After Sharad Joshi and Harishankar Parsai, Dr. Gyan Chaturvedi has raised the bar for Hindi satire. He combines humor and social criticism in his six novels, twelve satire collections, and more than a thousand articles. His writing, which earned him a Padma Shri, examines relationships, politics, family life, and societal contradictions.

The Kolkata Mail correspondent Priyanka Dutta caught up with Dr. Gyan Chaturvedi over his new book The Mad House: Pagalkhana. Excerpts..

The title of the book is interesting. Can you share with us why you came up with this title?

Dr. Gyan Chaturvedi- Why did I title the book ‘PagalKhanaa’ or ‘Mad House’? This whole thing is like you asked me another question, why is this novel of yours an allegorical novel? Meaning why is it written symbolically? So, it is symbolic like poems are written in symbols. Many poems have symbolic meaning. So, this title ‘PagalKhanaa’ is also a symbol. If the novel is allegorical, then its name is also allegorical. We are not talking about any ‘mad asylum’. We are not telling the story of any ‘mad house’. We are talking about those tough situations. We are talking about that dreadful time when the whole world has turned into a ‘mad asylum’. And that madness which has come in the world, this madness which has come in the world has come for a thing called ‘market’, which has made the whole world mad. The world has made it its purpose of life to acquire whatever the market is selling to it in this market.

If every person in the world, has his thinking, his style of living, his way of dressing, his style, his interpersonal relations like in love relationships there is Valentine’s Day or Rose Day, then Chocolate Day. So, if every person in the world starts getting guided by everything that the market thinks that love has to be expressed in this way, then if I express my love in some other way, it will be wrong. Or perhaps my love will become second-rate. If I wear clothes then I will wear this, I will not wear this if I eat then I will eat this, I will eat this way, I will not eat this, then maybe I am not part of this world. There is competition in the world not to be left behind which has been decided by the market. That limit has been set, that the whole thing is the whole concept of how to live, how to what to think, how to have relations, the interpersonal relationships, everything has been now the market is deciding and the market is guiding, the market is setting the parameters. And it is a very scary thing that a thing like the market changes your knowledge of centuries, traditions of centuries, and the behavior of centuries, and the whole world starts functioning according to the market, so this world turns into a mental asylum.

What is a mental asylum called? A mental asylum is where there are people who are not behaving rationally. When do you call a person mad? One whose thinking is not rational, whose behavior is not rational, whose speech is not rational, whose work is not rational. Imagine a world where no person is left rational and his irrationality is being called rational by the market. When everyone has become irrational and the market, the economy is trying to prove this irrationality to be the biggest, to be the biggest rationality. This novel could have been named ‘PaaglaKhaana’ and nothing else. And this too is allegorical. It is symbolic that when you are reading this novel, you are entering a mental asylum.

Your book throws light on the free-market economy and excessive consumption happening in our society. What compelled you to write on this issue?

Dr. Gyan Chaturvedi- Who compelled me to write? This question can be asked of any writer on any subject. Even if he writes a poem on the moon, he can be asked, why did you write a poem on the moon? Why did you write a poem on a waterfall? Why did you write a poem on your girlfriend’s hair? Why did you write a detective novel? Something catches you, your sensitivity. Every writer has his sensitivity, sensitivity with which he catches what is happening around him in the world and when it disturbs his mind or catches it so much when there is an incident, a thought comes, something that is happening around you, a character of yours, you then start living with it and then a time comes, after a few days, when you feel that nothing will happen without putting it on paper. It almost compels you to write. A thought, a scene, a character, or something happening around you, might just chase you for days together, for months together, and then compel you to write.

I am a doctor by profession. I have found my profession as a doctor, under the market economy, it has changed into a complete business before my eyes.  I have been practicing for the last 40 years.

And I have found that, the medical profession, which was once upon a time, what I can say? At least 20 years ago, when I think of this as a profession, I am helping someone. We are there to help people. We are there to cure people, to relieve them of the sickness. That was the idea. To me, as a student also, our teachers have taught us various things in that light only. When you deal with the patient, you have to be very compassionate; we have to be sympathetic; you have to try to find a diagnosis, and you have to find a cheapest way to treat them. Now the whole thing has changed under the market economy, that now medical profession is a way to earn money. That’s all. If you have to be compassionate, be compassionate to the extent where the compassion can get you paid. Where the compassion will bring money. Well, where compassion becomes your art to extract money. So even if you are compassionate, if you are very kind, you are actually doing a song, you are, just enacting itconvincingly, you are trying to act very sympathetic to the patient, so that you can extract more money from patient, to make your own market.

The young people around you, their thinking, their life style, the whole market is changing, and everybody is in the game, and you see if this is a complete disease which has spread not just in the country, but in the whole world, and when everybody starts enjoying the disease or sickness, then there is no cure, because I am enjoying. You cannot cure me. I will not come to you to be cured. If you try to cure me, I will be your enemy. If the world starts enjoying it along with the follies of market economy, and also enjoys its own ruin, this market is a celebration of ruin for the whole humanity. Then you will definitely be compelled. I was compelled to write this for this reason.

Are you also impacted by this free market economy? And to what extent?

Dr. Gyan Chaturvedi- To answer your third question, which is in continuation of the earlier one, whether you, to have been affected? Yes, we have been affected. I told you. I have been affected as a medical profession. I have been affected as a father. I see children, how the market economy is affecting my children, people around me, how it is changing their thinking, how it is dehumanising them. So definitely I am also affected.

Here you have a question, why did you take only two characters? There are not two characters in this. Actually, the opposite. Here, there is a market and against the market. We have presented the market as a villain. The name of the market keeps coming in between: bazaar, bazaar, bazaar. That something is a market, a market presented in front of the whole world as a monster. It has a huge shadow on the world. It has captured the whole world. That shadow is everywhere. And if we have to run away from it, where will we run? That shadow is here as well, it is in Indore as well, it is in Bhopal as well, it is in Kolkata as well. Now we will run away from here and go to Kolkata. If the Kolkata part goes to Haridwar, then Haridwar is a religious city, there religion is also in the grip of the market. Where will you run? Can you run from this? You cannot run away. You cannot run away at all. This is a big villain who you have never had a villain like this before in the world. The world has never faced such a villain. Now there is a dictatorship of market all over. And this dictator has a very pleasant face, a very sweet voice. A very appealing personality but he is a villain. Those who are doing something against the market, who want to run away from the market, who still understand the world. Actually, they are the same people who understand that market is dangerous.But these people will be called mad. Because if the whole world has gone mad, then in the midst of all that mad people, if a completely normal man is caught, then what will happen? The insane crowd will label that person as insane. That is happening. There are those that are intelligent and want to save humanity and this world from the market economy. Economy is essential and important but it is not everything, those who say this are called mad.

This is a problem of the whole world. This is not a problem of India, Pakistan or America. Every citizen of the world is now aware of the market entering their lives through the internet. It is entering through YouTube, internet etc. The market economy is entering through fifty different ways. It is like rats infesting your house and every corner and insects starting to enter through every drain. It is like that. The whole house is occupied.

Why did you limit the number of characters to two?

Dr. Gyan Chaturvedi- If I had given any name, if I had given it a name like Mohan Sohan, Ram Shyam, Banerjee Chatterjee, Chatterjee, Chaturvedi or Agarwal, then these characters would have become characters of a particular geography and a particular culture. While every culture and every tribe in the world are being affected by the market. Even the tribals living in the forest are also in the grip of the market. Because the market, looking at the market possibilities even in the jungles, the market is looking for the possibilities where it can use that life, jungle to its benefit. They can open big resorts in the jungle. They can collect all the herbs of the forest. They can make big fields by cutting the forest. So everywhere, even the tribals and the people living in the jungle, the wild people, they too are getting affected by the market. You cannot escape anywhere.

So, by giving some name to this story it would have become of one place. While this is a universal story about the whole world. That’s why I did not name any character. I created characters of different background, of different ways through which they want to get out of this mad world of marketing and the market economy. They are not able to get out because other people, the market is labelling them as insane. Novels characters mostly have names but there are no nouns in this novel. They are all pronouns. They, we, he, she, them, his, who, all these things, now I have told the whole story in pronouns. This is a very new way of telling a story and a very complicated way. But that was the only way through which this story could have been told. Otherwise, it couldn’t have been created, character. So, it requires a kind of an effort, intelligent effort on the part of the reader also to enter into this this novel. Once they enter into it tightly grips them from every angle.  The reader will become engrossed in the whole narrative. But initially the reader has to make an effort to understand what I am saying. The initial 10-20 pages, you would enter into the algorism of the whole situation. You being to understand that the author is speaking symbolically. The character is not one person but all of us, this you will understand. We are the characters and so is the market, so finally there are only two characters. One who wants to run away from the market economy and the other is the market. The market considers those mad who want to run away from it while those that are sane are considered mad. Thus, we have a huge mad hose. The book is about this type of ‘Pagal Khanna’ or ‘mad house’.

Why did you think of writing this story as an allegorical novel?

Dr. Gyan Chaturvedi- The answers which I have told you so far in the previous four-five questions contains the answer to your fifth question, that why did you write an allegorical novel? Because this kind of story could only be told in symbols or allegory. If you say it directly, it will not make sense. Because the market does not exist anywhere, it is not a particular person, it is not a particular institute, it is not a particular company, the market is not even a form. It is like air that is spread everywhere. So, you can tell all the events that are happening only in a symbolic way. I had to choose such symbols so that people understand through those symbols what I am saying. This narrative of mine is closer to poetry. Just like you say in poetry, you leave many things unsaid. So, a lot is unsaid, a lot is being told very obliquely. There is a lot in this novel which is not said but is there in between the lines. The space left between the words or between the lines is also meaningful in this novel. It is not only what is written in a line; it is between the lines; the space left is also conveying some meaning. So, that way, this subject could not have been called anything other than an allegorical novel. That was the only way, I can say what I am trying to convey.

I can boast that there are very few novels written in fantasy—like 1984 and Animal Kingdom—that are dealt with in fantasy in Hindi or Indian languages. I’ve come across very few that are truly allegorical from the word go to the word finish. But this is one novel that is dealt with in fantasy from the word go, and it has not deviated throughout its narrative of over 400 pages. It deals with every situation in fantasy; every situation is allegorical, and yet it conveys a very real meaning. And that is the beauty of this novel. And that’s why it should be read to understand the present life and where we are heading, because you are also engulfed in it, and you will also have to pay the price of living in this ‘pagalkhana’. So, that’s how I will say it.

What will be your next book? Have you thought of a topic yet?

Dr. Gyan Chaturvedi- After ‘Pagal Khana’, I already have a novel written in Hindi. It’s very popular; it’s called ‘Swang’.  In that, everything has been turned into a mockery—a ‘swang’, a ‘natak’- an act. The dharma is also an act. The social work is also an act. Act only. It’s not a reality. The whole thing has changed into an act. The judiciary, the politics, the police, every system has changed into acting, ‘swang’.I can’t find the exact English equivalent for ‘swang’ right now; it’s not coming to mind. But everything has turned into a play, a ‘swang’. A judge is sitting there, and the police are also sitting there—but it’s not real police, it’s a set where someone is sitting as a police officer and acting like one. The world has become like this, I’ve written a novel about that, published by Rajkamal Prakashan in Hindi. It’s a very popular novel. After ‘Swang’, I wrote another new novel. Two of my new novels are coming out.

One is based on my own life; it’s a memoir, a novel written in the form of a novel, but it’s based on my memories of life. That’s coming out next. And then another novel is about the sadhus of Bundelkhand and the intermingling of local politics in the village with the priests, the village, the temples, the mosques, the mandir, everything. So those two novels are what I’m trying to complete. First, I will complete my memoirs in the form of a novel. It is a memoir, but it’s written differently, in a story format. It’s not directly a memoir.

I am not writing the exact incidents in my life; I am talking about my whole life, whatever important that I thought, my experience. So that is a different kind of novel. I have thought of the name. It is named after a friend of mine – Ek The Asu ek the Vasu. That is my next novel which will come. And the drama has already come – ‘Swang’. And the third novel which I am writing, I have not named that yet. These are my plans for this year. I am 73 years old, healthy, doing well. If I continue going, I will write many more novels which I have in my mind, as long as God keeps me alive. I will be creative; I will continue to be creative. Till of course if God wishes. With your good wishes and blessings, I hope to continue writing many more.