After a decade of having been a successful corporate lawyer, Arjun Nath decided to take up writing. In his debut book White Magic, Arjun looks back at the time he spent at a rehab as a recovering heroin addict. Woven into this personal record, is the tale of the maverick doctor’s several incarnations: from Ismail to Yusuf to Bhai to Doc.
In his debut book White Magic, Arjun looks back at the time he spent at a rehab as a recovering heroin addict.
When did the idea for the book germinate?
Junot Díaz or Orhan Pamuk — someone with an interesting name, anyway — said, “In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.” So, in that sense, White Magic was thirty-plus years coming. But in truth, it was some humid evening in a rehab called Land. I was listening to Yusuf ‘Doc’ Merchant share an incident from his life, and thought whoa! That would make a crackling prologue to a book. It was an unbearably exciting idea, the sort of exciting that makes you want to go pee.
Which genre draws you the most as a reader and a writer?
Fantasy. Nothing spells e-s-c-a-p-e quite as much as a bunch of unlikely companions — warrior, dragons, a dark sorceress or two, that sort of thing — on a quest in an alien world. Writing a graphic novel would also be brilliant.
Which is the best opening line in a book that you have ever read?
It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.— Love In The Time Of Cholera
One fictional character close to your heart and why?
Lisbeth Salander, from Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy — she’s a genius misanthrope with tattoos and a really bad attitude who hacks into the finances of evil corporations and buys herself new breasts just because it damn well pleases her to.
Who among the pantheon of writers (past/present) would you like to have coffee with?
George R.R. Martin. I’d very much like to buy him a coffee, catch him by the neck, and demand to know why he hasn’t delivered The Winds Of Winter yet.
What is your antidote for writer’s block?
Reading. Anything, absolutely anything, that is outside the genre I’m writing. Reading the back of a bottle of ketchup often helps. Unless I’m trying to write ketchup bottle labels.
