Chatting with Ashok Banker is like chatting with a very old friend – the kind one can meet after many years and still pick up where they left off, as if nothing – and everything – had happened in between.

In town for the Bengaluru leg of his Forest of Stories tour, Ashok Banker's work can happily lay claim to a genre of its own. His retelling of the great Indian epics has captured the minds and hearts of readers the world over, as he shrugged off his label as a crime fiction author, emerging instead with what he calls ‘epic fantasy’. His childhood fell far short of ideal and Banker has no qualms opening up about it. An assortment of races, Banker was born to his half-English, part Portugese, part Goan mother when she was only 16, as the result of a brief courtship with disaster. After a second marriage that was just as disastrous, his mother sank into an alcoholic depression, characterized by catatonic spells of unmoving silence and sudden violent outbursts. “Her death was especially traumatic,” he says, “because I’d always hoped for a turnaround. It was when she died that I realized there was no rewriting that end.”

By the age of 16 Banker was a much published author, contributing regularly to afternoon dailies. It was during this time that he also met the love of his life, Bithika, whom he eventually married. His career began with a very successful stint as a news feature writer, which he coupled with a job as a copy writer. “I broke front page stories as a solo writer, covering the aftermath of the Kargil war and the Maoist rebellion in Nagaland. I was called in for questioning by the CBI,” he says proudly.

“My mother never pressurized me into choosing a religion,” he says. “It was only at the age of nine that I realised there was such a thing at all and that's when my process of choosing began.” And what a process it was. Unlike most Indian children, who have the luxury of hearing Hindu mythology from a loving grandparent, Banker actually read it all. “People say that all Gods are the same, but I don't agree. All people are the same- the Gods are actually quite different! Religion is just putting a uniform on a person - take it off and we’re all human underneath - I chose to stay human, that is all.”

Having grown up – well, quite like Piscine Patel from Life of Pi – with a deep rooted faith in every religion, it's not altogether too surprising that Ashok Banker chose to retell the Ramayana – to everybody but him, that is. “I'm a very instinctive writer and because there was so much anger in me, it was a kind of catharsis. And one day, I sat up and thought, ‘what is this thing I've created?’.”

For Banker, the Ramayana is not just a piece of mythology. The characters are more than real, it seems, for he pours his heart and soul into them. “Anger and hatred are crippling, you need to stop being crippled and start walking. I channeled that into Ram's arrows, into Sita's anger when Ram refused to take her with him when he goes into exile. Then, I didn't know of any writer who rewrote the Ramayana and I came to love these personalities dearly.” As he transcended bitterness to arrive at love, he found his epiphany.

The conversation veers toward Indian writing in general, toward the stereotype that Indian writers have established for themselves – of anglicized accounts of sex and drugs and everything else that Indian
society prefers to leave unsaid - as if writing is rebellion and English their great weapon. Banker agrees with this, it being a stereotype he has gone to great lengths to avoid. “It's just literary narcissism. It's appealing to these people because they didn't have those things, it's quite elitist,” he says.

“Most Indian authors rebel against their culture, but having come from drugs and alcohol, I know it’s not cool.” Immense pandemonium and unwavering perseverance remained constants in his life, from a troubled childhood to much rejection as an author. But perhaps he will agree too, that it has been well worth the trouble.