Why did Nela adopt Ranu? At first, she only wants to leave the girl better than she found her. But Nela's sense of right and wrong is too highly developed for half measures. When she realizes how devalued the child is in her community, she feels compelled to save her at any cost. This is where Nela (as a character) undergoes the literary novel's required transformation -- from abstract thinker intent on doing what's best for herself, to the embodiment of the protective Mother. Jackson is already an altruist, and feels compelled to right the societal wrong he's stumbled across, specifically child marriage. Nela's altruism is more personal, focusing on one child. The couple mirror one another, each of them willing to sacrifice their personal happiness to the greater good --- or in this case, to dramatize two interpretations of the theme of altruism. (I tried to leave the ending open enough to set up a happier ending in the next book.) As in a lot of my work, a theme of this book is the search for home. There are some motifs and symbols associated with that. Ramanajun's reference to his wife as"'my house' as internalized by Nela, for instance. The discussion of Hamiliton's Rule -- how related do you have to be to want to rescue someone -- is another. That one bleeds into the major theme of altruism. The behavior of flocks is a secondary motif. The hairpin turns of a murmuration of birds act out Nela's tendency to change her mind to correct whatever course she's on. Pursuit and cohesion, and pursuit and evasion, are used in the story to examine the question of whether the bird in the front of a murmuration is actually leading, or being chased.
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"Kumar hates all business" declares the beautiful Jaya. We are in my kitchen, heads bowed over a bowl of okra. It's the second day of my sister-in-law's first visit. She and her husband have come so far after so long to see me for themselves: the blonde American who waylaid their favorite son on his way back to India. Oh, what plans they'd all made for him and his shiny new credentials! Now, like a cheated-on spouse, they want to know what went wrong. They need details. Kumar, Hope your work at the college goes well. What new results you have got from your theorems? Please send $750 by bank draft made over to Hubby for a new scooter only. Waiting list is 5 years. What is your programme this side? When you come bring at your convenience only: dozen pair of socks, shirts and trousers for your nephews and Hubby, electric mixer for baking cakes occasionally, slippers for mother's cold feet, perfume bottles, cassettes of music (western is ok), also empty cassettes. Also remember to send congrats to our junior brother and bride. They will explain their wedding gift requirements. Marriage is important step for all Indians! Affectionately, Jaya "Of course Kumar doesn't hate all business-that would be absurd!" I argue delicately. "Business is not his field, however, science is. You've seen how it takes up all his time. But I know how proud you must be of him-- to have made such a success of himself, all by himself in a strange land!" Jaya's lip stretches out flat, straight and stoic, just like her brother's when he doesn't want to concede a point. I check off all that's familiar in her face, and for a moment I wonder what it might be like to touch her. Kumar, My daughter has married with Krishna. We have no news from you regarding same, so must assume your invitation became lost in transit. I have enclosed the boy's CV, and I charge you to cooperate in his business plan that side. This is of grave importance! It is a matter of prestige! Afftly, Yogesh "All Kumar does is work, work, work, it seems'' says my sister-in- law's husband, startling me. "What about retirement? It's not too soon to think!" Of course he would say that. He's a strong, healthy 58 year old, who is spending his own ridiculously early retirement going from one religious festival to another; he wants the whole world to join him, I guess, except whoever he's secretly chosen to take care of him. I suspect he'll have to change his plans about all that, now that his son will be taking on a wife who has no family wealth to spread around. Maybe that's why the first words out of his mouth to Kumar were, "Got any American dollars?" Bet he was a pickpocket in a previous life. Well, I can't just ignore the old boy. I'll have to respond to whatever drops out of his mouth as if it's a real conversation: "My husband certainly does work hard," I say, "but we manage to have our fun--one of the perks of a love match." Four black eyes quiz me. I think they're waiting for me to make a cultural faux-pas, something they can gossip about later. I plow ahead: "Our last dinner party was given to honor the science counselor of India. I prepared about a dozen south Indian dishes; later, I played the piano for them." For a long moment there is no sound but the methodical chopping of the doomed okra. Then Jaya sighs tragically and says, "These are the things we never hear about." Silence thickens the air, makes it electric as if we were expecting a storm. But the moment passes; the okra gets slammed into the fridge, and Jaya speaks, all business now: ''I will make for my son masala dosa tonight. Kumar will come early? We need supplies from the Indian grocery.'' She tries a tone she hasn't tried before, part schoolmarm, part insinuation. I wonder how many times she has been refused anything in her life, anything at all. She probably keeps a record. ''Kumar is at work, you realize. I never interrupt him there. In fifteen years, there's never been an emergency serious enough for me to call him away early. You wouldn't want me to break my record now, would you?'' I know I'm smiling; I can feel my mouth turn up at each corner. Jaya stares at me blackly; we wait to see who will blink first. "We could take a cab to the store this afternoon,'' I finally offer in as nonchalant a way as I can. "As you wish," Jaya replies. She gathers up her sari and regally ascends the stairs. She'll dress her husband and together they'll whisper their new crop of complaints against me in relative privacy. Our cabbie, as luck will have it, is Indian. He and his two countrymen talk past me in a language that sounds like gravel in their mouths. When we reach our destination, there is an awkward moment before I realize I'm holding things up; they're waiting for me to pay the fare. ''That driver claims to have a brother who is medical doctor in this country!'' Jaya informs me in a stage-whisper, after we've shut the door. "Yeah, so?" She looks at me incredulously and explains it all: "He is lying! No brother who is so well-settled would allow his own blood to do such lowly work! I cannot believe! Correct?" Dear Kumar, My son arrived last month. Mother and child are both fine. Recent events have no bearing on my plans to come to USA. Be advised keep up all effort on my behalf full strength! If you still love your brother you will pull necessary string for admission to your university. Since already you have tenure and promotion, it will be easy to make a place for me. Please pay all application fees as conversion rates rupees to dollars is unfavorable. Also, now is time to think about marriage, or else you will be a bald, lonely professor emeritus without family ties. You are well-qualified for finding a suitable bride. Send me your requirements and leave all details to us. Affly, Anil The grocer has small cruel eyes and an avid mouth. He has a decision to make: which of us is the customer, which of us will best respond to his oily brand of subservience? Jaya tilts her perfect nose in the air, sniffs in an ambiguous way. Yes, my good man, I think, she's the logical choice. I loiter at the counter looking over the Hindi-movie music tapes and batting flies away from the trays of sweets. Nothing more is required of me until it's time to pay the piper. As I hand over the crisp American bills, the grocer's attention is suddenly all mine. He bends toward me, close enough for me to catch his aroma of leftover curry, sweat, and bay-rum toilet water. "When you return home today, your sister-in-law will instruct you to make proper dosa for your husband!" he whispers as he fondles my money. "Too bad he'd rather have a pizza!" I stage- whisper back. Kumar, Hope this finds you in good health. Mother had asthma last month, but is a little stronger now. Bangalore is too cold for her still. Please send leg tights of the same type as before, but try another color, just for change. Your nephew passed recent exams with 85 in arithmetic and 80 in language. Not so good marks for us. He will have to do better. You have given no further news of your marriage. Surely there is a child by now? I hope you will not use this marriage as excuse to postpone your trip this side. You owe it to Mother and your real family to visit at least a few weeks every year at least. Do not forget we are your blood, and you will always be Indian! Jaya When we arrive back home, Jaya’s husband resumes his perch at the kitchen table, armed with today's catalogues. "Watch me carefully" orders my sister-in-law. She begins the ritual of love and nurturing, the all-important task of bringing these simple sourdough pancakes before her family with exquisite concentration. Of all her abilities and talents, this is what she's taught her relatives to value most in her. I watch her soak and grind and stir, completely absorbed in a task she's repeated hundreds of times. I watch helplessly, as a single dark strand of hair escapes her braid and a bead of perspiration forms on her upper lip. I could help her here, let her in on some shortcuts I learned by myself, by trial and error, but nobody here believes I can cook in the Indian idiom. I am an extra in my own kitchen. Dear Mama and Mami, Hope this finds you both well. I am sorry to have not written sooner to thank Uncle for all his help in making my U.S. study possible. Please ignore requests for further application fees, references etc. as I am coming August 10 to your house only. I will stay one week then I will travel to my friend's apartment in Amherst. I can stay with him until I have secured my own apartment. Uncle, you will be my only blood-tie in U.S. and Mother requires me to think of you as I would a Father. I will take notice of all advice. Love, Ram p.s.: I need you to advance me the price of an auto, second-hand is O.K. "I bet you are looking forward to visiting with Ram tonight," I say to Jaya, as we mix the dhal with rice flour. "Correct, correct," she responds absently. She's worried that time is running out both for tonight's dinner and her tenure as the most important woman in her son's life. She sighs and says, "This visit is the final one we share with Ram only, marriage will change --" She waves the spatula around in an enormous and aimless gesture. Suddenly she looks every hour of her age. "But you approve of this bride, don't you?" I ask ingenuously. "Her family is good," Jaya says slowly. Her voice is lukewarm, one big shrug. "Also the important thing is horoscopes match. One cannot discount astrology!” I can, I think, but now there is no more time for our pointless arguments. The doorbell's rung and Ram the virgin bridegroom falls into our three pairs of waiting arms. This kid likes me; he calls me Aunty and touches me at the slightest provocation. I notice his parents hate our easy familiarity. Jaya shuttles between kitchen and couch like a nervous cat. "Where's Kumar?" she keeps asking me. "We are almost ready for Dosa!" She yanks her head in the direction of the phone; I allow a vaguely puzzled expression to settle over my features. "So, talked to your fiancee lately?" "Oh yes Aunty, every week I talk. I am on Cloud Nine!" "So what can you tell me about the girl? So far all you have said is her nose is too big, and she is not allowed to wear high heels when she is with you in public." "Hmm, well she meets most of my requirements for marriage," he says, a wariness creeping into his voice. "Almost?" I pounce on him. I recall a long-ago sorority house now: the little girls clasping their bridal magazines, fantasizing their perfect mates out loud to each other, as if that could materialize them. "Well, I insist she learn to speak Kannada," the boy tries for a strict tone. "And I don't like her accent when she speaks Telugu, but I will soon put a stop to that!" He throws back his head and laughs. His teeth are very white. Dear Kumar, Trust this finds you in good health. There is no point asking after your work and your program for next visit as your answers always the same. I am advised that it is best to own a fire-arm in Hyderabad. I have hence obtained a license for a revolver. I will be happy if you will gift me a 0.32 bore Smith & Wesson from USA. The cost is about $200 and also include an affidavit saying you are staying abroad for more than ten years. Reply to all parts immediately. Affly, Thumbi In the morning we say an elaborate good-bye. I give Jaya gold earrings in the shape of the Pyramids ("American gold, only 14 carats," I overhear her mutter). I make ritual false promises-- to buy a pressure cooker (“for Kumar's sake”) and to write ("A few lines to everyone once month is good. Let Kumar add greetings to everyone at the end"). We divide the photos from last night. I notice the boy remembered to suck in his stomach in all but one of them. Now, finally, Jaya steps off the porch flanked by her men. The wind carries her voice back to me as she moves away, "Even as a child, Kumar held a book in his hands." Her sari, embroidered with gold thread by her blue-eyed grandmother, glints in the sun. She could have told me more, that time when we had the chance. "Sisters!" The Voice sails his one word across this bar where the air is hung like August. That pitch always gets me, I have to look. You can tell he likes his own effect: he turns on a dangerous light in his eyes, dilates his own pupils at will.
But I'm way too slow. Kat has already inhaled all pertinent visual information. I see her cross her long legs and let out a low moan. In the next second, she'll waft toward him on a trail of pheromones and I'll be left to fend for myself. She's my sister and I love her, but I have the sneaking suspicion that she knows I saw him first. No fair, no fair! I shriek inside my head, but the plot has already thickened in its usual way. Ever since I got fat, this is the only kind of fun I get. Theoretically, I should be able to sop up Kat's overflow of men. Oh, well. I wonder if this is what Mother means when she says you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him buy you a drink. You know, I was always embarrassed by the bigness of my bones, but I thought I was off the hook when they finally revised the height-weight charts. But no matter how many times I pointed out that I was not off this chart's scale, old X was not impressed. "Gain five more, I'm gone," he growled. I looked down to see his enormous forefinger pumping my well-upholstered belly. And then he tried to help me, carrot-and-stick fashion. He set the scale in front of the refrigerator door plastered with Polaroids of my cellulite sites. He made me weigh in every morning and in only two weeks I had gained the required five pounds. For the first time in his life, old X kept his promise. But that was then and this is now. I should be able to forget about X, what with all the fun I'm pushed right up against. I don't see hide nor hair of Kat for the next few days, but, not to worry, I know where she is. When she finally fills the doorway of our apartment, she is wearing one broken high heel and the look I get after a pint of rocky road. "We better go to the hospital again," she says. "I just can't stomach the taste of latex." I get to be included in this little errand because Kat is terrified of needles and she always faints. But it's different this time. Kat hasn't crashed off her love-high and she spills every detail of her tryst with the foundling. The nurse misses her vein twice, she's so intent in her eavesdropping. Kat barely winces and she can't seem to shut up. My mouth begins to water. I go from thirsty to desperate for a Gatorade. When it's time to go, I'm the one about to faint. Kat and I stop off at a lunch counter we like. The waiters are so cute, all younger and taller than me, although we weigh about the same. I'm in the mood for their Fatburgerboy and a giant coke. I start to tell Kat this, but she's concentrating, tongue creeping out, on pulling off her band-aid. I look at the red spot on the gauze and the puncture inside her elbow. Suddenly, the desire for that burger leaves me and I feel my eyes well up with tears. "I'll just have a plain salad," I say in a voice-for-church. Kat jerks her head up, eyes wide and stretching wider. She mulls it over, then tells the waiter snappily, "Two plain salads, and ice water." What's happened to me I just can't explain. It's been weeks and weeks now; surely I must be hungry. There's the taste of ashes in my mouth and a drawing feeling under my skin so I feel like I'm melting. Still, I can't eat, not like before. The lump in my throat is almost too big to swallow now. This is my new routine: I'm sprawled on the couch, swaddled in one of X's old shirts. It smells like him, but not enough so I'd gag or anything. I wield the clicker like a man now. I bet I can reach the end of my youth before carpel tunnel sets in. Kat floats into the room all blonde and fluffy. She gracefully sets a bowl of fruit at my feet, careful not to make any sudden moves. By now, she knows better than to ask me to come along with her. After Kat leaves, on a cloud of perfume, I stretch out all my empty body parts along the couch. I know I'll pay for this later, but I let the tears come anyway. I cry until my ducts hurt. Ha! Another two pounds, I bet! Which is worse, being fat, divorced, living with my sister on my mother's money, or this giant headache knocking at each temple? I grope my way into the kitchen and try to unscrew the cap to the aspirin. The effort squinches my eyes shut tighter, then the right eyebrow shoots upward as if it has to be somewhere else. At the kitchen table, I try to focus my eyes on an object. The toaster is good, it's not so shiny anymore. I peer into it like a mirror and see that I am crying on one side of my head. This is the way it always is, but somehow this time I look different. I watch the toaster more carefully, half expecting it to yield my extra chins. They're gone! Toaster must be really dirty, I think. I push it away and take another look. I can see a torso, but it looks only faintly familiar. My hands wander up and down my sides, looking for old boundaries. Part of me has been abducted, erased, amputated out all of my great big bones! I need some more proof, so I grope my way over to the couch, pulling my clothes off as I go. I arrange things so I'm framed inside the dark, blank TV screen, like a butterfly on a slide. I gingerly move my limbs in various Barbie poses until I am convinced at last. Funny how endorphins can eat up an entire migraine like this! Won't Kat be surprised! I leap up at the first squeak of the door and see shock widen her eyes and redden her cheeks. I stand there, grinning stupidly, and suddenly I'm rooted to the floor, frozen, naked. A man has just somersaulted into the living room right behind Kat. He jumps up, more eager than ever before in his life. "All right! Two of you!" he says with a ravenous show of teeth. He rubs his hands together. Kat gets mad and scowls profusely as she shoves the acrobat into her studio, leaving me to feel for my own feet. Next day, I pay off my sister. "Got anything I can wear tonight?" I ask, and watch her face dimple with every kind of delight. She pulls clothes out of closets and drawers and floats them like clouds onto the bed. In the end, I choose standard biker-babe stuff, despite Kat's warning that black leather makes you sweat; plus, it sticks to everything and everybody. Kat sends me out into the night like a benevolent fairy-godmother. First stop -- the arts bar down the street from the art school. Even if I don't get lucky, at least I'll be entertained. The first thing I see is a pair of lovers in black clothes and corresponding nose-rings. They slap each other's pale cheeks, politely taking turns. They've gathered an audience, none of them blink. They might miss something. Someone presses into me from behind, nuzzling me and lifting the hair off my neck with a calloused hand. His voice grazes my ear. "It doesn't really hurt when you get hit, did you know that?" He jabs the air toward the slapping couple with his fist and all the hairs on the back of my exposed neck stand up and salute. I mumble nonsense and wheel out of his vicinity, sinking into the nearest available booth. There is a naked girl dancing on top of the bar. She must have undressed fast, because by now all she's got on are socks, grey ankle socks wet with spilled booze. She's in her own little world, driven by instinct. She's oblivious to the crowd until their clapping becomes the accompaniment to a chant. 'Whomp, there it is' they scream until the sound penetrates her brain. She stops abruptly, gasps, then crisscrosses her body uselessly with her arms. Laughter erupts and she begins to cry. I slip from my booth and follow the stream of people out the door. I'm okay with this; some of them I think I've seen before. We stop only a few feet away at a desolate train station. It's not used for anything anymore and is a ruin, especially under a cold, wintery moon. It looks good and spooky. The kids mill around a fire escape, pulling flasks and bottles from the inside of their coats. They arrange themselves prettily on railings and steps and all at once I see we're gradually, slowly creeping our way toward a window with a light burning in it and scratchy radio music coming from it. It smells like a locker room cum sauna and it's so loud I don't think anyone can hear my leather pants squeak. I can see a real possibility of getting stuck to someone without ever making contact. We're all moving like some high-tech gyro: the lighter ones (me!) being jostled inside the circle of more stationary heavies around and around the room. I can't even absorb all this before someone kind of rollers into me. He speaks to the top of my head. "When I'm blocked I feel the static in my third eye," he intones. "Uh huh" I say into his collarbone. He talks and talks and I begin to pray for some kind of wind vector that will separate us. His hot, poisoned breath starts to seal up everyplace I can breathe with. Don't faint, don't faint, I command myself. And something finally pushes him on his way. The poet whirls away from me quoting Italian from Dante and Virgil's Excellent Adventure. "Another one bites the dust," I exhale gratefully. Then my ears open like some sea anemone to the voice that narrates my best dreams. "Yo, the other sister," my foundling croons, this time directly to me. It's what I've come here for, I see that now. The crowd has mashed us together so tightly I wonder if our hipbones will ever unlock. I try to speak but he's reading only from my eyes; and the air thickens suddenly into a purple haze that chokes off speech and makes my eyes water. He might have come to my rescue on a white horse for all his gallantry. He moves me toward the door, his face always toward mine, as if we're dancing. He wants to take me to a room at the end of the hall. I'd like to skip down this hall but that wouldn't be cool. Instead, I unfurl my unfat body on the boy's sleeping bag and watch his cigarette glow in the dark from across the room. It takes forever for him to finish that smoke. As he comes toward me at last, I can hear my stomach growl. Later, first light ruffles his curls and I fancy I hear angels singing. But it's only the little girl across the way. She skips rope and she sings this: I wish I had a nickel, I wish I had a dime, I wish I had a lover who'd love me all the time. I'd make him do the dishes, I'd make him scrub the floor, and when he was all finished, I'd shove him out the door! -first published in Nightsun magazine Twenty Questions for Amma
1.What is the name of the book where we would first meet you? Shiva’s Arms by Cheryl Snell. I come back in Bombay Trilogy. 2.What do you think of the author? You can tell us the truth. She is soft like Alice, my daughter-in-law, but she is like me also. We know what is best for our children. 3.Tell us a little about yourself. How would you describe your appearance? That's more than just really cute or drop dead gorgeous. Give us enough detail to get a clear idea of how you look. I am not yet five feet tall. My hair is half as tall. It is gray with my years. I wear the widow’s white sari only, for my husband’s sake. 4. What character are you in the book? Are you the hero, the best friend, the side kick, the hero and heroine's child or someone else? We are always the hero in our own stories, correct? Correct! I am the mother of Ramesh. He went after a love match, shame, shame! What can I do but teach his girl our ways? 5.Is there a specific reason why you're in the story? Don't give us any story spoilers, but you can share some teasers if you want. I am in for Alice’s conflict. I fight for Ramesh. He must not become too Americanized. 6.How did you convince your author to put you in this book? For example, did you visit a dream or make yourself known some other way? Oh, like how the goddess came to the mathematician to scribe formulas on his tongue? No. I stand in the center of the book. Others swirl around me. Alice thinks it is her story only, ha! 7. What time period do you live in? Modern times. 8. Where are you from? Kerala, India 9. Do you live in the same place now? No, I live with my son Ramesh and the wife Alice. Joint-family is honorable tradition, not like you Americans, keeping the old people in old people homes! 10. Tell us about your hometown and your current home. I was raised in Kerala in Appa’s big stone house. When I was a girl, I shot the dacoits to defend family only. I married with Sambashivan at fifteen, and we escaped his mother, that blue-eyed devil, to Bombay. We raised many children. Since my husband died, I am staying with each son for some time. Then I come to America, for American tour only. Now I stay. 11.Tell us how your hometown or your current home affects you, the things you do and how you feel about life? Once I stayed in Ramesh’s room only, but now those two are keeping me in the basement, in-law apartment, kitchenette included. There is shrine also, to teach my grandson Sam the pujas. I am the namesake of Shiva, god of Creation and Destruction, and he must know. 12. What special skills or abilities do you have? I make dosa. 13. How do those affect your part in the story? Friends come from all over to eat some. Indians are hospitable. Alice can stay in her room. 14. Are you happy with the story? It was not yet time for my ticket. I am alive after stroke, and nice and sweet. Family gathers for my sake. Author is making me love Alice like family. Story is good. 15. Is there anything in your story you wish you had not done? Why? I should not have fought fists with my daughter-in-law. Such excitement gave me stroke. 16. Tell us about your past. Can you share one really good experience and/or one really bad experience? I know that bad experience can be tough, but it would tell us more about what you've been through. My daughter Nela disgraced me. Then we mended the fence, at last. 17. Who is the most important person in your life? Tell us about them. Grandson Sam. He is good boy and loves his grandmother. When he was a baby, he slept with his little hand on my cheek all night. 18.Is that person in the story we're talking about? Yes. 19. How does that person impact you and your life? He brings Nela to me in hospital. He sings to me, and I recover. 20. Do you think your author is going to write another story about you? Or, are you part of a series? Yes, author is working! Nela is main character this time. I make the cameo. Author should have me be main character only. Title is Shiva’s Arms! I am Shiva, not Alice. My arms embrace and push away. My footfalls heard across continents. It’s been great to talk with you. If you want to tell us anything else, feel free. Also, tell us about a website where we can learn more about you and where we can buy the book. Thank you also. I am here and here. Will an American girl and her Hindu Brahmin mother-in-law grind the man in the middle into chutney? That's the premise of my multicultural debut novel, Shiva’s Arms, and the first thing that readers want to know is “How much of Shiva’s Arms is autobiographical?”
The short answer is: everything and nothing. The set up, unsuitable American bride marries Hindu NRI, parallels my life. But the characters are fictional, not portraits of people I know. I gave my main character Alice my own long hair and quirky fashion sense, but I am not Alice, although I know her very well. A power struggle between in-laws is a universal conflict. Everyone knows an Amma, right? I never met my own mother-in-law but when an Indian family moved in next door to my husband and me, I had a bird’s eye view of samsara as it played out in their household of three generations. The walls between our townhouses were thin enough so I could even hear what they argued about-- from the conflict between personal independence and family to the divided loyalties that ask the question, “when one belong to two cultures, what part of the self goes and what stays?” I began to imagine a novel built on the swirl of relationships around me. While I was composing, I'd assign tics of people I knew to my characters to help me find a reaction to a made-up situation that would ring true. The little Ganesh on the chain Amma gave to Alice is modeled after the one my own mother-in-law sent to me, for example. In a gesture that meant more to me than I can say, she melted down her marriage bangles for me, the “unsuitable bride,” she had never met. Amma would never have done that! Truth is always stranger than fiction. A reader said, “I saw this definition (of a multicultural novel) in the paper a while ago... ‘Postcolonial novels explore the cultural bouillabaisse: characters of various national origins...living in an international capital queasily negotiating...cultural transition.’ Queasily is important, I think--like the main character in The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears.”
Though the quote refers to a book review by Darryl Wellington in The Washington Post about The Opposite House, by Helen Oyeyemi, our reader is talking about Dinaw Mengestu’s book. The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears shows that immigration is more than movement. Speaking about his main character, the author said in a Tavis Smiley interview, “…he also doesn't connect fully to the community around him. He knows that he is almost invading it, to some degree.” A happy ending is not guaranteed. At Rediff.com, Samina Ali talks about her novel, Madras on Rainy Days, in which not only American-raised Muslims are seduced by Western ideals of independence and romantic love; her characters, a bride who is not a virgin and a groom who is gay, must come to an understanding. “Indian writers have been the biggest wave of immigrant literature for some years. Yet each of us is speaking in a distinctive voice whether it is Bengali Brahmins or Bombay Parsis or Kerala Christians. My book is about Hyderabadi Muslims. My tale is simply one of the thousands that make India the dynamic country it is. I hope Indian readers in America recognize and embrace that.” American writers, too--the premise of Mike Stocks’ White Man Falling is that “a white man falls out of the sky into a small south Indian town, causing all kinds of curious ramifications – spiritual, romantic and domestic – in the complicated lives of the main characters and their wider community… (the story) exemplifies how sometimes in life meaningless events can produce meaningful effects.” Order out of chaos? A worthy goal.. In Bombay Trilogy, Ram's brilliant Dalit student Anand is the least likely candidate to bring the Brahmin family together. It's all the more triumphant when he manages just that. In the first novella of Paul Theroux’s The Elephanta Suite, he introduces the Blundens. Already I see them blundering. Should I? What’s in a name anyway, when it comes to naming characters in fiction? I collected some do-and-don'ts to see how the names in Bombay Trilogy stack up: Do: have a name say something about the character's parents. In my characters’ neighborhood, the father’s name and family home is incorporated into the child’s name. So my boy Ramesh, whose father is Sambashivan from Trichur, is called T. Sambashivan Ramesh. Do: choose a name to suit the character's personality, who they are, where they come from or where they are going. Shiva fits the bill here. The matriarch of the family is named for the god of creation and destruction, whose many arms embrace and repel simultaneously. The name underscores the character’s culture shock and her resistance to change, and foreshadows her reconciliation with her daughter-in-law. Do: let a name give clues about your character's background. The Sambashivans are South Indian Brahmins, and the name reflects that. Ask anybody. Don’t: fill your story with names that sound alike or that start with the same letter. Hmmm. We’ve got Ramesh, Alice, Shiva, Nela, and Sam. Ram and Sam do have something in common, sound-wise, but they ARE father and son. I picked the minor characters' names from my mental list of common South Indian names. "We are all named for royalty or gods, " one character reminds another. That simplified things for me -- they are all of the Venkatarajapuramgovindaswamyshankaranarayan variety. Do: alternate lengths of names. Done! See above. When my parents asked my brothers and me whether we wanted a puppy or a new baby, I chose the baby. Janet came along, and so did the puppy. Everyone was happy.
I immediately tried to read to my new sister. I was not quite four, but I had memorized some of the poems in A Child’s Garden of Verses. I pretended to read it, holding the book to show her the mysterious hieroglyphics splashed across the pages. Our father was the one who opened me to poetry. After dinner, while still at the table, he’d pull out his dog-eared copy of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner or The Canterbury Tales and read aloud. I was mesmerized by the sound and rhythm as, one by one, Philip Larkin, Emily Dickinson, and Elizabeth Bishop were all brought to life by his voice. From time to time, I’d glance at Janet, sitting on Mother’s lap at the other end of the table, to see if she was paying attention. She must have been, since she soon began to read Dr. Suess. All of it. Later, she read the Black Beauty series while I lived with Louisa May Alcott’s March family. Our tastes, as they were developing, dovetailed and diverged. I remember summer days much like this one, each of us pulling out a book from our beach bags and reading while other children splashed in the community pool, their shrieks and the drone of insects background music to the worlds that books evoked. Alice in Wonderland. Catch 22. Siddhartha. The Magic Mountain. How and when did we go from being readers swapping books to collaborators on our own book projects? It was much later. Janet had developed into a serious fine artist and I had published quite a few poems in the lit ’zines. We had always shown our work to one another for reaction and comment and we saw that we were exploring many of the same themes. Our sensibilities, shard sense of melancholy, and interests overlapped and merged in much the same way as the sound of siblings who sing. The notion struck us--if we combined our arts, would it make for a richer utterance? You must be the judge of that. As for us, the making our library is the primary pleasure. Writers, when you're developing a character with sensibilities foreign to your own, does the creative process itself promote empathy?
My character Amma in Bombay Trilogy was modeled on a traditional Hindu mother-in-law of an American “unsuitable bride.” At first, I had only an incomplete understanding of the attitudes with which I used to construct her, but as I learned how to illuminate and animate her, I began to inhabit her -- and develop empathy for her. A character incorporates its creator, at least a blurred and altered version. It’s paradoxical, isn’t it, that for a writer to disappear into her character, she sometimes has to go far away from that self. In order to think through the character and its demands, it’s important to succumb to that “estranging kinship,” to use Richard Powers' phrase. Psychological distancing was a useful tool in re-framing Amma's true desires -- one aspect of empathy. What did she really want? The reader must discover what she thought she needed and the consequences of that. Liking her seems largely beside the point. My unlikeable character had convictions so strong that she was willing to sacrifice everything for them. This comment sparked the following response, which I thought I'd share with you: Empathy - A much abused word, I feel, these days - used in a fairly superficial context and almost interchangeable with 'sympathy'. Our empathy is not the sole preserve of those to whom we are closest and those we love best. Occasionally, our empathy is even deeper with those towards whom we have a (natural?)antipathy. We can read them in more accurate detail. And it can be unnerving to contemplate how this reflects upon us. You have a lot of grace towards your MIL character, but I wonder if part of your instinct in defending her so staunchly is that of an author - a creator - confronting criticism that doesn't belong to the context of the work. We all like a heartwarming story that carries us away, but serious fiction cannot be dealing with the wholly likeable. We need a discomfiture that restores us to ourselves. We need to trespass into alien mindsets. The virtue is not necessarily in the resolution of the story, but of the reader saying thankfully:"There but for the grace of God, go I," and breathing a sigh of relief. 1-A critic has said that one important measure of a superior work of literature is its ability to produce in the reader a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. What are some of the sources of the "pleasure and disquietude" in Shiva’s Arms?
There are lots of sources of pleasure: sensory details, such as food, used to reveal national character, is one. Disquietude is shown in the culture clash itself, and all its sub-clashes, as when Amma ‘accidentally’ breaks Alice’s dishes and sends her running for the refuge of the art museum. And, of course, we feel disquietude when Alice breaks down. 2-Many plays and novels use contrasting places to represent opposed forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. In Shiva’s Arms, how do the two contrasting places differ in what each place represents? America, as represented by Alice, is shown to be open-hearted and hospitable, willing to be changed by new elements. India, as embodied by Amma, wants to keep the ancient traditions intact at all costs. Ramesh has a foot in both worlds and represents both the success and failures in assimilation. Sam’s presence in the book demonstrates the push-back from his father’s choices. He allies himself with his grandmother’s heritage – a dramatization of the reactionary vs. the modern. Nela is perhaps a wild card. Her desire to live an authentic life prevents her from being as subversive, or submissive, as another daughter might have been. She chooses to live in exile. 3-One definition of madness is "mental delusion or the eccentric behavior arising from it." But Emily Dickinson wrote Much madness is divinest Sense- To a discerning Eye- Novelists and playwrights have often seen madness with a "discerning Eye." What does Alice’s eccentric behavior consist of and how might it be judged reasonable? Between “in-law invasions,” Alice feels free in her house. An insomniac, she roams from room to room at night, watching her many VCRs, or going into the kitchen to make fudge. She knows that once Amma arrives, she will have to accommodate her, and her nocturnal habits could be seen as a way of reminding herself that her home actually belongs to her. Another behavior that seems eccentric but has its own inner logic is the fact that when the ongoing animosities with Amma flare up, Alice seeks help from the ostracized Nela, hatching schemes to right the balance of power. She sees Nela as a kindred spirit and an ally against the woman who has rejected them both. A woman with no chemical imbalance might resort to a little one-upmanship with an over-bearing MIL , but Alice can only fight back in a subversive, unclear way that reflects her thinking disorder. Her behavior is reasonable if one considers the underlying disease. The way she finally steps back from her feelings about Amma and enlists Nela’s assistance in order to give the old woman the help she needs is a rational and altruistic act. 4-Morally ambiguous characters -- characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good -- are at the heart of many works of literature. Can Amma be viewed as morally ambiguous and why is her moral ambiguity significant to the work as a whole? Amma’s behavior and beliefs reflect the divided loyalties inherent in a collision of cultures. She believes fiercely that her protectiveness toward her heritage is necessary and admirable. The fact that she hurts her beloved son by rejecting his wife is a price she is willing to pay to uphold an ideal of cultural purity. She educates her grandson in the old ways, also, not just to pass on that ideal, but to redeem her son’s sin. The fact that she drums her daughter out of the family for a romantic infraction, burns evidence of her existence, and demands that her family consider her dead, is a defensible stance in her mind, for the same reasons. And, of course, there is the ambiguity of Lord Shiva himself, Amma’s namesake, and the household god of both Creation and Destruction. 5-Often in literature, a character's success in achieving goals depends on keeping a secret and divulging it only at the right moment, if at all. In Shiva’s Arms, the family keeps a secret from Sam. How does the secret affect the plot? The plot turns on it. Alice’s muddled revenge – evidence that she, at least, does not obey Amma – is pre-empted by Nigel’s revelation that Nela is not only alive, but flourishing in a romantic relationship with him. Amma’s cruelty and the family’s collusion horrify Sam, whose reaction sets the climax in motion. 6- Nela becomes cut off from “home” and her experience is both alienating and enriching. How does this ambiguity illuminate the meaning of the novel as a whole? It has been said that you can leave home all you want, but the idea of home stays with you. It colors your new beginnings. It’s wrenching, to decide what part of a divided heart goes, and what stays. The physical dislocation Nela experiences reflects the modern phenomenon of spiritual dislocation. For VS Naipaul, "finding the centre" was paramount. For Nela, it’s the threshold that holds the most fascination. The complexity at the heart of the momentous act of immigration becomes a theme in her life, positioned as she is in the archway - a good place from which to observe and to have a conversation with one’s own divided heart. 7-The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings. "The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from their readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy ending, I do not mean mere fortunate events -- a marriage or a last minute rescue from death -- but some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death." How is the "spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation" evident in the ending of the book significant to the structure of the novel? Introducing the Christian theme of reconciliation connects to the Hindu belief system of endless birth and re-birth, exploring yet another duality. When Alice puts aside her history with Amma, she opens a future for them that reassesses the meaning of family in an unpredictable world. Q-A critic has said that one important measure of a superior work of literature is its ability to produce in the reader a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. What are some of the sources of the "pleasure and disquietude" in Bombay Trilogy?
A-There are lots of sources of pleasure: sensory details, such as food, used to reveal national character, is one. Disquietude is shown in the culture clash itself, and all its sub-clashes, as when Amma ‘accidentally’ breaks Alice’s dishes and sends her running for the refuge of the art museum. And, of course, we feel disquietude when Alice breaks down, the sacrifices that Nela makes for her chose family, and Ram's pull toward and against his culture. Q-Many plays and novels use contrasting places to represent opposed forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. In Bombay Trilogy how do the two contrasting places differ in what each place represents? Q-America, as represented by Alice, is shown to be open-hearted and hospitable, willing to be changed by new elements. India, as embodied by Amma, wants to keep the ancient traditions intact at all costs. Ramesh has a foot in both worlds and represents both the success and failures in assimilation. Sam’s presence in the book demonstrates the push-back from his father’s choices. He allies himself with his grandmother’s heritage – a dramatization of the reactionary vs. the modern. Nela is perhaps a wild card. Her desire to live an authentic life prevents her from being as subversive, or submissive, as another daughter might have been. She chooses to live in exile and becomes the most successful in generations of the family. Q-One definition of madness is "mental delusion or the eccentric behavior arising from it." But Emily Dickinson wrote Much madness is divinest Sense- To a discerning Eye- Novelists and playwrights have often seen madness with a "discerning Eye." What does Alice’s eccentric behavior consist of and how might it be judged reasonable? A-Between “in-law invasions,” Alice feels free in her house. An insomniac, she roams from room to room at night, watching her many VCRs, or going into the kitchen to make fudge. She knows that once Amma arrives, she will have to accommodate her, and her nocturnal habits could be seen as a way of reminding herself that her home actually belongs to her. Another behavior that seems eccentric but has its own inner logic is the fact that when the ongoing animosities with Amma flare up, Alice seeks help from the ostracized Nela, hatching schemes to right the balance of power. She sees Nela as a kindred spirit and an ally against the woman who has rejected them both. A woman with no chemical imbalance might resort to a little oneupmanship with an over-bearing MIL , but Alice can only fight back in a subversive, unclear way that reflects her thinking disorder. Her behavior is reasonable if one considers the underlying disease. The way she finally steps back from her feelings about Amma and enlists Nela’s assistance in order to give the old woman the help she needs is a rational and altruistic act. Q-Morally ambiguous characters -- characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good -- are at the heart of many works of literature. Can Amma be viewed as morally ambiguous and why is her moral ambiguity significant to the work as a whole? A-Amma’s behavior and beliefs reflect the divided loyalties inherent in a collision of cultures. She believes fiercely that her protectiveness toward her heritage is necessary and admirable. The fact that she hurts her beloved son by rejecting his wife is a price she is willing to pay to uphold an ideal of cultural purity. She educates her grandson in the old ways, also, not just to pass on that ideal, but to redeem her son’s sin. The fact that she drums her daughter out of the family for a romantic infraction, burns evidence of her existence, and demands that her family consider her dead, is a defensible stance in her mind, for the same reasons. And, of course, there is the ambiguity of Lord Shiva himself, Amma’s namesake, and the household god of both Creation and Destruction. Q-Often in literature, a character's success in achieving goals depends on keeping a secret and divulging it only at the right moment, if at all. In the book, the family keeps a secret, the first in a sequence affecting different characters, from Sam. How does the secret affect the plot? A-The plot turns on it. Alice’s muddled revenge – evidence that she, at least, does not obey Amma – is pre-empted by Nigel’s revelation that Nela is not only alive, but flourishing in a romantic relationship with him. Amma’s cruelty and the family’s collusion horrify Sam, whose reaction sets the climax in motion. Q- Nela becomes cut off from “home” and her experience is both alienating and enriching. How does this ambiguity illuminate the meaning of the novel as a whole? A-It has been said that you can leave home all you want, but the idea of home stays with. It colors your new beginnings. It’s wrenching, to decide what part of a divided heart goes, and what stays. The physical dislocation Nela experiences reflects the modern phenomenon of spiritual dislocation. For VS Naipaul, "finding the centre" was paramount. For Nela, it’s the threshold that holds the most fascination. The complexity at the heart of the momentous act of immigration becomes a theme in her life, positioned as she is in the archway - a good place from which to observe and to have a conversation with one’s own divided heart. Q-The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings. "The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from their readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy ending, I do not mean mere fortunate events -- a marriage or a last minute rescue from death -- but some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death." How is the "spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation" evident in the ending of the book significant to the structure of the novel? A-Introducing the Christian theme of reconciliation connects to the Hindu belief system of endless birth and re-birth, exploring yet another duality. When Alice puts aside her history with Amma, she opens a future for them that reassesses the meaning of family in an unpredictable world. As does Ramesh, years later, when he accepts as family a student of his who has been mauled by fate. After the obvious—caffeine— I can offer a few personal techniques that keep me writing:
1. Don’t vamp for time: there is no perfect clutch of hours in which to write. Establish a schedule and stick to it. "Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work," Flaubert told us. A corollary to this might be, “Don’t wait around for inspiration to strike. It’ll only hit you when you’re at your desk.” 2. If I didn’t believe that writer’s block was a hoax, I’d break it by switching genres. When I was composing my novel Shiva’s Arms, I’d work on it until I stalled, then switch to Samsara, the poetry collection I was making at the same time. Similar themes (cultural identity, the meaning of home, metaphysical conflations of mortal and immortal) in both works made the overlap easy, and added a layered richness to each. And I never suffered whiplash. 3. Read widely and deeply. If you can take classes or workshops that are slightly over your head, do so. If not, when you read a novel, Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, for example, also read criticism on the same book. In this case, I’d choose Pierre Bourdieu’s Rules of Art. 4. Stay connected to your work. I carry a small notepad with me everywhere and let my mind wander to my work-in-progress while I’m doing other things. Joyce Carol Oates once said that housework helped her concentrate. Repetitive movement loosens thinking. Remember how your little nephew would spill all the family business the moment you put him on a swing? Resting my case… 5. Let your routines and rituals assist you. As soon as they stop helping, change them. Fickleness is its own reward! When I was younger I’d write after the house had been put to bed, when everything was quiet. I insisted I could think better surrounded by the dark. Now I do better with shorter writing stints throughout the day, the sunnier the better. 6. Utilize psychological distance. When you change your way of thinking about a character in concrete terms to abstract ones, new connections occur. You might develop empathy for an unlikeable character, and drive your story in a new direction, for instance. This happened to me with the mother-in-law, Amma, in Shiva’s Arms. 7. At the end of the day, leave yourself hanging. If I stop writing in mid-sentence, I’m encouraged to plunge in at that spot the following day. No checking e-mail or fiddling with the lamp. Just me and the words, wrestling again. My ninety year old mother broke her hip one spring. She is a modest woman, but one day she wanted to show me her scar. Why would she do that? And how could I describe it? How much history should I include - for instance, should I let the reader know she has Alzheimer's? I decided to open with the moment itself:
I'm taking everything off/ she announces, clawing at her clothes/ The verbs point to her loosened inhibitions and the quality of her thinking. This is no stripper. There is no playfulness in her act. Moving to a description (a new scar gleams on her mended hip) that is stark and unsparing, the poem finds its identity in this line: Where did this come from, where is it going? I needed to make clear the loss of memory here, the shock that recurs each time a patient is confronted with what she has already grieved over. The reader's attention now focuses on the scar, described with the brusque-sounding "cross-hatched" and its location on the ruins of the body. A cross-hatched seam in the center of a body's landslide. A cradle for children, a long-ago man; a broken wing. The reader follows as the old woman touches her scar like a blind person, and when the raised pattern of the scar is likened to "A railroad crossing pocked with stop-signs./A fire escape going down.// the poem demands the reader not flinch from the images of exit. Ninety I'm taking everything off she announces, clawing at her clothes. A new scar gleams on her mended hip. Where did this come from, where is it going? A cross-hatched seam in the center of a body's landslide. A cradle for children, a long-ago man; a broken wing. She begins brailing her fingertip down the red raised tracks. It's not what she expected. A railroad crossing pocked with stopsigns. A fire escape going down. You’ve spent hours, days, weeks, perhaps months crafting your short story. You’ve shaped a narrative of plot, setting, conflict, point of view, character, and theme, and taken it through three or more revisions. You’ve received critical feedback from at least one trusted reader, and read your story aloud, at least to yourself in the mirror.
You tell yourself, “All systems GO” but before you send your freshly printed out, spell-checked and proofread story to the literary magazine you’ve carefully researched for type of content and style, and whose submission guidelines you’ve followed to the letter, check it against this list: • Have you “opened strong?” The first sentence should draw the reader in and contain the germ of the story. • Did you use more dialogue than narration? Beware the long and the windy. • Did you use descriptive nouns and verbs? Eliminate the vague and imprecise. • Edit out as many adjectives and adverbs as possible. Words ending in …ly weaken the work. • Did you choose past tense over past participle whenever possible? It provides immediacy, much like first person and present tense. • Language that calls attention to itself wakes the reader from his fictional dream. Don’t show off. • Did you involve all five senses when imagining your story? If you did, your reader will experience it with all of his. • Use natural speech when writing dialogue, even when you’re using dialect. • Cut it back or cut it out. Think Hemingway, not Proust. Now, lick that stamp! When is a Transition not a Transition?
It’s a slippery one, that term. Noun or verb, it conjures the world's first IMAX film in 3D or modulation in a musical passage or a passage that connects a topic to one that follows. It can represent an event that results in a transformation, a change from one person, place, or thing to another; it can mean “to cause to convert or undergo a transition.” For writers, transitions mark relationships between ideas --examples, exceptions. They serve as clues to interpretation for the reader. So when several of my critics complained they found the transitions in my novel confusing, I was the one left scratching her head. I tried to get to the bottom of it. What in the world did they mean when they said they didn’t always know where the action was taking place? I thought I made that clear. "One minute you're in India and the next minute you're in America," they said. I looked at my book again, searching out the abrupt, the jagged. I had always admired Alice Munroe’s seamless transitions and taken them as my model. Maybe they were talking about the fact that the same information came from several characters with their separate points-of-view. The theme of divided loyalties and questions of belonging is complex; perhaps I had made a mosaic that didn’t come together smoothly enough for their tastes. One reader gave me a clue. “Most books stick asterisks in when the characters go someplace. You can keep track of them better that way.” Could she be talking about scene changes? Some editors do indeed want to include a blank line or two at the end of scenes, while others think that everything in a chapter should be tightly contained therein --if you need a separation, you need a new chapter, is the thinking. When I described what a transition meant to me as a writer, the lady with the clue was surprised. ”I didn't mean that type of transition,” she said. “Transition was the best word I could come up with. I meant when the setting or whatever you want to call them, changes. The writing was fine.” Mystery solved. Jeff Eugenides (of Middlesex fame) famously disputed the vitality of multicultural novels a few years ago in a Slate interview. “What's the great subject of the novel?” he asked. “Marriage, of course. In the West, we've lost that subject. Marriages aren't arranged anymore. Divorce is no longer unthinkable. You can't have your heroine throw herself under a train because she left her husband and ruined her life. Now your heroine would just have a custody battle and remarry.”
I think that, although a subject like marriage was thoroughly examined in 19th century England, a writer can offer something new by way of structure or language or viewpoint. Whether I set them in the larger world or not, I want characters authentic in their milieu, who will tell the truth with a broader perspective. To be original and clear, to use sentiment without sentimentality, to provide readers with an undisturbed fictional dream—these were some of the things I kept in mind while writing Bombay Trilogy. The clamor of contemporary noise-- iPods and iPads, phones with internet, faster and faster computers, traffic—can drown out any such sustained effort, but at the end, there is a refuge unlike any other in the pages of a book of any genre. What's your definition of a multicultural novel? Are there "cobwebs between the sentences"? Do "Entire paragraphs smell like mothballs"? Was Gilbert Sorrentino right when he said,"These books don't exist. I mean, they exist. But they don't EXIST!" attraction You’ve always had it in the back of your mind, this idea to write a novel “someday,” but that’s one elastic time frame. How to make the first move? As with all relationships, the action starts with a spark. For me, it was a TV show documenting an Indian’s decision to leave his family and renounce the world according to ancient principles of sanyasi. “Do they really still do that? “ I asked my husband. Suddenly I had a thousand questions, and I needed to explore them through writing.”I never know what I think about a subject until I’ve written on it,” Faulkner said.
romance I drafted a few poems on the subject, then tried it as a story. I flirted with the possibility that my project could develop into a novel. I entertained ideas for a protagonist who had to deal with more than Sanyasi man’s yoke of tradition and conflicting familial expectations. I began to wonder how his wife felt. What was she like, anyway? A portrait of my fierce matriarch Amma emerged from under my pen. I set her in a milieu, got her into trouble. The conflict appeared as the character of Alice, the American “unsuitable bride” to a favorite son. passion I became absorbed by Indian myths, customs, and philosophy that would flesh out my characters. My research took me on a wild ride: I learned to cook my characters’ favorite dishes, played the music they listened to, learned to speak a few words of Tamil. The overarching theme of kinship and divided loyalties in the work took shape as my characters ran amok in interesting ways, startling me. They invaded my dreams. I slept with a notepad ready to receive unconscious insights, and spent my waking hours focused on my story. intimacy At a certain point, you’ve gained entry into the characters’ heads and they begin to sound distinct from one another. Would Amma really respond that way to a stewardess? Did that subversive vibe suit Alice better than Nela? The mystery of creating takes the writer over, and the creations become palpable, even more insistent on their own agenda. Listening to my characters' desires is similar to listening to my own intuition, the same small voice that can so easily be drowned out. commitment During this stage, you can count on a test of endurance. You are tired. You have compassion-fatigue for your characters. You wish they would shut up. The blandishments of the real world you were so recently able to resist, are irresistible now. You pick up a fashion magazine for the first time in ages. The phrase I’ll write tomorrow pops into your mind, and it seems ok to cheat on today’s session. All right. So take a break. The work continues underground and seeps through the subconscious, if you're lucky -- and finally, out of desperation, disgust, deadlines or something more positive, you'll feel a surge of energy one fine day. What are they doing? you'll wonder about your people. You'll pick up your pen. You'll find out. How and why do writers write, despite everything? Especially when you consider that a writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people, as Thomas Mann observed.
Alice Walker kept a sign over her office desk which would cause much fall-out later. It was to remind her about obstacles other writers had faced, and stared down: Woolf had madness, Eliot was ostracized, Austen had no privacy, the Brontes died young and dependent, Hurston had poor health. Walker had her daughter,"who is more delightful and less distracting than any of the calamities above." The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads, said William Styron. Colette told us to Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. Writing is a struggle against silence. ~Carlos Fuentes Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death - fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant; ~ Edna Ferber. Novelists... fashioning nets to sustain and support the reader as he falls helplessly through the chaos of his own existence. ~Fay Weldon. This one, about process, resonates with me-- Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.~ E.L. Doctorow This is how I portrayed marriage negotiations in a draft of Shiva's Arms:
“Hush,” said Varun. “Amma is trying to marry you off to someone in the parlor.” There was a rumor that child-marriage was about to be outlawed, the legal age raised to thirteen. He twitched his new mustache, a growth Shiva had nicknamed Bandicoot after a legendary rat that lived on the property and could not be caught... Shiva nodded; she didn’t give the matchmaking in the parlor another thought. It was only when the defeated look on her parents’ faces began to seem permanent did Shiva fear for her freedom. A suitable match would provide the parents with momentary happiness, but after the wedding they would only see their daughter when her husband’s family allowed it. “Taking pains with a daughter is like watering another family’s garden,” she overheard one family’s representative say as she was ushered out of the house. Some minor disgrace might render Shiva unmarriageable and put an end to this parade of grasping, fortune-hunting crones. She had to come up with a plan to save herself... Wizened female relatives of possible suitors finagled their way into the parlor of the old stone house. With cunning eyes, they calculated the immense wealth all around them. Each one imagined that Shiva’s mother would drop to her knees in gratitude that her ruffian daughter could have a future with a respectable family. But Shiva’s mother was a good negotiator and would not be swayed by the trickery of some old abacus- counter. “Your nephew is quite dark, quite rugged-looking, I see,” she might say, holding the suitor’s photograph in her fingers as if it offended her. “It was taken on a cloudy day only,” the marriage-brokering aunt would sniff, clattering her bone china cup on the saucer. “The boy is quite fair under sunlight, perhaps fairer than your daughter. Her skin must be toughened from her times on horseback, isn’t it?” Shiva’s mother kept her voice low, so that the old woman had to bend forward to catch all the words. “It is so surprising what some people will criticize! Some people have nothing better to do than limit a child’s abilities, and measure her value in gold and jewels only. My Shiva has great wealth beyond beauty, and I must be careful who I give her to! On the occasion of her baby-naming ceremony, the priest saw that she loved all the objects set before her to determine her future. He pronounced her capable in all areas.” Peeking out from her hiding place behind the damask curtain, Shiva silently cheered her mother on as she exposed one old woman after another for the greedy viper she was. But as time wore on, Shiva’s mother became more anxious, more fretful, not so indulgent of Shiva’s childishness. She became less critical of the women, more eager to establish a fruitful rapport. Shiva, standing behind the heavy curtain, hand over mouth, was terrorized by the thought of a new life in which she would be captive. What would she hide behind, which curtain, whose family? Her throat seized up. I can’t breathe! Throwing off the damask, she’d hurl herself into her mother’s arms, sure she was about to die... All the coughing fits in the universe could not have changed Shiva’s fate, and deep down she knew it. At each unveiling, she would do her best to discourage the bride-seeker. Her rude answers to prying questions, inexplicable memory lapses in the middle of her singing performances, the sudden physical awkwardness in her dance movements did not change the fact that she was the daughter of a wealthy man with a large dowry to give. Her parents became stricter and more unyielding to her resistance, which came to nothing in the end. Her parents didn’t really want her, it was clear, so Shiva consented to be married to a stranger called Trichur Venatesan Sambashivan, Iyer. She was fifteen years old. |
AuthorCheryl Snell is an award-winning poet and novelist, author of the new family saga Bombay Trilogy, a retelling of her previous novels Shiva's Arms, Rescuing Ranu, and Kalpavriksha. Archives
October 2020
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