Punyasloka Mohapatra

What was your favorite book as a child?

I was only fortunate enough to read a book when I was in the sixth grade. During a sports period, instead of playing football, a lady teacher asked me to go to the school library and read a book. The first book I picked up was an Odia translation of Lajja (“shame”) by Taslima Nasrin.

The book was about the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the anti-Hindu violence that followed in parts of Bangladesh. I did not have the age or the vocabulary to understand the politics behind it. What reached me was something more immediate — the fear, the homes turned unsafe, the suddenness with which ordinary lives could be broken. I remember carrying that uneasiness home with me. For several nights, I could not sleep properly.

It was the first time I realized that a book could disturb you, stay inside your head, and alter the way you looked at the world. In some strange way, that was also when reading — and eventually writing — began for me.

What was the original reason or motivation why you started writing creatively?

I think the feeling began much earlier, in the fourth grade. Once, while our teacher was taking a class, a noted poet came to visit him. I remember the way my teacher received him and spoke to him — with a kind of quiet respect that was unusual for a child to notice. I didn’t understand poetry then, or why a poet deserved that kind of regard, but the moment stayed with me.

Perhaps I was never a quick thinker. I often needed to sit with things for a little longer before they began to make sense. I think writing eventually became a way of doing that — to stay with a feeling, a memory, or a moment instead of letting it pass too quickly. I wasn't thinking about becoming a writer. I was trying to pay attention.

What was the most adventurous or thrilling thing you ever did/experienced?

Getting married, perhaps.

It felt a little like waking up in a new place and not knowing the way around. You recognise the room, but everything in it has changed. Another person is beside you, another life unfolding, and no real map for what comes next.

What thrilled me was not knowing. Marriage asks you to step into a life whose details you cannot foresee, and to trust that you will learn the landscape as you go.

I think that may be the most adventurous thing I have experienced — not travelling somewhere unknown, but waking up one morning and realising that your life has quietly become unfamiliar, and choosing to stay long enough to know it.

Do you listen to music while reading or writing? Why/why not?

No, not usually. I get swayed by music quite easily. It can change the way I feel about a room, a memory, even a sentence. Sometimes a piece of music can make something seem sadder, more beautiful, or more significant than it really is, and I find myself following that feeling.

When I write, I prefer to begin without an emotion already waiting for me. I like the words to discover their own mood, even if that mood turns out to be uncomfortable or unexpected. Silence gives me that freedom. It lets me stay with a line a little longer and hear what it is actually doing.

Perhaps I don’t listen to music while writing for the same reason I don’t like being told what to feel while reading. I would rather arrive at the feeling myself.