UPDATED: Sept. 19, 2011, 4:12 a.m.

Syracuse University alumnus Rahul Mehta spoke to a crowd of more than 200 Wednesday evening in Gifford Auditorium about his first published book, ‘Quarantine,’ a collection of short stories.

Mehta monitored a Q-and-A session with students from the ETS 107: ‘Living Writers’ class and then read his work. Mehta said he taught the ‘Living Writers’ class while attending SU for graduate school, and he said being asked to return to SU was a tremendous honor.

‘The three years that I spent here in grad school were three of the most important years for me, especially in terms of my writing,’ Mehta said. ‘The professors I studied with and my fellow classmates were amazing, amazing people.’

During the Q-and-A session, students asked Mehta about his life and his book. Mehta said the questions were intelligent and led him to think about his writing from a different perspective.

One student asked if the characters in Mehta’s book were autobiographical and, if so, to provide examples.

Mehta said there were definitely parts of his life written in the book. For instance, he shared a problem with setting $20 bills on fire, just like the main character in his short story ‘The Cure.’ He paused, smiled and said, ‘There are others,’ but did not expand this thought. The audience laughed.

All of the protagonists in Mehta’s stories are openly gay Indian-Americans, just like him. Because of this, he said he was worried that publishing some of the stories in the book would cause his friends and family to read the stories as if they were his own.

‘As a writer, you have to close yourself off to what others have to say,’ Mehta said.

Aminah Ibrahim, a sophomore television, radio and film major, said Mehta was an inspiration to her because she is trying to figure out her own sexuality. Having spent the last 10 years in her father’s home country of Kuwait, Ibrahim said she could relate to the struggles the characters in Mehta’s book are dealing with.

‘Being gay is hard. Being gay in India is hard. Being gay in America is hard. Being gay in Syracuse is hard. People think it’s not, but it is,’ Ibrahim said. ‘I’m glad that I came, but I’m also glad I read it.’

While doing interviews about ‘Quarantine,’ Mehta said he is almost always asked about why he chose to make the main characters in the book gay. Mehta said he made it a deliberate choice to make the characters in his stories openly gay Indian-Americans to make a point, even if they didn’t need to be gay for the stories to have the same meaning.

‘I have never heard an author be criticized before for all of the characters being white, straight Americans,’ Mehta said.

Mehta said the majority of the criticism he receives for ‘Quarantine’ is about the endings of his short stories. Critics say the endings tend to leave the reader hanging.

‘I think the stories all end with a change. The characters all learn something about themselves,’ he said. ‘To me, I think that’s enough of an ending.’

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Published on September 13, 2011 at 12:00 pm

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