Autobiographical notes

Gaurav Kanthwal

PAULO COELHO DE SOUZA novels can be tailor-made scripts for Hindi movies. Mushy, romantic stories told lyrically with journey as their main theme. Love, other emotions, hurt feelings — but still the characters grow together in search of a deeper meaning in life. In the end, destiny plays its part, but fate seals it, invariably. Perfect ingredients for a Bollywood masala film.

Coelho’s latest novel, Hippie, is autobiographical. Paulo, a free-spirited Brazilian, who wishes to become a writer and sets out in search of a true meaning of life. His journey begins with a ‘Death Train to Bolivia’ that dumps him in Peru. From there he crosses over to Chile and further to Argentina. From there, he moves to Europe and is inclined to take a break in Amsterdam.  He finds youngsters at the famous Dam Square quite liberating as they discuss their quest for inner truth, peace, society norms, music trends and sexual inhibitions. 

Paulo meets Karla (20) a Dutch girl, who is also on a journey to attain inner peace. The duo hit it off instantaneously and soon the couple is on a hippie trip to Kathmandu. Paulo, along with Karla and his friends, is on board a Magic Bus which is heading through Europe and Central Asian countries to Kathmandu. The trip turns out to be extremely long and arduous but Paulo and Carla are enjoying the best moments of their life together. The hippies explore their surroundings and understand themselves better on the trip. 

Paulo and Karla, too, experience varied emotions during the journey which helps their relationship mature. They may have started off in Amsterdam on a happy note but by the time they reach Istanbul they suddenly realise their trajectories have changed. Only a night before Karla may have professed, “I love you,” to Paulo, but very next day, he tells her, “My journey ends here”. The duo bid adieu never to meet again.

Coelho writes on simple topics but manages to churn readers’ emotions through his lyrical passages, which are either immersions or impressions from his personal experience. His stories are based on the circumstances and the choices one makes to overcome them. Destiny, fate, spiritual enlightenment and challenging social orders are the recurring themes in his novel.

To lend depth to his stories, Coelho typically embeds fables, parables and metaphors in his stories, which also explains the predictability in his literary works. His reputation as the bestselling Brazilian author comes from the command over his craft; he can be lyrical, lucid and concise depending on the circumstances of the story. The 71-year-old, who writes in Portuguese, says Rabindranath Tagore is a huge inspiration for him. There are a few lines from the Gitanjali in the preface to Hippie. Coelho even had a line from Gitanjali, ‘And where the old tracks are lost’, as the title of the book but it had to be changed due to translation issues in other languages.

About his lyrical prose, The Alchemist author, says that Kabir, Rumi, Tagore, Paulo de Tarso, Hafez have written the story Coelho’s life and he often uses their words to tell his stories.

Coelho has written more than 20 novels in his four decade long career. Three of them, The Pilgrimage (1987), The Valkyries, (1992) and Hippie (2018) are autobiographical in nature.