In 2016, there were fires at Deonar, Mumbai, and waste-pickers began getting detained and questioned by the police. Saumya Roy thought of writing a piece showing that it was our waste that made this dizzyingly high, combustible place. She tells Medha Dutta Yadav that this research finally grew into a book project.
Tell us about this story.
I first met the waste-pickers of Deonar in the summer of 2013. I was sceptical of how they would use our loans to grow their businesses and began following them back to their homes, warehouses, walking up the slopes of their growing and expanding employer—the garbage mountains. This is how they and their stories began to settle in me.
You received various fellowships to finish this book. How did these opportunities help you?
It helped to process and distill the world of the mountains, the waste-pickers who inhabit them and to think of what this meant for us, how it reflected our lives. Residencies also gave me the gift of watching writers—more accomplished than me—and polished my craft.
Mountain Tales is a work of non-fiction, yet it’s an act of storytelling.
I would not say that I consciously cultivated it. It was as best as I could to bring to life the people, the place and the tangles that keep this place growing and the small joys and unspoken trauma that come from living here.
Who have been your early influences?
I’ve been a reader for much of my life. This book came from my being immersed in this world. I’ve read and reread John Steinbeck, Gabriel García Márquez, Naguib Mahfouz and others.
The book discusses some very important issues. What were the challenges you faced?
I needed to show these people and their lives but also the social attitudes, the policy challenges and court delays that allow such a place to grow. I almost alternated the chapters to show the backdrop against which the lives unfold.
What has been your biggest takeaway?
I would love for these people and their spirited characters to stay within the reader just as they have in me. I would love the reader to spend time in this world—feel its darkness, its joy and the unspoken trauma of living here.
What next?
The book is out in the US on September 7, as Castaway Mountain. Besides, I am also writing articles that stem from the research.