‘I don’t think you can dismiss mysticism as obfuscation’: Adil Jussawalla on writing a play at 18

How old were you when you wrote Jian?

I was either seventeen or eighteen. Jian was my first full-length play. I was living in London at that time. I think one of the factors that led to it was that I was suffering from a breakdown without really knowing it, or I knew about it, and could have named it as such. Let’s just say it was the deprivation of food and the lack of a sexual life, and feeling overworked at my college of architecture. My breakdown was such that I looked into the mirror and thought I’d turned into a lizard. When I left my bedsitter in Dollis Hill in northwest London, and went to the park near it, Gladstone Park, there were all these thoughts. I recalled my own dependence on religious thought in my boyhood. I was brooding about an uncle of mine who had given up his naturopathic practice and become a guru of sorts in Bombay. These thoughts suddenly led to the most incredible experience. I was lying on my back in the park, and I felt myself merging into the sky and the grass. I was undergoing something so ecstatic that when the tears flowed, it...

Read more