In 2009, as St Xavier’s College celebrated its 140th birthday, writer Shabnam Minwalla and photographer David de Souza were commissioned to create a coffee-table book on the institution. Minwalla spent many hours researching in the college reference library. It “is a beautiful room, filled with golden light,” she said. “One afternoon, I was almost alone in the library, reading a boring tome. A flash of movement made me turn, and I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Something that startled me dreadfully. A girl with horns sprouting from her head.” A trick of light, but that got her wondering – “what if it had not been an illusion?”
That’s how almost nine years later, Minwalla’s book, What Maya Saw: A Tale of Shadows, Secrets, Clues came about. Maya is off to summer school at St. Paul’s College. Not her ideal vacation plans – she was hoping to be less of a geek and do normal teen stuff. Instead, she is doing projects on the history of Mumbai, when not stumbling upon a mystery of historical proportions that includes priests, professors, and the city. Turns out, that the group of gorgeous students (“They don’t do classes. They party.”) are not ordinary – they are malevolent Shadows (yes, one of them has horns).
“Every college has its glamorous crowd – made up of beautiful people who pose and strut around and seem to make a career of being cool and going to fancy parties,” says Minwalla. “They aren’t particularly admirable or scintillating, but still everybody wants to be a part of their world.” When the author decided to set her book in a college, this crowd seemed obvious as antagonists who would gladly sell their souls to stay young and beautiful. “This was the starting point – and from there I created the Shadows – creatures who slipped in and out of identities and who linked the past and the present. I wanted baddies without superpowers, but with the ability to turn heads, manipulate people and assume new guises.”
Teenage lure
What Maya Saw is a Mumbai book and a Bombay book – bus number 132, Queen’s Road, RTI chicken pattice – it celebrates the people, monuments, food, while bringing together the city’s past and present into a hunt for clues that is a wonderful romp around Mumbai. Kalyani Ganapthy’s cover is a dreamy ode to Mumbai – not only are there clues to the story, but also vignettes of everyday life here. “I was a journalist in Mumbai for ten years, from 1993 to 2003,” says Minwalla, who worked at The Times of India. “In those years, I crisscrossed the city and combed it constantly – looking for interesting people, neighbourhoods and stories. Over the years, I collected all sorts of trivia, unusual details about certain areas, favourite buildings and statues.” These memories and observations rattled around in her head for years. When she started writing this book, Minwalla delved into those memories – to set clues, to describe streets, to create characters. “This book is about the city that we navigate today, but also about the city I knew as a journalist,” she says. “And behind it all is the shadow of another, younger Bombay that existed a long time ago.”
There’s quintessential YA stuff as well – romance, petty jealousies, and a lot of shopping. Phrases such as ‘easy butter jelly jam’ or ‘the party crowd’ will be familiar to readers. Teen speak, Minwalla says, is central when creating characters such as Lola, the vivacious girl Maya befriends. Then there’s Veda, Maya’s partner in the clue hunt, who is constantly teased and dubbed ‘nerda’. A subtle reminder at the way labels can have a lasting adversary effect. “I have three daughters at home,” says the author. “My eldest is 14 and my twins are 12 – and this is the lingo they use.” She listens carefully when the girls are chatting – with each other, or with friends. “I also keep my ears wide open whenever I am at birthday parties, or at school or restaurants,” Minwalla explains. “Also, young readers love it when you speak their language. What Maya Saw has dollops of history and a serious side. But more importantly, it is a book about teenagers, for teenagers.”
Mumbai diaries
What Maya Saw is Minwalla’s fifth book for children. Her first, The Six Spellmakers of Dorabji Street is another charming Mumbai book which explores conservation, neighbours, and friendship. However, for Minwalla, the shift from journalist to writer wasn’t easy. “In journalism you write by many rules – in fiction you need to break rules. It took me a few years to realise this, and to write fiction that did not sound like an extended newspaper article,” she says. “What thrills me about Maya is that it has allowed me to combine both journalism and fiction.”
The city is a recurrent theme in the author’s books, as are kickass girl protagonists. Maya joins that gang. “Like so many teenagers, Maya yearns to be ‘like the others’,” says Minwalla. “She deplores the fact that she is different – even though the differences make her special. In the course of this adventure, Maya learns to accept herself and to stop hankering for empty popularity. She realises that heroism, bravery and goodness are more important than brands of handbags and perfect manicures.” Minwalla too constantly questions the idea of beauty: one phrase kept running through her head while writing the book. “Never judge a book by its cover,” she says. “Here, many of the people who appear beautiful are actually rotten. In fact, the beauty that they cling to has corrupted them.”
But more than anything else, What Maya Saw will encourage readers to explore their neighbourhoods – monuments, history, gargoyles, food. It will nudge them to imagine adventures and mysteries in their alleys and by-lanes. Minwalla says that she grew up reading books set in pastoral England or smalltown America. “I was constantly begging my parents to take me to England so that I could meet Mr Pinkwhistle or step through a cupboard into Narnia,” says the author. “I firmly believed that magic and adventure belonged to those distant lands – not to grey, smelly Bombay.” This is why her stories are firmly set in Mumbai. She wants Indian children to feel that they can encounter magic and adventures here as well and to notice the happy, special aspects of a city that are often criticised.
What Maya Saw: A Tale of Shadows, Secrets, Clues, HarperCollins Children’s Books is priced at Rs 299.
