Once upon a time there was?.
Every story could, strictly speaking, begin the same way. Where every story goes, though, depends on the people in it — and the person who writes it. So, once upon a time there was a girl growing up in Delhi. Her name was Jaishree. She grew up to be an acclaimed author. And that’s not the end of the story. Jaishree Misra’s story keeps growing. Sometimes she packages it as a novel, sometimes as non-fiction, sometimes as historical fiction. But, much like every author’s works, her stories contain something of herself, her friends, her schoolmates and teachers, the relatives and colleagues that people her world, past and present.
Latest from her pen is “Secrets and Lies”, commissioned by Harper Collins’ commercial fiction imprint Avon as the first of a three-book deal. It takes place in London and New Delhi, and though one wouldn’t be rash enough to wager that any of the three friends — Bubbles, Sam and Anita — is the fiction avatar of Jaishree the schoolgirl, what is a surer image is their school in Delhi, St. Jude’s. Not surprising to hear Jaishree attended Mater Dei Convent as well as the Convent of Jesus and Mary in the Capital.
“I did almost all my schooling in Delhi,” explains Jaishree, who later studied at Lady Shri Ram College for a year before returning to Kerala. That’s why Delhi is home for her. Now based in England for nearly two decades, she says, “I love life in London, but in the end Delhi always harkened.”
Now, it seems, Delhi has won, as Jaishree is planning to move back to the city soon. “We’re starting our new life quite soon. I have to finish off my notice period,” she says, referring to her job as film and video examiner at the British Board of Film Classification.
Kids with special needs
“I’m planning to set up a residential place for kids with special needs,” she says. The idea, says Jaishree, who too has a daughter with special needs, is to provide a place where the residents will be looked after and be independent as well. She hopes to buy a bus equipped to take them round with ease and has had meetings with several organisations working with people with special needs in the Capital. “On paper it sounds like a very feasible project,” notes Jaishree. “It’s a question of breaking the mindset.”
India is a society where care can easily turn into smothering, or at least over-monitoring. “My daughter knows if she’s dependent on somebody else. She is happier when she’s independent.”
Jaishree wonders if a group of youngsters with special needs on a picnic or in a café will raise eyebrows. “I don’t know if Delhi is quite ready for it,” she muses. The project, she hopes, will be running by November.
Meanwhile, even as she ties up loose ends in London, another novel is under printing. This one is about Reva and a handsome actor, Aman Khan, who stars in a film, Afterwards. “Afterwards”, incidentally, happens to be the name of one of Jaishree’s earlier novels (Penguin, 2004). And judging from the sneak peek provided at the end of “Secrets and Lies”, the film bears at least a little similarity to the novel. That takes ‘once upon a time’ one stage deeper!
We’ll have to wait until next September 2010 to know for sure though. By that time, hopefully, the author will have settled down in Delhi. “My husband is a true blue Delhi lad, so I think he must have infected me as well,” relates Jaishree, adding, “There are many things we hate about this city as well.”
Materialistic city
Is one of those the mask of heartlessness Delhiites wear? “It’s a bit of a big city thing,” she remarks. “This kind of brashness is a feature of life — and Delhi is also a very materialistic city. It’s been an immigrant city. All the invasions came in the North. The South just got the trade. The Afghans came, the Mughals came, the British came. Anyone who gets a lot of hard knocks will become a different kind of person.”
So what’s good about this city? “The energy, the vitality, the industriousness, and that, I think, is lacking in some places like Kerala.” Also, she points out, there is an “uninhibitedness”, which she feels is part of Delhi’s Punjabi culture, with its “joie de vivre”, and comes, again, from the immigrant history of the community. “These are the pluses for me. Having grown up here, I think I’ve absorbed that.”
One notices she refers regularly, if jocularly, to what folks, including her mother, in Kerala would say about, for instance, what she’s chosen to wear for the interview — or to people’s penchant, back there, of knowing exactly who you are, where you are headed and what’s on your dining table. “Given a choice I’d rather live here than in Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram),” she declares. “Here you’re anonymous.”
Besides the anonymity, Jaishree also loves the Punjabi weddings here. One is elaborately described in “Secrets and Lies”. It was based on a school friend’s wedding, she reveals, adding the friend came to the book launch and said she hoped she was “not in this one too.” Jaishree smiles quietly. “I wonder if she’ll recognise her wedding.”
It’s once upon a time once more.
