Short Take

Aatish Taseer

Contextualize yourself in one line?
A writer trying to make a whole of his past, and the past of his place.

First book that left an indelible impression on you?
The Swiss Family Robinson.

First memory of writing and what was it on? 
A story based on four sisters of mixed marriage who hanged themselves in a small town in Madhya Pradesh. It came out of something I read in the New York Times. I was nineteen, and at Amherst. 

Three things people will be surprised to know about Aatish Taseer?
That: 
1) I’m a nervous traveller. 
2) I used to be—for my love of dharmic films—known as the ‘bhakt’ in Green Park Market. 
3) I once went skinny dipping in a pool in Buckingham Palace. 

What would the title of your biography be?