“I have never felt more invisible as I have in Paris,” says actor and writer, Koël Purie Rinchet, at a recent event in the Lalit Ashok, Bengaluru, about her debut novel, Clearly Invisible in Paris. Drawing from this feeling, the four major characters of the novel, Neera, Rosel, Violet and Dasha, also have a sense of being unseen, she says. “That is what this story is about; who helps you become more visible,” she says, adding that in the case of her four characters, “it is friendship that comes from very odd places, the unlikeliest of them.”
At the event, which consisted of a dramatic performance from the book, followed by a conversation with writer Anuja Chauhan, the conversation veered from a snapshot of the four major characters of the novel to Purie’s writing process, the genesis of the book, the relevance of marriage, why girlfriends are so important and so much more.
Anuja starts the conversation by asking, “Is this the season of female friendships?” She points out that narratives exploring this theme are very much in vogue at the moment. “I don’t know this season business,” responds Koel, with a laugh. “I am a girl’s girl. It has always been the girls for me,” she says, conceding, however, that the prevalence of female-centric stories could stem from the fact that women are occupying more places of power and empowering other women.
The discussion then went into the setting and location of the novel, the interesting depiction of marriages and what went into fleshing out the various characters in the novel. “This isn’t a love letter to Paris,” clarifies Koel, pointing out that living in a city that prides itself on being superior to all others in terms of food, music, culture and art is not always easy. “Paris sounds like a mother-in-law,” was Anuja’s response to this, a statement that had the mostly female audience in the room burst into laughter.
Though all her characters have been written with sympathy, they are also incredibly flawed. Koel marvels aloud at how they took a life of their own as she wrote them. “I wasn’t in control of each character,” she admits with a laugh. “They just took off on their own.”
