In his new book, Vikas Swarup writes a morally grey character

Vikas Swarup is back to the world of publishing after 11 long years, but the former diplomat and writer doesn’t miss a beat. Talking about Devi, the heroine of his fourth and latest book The Girl with Seven Lives, he pulls in many of his earlier characters—Ram Mohammad Thomas of Q&A (2005), Shabnam Saxena from Six Suspects(2008), and Sapna Sinha of The Accidental Apprentice (2013)—drawing attention to the similarities and contrasts between their lives, actions and motivations. 

Indeed, The Girl with the Seven Lives—about the adventurous and gritty life of a girl from the slums of Delhi, orphaned at the age of 8—specifically harks back to characters and events from his earlier works. All such references in the new book are seamlessly woven in with the story of Devi and the people she encounters, becoming clever little Easter eggs in Swarup’s universe of social thrillers. 

A conversation with Swarup makes it clear that the focus of his writing has remained the same as it was a decade ago. He still wants to show through his books the colourful, contradictory and confounding realities of India through entertaining and pacey storytelling.

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While Devi’s initial life of poverty is a launchpad for Swarup to set up one of his usually successful underdog stories, the course that the book takes forces Devi to morph into different identities, each not necessarily better than her previous ones. She goes from a life in the slums to one in an affluent neighbourbood to a correctional home and more, living fully immersed in the chapters of her life, each filled with a patchwork of diverse characters.

Through these transitions, Swarup skilfully deploys segue-characters. This helps lend continuity, authenticity and depth to a story that could have quickly descended into a checklist of newsy events—especially since it traverses encounters with notorious godmen, problems in the healthcare sector, fake degree rackets and more. This framing accelerates the book’s pace, offering snapshots of different pockets of India. Given that it is Devi’s abduction and blackmailing that reveals the story of the life (or lives) she has lived, there is the element of mystery thrown in, too. 

While it touches upon the grey areas of revenge and memory, there is little nuance to find in this book—Swarup positions himself as a conscientious entertainer and sticks tightly to that brief. In an interview with Lounge, Swarup talked about writing female protagonists, the chapterisation style unique to his oeuvre, and why he is a fan of closure. Edited excerpts. 

You’ve written a female protagonist before (Sapna in ‘The Accidental Apprentice’) but given her experiences, it seems like Devi required a different sort of imagination. 

Yes, before Sapna, the first female character I tried to write was Shabnam Saxena, one of the suspects in Six Suspects. I enjoyed experimenting with her character in particular, since I conceptualised her in a very non stereotypical way—a Bollywood sex symbol who also quotes Nietzsche. Emboldened by her (success), I went the whole hog in The Accidental Apprentice, and made middle-middle class graduate Sapna Sinha my protagonist. This in turn gave me the confidence to write Devi. 

What I love about female characters is that with them, I get a strong sense of determination as well as vulnerability in one character. When I was conceptualising Sapna, I could tap into my own psyche since she was also a civil services aspirant. But Devi was trickier —I went back to the roots of Q&A since like with Ram Mohammad Thomas, the world is a very unforgiving place for her, she is all alone, and yet she manages to pull herself by her bootstraps. I think at the end of the day, you need empathy to imagine the world from a character’s eyes, and then you create the backdrop and emotions. That’s what I try to do.

All your books have strategic chapter arrangements. In ‘Six Suspects’ too, the arrangement went stage-wise in solving the murder. In ‘Q&A’, it was pegged to the monetary levels in the quiz show. In this one, each chapter is one “life” of Devi. Does this help simplify your world-building process?

Some people call it my USP. Recently, a reader told me that he could read each chapter of the new novel as a separate, self-contained story—so it makes the book accessible, too. 

But yes, I spend time on chapterisation, and it (brings in) world-building from the first page itself. I do this in all my novels because I always want to capture a little bit more of India than a unidimensional narrative would. So, this way, as Devi embarks on different phases of her life in Kerala, in Punjab, Mumbai, Goa, I work in the complexities and diversity of India in each. 

Your work weaves serious social issues into pacey narratives. What is it about the subset of social thrillers that appeals to you over thrillers in general?

The standard airport thriller is pacey, and you’re trying to find out if, say, Los Angeles is nuked. The moment you find out, you throw away the book. Its characters don’t stay with you—it’s all just pure plot. Whereas with a social thriller like The Girl with the Seven Lives, you’re also thinking of the lives of the girls in an observation home, or you’re thinking about the stresses and strains of being a nurse.

Through it all, the protagonist’s inner life is also revealed—she’s musing all the time, whether it’s about the existence of god, what nurses mean for the community, or her relationship with her brother. That’s why I think this blend of intrigue, suspense and emotional intensity of a social thriller works and makes my novels stand out.

This quality has made your books attractive to directors. Your work has been adapted by Danny Boyle (‘Q&A’ as ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, 2008) and Tigmanshu Dhulia (‘Six Suspects’ as ‘The Great Indian Murder’, 2022) before. Has the experience influenced the way you write?

I would be dishonest if I said that the thought that one day, whatever I’m writing at the moment might be a web series or film does not cross my mind. But at the same time, I keep that consciously away. If I set out to write a book that will become a screenplay, it will neither be a good book nor will it be a good screenplay.

Despite the various turns this novel takes, it leaves the reader with hope —whether in the form of resilience, adaptability or the idea of reinvention and new beginnings. This is true of most of your books. What do you want to leave your readers with and why?

All my books end on an optimistic note. One of my favourite authors is (the late American writer) Paul Auster. I love his style and his intricate plots. But he does not believe in resolution at all. I am a slightly different writer, and I believe that if you’ve invested time and money in my book, I cannot leave you hanging. Resolution is important to me. And hope is very important, too because, in a way, all my books are coming-of-age stories as well. 

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Speaking of coming-of-age stories, the protagonist in ‘Seven Lives’ is, unlike many of your previous characters, morally ambiguous. Could you contextualise this choice especially when you’re throwing light on so many social ills? 

Yes, this is the difference from, say, Q&A, where the protagonist had a strong moral compass. While Devi is also animated by a fierce sense of justice here, she is willing to do anything to level the scales. You’ll see that she keeps falling into a life of crime unwillingly—I even have her murdering people.

She doesn’t want to, but every time she tries to rebuild her life the right way, life happens and she loses her pot of gold. She has to start afresh each time. So yes, she’s more morally grey. But as far as she’s concerned—and since the thought that it’s an amoral universe without a god has been drilled into her—she’s judge, jury and executioner. In a way, my challenge was to create a character who’s morally grey, but also one whom readers will ultimately root for.