Navtej Sarna, the newly appointed Indian High Commissioner to the UK, will soon be reaching London to take over his new role. Besides being the longest-serving spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs in India, Sarna has come to be known as a member of the ‘MEA school of literature’.
As Sarna's ninth book ‘Second Thought’ hits the shelves, the veteran diplomat says that nothing stops him from living his “second life” – that of a writer – to the fullest.
He will be taking over the position as the new High Commissioner after a successful stint by Mr Ranjan Mathai, who was one of the most efficient Indian High Commisioners in the UK. Under his supervision many major events were organised here to enhance the Indo-UK relationships, including the historic visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and London's first ever Pravasi Bharatiya Divas.
The book, a collection of Sarna's columns that appeared in ‘The Hindu’ for over seven years, takes the reader down the nostalgic path of a literary journey intertwined with private memories. The collection ranges from classics to contemporary writers.
Navtej Sarna was born in Jalandhar, India to a noted writer in Punjabi, Mohinder Singh Sarna, and did his schooling from St. Joseph's Academy, Dehradun. Later he graduated as a part of the 1980 Class of Indian Foreign Service.
Before holding his current post, he was Joint Secretary for external publicity at the MEA, since October 2002, and holds the distinction of being the longest-serving spokesperson of the Ministry. He served two prime ministers, three foreign ministers and four foreign secretaries, till the end of his term in September.
He was a former Indian Ambassador to Israel and has served as a diplomat served in Moscow, Warsaw, Thimphu, Geneva, Teheran and Washington DC.
As a writer, his first novel published was We Weren't Lovers Like That in 2003, followed by The Book of Nanak in the same year, his latest, The Exile, published in 2008, based on the life of Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of Lahore, and son Raja Ranjit Singh.
In an interview with IANS, Sarna gave some very interesting ideas about his interview.
Excerpts from the interview (as published by IANS):
Q: Your book talks mostly about writers and their mental landscape.
A: There are different aspects of writers which another writer is curious to know. I am curious to know about the magic formula, about writers and their mental landscape. There is a curiosity about the language, different narratives, which certain writers experiment with. It helps one’s craft in knowing the structure of a particular book. I have written mostly about 20th century classical writers whose different styles helped me a lot.
Q: How do you keep the worlds of a writer and a diplomat apart and together at the same time?
A: It has always been a challenge and I have been doing it for the last 35 years. It’s my second life. I decide consciously not to write about my life as a diplomat. It makes it easier to sustain both lives. I lived both the facets of my lives comfortably and I have balanced it in a very cautious way. I have a lot of friends from both the fields.
Q: Tell us about the ‘MEA School of Literature’
A: We have several writers who published their works and are being called the ‘MEA School of Literature’. It feels good. For instance, there is Pavan Varma, Vikas Swarup and a couple of more writers among us.
Q: Throw some light on tracing Hemingway in Havana, who had a great influence on you…
A: Hemingway is an iconic writer and I visited his home in Havana. There are legends of about his extravagance. They have turned his house into a museum; it has his bars, fishing boats, grave of his pets, guns, boots, African jackets, among many other things. Another thing I found out is that Hemingway used to scribble down his weight in the bathroom daily. Hemingway was easy to track. It is a whole industry.
Q: The book has a strong thread of nostalgia running through it.
A: Whether in the Mumbai piece or about the second-hand book shops, nostalgia is a strong emotion that I induced into my writing. The past is a safe place to fall back. It is there in your head and it gets rosier by the day and each person’s past is their own. I draw upon the past a lot and it’s inevitable for me as a writer.
Q: Any misadventures along the way?
A: That should be the visit to Tolstoy’s estate in 1983 which didn’t happen. Those days, foreigners needed to get a permit to leave Moscow’s city limits, which we didn’t have.
Q: Can we expect a novel from London?
A: Right now, I don’t have an idea about my new project. I have a busy job ahead in London.
