Interview: Vivek Banerjee

Hi everyone! Please welcome Dr. Vivek Banerjee, author of "The Long Road" for an interview on my blog today. If you recall, I interviewed his book a few days ago.

1. I'd like to begin this interview by asking you what kind of booksare there on your bookshelf? What books are you reading right now? Which genre of books do you generally read? Which books do you re-read again and again?
I am a huge fan of fiction. From classics to adventure to mystery to horror to contemporary Indian English writing, I read them all. I also have Bangla and Hindi books in my bookshelf, though not as many as English ones. The books I have read multiple times are Doctors by Eric Segal, To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee, and almost all books by Jack Higgins, Alister Maclean and Wilbur Smith. I have also read Dan Brown multiple times. For the last two months, I have been busy with the Book Reading Challenge conducted by your blog and Book Readers Lounge. So it has been Indian authors for the last two months.

2. Tell us something about your work before "The Long Road"?I used to blog on Rediff  iLand in its heydays. You can say that I developed confidence in my writing abilities thanks to Rediff  blogs. Many of my early short stories are still posted there.

3. Did you always want to be a writer? How did you get into writing? What inspired you to write "The Long Road"?
I guess I always wanted to be a doctor. Writing was just a whim I developed suddenly. (maybe a part of my bucket list) I was talking on the phone with my old school-teacher Ms. C. Sinha and said that I wanted to write a novel. She kind of encouraged me and I started thinking about it seriously. I started writing blogs, limericks and short stories to test the water. Even The long road started as a serial story on Rediff.( It was titled Doctors, by the way) The response of my co- bloggers to the story was fantastic. I ended the story after the Mumbai attacks when Sarika and Rahul get reunited. This elicited a howl of protest from my readers who wanted me to carry on with the story. I did and thus the book took shape.

4. What kind of people do you think this book will reach out to?It should appeal to the urban Indian reader, the young and the young at heart. I sincerely hope that it does not remain confined to doctors and medical students.

5. What is your favourite thing about books and reading? How havebooks made an impact on your life?Books are wonderful. The best thing about them is that they are always there for you. I have been reading them ever since I learned to read. I believe books have shaped my personality and made me what I am today.

6. Quick take. Answer the following with the first words/phrase that comes to your mind, in five words or less:
- Love – The best feeling ever…
- Life – Do your best…
- Marriage – My biggest strength…
- Medicine (as a profession) – Very taxing but satisfying…
- Books – are everything…


Nothing is impossible. One must dream and do his/ her best in life. I guess the following quote says it all.


Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that
you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
-- Mark Twain

(Sakhi: That is my favorite quote too! As anyone who's ever emailed me would know.)

The Long Road by Dr. Vivek Banerjee

The Long Road is a love story set in a medical college. 

The first thing that struck me about the book is how much it reminds me of Doctors by Eric Segal, which I absolutely adored. One scene in the book, the part about how Sarika in general surgery needs to change in the nurses room because there are no females taking up general surgery that they dont have a seperate changing room for them is eerily similar, though I found it terribly sad that that is still relevant (after all, Doctors was published in 1988 and based in 1962). However, I will admit that I really like stories of young people in medicine (somehow more than IIT or IIM based love stories, perhaps because they've become intensely repetitive at this stage and I enjoy different perspectives). And the best part about this one is that they dont ignore realism - a lot of the characters struggle between ambition and their personal lives, and between love and work, which I actually really enjoyed reading. Their interpersonal friendship, though at places under-deveoped, was also more appealing than the love stories, for me. 


The cast consists of five different people - sweet, innocent, overprotected Hina, rich-rebel Ranjiv, very ambitious and driven Sarika, Rahul, who struggles to find his place in the world, and Sagarika, who is not as well developed as the rest, and gets less story time, but who's story is one of the most satisfying. A lot of the book is based on the interlinking love stories of all the characters - but while I thought the love stories were slightly predictable I enjoyed reading about the other conflicts - how Sarika works to make her marriage work side-by-side with her ambition, how Hina struggles against her parents and eventually develops into someone quite different from who she was in the beginning, how Sagarika (why do the characters have such similar names?) learns to adjust to the newest changes in her life. Some conflicts were resolved a little too easily, and too many because of calamities, but I guess calamities have their power to, I quote Bernard Shaw here, " break down all likes and dislikes, and throw them both back on their common humanity" and therefore that part of the story makes sense as well. 


Some things that I didnt like as much - at places the writing seemed very forced and there is too much telling as opposed to showing. On the other hand, the book is short and fast-paced and zips past very fast. I really liked the chapter heading and certain special chapters - like the chapters where Sagarika writes back to Rahul in an email, and the beginning of the book, are truly gems. The first chapter, for example, is set in an extremely turbulent time and will grip you and make you want to read more about the characters when you dont even know them. The book is about love, life and friendship in a difficult time and a difficult course, and as such it does well in portraying the conflicts that assail these people in young India. 


Final thoughts: A tale chronicling the (mostly romantic) struggles of five medical students in India. Fast paced and different - definitely worth a read. 


Other thoughts: Did I also mention I finished Eric Segal's "The Class" recently? I have to post a reply of that. Also of Mitch Albom's "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" and the first book of the Percy Jackson series, as well as many books currently in my bookshelf. Keep a look out!
Also, I'll be interviewing author Vivek Banerjee soon here!


(Financial disclosure: Book source is the author.)