The Lounge Chair Interview: 10 Questions with Karan Bajaj

Let’s get down to brass tacks. Why do you write?
For me, writing is an expression of my deepest ideas, thoughts I can’t even articulate verbally to myself. Six years after leaving India for the first time and living a nomadic existence in Philippines, Singapore, Europe, and the US, I felt a deep stirring within me that I had stories to share and my own unique insight into the messy, glorious human condition. The need to express these ideas got me interested in writing. Over the last eight years, it’s been satisfying to see my writing evolve as my ideas have deepened—and there is so much more ground to cover.

Tell us about your most recent book or writing project. What were you trying to say or achieve with it?

The Seeker is a pulsating, contemporary take on man’s classic quest for transcendence. It follows a Manhattan based investment banker who becomes a yogi in the Indian Himalayas. To be honest, I’ve completely let go of the idea of the author trying to say something with a novel. All I’m trying to create is a fictive dream, a world in which the characters inhabit their own universe and learn their own lessons. In that way, The Seeker is my purest book yet. I’ve just been a medium for the story to express itself without an active sense of authorship.