Mirza Waheed on exploring intense father-daughter relationship in third book

Kashmiri novelist and former journalist Mirza Waheed did not attend the Jaipur Literature Festival in January, even though his third book, Tell Her Everything, came out this year. "I do not go to many festivals. I stay home with my two kids," says the London-based Waheed, during a trip to Delhi. His son is nine, and daughter, four. "I am not going to get a second chance. My daughter is not going to be four again. I am old enough to realise that it is the most important thing. The choice is very clear," says Waheed, 45.

Unlike the central character Dr K in his new novel, Waheed would never send his children off to boarding school. Tell Her Everything is about an intensely felt father-daughter relationship, written in the format of a rehearsed conversation. A self-made, successful father awaits the return of his daughter to London so that he can explain all his moral-ethical conundrums from a time he made questionable choices in his medical practice. "In this story, Dr K loves his daughter dearly, so much that he denies himself his daughter's love," says Waheed.

The hardworking, Indian-born Dr K lands in an undisclosed city, and although his job is ordinary, it is what he did on the side, professionally, that haunts him. "I've always carried it with me. It's here, there, everywhere... under my very skin. Every day that I live carries images, moments and words from that time," Dr K says early in the book, wanting to tell Sara, his daughter, everything.

Waheed's previous two books were both set in politically charged Kashmir. His debut, The Collaborator, was shortlisted for The Guardian First Book Award and the Shakti Bhat Prize, and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. The political undertones in Tell Her Everything are far more elusive and the setting is more transcontinental. "I cannot put my finger precisely on the time when the idea of this novel took root. I had conversations with friends about how big hospitals work, the kind of things doctors sometimes end up doing in their line of work, when an ordinary man comes in contact with this kind of system, but that is about it," says Waheed. "Dr K is invented. I did not want to write an examination of the justice systems. I was more interested in the story of a man such as this. How would he behave with his little daughter, talk to his wife, conduct himself among friends and colleagues...."

Waheed, a Srinagar native, worked with the BBC for 10 years before he quit in 2011 to write his second book. Mohammed Hanif neatly fits into his category of "my favourite journalist novelist writing stories about the homeland". While both journalism and fiction-writing have served him well, "I am most happy, content and tormented when I am writing fiction," concedes Waheed. While writing Tell Her Everything, Waheed most enjoyed the process of being able to stay in the man's head. "There is a bit of method acting involved," he adds.

TELL HER EVERYTHING

Author: Mirza Waheed

Publisher: Context
(Westland Books)

Pages: 234

Price: Rs599