“The itch [to write] is at its strongest when I am angry or saddened or puzzled by something. Writing helps me make sense of the world, which can be such a strange place sometimes,” says novelist and writer Jaishree Misra in an email interview.
As one reads her new offering, A House for Mr Misra , one is able to understand why the popular fiction writer decided to take a break from her favourite genre to come up with this slim book. She homes in on a period in her life when she had the urge to build a house in Thiruvananthapuram. And that is when she gets entangled in yards of red tape that threatens to nip her plans in the bud.
It all starts when Jaishree and her husband, Ashutosh Misra, who she refers to as Mr. M in the book, decide to put down roots in Trivandrum [Thiruvananthapuram] and move away from London. They choose a place on the beach near Veli and get busy making plans to build a place of their own. And then begins the story. As one turns the pages of the book, one gets a clear picture of the anger, frustration and confusion that made her put it all down in a book.
“I had kept a rather erratic Trivandrum diary, just to record the series of events as we started the house project. And then, a bit out of the blue, a publisher wrote asking me if I could write a short book for a new series they were calling ‘Mikros’. As the only thing I had was this journal, I asked if I could send non-fiction rather than the kind of novella they were expecting and, after seeing a sample, they were interested. I guess we don't realise how much Kerala fascinates people as it's a place like no other,” she writes.
She rewrote the journal as the book had to be more than just entries and dates. She says she adopted the “tone of a favourite writer of mine called Bill Bryson who sort of rants affectionately about Britain and America while also providing useful information about these places.”
Big picture
While writing about her travails in building a house without greasing any palms or giving in to militant trade unions, she touches upon a larger picture of Indian cities, one that is frighteningly similar all over the country. Corruption, garbage disposal, gender discrimination, unruly traffic, nepotism and so on... , all told in a light-hearted manner.
“The sub-narrative of corruption and poor civic services and unruly traffic reflects all of India and is becoming an increasingly urgent story as our population and affluence grows. To some extent, we get inured to these problems as they are so normalised within the Indian context. But, when you come from a different country, they become magnified. I can't help hoping that highlighting some of these issues will jog people into realising they can start effecting change, even in small ways,” she hopes. In the midst of aggressive labourers and unscrupulous builders, she draws a sketch of the society and how the system of privilege pans out, all with a rare irreverence and candour. The characters in it are her mother, uncle, relatives and friends. She admits that while drawing upon direct experience, the toss-up is sometimes between being honest and being mindful of people's feelings. But she asserts that when it comes to friends and family, she is lucky to be surrounded by people who share her sense of humour.
Satire and farce
“However, I worry that - as a nation - we are getting overly sensitive and intolerant. The first thing that gets lost in such scenarios is the ability or willingness to be self-critical. Fortunately, Kerala towers over other states in this respect, being blessed by a largely educated and intelligent population. There are much-loved traditions of satire and farce that show up even in modern-day TV comedies and, as long as we continue to laugh at ourselves, I think we will be fine.”
Amygdala, of which she talks about a good deal in her book, must be at a pitch once a new book reaches readers! “Oh goodness, yes, the scary business of having a new book out! It's always nerve-racking, rather like sending a sensitive child to a new school with a mother's burning desire that her child should be well-received and quickly become popular!”
If this were a film, who would be the villain in the story of a couple building their dream house by the sea? “The real villain is someone called PT Corruption (yes, that's petty corruption). I had imagined, wrongly as it turned out, that this villain only lived in big cities. But in Kerala it takes another avatar as people are annoyingly clever. The best thing the government is doing is bringing technology into bureaucracy - no better way to stop the greasing of palms!”
As she relocated to Sonipat from Kerala, as her husband became finance director at a campus university, she says she feels tempted to write ‘A Job for Mr Misra’, full of delicious details about campus life and the oddities of life in Haryana. But that's for another day!
