I do not write for a greater cause: Durjoy Datta

“Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!/Roma-roma-mamaa!/ Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!/ Want your bad romance.” These lines by Lady Gaga in her song Bad Romance is what plays on my mind every time I pick up one of Durjoy Dutta’s books. Like the song, which talks about being fatally attracted to those with whom romances never work, most of Datta’s books are about tortured romances.

Sixteen-year-old Raghu Ganguly, the protagonist of Datta’s latest book, The boy who loved, has suicidal tendencies, unreal expectations and an inexplicable need to pursue his parents’ happiness. Datta’s characters are surely flawed, contain within themselves a propensity for drama and Datta, who has already written 13 books, wouldn’t have it any other way.

“My stories revolve around drama; all the other kind of romances have been done. I would get bored with regular characters. A lot of us grew up with the notion that romance is all puppies, rainbows and cupcakes. Many believe it is an all-conquering force which would solve all problems. What many don’t realise is that there is work required to sustain a relationship,” adds Datta.

Datta’s characters are never heroes and it is likely that some of them will make you cringe. “I do not treat my characters as heroes. They have characteristics which are in all of us. Some of them have not-so-nice traits and in that case, I make sure someone in the story points it out to them. It’s not that each protagonist is a perfect embodiment of love. I give the readers a chance to reject, love or empathise with the character,” he says.

“Raghu Ganguly has been drawn from myself and my friends when we were around the same age. It was a time when people hadn’t formed their personalities yet and the protagonist’s suicidal trait comes from those around me. A lot of people I know could choose death as a likely form of escape from the world,” says Datta.

Datta is your quintessential achiever – completed his schooling from Bal Bharti in Pitampura, went on to complete his mechanical engineering from Delhi Technological University, worked for a couple of years and did his Masters in business administration from a college in Gurgaon. He then worked at American Express for six months before deciding to quit and focus on writing full time in 2012. His first book, Of Course I love you, was released in 2008 when he was in his final year of engineering. Next year another book was published. Then, between 2010 and 2012, three more books were out.

“I had begun blogging around 2006. It was a craze then and all of us used to. Another one of my DTU classmates, Sachin Garg, who used to blog then, also has a few books to his credit,” says Datta, adding that writing is an addiction for him.

“There’s a kick in being able to tell stories. I like it when people can visualise a world through my stories. I do not write for a greater cause. I like that I can engage a person for two-three hours. It is a good feeling,” says Datta whose The Girl of my Dreams features a writer obsessed with a girl who shows up constantly in his dreams. Datta, being a sentimental being, tries to name his protagonists with D and A. Avantika is his wife’s name and D, we can guess. “Sometimes the name changes in the end,” adds Datta.

“Earlier I used to have a sort of a routine; now I write any time. I have fixed a word limit of 500 each day. It is easy to fall off the wagon and not write for a week or longer but I try to avoid doing it. Even on holidays, I find time to write. I write best on flights where I can’t do anything but look in one direction. Keeping me away from the Internet is the best way I work,” says Datta.

Even though Datta initially says that he “absolutely wings it” when it comes to developing each character, he goes on to add that each character is roughly etched before he begins writing and then he allows the story to take flight.

“Usually the central character has one dominant trait. In case of Raghu, he is 100 per cent about the family. For him, the family is sacred and he could have been this person who would want his parents to pick a girl, but then life changes. In World’s Worst Best Boyfriend, one of the protagonists, Dhruv, is someone who believes that everything revolves around what went wrong in his life. It is easy to hate him; almost everyone is likely to hate him,” says Datta, who reads books by Stephen King, Jhumpa Lahiri and Ramchandra Guha among others. “I go through phases; currently it is Steig Larrson, Thomas Harris and Perumal Murugan,” adds Datta.

Around 23 lakh copies of his books have been sold till date and his books have consistently been among the top 10 selling books for a few years now. But, these sales hardly dampen critics. “Opinions and reviews don’t affect me much. One bad review equals 1,000 good reviews. So, it is always balanced out. I have learnt what kind of criticism works for me and what doesn’t. There are people who say, ‘He should stop writing, but since that isn’t going to happen, it doesn’t matter,” adds Datta.

Writing books isn’t his only vocation. He has written screenplays for 1,000 episodes for around nine shows. He is currently working on the screenplay for Kuchh Rang Pyaar ke Aise Bhi, a series on Sony TV.

It might seem all easy now, but Datta insists it always wasn’t so. Six of his books have been co-authored with either Nikita Singh or Maanvi Ahuja. Datta says it is because he wasn’t sure of his voice initially. “I wasn’t sure if it was funny enough or serious enough. As I got sure of my voice, I stopped writing with another person,” comes his candid confession.

Datta’s The boy who loved is the first part in a two-part series, which “might spill over into more books”, but he has left that decision to his editor Vaishali Mathur. The second part of it is due in January 2018 and that is why he will be going to only 12 or 14 cities over a period of three months. “Last time we went to around 20 cities, but no one knows whether these promotions work. Either you go all out like Amish Tripathi, where your name is all over. Or you wait to see what your publisher suggests. I have never had a PR team except when I wrote the book Hold My Hand in partnership with Hong Kong tourism,” says Datta.

Datta surely has come a long way from no book launches for his first six books to promotional tours covering more than 20 cities. He is still surprised when people turn up for his book launches. What used to be sober, quiet events are now much more interactive and vibrant affairs. Maybe this reflects the world outside of books.