Prajwal, who currently is pursuing a master’s degree in creative writing at the University of Oxford’s Kellogg College, got the publishing deal from Quercus Books without anything being printed as yet. Both his books deal with the Nepali diaspora across India, Nepal and Bhutan and in the United States and the UK and incorporate his personal experiences. The first book, a collection of stories called Gurkha’s Daughter, will be published in December this year and his next, a novel called Land Where I Flee, exactly a year later.
Prajwal, who graduated from a university in Missouri, United States, achieved his American dream very early in life. However, bright lights of New York and his job as an advertising executive at the Village Voice, the influential alternative weekly, could not tie him down to the United States.
The disenchantment set in within a few months and Prajwal recalls how he kept worrying that he was missing out on the transformation occurring in India. “There is also that niggling feeling at the back of your mind, whether you are forgetting your language, your culture, everything.”
“What is the point in being a nameless, faceless existence in America if you are not happy doing that? I always had this fear that I would one day wake up at 35 very rich, but very unhappy,” he says.
He finally caved in to his conscience in February 2009, quit his job and returned to India. “I started travelling with my college roommate, who also had quit his job at the same time,” he says, describing the impulse to quit his job as the best decision of his life.
Prajwal, who grew up speaking Nepali at home in Gangtok, always dreamt of being a writer, just like other children would dream of being a doctor or a pilot, but admits that he “didn’t know how realistic it was to pursue writing.” Prajwal, whose Nepali-speaking Indian father is from Kalimpong and mother from Nepal, travelled across India and they spent time in Delhi, Goa, Mumbai, Kolkata, Gangtok, Darjeeling, Kathmandu, Pokhra and Agra.
However, once the travelling was over, Prajwal recalls that he had nothing to do. “I packed a suitcase to Manali and started writing there. I wrote two stories. Once I realised I had gotten the hang of things, I came back to Gangtok and wrote the rest of the book there.”
Explaining his focus on Nepali culture, Prajwal says, “Writing about this world I knew, irrespective of where the people were based, seemed like a natural thing to do.” However, he says he may dabble with other cultures and people after finishing his second book.