“Perhaps all artists were, in a sense, housewives: tenders of the earth household.” Quote by Erica Jong
“The first novel that I wrote was because I was having very interesting sorts of experiences, for Indians of my generation.” FirstsInterestingNovelGenerationsVery InterestingMy Generation Author:Karan Bajaj
“India went through a dramatic revolution after the '90s when our economy started opening up for the first time and Indians were now experiencing the Western life, if you will. Drugs and sex and a lot of those influences came in as the economy stabilized, and we were growing up and experiencing that. The Indian writing market was very small at that time. Our literature was very attuned to what Western audiences were interested in, so everybody was writing about the slums in India and magic realism or stories about Hindus and Muslims and partition.” IfsWritingFirstsStoriesLiteratureSexAudienceEconomyGrowing UpGrowingMagicInfluenceRevolutionDrugFirst TimeIndiaWesternOpeningIndianDramaticRealismOpening UpSlumsPartitionMagic Realism Author:Karan Bajaj
“The reality that we were growing up in was very young and vibrant, and nobody was capturing that part of India. I started to backpack after getting out of college. I hiked and did a lot of things nobody was capturing in art at all in India, so I wrote my first novel. It was a very, trippy, experience-filled novel, and it ended up doing very well in India because nobody was writing about that at that point.” WritingFirstsWellsArtRealityYoungNovelGrowing UpGrowingCollegeIndiaFilledTrippy Author:Karan Bajaj
“What I'm trying to do right now is truly answer my most deepest most unarticulated questions for myself through my writing in some form.” WritingTryingFormAnswersRight Now Author:Karan Bajaj
“Now, I think of my writing as having two foundations: entertainment and meaning. The meaning portion is really me trying to answer my questions. The entertainment aspect of it is how I make a story that can make people turn the pages.” PeopleThinkingWritingTryingTwoStoriesTurnsAnswersPagesAspectFoundationEntertainmentPortions Author:Karan Bajaj
“I did not have any philosophy at all when I wrote the first novel. I was just wanting to capture experiences that I thought would be inspiring for Indians who are trying to break free from the very high-pressured family environments and do their own thing.” TryingFirstsPhilosophyWould BeBreakNovelEnvironmentCapturePressured Author:Karan Bajaj
“I wanted to write something that was very entertaining to read. The hardest part of this novel [The Yoga of Max's Discontent] was how to make a deeply spiritual transformation journey page-turning and adventurous. That was the hardest part to crack for me.” WritingWantedSpiritualNovelJourneyPagesYogaTransformationHardestCracksEntertainingAdventurousDiscontentMaxSpiritual TransformationPages Turning Author:Karan Bajaj
“What helped me a lot was that I chose an American lead protagonist, because that liberated a lot from my own knowledge. If I had approached it from the perspective of an Indian main character, I think I would have assumed a lot of knowledge and I would have resented the presence of the author.” IfsThinkingCharacterMy OwnPerspectiveIndianLiberatedProtagonistsMain Characters Author:Karan Bajaj
“A lot of the book [The Yoga of Max's Discontent] is about karma and rebirth. Things like that are very attuned to my life as an Indian, but when I approach it from a perspective of a Westerner, then I have a skeptical, yet kind of novice view on it. I think that choice really liberated the story to be its own story. A lot of the conclusions that Max reaches on his own are not mine at all. So, I think that allowed the story to take on its own momentum, to have its own propulsive force.” ThinkingKindBookStoriesChoicesForceViewsMinesPerspectiveApproachYogaKarmaConclusionIndianRebirthSkepticalMomentumDiscontentMaxLiberatedWesternersNovices Author:Karan Bajaj
“What has happened in most of my books is the call to the extraordinary world, the hero's push, or that push has come to him.” WorldBookHappenedHeroExtraordinary Author:Karan Bajaj