Indian-American novelist Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has been winning hearts for decades with her feminist perspectives to history and mythology. My Kolkata engaged in a candid chat with the author at Starmark, South City, on her recent visit to Kolkata.
Excerpts from the conversation…
My Kolkata: From Draupadi (The Palace of Illusions), Rani Jindan Kaur (The Last Queen) and Sita (The Forest of Enchantments) to Deepa, Jamini and Priya in Independence, how have your women protagonists evolved over time?
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: I think my female protagonists have evolved to show more and more of their dichotomies. Draupadi was very focussed, so was Sita. They grew and became stronger than the person they were at the beginning but didn’t really change much. With Maharani Jindan, there was a big change because she was born into a very poor family. She had no idea that one day she would run a kingdom. But she learnt by watching her husband Maharaja Ranjit Singh and then became a truly powerful queen. My new heroines Deepa, Priya and Jamini in Independence are very ordinary girls just like you and me. In them, I wanted to show the ordinary women of India. But when destiny calls to you, when courage is required, ordinary women can rise to the occasion. I think that is the lesson of their lives.
The novel spans over nine years, taking the readers along the pre to post Partition days. Why did you think of writing a period piece?
The previous novel that I had written, The Last Queen, was also a historical novel. I really wanted to write about Maharani Jindan because so many people have forgotten about her and she is truly worth remembering. Her character is very engaging and inspiring for the men and women of today. But her story was told at a time when the fortunes of India were very low and the British were in power. Although her story ends with a personal moral victory; she does not win over the British because they have taken over India. I did not want to leave history at that point. So, with Independence, I needed to write a novel where India becomes free and the British are forced to leave India. For me, at one end of the arc is Maharani Jindan and the other end of the arc are Deepa, Jamini and Priya.
While Independence is set in pre-Partition times, it is also for a contemporary audience. Were the references to handloom, kantha, muslin and cotton conscious, keeping in mind that these forms have seen a massive revival in the past two to three years?
You know I did not have that in my mind. I was really recreating the period. I remember talking to my mother. Later, she taught me how to do kantha stitch and how important these arts are in Bengal and particularly for women. I think kantha is particularly related to women’s ability to express themselves artistically. So that is what was on my mind. By some fortunate coincidence, this is also a time when these older arts are being revived which I think is a beautiful thing. In fact, I have a kantha sari that I always wear if I am doing an event on Independence because I want to show everybody how beautiful it is and it is an art that continues, which is a theme of the book. What was happening then continues to happen now, both good and not so good.
It’s [kantha] also there on the book cover actually…
Yes. I thought HarperCollins did a great job choosing kantha.
Music — from Rabindrasangeet to Nazrulgeeti — plays an important part in depicting the emotions of your protagonists. Does music hold a strong influence on your life?
Music, especially of that period, has a very strong influence. I used to hear it all the time. My mother was very fond of Rabindrasangeet and Nazrulgeeti. We used to hear it on the radio and old records. More than that, my grandfather and mother were both involved in the Independence movement and they remember how powerful those songs were to keep the spirits up. When people were marching, songs were banned, people were put in jail… the songs actually helped people stay together and strong. That’s why I wanted to put them into the book. I also wanted to point out that Rabindrasangeet and Nazrulgeeti were both important, it didn't matter who wrote them, whether Hindu or Muslim. Everyone came together to make the country free.
Period novels require a lot of research. But since you are writing fiction, how much creative liberty did you allow yourself and how did you balance fact and fiction?
That’s a great question because it’s really important to balance fact and fiction. If there is too much fact, the novel will not come alive. If there is too much fiction, it’s not a responsible historical novel. I started off by doing the research. I really had to get a sense of the space and the time and what was in the air. But at the same time I knew it was going to be the story of three sisters. Like our old fairy tales … Thakumar Jhuli … there are three sisters in many of those tales, I wanted it like that. I wanted it as a Bengali tale that is also a historical novel for all of India and really the theme of freedom is universal. I did a lot of newspaper research because I felt that would catch the spirit of the time. So newspapers and photographs, these two things were very important for me.
Divakaruni was in Kolkata recently to talk about her latest fiction novel 'Independence' published by Harper Collins India
Have you started working on your next book? Can we have a sneak peek?
I have started working on something for my next book. It’s very different. It’s going to be a non-fiction book about two lives that I think are very inspiring for India today.
One memory of Kolkata that stays with you…
Well, I went to Presidency College in Kolkata. So that remains with me. Walking up and down College Street with those old bookshops on the road and getting very nice and beautiful second-hand books for little money. It was great for me because as a student it was all that I could afford. That’s a happy memory.
