Amitabha Bagchi's debut novel Above Average tells the tale of a middle-class Delhi boy navigating IIT’s pressures, friendship, and first love. Nearly two decades later, Unknown City returns to that world as its protagonist, now fifty, reckons with past relationships and the elusive truths of the heart. It takes that gaze further inward, examining masculinity, memory, and the many anxieties that shape contemporary India. Across these works, Bagchi interrogates ambition, identity, and the passage of time with unflinching honesty.
His books have been shortlisted for awards like the Sahitya Akademi Award, The Hindu Literary Prize and the Crossword Book Award. I sat down with him for a conversation about his creative process, the evolving urban landscape, and what it means to write honestly.
Simran Pavecha: If you had only one word to describe the feeling of having written Above Average and and now Unknown City, what would it be?
Amitabh Bagchi: When I finished Above Average, I remember feeling exhilarated because it was my first novel. The biggest question with a first novel is always: Will I even finish this? And when I did, it felt unbelievable—like I was walking on air, thinking, Wow, I actually did it! With Unknown City, though, when I finished writing, I just felt relieved, like putting down a heavy weight. That’s the difference. That’s how things change over time.
Whenever I finish writing a book—this being my fifth now—there’s always a sense of putting down a burden. It’s like something I’ve carried for so long has finally been expressed, and now, I can take a moment to rest.
SP: Why does Unknown City exist? What made you write it?
AB: That’s a good question.
In 2017, I finished writing Half the Night is Gone, which was published in 2018. For a couple of years after that, I thought I should write a sequel to it, especially since the book had done well and won an award. But I just couldn’t do it. It wasn’t happening. Then the pandemic came, and like everyone else, I turned inward. Half the Night is Gone was about the nation, about our relationships with each other, and about politics in a certain way. But in the years that followed, the politics of the nation also took a turn that I couldn’t quite make sense of.
So, between that and everything else, I started thinking about things I had emotionally swept under the carpet over the years. During the pandemic, I jotted down some notes here and there. Then, in early 2023—about two years ago—I was working on another novel, but it wasn’t going anywhere. So I turned to those notes I had made about my time in the US, and I started writing.
And suddenly, I had this moment of realization: I’ve been resisting the idea of writing a sequel to Above Average because I always assumed it would follow the same male characters into their older years. But this? This is what feels like the sequel. So I wrote it because this was the book I could write. And the more I wrote, the more it pulled me in. And, well, you’ve read it; so you’ve seen where that led.
SP: I think Unknown City is a very fitting sequel to Above Average. I also took a pause between both books, trying to understand how this one would be different. Like you, I initially thought you’d continue with the same characters, but after finishing Unknown City, it makes so much more sense. Reading both books together adds so many new layers.
AB: True.
SP: Beyond what you've already said about why you wrote Unknown City. I feel that there are similarities between you and Arindam, right? On a personal level, does this novel feel significant in a different way?
AB: There are two things here. One, as a writer, there’s always this question: Can I? Or rather, can any male writer write female characters and make them real? I once had a heated argument with a journalist over a female character in The Householder. She told me my female characters were nonsense. And I was like, Look, I’m trying my best! Give a guy a break! We went back and forth about it, but honestly, that question never left me.
I’ve always felt I can’t claim to write female characters just because I want to. If I’m going to do it, I have to work harder. I have to write with greater humility. And I have to ask myself: What stops men from writing women well? Am I stuck with those same blind spots? How do I work through them? That’s the struggle.
But these questions keep showing up in my books because writing is how I process the larger questions too. If I’m thinking about how men misunderstand women, I’m also thinking about how we misunderstand each other all the time—across caste, religion, class, gender. And we don’t want to admit it. Because if I admit I’ve misunderstood someone, then I have to go back, unlearn my assumptions, and do the actual work of understanding. That’s uncomfortable. And once you start, you run into another hard question: What I want from this interaction—am I even entitled to it? Maybe I’m not. Maybe I don’t deserve it. And then what?
There’s innocent misunderstanding, and then there’s willful misunderstanding. The dangerous thing is, you don’t always know which one you’re doing. You think you misunderstood innocently—until you realize, no, you saw all the signs and ignored them because they didn’t suit you.
So where does that leave me? It leaves me with this responsibility: In the relationships I have now, I have to stop myself from doing that. I have to say: What I want is only half the equation. What do you want? And from there, maybe a different kind of relationship can emerge—a healthier one. You know what I mean?
SP:: For Arindam, back in Above Average—when it was first published 18 years ago—his masculinity was shaped by the time he lived in. A lot of Unknown City is also probing masculinity, with Arindam reflecting on how his gender has shaped every part of his life and his relationships. In your view, what’s missing in the current conversation around masculinity? Your book stands out for me because it’s messy—it doesn’t always make the reader comfortable. So, how do you see Unknown City fitting into this larger, ongoing conversation?
AB: It was definitely not my intention to make anyone comfortable. I mean, why else are we writing novels, right? But I'll offer you a guess as to what’s missing in the conversation around masculinity.
We have this normative concept of a "person"—a general, universal human being. But often, when people talk about "men," they say "person", but when they talk about women, they make it explicit: "woman." If we insist that personhood should only be used as a concept when it includes both men and women—then we’re actually talking about something real. Then we can have a real conversation.
There was a school of thought in second-wave feminism—the radical feminists—who argued that gender is the primary way humans are divided. But in India, feminists in the ’80s and ’90s found that solidarity didn’t always work like that. A Dalit woman, for instance, might feel a stronger bond with a Dalit man than with an upper-caste woman. But let's say you’re a radical feminist critic. You pick up a book and read it explicitly as a book about masculinity—analyzing how it constructs and reveals ideas about manhood. That’s an approach I respect. That’s a way of engaging with the text directly. So if you ask me what’s missing in the conversation on masculinity, I think this is what’s missing.
From the very first day I wrote Above Average, I was clear about one thing: this is a book about men. That’s why there weren’t a lot of female characters. And sure, some people thought I was just covering up my weaknesses. But for me, it was simple—how could I claim to write women when I didn’t know enough? But I was sure about men. I had spent my entire life steeped in the world of men, whether in India or later in the US, where I was in a computer science department, again, a largely male space. So I would suggest that if we’re talking about masculinity, we start from here—by decentering men.
Back in 2004, when I was writing Above Average, it was easier to have this conversation. But today, gender identity has opened up so much that even talking about the binary of men and women feels outdated. But here’s the thing. The fact that these new gender categories exist should actually help us realize that many people are still working with the older categories of "man" and "woman." Now that we can see those as categories, we should be asking: What does it mean that "man" has been treated as more normative than "woman"?And where does that leave us today?
SP: I agree entirely. We're still stuck at the 'men can cry' stage of the conversation in masculinity. Men ultimately have to grapple with their manhood in this world that advantages them, whether they asked for it or not. Like you said, you’ve existed in that experience, so you might as well examine it and make something of it.
Linked to this is another question: We live in a time where everything—climate crisis, identity, politics—feels urgent and overwhelming. But do you ever feel pressured to make your novels 'explicitly of the moment'? Do you begin with a question? Or is it a theme that compels you? Or does it start with a character you want to bring to life?
AB: You know, there’s this Hindi humorist, Harishankar Parsai, who was often criticized for writing “too topically.” People told him, Your work won’t last because it’s too tied to current events. He had a simple response: If you can’t be faithful to your own time, how can you be faithful to all times?
Fair enough, right? Then there’s another school of thought—writers who say—These are the biggest problems of our time, we must write about them. Amitav Ghosh, for instance, has been saying that a lot of our literature today should be about climate change.
But I’m not driven by those ideas. I’m here, talking to you, and you’re asking, Why did you write this book? What’s the larger purpose? Like, I’m a 50-year-old man with a gray beard—I must be saying something important, right? Because that’s what 50-year-old men do. They write about “important” things.
But that’s not how it works for me. My writing has always been about what’s on my mind. Writing is a process that means something to me personally; I can’t do without it. For example, in 2022, I published a book of translations of Munir Niazi’s ghazals. At the time, I had recently won the DSC Prize for Literature. I took these translations to my publisher, and thankfully, they agreed to publish them, largely because I was an established, award-winning novelist.
But my editor looked at me and said, You’re a successful novelist, and now you’re translating poetry? Your status is going down! You’re moving from "award-winning writer" to "translator." What are you doing? And I was just like, what are you even talking about? I do understand the framework in which it makes sense. But for me, it didn’t make sense.
I translated Munir Niazi because I loved his poetry. I couldn’t get his words out of my head. My wife literally said to me, Boss, you’re driving me mad with this Munir Niazi obsession. Just translate him and get it out of your system. So I did. And that’s how I write books, too.
Naipaul, in his Nobel lecture, said that when you start a book, you begin with a very small idea. You have no clue where it will lead. And in those early stages, you feel incredibly small. You sit there thinking, Is this even going to work? What am I doing? At first, you’re just struggling to get to the next page. Then, many thousands of words later, something clicks. You get your hands on the book—you feel like, okay, I can do this now. And even then, it’s a battle.
For Half the Night is Gone, I got stuck at 42,000 words—and I stayed stuck there for 18 months. I’d open the document, see that number, and close it again. So, whatever is troubling and compelling me in that moment, that’s what I follow. My hope is that it resonates with readers and helps them think about something important. But I don’t have the hubris to believe that if I write about something, it will change the world. That’s not what literature is for, at least, not for me.
SP: It’s not a perspective you hear often, to be honest.
AB: No, but Simran, the problem is that right now, I’m talking to you and you want to publish something about me, so I have to present myself as if I’m “all that.” The real issue is that we’re constantly being asked to present ourselves; to create a version of ourselves that isn’t entirely true. You think the so-called “big shots” out there—the ones projecting confidence—aren’t dealing with their own anxieties? Of course, they are.
But at the moment of presentation, we have to show something else. And that, ultimately, diminishes us. This is happening to everyone now because we constantly present ourselves on social media. This endless self-presentation naturally encourages dishonesty. If you spend enough time being dishonest to others, you will eventually start believing the lie yourself.
SP: Absolutely. A lot of people struggle to even spend ten minutes alone with themselves these days.
AB: Exactly. In Unknown City, you’ll notice that there are many moments where Arindam says something, and then later, when he looks back at it, he realizes: Wait, I wasn’t entirely correct. Even someone who fundamentally desires to be honest ends up embedding some level of dishonesty into what they say. Because it’s not even easy to be honest, even if you want to be. And if you don’t even want to be? Well, then where does that leave us? This is what the book is about: the nature of honesty.
SP: Who do you typically write for?
AB: Walter Benjamin once said that one of the best ways to acquire books is to write them yourself. In that sense, I think I’ve always been writing the books that I wish existed. For example, when I was fifteen, I read The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh, and I thought, Wow, if this guy can write this kind of book, then maybe I can be a writer too. But if you look at Amitav's career, after The Shadow Lines, he went on to explore colonialism, postcolonial societies, global histories. But what really fascinated me about The Shadow Lines wasn’t all that; it was the middle-class home in Kolkata that he depicted. I found that world utterly absorbing. But Ghosh himself wasn’t as interested in it and he moved on to other things. So I wanted to write a book where that part of the story was expanded. And when I started writing that book, it turned into Above Average.
It started in Mayur Vihar, the colony where I grew up. As I wrote, those colony stories kept expanding until suddenly, I realized: Wait a minute, versions of these same stories are playing out in IIT too. It started in the colony and moved to IIT, not the other way around. I wanted to see that world in literature, and when I couldn’t find it, I wrote it.
SP: I noticed that in Above Average, you used the term middle class without any emphasis. But in Unknown City, there’s a page where it’s written as 'middle class.' Why? Is that intentional to show an evolution if your understanding the term itself?
AB: Really? Hmm. I think when I was writing Above Average, the concept of 'middle class' felt settled in people’s minds. But over the past 5–10 years, it’s become clear that what we thought of as 'middle class' isn’t actually middle anymore. I actually prefer to call it the salaried class now. Because if you look at income distributions, the people who identify as middle class are actually much higher up the scale. And the sheer prominence of the super-rich in today’s world distorts our perception of where we stand. You watch an Ambani wedding, and suddenly, you feel poor. But in reality, you’re not poor; it's just that wealth inequality has become more visible than ever before.
So yes, the 'middleness' of the middle class is under question. And it’s also about values. What people thought of as 'middle-class values' are also being challenged now. For example, Krishna Sobti—one of my favorite Hindi writers—always defended the middle class. She wrote in the ’70s, ’80s, and 2000s, at a time when Hindi literature had a very left-wing sensibility. Among those circles, the bourgeoisie was looked down upon. But Sobti stood apart. She said, The middle class taught me how to live. I am not ashamed of it. Today, we’ve come full circle. We reject the bourgeoisie in new ways, even while we remain part of it. There’s a kind of hypocrisy in that. So maybe, by putting 'middle class' in quotes, I’ve also fallen into that same hypocrisy.
SP: That’s interesting. Arindam, across both books, places much emphasis on documentation—emails, conversations, letters. For him, as a writer, those archives are a way to re-experience the past, even briefly. In today’s world, though, communication is entirely different. We exchange hundreds of messages daily with no real structure. Does that affect the writer?
AB: There are a few things here. First, from Proust onwards, and even before that, writers have always grappled with the nature of memory. It’s one of the primary questions in literature: How do\we remember? What do we misremember? That line by L.P. Hartley, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there”—it captures the idea that memory is never entirely reliable.
In Arindam’s case, we see this play out in two ways. First, he begins to realize that his own narratives of his past have flaws. So once he recognizes that, the question becomes: Where is he finding these flaws? And if he suspects them, how does he rectify them? The only real option he has to go back and find authentic artifacts from that time and compare them to his memory. That forces him to ask: If I remember this event in one way, but the words on the page say something else, then what exactly am I remembering?
The second aspect is Arindam’s relationship with Supriya. She’s a historian, a real one, in the sense that she works with documents, archives, evidence. Of course, like all historians, she also constructs narratives, choosing what’s relevant to her present moment. Arindam, on the other hand, is a fiction writer. He works with memory, with interpretation, with feeling. So there’s an interesting tension between them because even archival historians acknowledge that archives are incomplete. They’re only a small window into the past.
In that sense, the book is about remembering, and about how memory and history interact. And I totally agree with you. I myself don’t save emails anymore. Maybe the ones in Gmail exist, and sometimes I search for old ones, but messages on phones? They just disappear. A large part of our daily archive is lost now. So if Arindam, 20 years from now, were to look back at this time in his life, he wouldn’t have the same kind of written record to refer to. Is that a loss? Maybe. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe we shouldn’t be carrying around the weight of the past so much.
Simran Pavecha: That’s fair. But do you think this puts writers today at a disadvantage? Writing is, more often than not, borrowing from life in some way. And if memory itself is becoming more short-lived, if we live in a state of constant amnesia, does that not impact how we tell stories?
Amitabh Bagchi: If someone is truly a writer, then they will find ways to collect and store their thoughts. You don’t 'become' a writer just because you publish something. Being a writer is more like a way of life. Or, as Rilke said in Letters to a Young Poet, "don’t write poetry unless you absolutely have to." And if you absolutely have to, that means you’re receptive to words, text, music, film, and the world around you.
I never used to do it when I was younger, but my wife, who is also a novelist, always did. A writer will find a way. Unless, of course, your argument is something more extreme: that this very way of thinking, of noticing, of writing itself will die out. Which I highly doubt.
SP: I work with many young writers, and even jotting down a random thought—however imperfect—is becoming harder. Writing demands slowness and deep engagement, yet we live in an age of doomscrolling, hyper-connectivity, and distraction. How do you sustain a craft that is fundamentally at odds with the speed and nature of modern life? How do you sustain it?
AB: I think the wrong word here is loyalty. Nothing—whether writing or anything else—deserves loyalty. If something has meaning, it should exist. If it doesn’t, it should stop. Tell me this: even today, in the age of doomscrolling, aren’t people still going out to play football for an hour? Aren’t they still going for a run? That’s all it takes. Not everyone will do it, but that’s fine. Think of it this way. A kid goes out to play football because they enjoys it. But how many of them become Ronaldo? Hardly any. But that’s not the point.
Now, you are in that space—working with young writers. But you’re not grooming the next great novelist. You’re simply creating a place where they can write, explore, and engage with words. If you gather 100 people and tell them, Write something, we’ll publish it on Youth Ki Awaaz and people will read it, what happens? Out of those 100, maybe one or two will take to writing for a lifetime. Another 20 or so will develop a meaningful relationship with writing, even if they don’t write much themselves. The remaining 70? They may never write again, but they will be better off for having been part of the process. They will be educated. And that matters.
Just like a kid who plays football three times a week; even if they never go pro, it still shapes their life in some way. Someone who plays football regularly is always going to be fitter than someone who doesn’t. And that’s the real impact. Not just the handful of people who become great writers, but all the others who engage with writing and live slightly better lives because of it. So we just have to find ways to work around the distractions.
At the end of the day, it comes down to a straightforward question: What do you value? But if you’re asking how to convince others to value it, then I’m probably the wrong person to answer that. I’ve spent years writing books that are difficult to read. I know that. Look, in 2005, Chetan Bhagat’s first book came out. I had to hear much about it because we were in the same hostel at IIT. And the truth is that he was writing in a way that was incredibly accessible. And I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to write the kind of books I wanted to write. Even with Unknown City, I want people to read it, engage with it, and talk about it. But at the same time, I know I’m going to keep writing long sentences and throwing in references that make it more complex. Because while I’m writing, I don’t care if it’s difficult. I need to write it the way it needs to be written. But once it’s written, then I think, okay, now I want people to engage with it. So yes, you can call it a conundrum. But it is what it is.
SP: Personally, as a reader, I love that because it makes for a very immersive experience. For example, in Unknown City, all the sher (couplets), the Rabbi Shergill references, and the 'digressions' work so well. Maybe I wouldn’t like them as much elsewhere, but here, it feels like pulling the reader into your thought process with your long sentences and then releasing that tension through a sher. It creates a different kind of rhythm for the reader.
What’s one “bad habit” you think all writers should embrace? And why might it actually improve their craft?
AB: I’d say—being bored. When I was younger, I was constantly bored. And I think that was a very good thing. Today, boredom is almost impossible. There’s always something to distract yourself with. But boredom is essential. The best thing about being in an IIT was how often I found myself just sitting around, doing nothing, chatting with friends, because we were bored. And that was fantastic. Or just letting your mind wander. Not trying to be productive, not consuming something, just existing in that space. Nowadays, whenever I say I’m bored, my wife congratulates me. If one of us says, “I’m bored,” the other one says, “Good! That’s great news.” Doing nothing is something everyone should do. There should be a little bit of nothingness in daily life.
SP: Sounds 'radical' in today's world. But I couldn't agree more. Applies to writers and everyone else. If you could give one piece of advice to a young writer struggling, not just with their craft, but with the sheer chaos of the world, what would it be?
AB: It’s simple but hard to do. A writer’s job is to create a little bit of stillness inside themselves—and then breathe it out onto the page. There’s this American writer, Lawrence Weschler, who wrote an essay about Vermeer. He was in Amsterdam, covering the International Court of Justice trials for the Bosnian war crimes. He was surrounded by the horror of what had happened in Bosnia. In the middle of all that, he visited the Rijksmuseum, where he saw Vermeer’s paintings 'The Girl with the Pearl Earring, View of Delft.' And suddenly, he realized something: Vermeer’s world was also incredibly violent. There were death, war, and disease. And yet, when you look at his paintings, you feel this deep sense of stillness and serenity.
So Weschler wrote something of a manifesto for artists: Create that moment of stillness inside you, and then let it out into the world. It’s not easy. But that’s the job.
And the other thing: don’t be in a hurry. Nothing happens overnight. It’s okay to be impatient, but don’t rush. It will happen if you want it badly enough. If you love language enough. Because that’s the other thing—you must love language. In Unknown City, I mention this analogy: Go to a cricket field and watch the players in the nets. Someone throws a ball; someone hits it. They can do that all day long. Not because they are cricketers but because they love cricket.
It’s the same with writing. It’s not that you become a writer, and then you start engaging with language. It’s because you naturally engage with language, observe conversations, and enjoy playing with words—that’s why you are a writer. If you spend enough time doing that, your voice will show itself and develop.
If you look at the structure of Above Average, it’s written in the mode of someone telling stories about people they used to know. Some critics say, “It’s nonlinear, it moves back and forth in time.” But if you think about how we actually tell stories, that’s precisely how we do it. When you’re talking about someone you used to know, you don’t tell their story in strict chronological order. You remember bits and pieces; you go back and forth. That’s how oral storytelling works.
Writers should get over the idea that written language must look and feel a certain way. If you have a story to tell, imagine you’re telling it to a friend, and write it like that. It will sound good because it will sound real. After that, simple grammar fixes, minor edits, and restructuring can refine it. But the core of it, your voice and its authenticity, will remain. I always encourage people to write the way they speak. And from there, the journey can begin.