, even to murder scenes.

These memories give him empathy and anxiety — empathy for exploited women, and a fear of finding his girlfriend, in the form of a dead body.  Both these emotions drive him in a way such that his job no longer remains a job but turns into a calling. Arnav’s memories are not merely indulgent nostalgia. They are the fuel that propels him into his investigations, making him a dogged and formidable Inspector.

The story has beautifully brought out the nexus between police, crime and glamour. How far do you agree that these all are the instruments of domination?

Human society works on self-interest and some parts of it always end up being more powerful than others.  Depending on where the society is located, various sections of society will vie for power with others.

A financial hub like Mumbai, a melting pot of many cultures, as well as the birthplace and destination of so many dreams, is no exception. The power lies in the hands of politicians and the police, the corporates and the dream merchants as well as those who seek to profit from it all through violence: the criminals.

Mumbai is all about the shifting sands of power. A few decades ago, the criminal underworld held sway and then the politicians and Mumbai Police took control. The collaborations are many and quite uneasy: the police, the politicians, the corporates, and Bollywood each work in their own self-interest, and form alliances that would most benefit themselves. Power coalesces in certain hands, be it financial, political, physical/ police, or image/ movie stars, and that’s exactly the Mumbai we see in The Blue Bar.

“Her lot wasn’t as bad as that of the prostitutes who couldn’t choose who used their bodies — or perhaps it was. Maybe it was better to have sex with a stranger and be beaten up than live in fear of not returning to your daughter.” Deep words, indeed. What do you think pushes a girl like Tara into the vulnerable profession of bar dancers?

Tara’s father sold her into the dance bar business when she was thirteen years old, so she had no agency in the direction of her own life. Most women who work in the bar girl profession do so because of financial reasons. They’re not very educated, don’t have jobs, and are either abused or need to support their children and extended family back in the villages.

A bar girl occupies a liminal space — she’s neither a prostitute nor is her profession accepted by society, like that of movie actresses. She has some say in her life — legally she’s expected only to dance, not supposed to wear skimpy clothing or be touched by the audience at the dance bars. These laws are sketchily applied, but the fact remains that bar dancing is considered safer and more respectable than outright prostitution, attracting some women into its fold.

Though Nandini knows she deserves better, why does she still want Arnav?

Nandini is part of the book’s subplot. Without spoiling The Blue Bar, all I can say is that her story for Arnav is a foil to his other relationships.

Things don’t work out between them, but in Nandini, we see another aspect of love: the unrequited one. The heart wants what it wants, and though she and Arnav are equally matched in terms of social status and profession, Arnav has never given her reason to expect more than an affair.

Nandini is a clear-headed, strong, and ultimately forgiving woman: she knows there’s no hope of a lasting relationship with Arnav, and contains herself with what she has with him. I doubt she herself knows why she wants him, but love knows no logic.

Nandini deserved a better partner than Arnav because Arnav has never moved out of the nostalgia of Tara, but still, what about the feelings of Nandini, who perhaps was perhaps more caring and much more devoted towards Arnav as compared to Tara, still, she could not get Arnav, don’t you find that destiny has been unkind to her?

In the world of literature, I suppose each character’s destiny lies in the hands of the author. If an author is very kind to all their characters, I believe there would be no story. We all go to stories to watch characters overcome their own weaknesses and external challenges, in order to achieve what they want or be given what they need.

Destiny is equally kind to Arnav, Tara, Nandini, and the others, or equally cruel. Cruelty or kindness are qualities we ascribe to destiny or happenstance, based on our attachments with various characters. In my worldview, destiny really just is. It is vast and indifferent, and things often happen for no rhyme or reason, other than the ones we ascribe as observers.

Arnav himself says that Nandini deserves a better man than him, and in some ways, it can be seen as kindness to Nandini to detach from Arnav. She is then free to find someone who will truly appreciate her.

Arnav had a troublesome childhood and youth. How far do you think his past gave him the courage to fight exploitation?

To some extent, we’re all shaped by our pasts. Arnav has a strong yen for justice because in his personal life he’s seen little enough of it. It is part of his job profile to fight against injustice, but given his family history, he goes above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to injustices against women.

Irrespective of the odds, he doesn’t give up on female victims, and this doggedness is fuelled by the fact that he couldn’t find justice for his own sister. To say more would be to spoil the book, but readers will definitely discover more for themselves.

As you say “No endings, though. Only beginnings.” Should one hope for a sequel to “The Blue Bar”?

Yes, indeed, there’s a sequel to The Blue Bar. It is part two of the Blue Mumbai Series contracted by Thomas & Mercer, and is already up for Amazon pre-orders. It is set to release on 24 October 2023 and involves religion, caste and castration in the backdrop of a hair factory in Mumbai.

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