India has sanctioned phenomenal injustices for years and years and years. And normalized it. There is no understanding of what it means to be born into a class that has been denied basic human dignity for generations and generations.
Sarnath BanerjeeThere are different reasons why people write: for themselves, or for other writers, or to get prizes, or keeping an audience in mind. In my case, it felt really nice that a certain type of readership read the book and liked it, even though my readership is not as wide as certain popular books.
Sarnath BanerjeeEverything you draw is influenced. It's like yogurt. You need a little bit to start the next batch.
Sarnath BanerjeeMy books serve as archives of thoughts and emotions, like a tonal history that captures how I felt at a certain time of my life. It's not very informational. You're not going to get comprehensive knowledge about the Han dynasty of China or about India's Emergency. But you might learn how one person felt about the Los Angeles Olympics.
Sarnath BanerjeeI think it's really good not to get published. It sounds crazy but it's true. People want to get published very soon, but the moment that happens, you lose a bit of your originality. Once you publish, you are always doing things made-to-order. You stop being a weaver and become a tailor. You are tailoring things to suit other people's fashion.
Sarnath BanerjeeI feel history is more of a story than a lesson. I know this idea of presentism: this idea of constantly evoking the past to justify the present moment. A lot of people will tell you, "history is how we got here." And learning from the lessons of history. But that's imperfect. If you learn from history you can do things for all the wrong reasons.
Sarnath Banerjee