Vibrant and eclectic, ‘Cockatoo’ is a novel told in stories, weaved together by a narrative of love, connection and longing. It is a true amalgamation of the verities of love through unspoken desires and trips down memory lane.
An honest reflection of our spoken and unspoken realities, it brings to the forefront a diverse range of stories streaked with emotion and intensity. Raising questions about belongingness and creating meaningful dialogue on identity through his carefully crafted mosaic of themes, Yashraj Goswami, the author, delves into the nuances of humanity and love, as well as the depth of the human condition!
In my conversation with the author, we delve deep into the nuances of the writing process as well as discuss some of the most important socio-political aspects of the book.
Tarini Kakkar (TK): To begin with, is there a reason you chose the title of one of the stories – ‘cockatoo’ – to be the title of the novel?
Yashraj Goswami (YG): Honestly speaking, I think I’m personally terrible at picking titles. There have been umpteen amount of times where I’ve written articles, but I wouldn’t know what to title it or call it. So, honestly speaking, as mentioned in the acknowledgements section, the title is not my doing – it is my partner’s choice.
He said, ‘Why don’t we call it Cockatoo?’ because the cockatoo sort of becomes a metaphor for a lot of things in the book and, in a sense, also triggers a lot of action in the story. So therefore, the book was called ‘Cockatoo’ – but I cannot take credit for this.
TK: Absolutely. Finding titles seems like a universal problem. What inspired you to write this amalgamation of stories and choose this structure for the same?
YG: It’s an idea that I’ve long cherished and that I’ve had in my mind for a very long time, wherein you have a set of characters, and they keep appearing and reappearing in multiple narratives and stories. I also personally think that it was also a selfish act on my part because if I had to conceive of a novel-length book, I would be too timid to take up the project, or I would think that it’s too much of a task for me.
I’m maybe also slightly lazy and intimidated or daunted by the whole idea of writing a novel. So I started fooling myself. I would tell myself, ‘No, we’re not writing a book. We’re writing another short story.’
That is how I started working towards this book, and it started taking a structure or a form. I then realized that maybe this has something that can go somewhere, and these characters – even though they are very diverse – have similar instincts, desires, or characteristics that kind of overlap and match.
I thought they’d be an interesting set of characters to put together. But the idea of having interconnected stories, a universe where the characters keep appearing and reappearing, was something that had been brewing in my mind for a very long time – much before I started writing.
TK: Did you have a particular inspiration for it, maybe a person or event that made you want to pick this up as a project?
YG: I don’t think there was a particular trigger – as a writer, one is always hungry for stories, right? So even when you’re meeting people, or you’re just conversing with people, sometimes even when you’re on dates, you’re talking to new people – you’re always interested in listening to their stories.
You’re almost like a squirrel, shoving nuts into your bag, like, ‘Maybe this will help someday.’ So, I don’t think there was a particular trigger that inspired me to write, but there was this collection of anecdotes that I had picked up over the years. Some of them were also personal experiences, so I thought of fleshing them out and putting them together. Of course, one takes fictional and creative liberties, no character is based on ‘a’ real person.
TK: What are your thoughts on other stories that feature the theme the way you do, through a variety of stories and characters that cover the same themes you do?
YG: I am personally a sucker for love stories. Even in terms of reading or watching, I love stories that have a strong emotional core to them or feature drama about interpersonal relationships. Fantasy doesn’t interest me; I couldn’t care less about dragons and witches, fairies and unicorns because I find that real life itself is so interesting. Real people themselves are so complex. Why would you even want to invent these fantastical details?
I’ve been a huge admirer of these love stories – some being very mushy and cheesy, such as the 90s Bollywood films. But in terms of similar books, I do remember reading Sandip Roy’s ‘Don’t Let Him Know’ and Abeer Y. Hoque’s ‘The Lovers and the Leavers’. The latter was also structured around the same pattern I used in my book.
To be honest, I had tinkered with the idea of the structure long before reading these books. But these books gave me the confidence that this might actually work. There’s a set precedent for it, people have done it, and I myself enjoyed reading them. So I thought I might actually be able to execute this idea that I have long cherished.
TK: I’ll look both these books up as well. Coming back to ‘Cockatoo’, What was the most challenging s of character to write for you?
YG: Let me think… I think each story came to me almost like a puzzle. There were many times that I entered a story, and I did not know the way out. I know that these characters are interesting, and there is a very vague arc or story I see them following, but I don’t know how it’ll end.
And sometimes, you just keep mulling over what a person like that would do. And while doing the most mundane of tasks, when you’re least expecting it, you’ve found the key to the door. So in Neera’s case (a character in the book), there’s no specific reason why she wants to leave. She just wants an ‘out’ from the marriage. I had this idea over a phone call, and I just started putting pen to paper, and it came out really nicely. So, yeah, I had a lot of fun writing that entire Neera arc.
TK: Absolutely. I was just sort of rereading that yesterday and I thought the first story was so interesting. The second sort of backed it up, giving explanations to questions like why Koel (a character in the book) calls her Aunty and not ‘Mom’.
YG: In fact, now that I think in terms of challenges, I would say writing Manu’s story (a character in the book) from a child’s perspective was a challenge. I find the first-person perspective slightly more challenging to write as it’s more intimate. Also, writing from a child’s perspective is like walking a very tightrope.
You have to tell a story and maintain all the narrative devices, but at the same time, you have to maintain that innocence through the child’s eye. It’s difficult, and so many brilliant writers have done it in the past. You wonder if you can match up to their genius, and you try and sometimes even fail.
Speaking in an adult voice comes naturally, obviously, but the child’s perspective was more difficult. I was always second-guessing what was working and what was not, thinking, what if someone finds it absolutely unnatural?
TK: In fact, one of my questions was about this. Is there a particular reason why you switched from the third person to the first person perspective in the stories, or did you just find that the story flowed better with the change in narration?
YG: It felt organic for Manu’s story to be told in the first person. These were perhaps subconscious choices I was making, and that added some amount of variety to the narrative voices. It may even be the curse of our time, you know, with our more maligned attention span which is dwindling. So I thought that using a consistent narrative voice might get boring for readers, also. Switching between multiple voices and points of view might add an amount of variety to the entire storytelling experience.
In fact, in one of the chapters, I’ve also used the second person. The story’s told using ‘you’. A lot of writers have said this before, but you write a book you want to read. There’s no point writing a book you wouldn’t enjoy reading. And although this may seem self-indulgent, I had a lot of fun writing these stories. And I do hope readers had half as much fun reading them as I did writing them.
TK: It was extremely unexpected for me! I also found it interesting how a lot of the stories were about deep connection and love but also often about the obligatory aspect of the same. For example, in Neera’s story, you wrote about how she didn’t know if she was mourning her husband or the fact that no one would mourn her. Is there a reason you chose to include this aspect?
YG: Neera is one of those characters I really like, and I believe there’s some level of aspiration attached to her – in the sense that I wish I was like her. She’s very self-assured, she’s graceful, she knows that she’s pretty. She never doubts her decisions, or even if she does, she doesn’t let people know.
I agree that the whole obligatory aspect is attached to all adult relationships. You’re constantly torn apart between a selfish impulse and a selfless impulse because you’ve grown up with those romantic ideas of love being selfless. It is all about giving. But then, it doesn’t come naturally to you. Many people have said, that perhaps the only love that is selfless to a certain degree is a parent-child relationship.
All the other relationships – even if you don’t like to sort of admit it – are transactional. You are always making negotiations between selfish and selfless impulses. I think this tension also bears upon most of these characters, for that matter, even Rishabh and Pranav (both characters in the book). You like somebody, but how much control can you exercise over them? It’s the same thing that’s playing out with Neera and Kishore – like, okay, I like this person, but do I like them enough to continue with them forever?
These are things one realizes in retrospect. Maybe while writing, you’re not too conscious of it, but when the whole work is done, you can see that there are certain patterns that are emerging.
TK: Alongside love, race, class, violence, and infidelity are also important themes in the book, and perhaps they’re just as essential. Did you run into any challenges writing about the same or weaving them together with love?
YG: As you said, those ideas and themes do add substance. Otherwise, a fluffy love story may entertain you for some time, but it won’t have a lasting impact on your mind. It won’t do anything if it doesn’t pertain to the macro issues that we, as a society, are dealing with.
But you can’t experience everything in life. The idea of appropriation, the idea of speaking for someone else – as a writer, it’s something you struggle with. You can’t have multiple social identities in lives – there is some amount of vicarious living that does work its way into the writing. There is a limitation because you can’t live the lives of all of your characters. It’s just that you should try to be as authentic by talking to people about their experiences.
But ultimately, it’s you who’s rendering those experiences. There were times when I second-guessed myself and asked, ‘Do I have the right or the authority to say this?’ And those things that have been documented in the book are part of my storytelling, but they are not completely created out of a vacuum.
TK: Right, that’s very understandable. I also wanted to ask if there was a reason you chose 2008 as a primary year for many stories, and had major cities like Delhi as the heart of the setting?
YG: The choice of the year was necessarily to do with the fact that the idea of the global recession was looming large at the time. For instance, Rishabh’s character is directly impacted by it. This was also the time that I was in college, so these were also experiences that I was living through.
Another reason is that today, most of our lives are lived through apps. Back then, the internet and social media were still kind of finding their place. The hyperconnectivity of today sometimes takes away from the intrigue of life, which I think is an important aspect of storytelling. You need intrigue to make a story interesting and to keep the reader engaged. I personally love characters that intrigue me.
Even looking at it from a social point of view, especially in the chapter that addresses suicide, I wanted to convey that when a person dies by suicide, it’s a combination of forces that act on them. I didn’t want to pathologize queerness by saying they killed themselves because of that. I didn’t want to speak for the character and establish the cause and effect. I let the reader take that decision.
TK: You mentioned certain works that have inspired you in your own ways. And that you like consuming movies or books which have an emotional core to them. What are a few books that have really left an impact on you over the years and made you aspire as a writer?
YG: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one writer whose work I absolutely admire. Her books are not very preachy, but they have a strong emotional core, and I think they work because of that. For instance, Half of a Yellow Sun or even Americanah. I loved reading Purple Hibiscus as well, but the first two even more.
And it may sound cliche, but Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, which, again, is so political but also so emotional right? There’s such a strong, throbbing emotional core to that book that there are lines and passages that still play out in your head sometimes.
Other than that, I really enjoy reading Richard Yates’ work. He was an American writer, and I think the world doesn’t give him enough credit. Yates’ stories, some may argue, as wrapped in gloom, but they are brilliantly written, and the craft is genius. Many books have stayed with me, but these are the top 3 in terms of emotional resonance.
TK: What are you currently reading?
YG: It’s embarrassing to admit, but I don’t get to read as much as I would love to. Also, when I’m reading, I am constantly dabbling in multiple things. I am trying to read Sabah Dewan’s ‘Tawaifnama’ these days. It’s not entirely fiction, but it’s also not entirely non-fiction, so it’s a very interesting mix of both!
TK: My last question to you would be, what would be your word of advice or message for budding writers who aspire to capture similar emotions and themes in their work?
YG: I always feel a little sheepish and fraudulent, dishing out advice to young writers. As cliche as it sounds, read as much as you can. I know every English teacher in this world, and I’m one too, would say the same thing but read!
If you want to do emotional writing, stark emotion or plain melancholy don’t work after a point. Wrap it up in beauty and then serve it to the reader. As a reader, I would love to cry. I find crying cathartic but don’t just tell me I’m sad. Add some craftsmanship to it, add layers to it which make consuming that sadness so much more worthwhile. Don’t just give them to me on a platter. Make me work towards them and let me feel like I’ve earned it.
‘Cockatoo’ by Yashraj Goswami has been published by Pan Macmillan India and can be accessed here.