LOVERS ARE NOT PEOPLE
Reviews
'A detective story of the heart, written with wit
and compassion, about the mystery called love and
marriage' - Evan Rhodes.
-Murari’s smoothly paced, straightforward style
involves you quickly in the characters who come alive
on the pages. There is a good deal of subtle humour
too which, coupled with the sleuthing and subterfuge
makes the novel an enjoyable book. MIAMI DAILY
HERALD.
If this was typical late- ‘70s women’s
novel, Shelley Warwick would give her wandering husband
his divorce, go to consciousness-raising classes,
start a new career, have some affairs and find herself
and maybe even a new man.
But there are dozens of those novels now, so
Timeri Murari has wisely changed the story line. Shelley
Warwick, still attractive at 3,8, still in love, is
the proud daughter of a British general, and she sets
out to conquer her David back. .
David has vanished, but some clever sleuthing
thing puts her on the trail of him and his new love,
a not-so-sweet young thing named Candy. The story
is clever and the scenes are often amusing.
It soon becomes clear that if David isn't smart
enough to choose his plucky wife over Candy, he doesn't
deserve her anyway. Murari has created a fine, very
real portrait of a woman in Shelley, and he avoids
the stereotypes that could easily sink this kind of
novel. Shelley's parents, for example, although they
never liked David, don't say "I told you so"
when they hear he is gone. Her mother hugs her; her
father provides the military strategy for the war
against Candy. And even David turns out to be surprisingly
human. DETROIT FREE PRESS.
(FOR FURTHER REVIEWS SCROLL DOWN PAST THE INTERVIEW)
India Abroad January 2, 2004 the magazine
ENCOUNTER
Love
with an English flavor
Shobha
Warrier
speaks to Timeri N Murari, whose 25-year-old
novel is making a comeback in Hollywood
 |
In 1978, when Timeri N Murari was a journalist
with The Guardian, he wrote Lovers Are Not People.
He had just moved from London to New York. Twenty-five
years later Carlton America, the Hollywood film production
company, is recreating his novel as a contemporary
film.
The novel, written in the first person, is
the account of a wife whose husband deserts her and
their two young children for a younger woman. Instead
of letting him go, the jilted wife resolves to bring
him back. Playing detective, she learns he has gone
to America with the young girl. She follows him to
New York, befriends the girl, undermines the relationship
and wins back her husband.
Murari has written the novel - a love story
of disappointment, possible divorce and emotional
entanglement - in the form of a romantic comedy. There
is nothing Indian about his novel. The husband and
wife are British and the mistress, an American. New
York provides the setting, for a drama ideal for Hollywood.
"It came out of an emotional experience
I had been through," recalls Murari, 62, who
in 1959, moved to London from Madras to study engineering
but found his calling in writing. "I had just
moved from London to New York and had been away from
India for a long time. The characters came through
naturally as English and American." Since the
story was the written as the woman's first person
account, Murari felt she had to be an English woman.
In 1963, after studying at a university in
Montreal and freelancing for The Guardian, Murari
joined a newspaper, in Kingston as a reporter. "I
was very lucky to have got my first job," he
recalls. "Most papers were not willing to hire
an Indian. They were very prejudiced against Asians
at that time. "
In six months the new editor sacked him. "I
was the only Indian in the newsroom but when I was
fired, the rest of the staff was ready to go on strike
against racial prejudice." But he dissuaded them
and returned London to join The Guardian.
Looking back, he feels The Guardian had perhaps published
his articles unaware that an Indian wrote them. "From
my name, nobody could make out my Indian identity," he laughs. Murari feels other British journalists
accepted him only because he played good cricket.
The only other Indian working with The Guardian
then was cartoonist Abu Abraham, whom Murari remembers
as a "very charming, friendly man, always there
for you with advice." Abraham, who died last
year, once told him, 'I would like to see people like
you in India rather than your talent being used here.'
Once
he left England, Murari was struck by the difference
between the America of the 1970S and the England of
the 1960s. "America was a more open society,
and much easier to get on with because it never had
colonial ties with India," he reasons. "The
British had prejudices against India because they
had ruled India. There was a lot of racial prejudice
there, and I wanted to escape that. "
He
wrote Lovers Are Not People during his stay in New
York. About four years ago, William Blaylock, a Hollywood
producer and Murari's friend, read the novel and wanted
to make a film out of it. Taylor Hackford, the director
of well known films like An Officer And A Gentleman,
was to direct it and Murari went as far as writing
a screenplay. But the project fizzled out.
"After
that, I had forgotten completely about the novel and
the project," he says. "Then I got an email
from William [saying] that somebody else is interested
in the project and [inquiring] whether the rights
were available. I said yes, and the contract was signed. "
For
copyright reasons, Murari is not writing the screenplay
for the new project. Scripting began in Hollywood
in December. Casting is due in February and the film
will be ready for release by fall.
Love,
betrayal and retribution are these not ingredients
for a wholesome Indian film? In fact, not
long ago, one-of Murari's' friends thought Lovers
Are Not People was ideal for a Tamil film.
"It
did not materialize," he says. "You know
the kind of films that are made [in India]. Efforts
to attract Hindi film producers also did not [work].
I am happy that it is not going to be a Hindi film.
Commercial elements in Hindi involve six songs, six
dances, etc. At least in Hollywood, she [the wife]
will not be made to dance around New York! I am happy
that it is going to be a Hollywood film!"
He has
his reasons to be peeved with the Hindi film industry.
In his only stint with Hindi films, Daayra (1996)
starring Nirmal Pandey playing a transsexual and Sonali
Kulkarni, he ran into disagreements with director
Amol Palekar.
"(Daayra)
was the second crossover film to reach the Western
audience after [Shekhar Kapur's] Bandit Queen but
it did better than Bandit Queen in France and England,"
Murari recalls. "I would have loved to direct
the film but I didn't have the experience and the
film financiers wanted a name known to the film field.
That was how Amol Palekar came in. I gave him a full
script. The film was a disappointment in one context
that Palekar changed the end, which I didn't like
at all. He killed the cross dressed man in such a
stupid way. But it was very satisfying in the context
that all the reviews that came out barely mentioned
Palekar but mentioned me, the writer, which is very
rare in the film business. Time magazine voted it
as one of the top ten best films of 1997 and in their
review, they only mentioned me!"
To compensate
for the disappointment, he directed" the same
story as a play titled The Square Circle for the Leicester
Haymarket theater. Murari says it was an extremely
satisfying experience directing Parminder Nagra (before
she became famous for Bend It Like Beckham) and Rahul
Bose as the transsexual. "I thoroughly enjoyed
directing the play. I had a very talented cast. Parminder's
role was a very demanding, emotional and physical
role and poor Parminder had to do it night after night.
In the no-minute play, she is there on stage all the
time."
His
association with Hollywood is not going to end with
Lovers Are Not People. Another novel, Field of Honor,
set in Bangalore in 1952 "in a time when India
just became independent and was changing," might
appear as a Hollywood film soon.
Since
1973, when his first book Marriage, a work of fiction
set in England, was published, Murari has written
over a dozen fiction and non-fiction books. He returned
to Chennai in 1988 when his father fell ill and now
lives there with his Australian wife.
Initially,
the reader feels compassion for Shelley, the prototype
of the abandoned woman, the classic case of one who
devoted herself to the rearing or children and the
pleasuring of husband. But that sympathy quickly turns
to admiration, respect, a liking for another human
being. And a surprising fact is that the male, Indian
born author could so effortlessly delve into the psyche
of a woman from such a different culture.
The
title may put readers of until, well into the book.
Shelley, recalling her honeymoon in Paris, states,
"We had spent the occasional night together before,
but then we were lovers and lovers are not people.
They are the dreaming spirits within us that awake
and take possession or our bodies.” ASBURG
PARK PRESS
-Something completely different. SHE.
Published: US,UK, Germany, Holland.
