Twitter Magic
Late last night, on Twitter, I noticed #Savarkar and #SavarkarJayanti trending. I had just been outlining my novel, India House which I have been speaking of on this Substack. I have about 26,000 words written, but I felt blocked by the story and decided to tell myself the story as briefly as I could.
When I saw the topics trending, because it was Veer Savarkar’s birth anniversary, I decided to share my outline as tweets, because what better way to make sure I can tell a story as briefly as I could.
Here’s the first tweet on that thread.
Here is the whole thread on Threader.
When I went to bed, it had about 20 likes.
Eight hours later, it had been viewed by 10,362 people and is still getting shared! About 200 people have retweeted or quote-tweeted it. Which are rookie numbers for anyone of any consequence on Twitter, but as I am a rookie, it felt really good.
And now, I notice there’s 16 new signups to this Substack! Given I had about 30 signups yesterday, we have grown by 50% overnight, and that is a big jump.
But more than what it meant for me, I am excited for what it meant for my novel. I knew that writing stories from Indian history did have significant interest, but seeing that in action is extremely encouraging for me to finish my novel, and do a good job of it. It feels like a big responsibility now that I’m trying to retell a very important story that a lot of people feel strongly about.
What is this Substack?
As an Indian writer in the US, it has been a challenge to find an audience for my kind of fiction. I typically write stories about the Indians abroad, and my interests in tech, history and sociology usually inform those stories. Finding people who are into this set of topics, as well as reading fiction is challenging.
So I decided I needed to collect an audience by just writing about whatever interests me, and seeing who is interested and keeps reading. Substack seemed perfect for that, as it wasn’t just a blog I could link to, but also sent these posts straight to your inbox.
I started blogging here last October, with two posts a week - one on Mondays, called Monday Cup Of Links, where I just share a bunch of links I found interesting over the previous week, and on Thursdays, I’d send out a longer piece, like this one.
At first my Thursday pieces were me summarizing research papers on topics that interested me. Like the retail apocalypse, or the best way to work from home, or how women of different social strata do in college. And then I switched to recording audiobook chapters of the novel Anandamath as a podcast. But then I had to stop doing that, because I developed throat infections, and it was probably best to avoid straining my throat given that throat issues and cough are symptoms of Covid-19.
Anyway, I started making significant progress with my novel around the time of the lockdown, and decided to keep posting about it instead, and here we are.
I’m hoping to have my Thursday posts be novel excerpts as much as possible, but it’s possible I write something else on these lines.
Note that I choose not to talk about current affairs, because this Substack is intended as a place for deep work, and with commentary on politics and social events, it is incredibly easy to slip into schmaltz, drama and shallow discourse.
My Novel, India House
Man of many hats Dr. Sanjeev Sanyal has given several talks about the Indian revolutionary movement. Here’s one, you can look for others on Youtube. When I head this talk, and googled India House, I realized this was a killer story, one I wanted to see as a limited series on Netflix. It had all the elements - a diverse cast, set in London, guns, bombs and Scotland Yard. It would be a great Indian story that would interest people around the world.
I decided I had to be the one to write this novel, and started digging about for research. I thought I’d have to dig into dusty old libraries, but the wonderful Dr. Vikram Sampath has already done all that work for me, and has a wonderfully researched biography of Savarkar out. Besides, there have been biographies of several of the people involved in India House, and reading them all, you can piece together a narrative. Several people who lived in India House also wrote newspaper columns and books, so you get a fair idea of what each person was like.
I have been documenting my research and writing as much as I can. The research is often in small tidbits thrown around on my Monday Cup Of Links, but here’s one rather elaborate piece about Shyamji Krishna Varma, the founder of India House. You can find my excerpts here, here, and here.
I’ve also documented an early outline of my novel. At first I wondered who should be the protagonist. I really wanted it to be Bhikhaji Cama, as her personality and story appealed to me hugely. But the more I dug into the research, the more I realized it is Savarkar’s show, and he had to be the protagonist, like it or not. He was the only one present from start to finish, and the most consistently exciting. Though he isn’t the narrator, because I don’t think doers make for great narrators. That distinction goes to a mysterious man Savarkar only refers to as Mr Etiquette in his writings, who was a close associate but who wanted his role kept secret.
Anyway, the research is all in public domain, and you can contact me if you want access to all my sources, several of which are books and PDFs. My role is to make it a fun read and a comprehensive story where we know what happens to all the characters.
A Novel Series?
The more I research this topic, the more I realize that India House is just the tip of the iceberg. The Indian diaspora were very active in getting India its freedom, and their stories aren’t those we hear very often. When I read those stories, they all just feel like me and my friends when we came to America for college and work, and I want to bring some of that energy into the storytelling.
After India House, the action shifts to Berkeley, California, where Lala Hardayal organizes the Ghadar movement. The people from here help organize revolts in the army in various cantonments across India during World War I. It fails, and one of the organizers, Rashbehari Bose escapes to Japan, where he becomes part of a Pan-Asian conspiracy, and founded the Indian National Army. Which is then led by Subhas Bose all the way to WW2. After which we have the Naval Mutiny in 1946, after which India mysteriously becomes independent for no reason at all *wink*.
This story can span several exciting books. Especially more so if we bookend it with conspiracy theories on both ends, with the prequel being of an Anandamath-style secret society that organizes 1857, and continues through to become Abhinav Bharat, and the last novel in the series following a certain mysterious Gumnami Baba who travels around India, meeting all the survivors from the previous books.
That’s the hope.
BUT FIRST, I’ve to complete the first draft of India House for all of these wonderful ideas to even be tried out.
This post summarizes all the work I’ve done so far with this book. Stay subscribed as I do more and tell you all about it!