It would do one good to not mistake Devapriya Roy and Saurav Jha’s recently released book, The Heat and Dust Project, with Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s Heat and Dust which won the Booker Prize in 1975. While both the books are based on journeys across India, Devapriya and Saurav’s book — the first installment of a four-part series — was born out of a deep lurking discontent in the yuppie lives the couple had in Delhi combined with an immediate urge to rediscover their country. However, all of this on a very tight budget — 500 rupees a day for bed and board.
Devapriya says, “To be honest, the journey came about because we were essentially bad householders… After we began writing our first books on the strength of our very small advances and very robust optimism, we quit our jobs and decided upon the journey. We needed to step out of our comfort zones and see the country we love. The extreme budget was self-imposed to force us to engage in the idea of India from the ground up.”
While most books written by two people tell a single story, this novel merges two distinct narratives seamlessly. This was one reason, the authors say, that the book took some time to attain its current shape and form. And with Devapriya being an author of two novels and Saurav, a writer of serious non-fiction, it was extremely difficult to achieve this and they nearly killed each other in the process.
Devapriya says, “There were different impulses we brought to the table: I enjoy writing about people and the character of places while myths and legends, and quirky historical accounts are Saurav’s department. It is impossible to travel in India and not be inundated with stories.” Saurav adds, “Which is why we wanted the fabric of the narrative to reflect the oral traditions of India embodied by the incessant storytelling of people we met. We did argue and edit each others’ writing, of course.” Also, the money factor was not the only hurdle in their path.
Devapriya recounts, “We often reached strange places late at night, primarily because the buses were far slower than projections at the bus stations. It can be quite intimidating — landing up at a place at night when everything seems slightly forbidding, the seedy hotels seem positively criminal and the well-meaning passerby a prospective thug.”
The couple, when it comes to travelling, are mutually adventurous and resilient in spirit. On the go, they worked as a team — while Devapriya was always on the lookout for cakes, Saurav hunted for thali joints. While she liked a relaxed start to the day, he wanted to rise and shine at the crack of the dawn. She read on the bus journeys, while he snored. And eventually, they feel the journey did bring them closer. Saurav says, “When you share what we have shared, it ought to. It also taught me the value of being idle for long periods without feeling restless. In her, I discovered tenacity that is truly remarkable.”
With three more books documenting their trips in the offing, the couple has been joking for years now that a journey of this sort is the Ultimate Relationship Test. Devapriya adds, “While a perfect honeymoon with champagne in chilled flutes and five-star luxuries offer a certain kind of contained romance, an escape from life and reality, a mad dusty traipsing through unfamiliar bus routes offers a new level of romantic adventure altogether.
Also, a reality check. If you can tolerate each other through long bus journeys, begin to anticipate each other’s cribbing over the allocation of a limited budget, accept that you will be too exhausted after a long day for lovemaking, and finally, if you learn that victories and pleasures will come suddenly as surprises — a deer frolicking outside your bus window, a grand fort shimmering against the night sky or a sudden delicious meal — in life as in a journey, you will learn to remain, in your life, ever open to possibilities that quickened with the weather and perished with the storm.”
