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`Mistress' of tales

Anita Nair talks to PRIYADARSSHINI SHARMA about her love affair with her muse Kerala

PHOTO: VIPINCHANDRAN

MASTER RACONTEUR Characterisation is Anita Nair's forte

Kerala is her source, her inspiration, her weakness and her strength.

Its villages, art forms, Ayurveda, dance-drama, monsoons, coconuts, elephants, jackfruits... all form the backdrop of her novels, where local characters rise and fall to her dexterous storyline and plot. Stories that have caught the imagination of readers worldwide. In Kochi for the release of the Malayalam translation of her latest work, `Mistress,' Anita Nair said, "Although I have never lived in Kerala, except for the two years of my graduation from Ottapalam, I have this great sense of belonging. Everything about Kerala intrigues me."

And it must have, for this Bangalore-based writer did two months of intensive research on Kathakali at Kalamandalam that forms the matrix of her latest work.

"The world of Kathakali is like a Masonic world. The moment you get your foot into it you go deeper and deeper. I was sure I did not want to write a coffee table book about Kathakali. The best way was to incorporate a story into it." And so was born `Mistress.'

Born from a shadowy image of a foreigner with a cello in hand, alighting at Shoranur station, `Mistress' draws heavily on the sounds and sights, gestures and expressions of the Malayali world.

Anita said, "I have this strong ability to stand out and see the world." But she could not remain just an appreciative audience in the world of Kathakali. Her self-imposed tutelage was intensive and searing, so much so that a rattling lid over boiling water was cue enough to search for the right thalam. Chempa or chempada?

And amidst the padams and talams loomed the gamut of complicated people that she has created.

Which one of them is her favourite?

Favourite work

"From all my works, it's Shyam from `Mistress.' He is the most interesting one because all what I detest in a man, I made him out to be... . But I redeemed him later on. I gave him a dimension that no one expects." ...

And her women? "Ah, yes," she smiles at the thought. "Traditionally our women are projected as doormats. This image is re-emphasised on television serials. It is giving the woman a kind of template of how to behave. Contemporary Indian woman has to cope with tradition, with being a good wife, mother, and daughter. But the Indian male wants her to place her desires on the backburner. I can't think of many men who can smile after a gruelling day at work."

Her female characters, like the five in `Ladies Coupe,' to Radha in `Mistress' and the rest are all prototypes of Indian women. She says, "Indian women have a core of steel that does not rust or corrode. They are like silk knots."

But "can a woman remain single and be happy?" a question Anita asks in `Ladies Coupe.' And like a typical woman she replies with a question. "It is the role of a writer to ask questions. At least ask the question that nobody else is daring to ask?"

And so she asks questions in terms of situations, the angst of a lover, the guilt of a woman living off her desires, the guilt of a man failing in his duties, the responsibility on a breadwinner, the inadequacies of the traditional family set up, adultery, lust, and love. Anita questions, and questions boldly. Her characters stand up tall even in their weak moments. They become personalities despite the failings.

Character delineation is her forte. "For me it's crucial. I am character driven. For me it is the joy of creating these parallel worlds." And though creating parallel worlds come easy to her she is afraid to belong to her world of writers.

"I still find it very hard to say I am a writer, that I belong to this heaving bulwark of Indian Writing in English. People who write in English in India are orphaned children of nowhere. We don't have a literary culture of writing in English. It is so elitist."

And not surprisingly she finds resonance with readers abroad who read her works in translation. But in India, "I don't know who my readers are. I don't get a sense of what your writing means," she says expressing her fears.

House-proud

Away from the world of writing she revels in her role as a homemaker.

"I'm a manic housewife. I'm house-proud. I wash the leaves of the houseplants, I polish the furniture and I bake."

So when does she write? "You know when your hands are busy your mind is free to wander," she says and agrees that though writing comes to her quite effortlessly, "thinking does not." The four years that she spent on research and to pen `Mistress' has, she says taken a lot out of her.

And now? "I want to try my hand at drama, at dramatic monologues. I want to write a funny book when I am finished with all this bleakness. My writing has a life of its own to quote Maradona, `the hand of God.'"

She spends time travelling, reading and baking cakes. "Baking involves precision. I bake chocolate cake for my son but my favourite is lemon cake and even Austrian coffee cake which was Sigmund Freud's favourite too."

Away from all the limelight of a well-received writer, of being a good mother and a loving wife she finds solace in her roots, in her quiet village of Mundakotukurussi, "where there is no angst of any sort."

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