Believe none of what you hear
26 Jan 2014 10:08 PM GMT
All Western names! Irony being we Indians have a richer folklore than the West. But I’m wrong. Faraz Kazi is here with The Other Side who quenched the thirst of many readers of this genre.
After writing a love story he has attempted horror. He says,‘I seriously don’t think changing genres proves anything. I write for myself and not for the market and I’m comfortable writing in any genre under various themes of tragedy, comedy, fear. I would rather prefer not being tagged as a genre-specific writer.’
All the stories have an Indian connect. Kazi tells us ‘the book is a tribute to the culture and folklore of my land.’ Two are a must read: Dream Girl and Possession. He believes any ghost story collection is incomplete without touching upon the idea of possession, the merging of a secondary spirit with a human soul. Kazi wanted to retain a strain of innocence in the story, hence the protagonist is a child and through her we see the world of the unknown and soon see her family also getting involved. Perhaps there is a hidden story of possession in every neighbourhood and readers can make the connection, irrespective of their believers or sceptics.
As he elaborates on Dream Girl, Kazi quips, ‘It was a strong subject and it is easily the most graphic story of the lot. Thank god, books don’t have much censorship issues because I wanted this story to come out in its crude form and shock the readers. Simply through the psyche and thought process of one single man who vows to ‘create’ his dream girl by cutting and stitching together the body parts of other girls, I tried to understand our deepest recesses.’
He’s also a genre-hopper, evidently. After writing a love story and a horror fiction, now he is working on his dream project, another collection of stories that involves the coming of age story of a woman! We aren’t scared.
After writing a love story he has attempted horror. He says,‘I seriously don’t think changing genres proves anything. I write for myself and not for the market and I’m comfortable writing in any genre under various themes of tragedy, comedy, fear. I would rather prefer not being tagged as a genre-specific writer.’
All the stories have an Indian connect. Kazi tells us ‘the book is a tribute to the culture and folklore of my land.’ Two are a must read: Dream Girl and Possession. He believes any ghost story collection is incomplete without touching upon the idea of possession, the merging of a secondary spirit with a human soul. Kazi wanted to retain a strain of innocence in the story, hence the protagonist is a child and through her we see the world of the unknown and soon see her family also getting involved. Perhaps there is a hidden story of possession in every neighbourhood and readers can make the connection, irrespective of their believers or sceptics.
As he elaborates on Dream Girl, Kazi quips, ‘It was a strong subject and it is easily the most graphic story of the lot. Thank god, books don’t have much censorship issues because I wanted this story to come out in its crude form and shock the readers. Simply through the psyche and thought process of one single man who vows to ‘create’ his dream girl by cutting and stitching together the body parts of other girls, I tried to understand our deepest recesses.’
He’s also a genre-hopper, evidently. After writing a love story and a horror fiction, now he is working on his dream project, another collection of stories that involves the coming of age story of a woman! We aren’t scared.
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