BENGALURU: Life in the times of quarantine is not much different for Bengaluru-based author Roopa Pai, who is currently working on some “passion projects”, like poetry translations, as she takes a sabbatical from writing
Many in the city may now be getting used to a new way of life, but Roopa Pai is not one of them. “As a freelance writer, I work from home in any case, and work in pyjamas mostly, so nothing is very different,” says the writer. She has over 25 books to her credit, including Taranauts, India’s first fantasy adventure series for children. Well before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Pai had decided that she would be taking a sabbatical from writing this year, to spend time on reading and doing other things. “I have finally almost finished a project I have been working on for a couple of years now. This is a collection of 100 poems by the famous Kannada poet, K S Nisar Ahmed, which I have been translating into English,” says Pai.
Pai’s most recent work had her co-authoring a book, Made In India: A Memoir, with Milind Soman. Calling it a wonderful experience, she recalls how over a year and multiple face-to-face interviews, Soman turned into being one of her friends. “Milind is one of those rare human beings, celebrity or otherwise, who is very comfortable in his skin. I learnt a lot, and was impressed, inspired, and entertained by turns,” she says.
Interestingly, though having always known she wanted to write, Pai still pursued an engineering degree at the University Visweswaraya College of Engineering in the city. “When I was growing up, the only two coveted courses, according to many middle-class parents, were medicine and engineering.
So my mother prevailed upon me to get an engineering degree, promising I could do anything I wished after that,” she recalls. And Pai went on to do just that, moving to Delhi after her graduation to pursue her dream job at a children’s magazine. “I moved without my job even being confirmed!,” she adds. But life at her home city came calling again in 2004, with Pai, who refers to herself as a “Bengaluru hudugi”, believing this is the nicest city to live in.
“Bangalore has certainly made me who I am, and I suppose that influences my writing,” she says as she shares the nicest compliment she has received. It came from the principal of “an upmarket Delhi school”, when the author went to talk to his students about The Gita For Children. “He asked me where I was from. When I said Bangalore, he nearly got up and did a jig. ‘I knew it!’, he said.
‘Only someone from Bangalore could have written a book as large-hearted as this’,” she recalls.
Pai’s childhood memories are linked to her alma mater too – Stella Maris School in Vyalikaval. “I was proper front-bencher,” she recounts. “The kind of student who skived off PT, saying I had a stomach ache so that I could sit under a tree and read.”