Authors are often solitary creatures unlike, say, popular musicians, who get mobbed by fans everywhere they go. Solitude is sometimes essential as they sculpt their book to perfection. They require the space to think, rethink, write and rewrite. They prefer no spectators while they struggle to string together sentences. So, they are seldom surrounded by people. In bookstores, however, they are like elephants in a temple procession – the cynosure of all eyes. Even on a Monday afternoon, the front area of The Bookworm Bookstore on Church Street was packed with a small but stoked crowd that had come to meet Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The Indian-American author was in the city to promote her latest book, Independence: A Novel (HarperCollins India) Between book signing and selfies, she squeezed in an interview with The Hindu, where she discussed her novel, her protagonists, her writing process, OTT, and more.
Excerpts:-
Most of your works have explored female protagonists. How has your understanding of the female psyche changed over the years?
As I have matured, I have learned much more about women. I have especially learnt how women express strength in different ways. For example, Sita’s expression of strength is very different from Draupadi’s, which is again very different from the three sisters in Independence. So, depending on the character of the person and the situation they’re in, women can be strong in so many ways. And that’s been really important for me, because I want women readers to feel empowered. They should feel: ‘I can be strong in my way. I don’t have to follow someone else’s way. Nor do I have to follow what society is telling me to do.’
Some of your protagonists, like Draupadi in The Palace of Illusions or Sita in The Forest of Enchantments, already exist in mythologies. How do you explore such characters?
For both The Palace of Illusions and The Forest of Enchantments and even a historical novel like The Last Queen, which is based on a real person (Rani Jindan), I have to try and imagine that person for myself. Not the preconceptions that people have of them. Not the few things that history has given us. I have to understand what motivated these people. What makes them feel the feelings that go through them? What gives them the strength to stand up against the world? And, in each case, it’s different. So, the character has to appear in my mind before I can write them.
Would you call them recreations?
They are more reimaginings. Because I hope, by the time they appear in my books, they are different from how they have been portrayed.
How has your writing process changed over the years?
First I started writing with a pen and paper. But soon I realised that’s just too difficult. Especially because I like editing a lot. So now I write completely on the computer. Also, my process of research has changed over the years. It’s become very visual. For books such as The Last Queen and Independence, I relied a lot on photographs, images, or paintings, because they gave me a visual sense of the characters and the place. Especially historic photographs were very important because they recreated the time for me. And for a book that is set in another time, it’s very important to recreate that time.
What prompted you to write Independence?
The Last Queen [the author’s previous book] ends at a very sad point in Indian history. The British are extremely powerful, they have pretty much, through treachery and other means, taken over the other kingdoms. Although Maharani Jinda, the heroine of The Last Queen, achieves a moral victory at the end of her life, it’s not a physical victory. So, I did not want to leave the history of India at that point. It was sad for me. I wanted to write about the triumphant moment when India becomes free and the British are forced to leave. That was one of the main reasons for writing Independence.
Would you call it the spiritual sequel to The Last Queen?
You can definitely say it’s a spiritual sequel. It’s a sequel of victory, too. It also has some sad lessons that we must never forget. Especially now, it is so important for Indians to remember that the independence movement succeeded because Indians of all backgrounds came together. They marched together, fought together, were imprisoned together... We can’t forget that; that is our legacy.
Apart from what you mentioned, are there other reasons why you decided to set your novel during the Partition, which has been talked about in so many stories before…
The partition has been dealt with, especially in English books, very well. Most of them, however, talk about what happened on the western border, the Punjab border. Very few people, except Bengali writers writing in Bengali, have written about what happened on the Bengal border. It’s a very distinct movement. It has its own character, its own tragedies and triumphs. My grandfather and mother lived through that period. They told me many stories when I was growing up. And like young people in many places, I did not pay attention to those stories. I was often impatient with the stories. Now that they have passed away, those stories resonate with me. So, these reasons made me write this book and place it in that geography.
Because the novel is about three sisters, a few reviews have compared your book with Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Was it an inspiration?
It’s a coincidence. I have read Little Women and I like it. That, however, was not in my mind when I was writing Independence. I was intrigued when it reminded people of Little Women. What I had in mind were the Bengali folktales I’d read. Many of them have three sisters and each one is very different from the other and wants a different thing.
Is there significance to the number three?
I think three is a mystic number. It’s also a number that creates a disbalance. Because it’s a different relationship when there are just two people. But when there’s a third sister, it becomes like a triangle. Sometimes one agrees with one and disagrees with the other. In this novel, all the sisters will go apart. So, when that happens, even though they all want different things, can they still support each other? The number three complicates matters. This is why even in the folktales, it is always three.
We now see novels getting adapted into OTT series. Does that excite you as an author?
It does. My novel, The Mistress of Spices, was made into a movie. Movies are shorter (than a web series), and understandably, a lot of the subplots had to be left out. Shortly after that, Suhasini Maniratnam made a series in Tamil (called Anbulla Snegithiye) based on my book Sister of my Heart. Because the series was longer and Suhasini was a great director, the series preserved the feel of the book. I feel you can retain every little important portion of the novel in a series.
Do you think Independence can be adapted for a series?
Yes. Because in Independence, a lot of things happen — there are events from pre-Independence to post-Independence. Also, it’s the story of three sisters. So, you can explore three different storylines. It has the potential to be a good series in the hands of a good director.