Meeting phenomenal women

The author, CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI, is interviewed here by TARA KHANDELWAL and MICHELLE D'COSTA about her books on mythology, like The Palace of Illusions, which is a retelling of the Mahabharata from Draupadi’s point of view, and The Forest of Enchantments, which is a retelling of the Ramayana, from the eyes of Sita. And there’s The Last Queen, which is about Rani Jindan’s life. She has authored historical fiction, migrant fiction, and stories about women’s lives. And her latest book is called Independence, which follows the lives of three sisters during the partition of India and Bengal, a topic that we don’t often see.

Q: So Chitra, what was one memory from your childhood in Bengal that made you want to be a writer?

CBD: The memory of my grandfather telling me stories. Every summer my mother would pack me off to my grandfather's. I think I must have been a naughty child and she was probably glad to get rid of me for the summer holidays. I just loved being with my grandfather because he was the best storyteller. He lived in a little village about three hours from Kolkata, and the village of Ranipur in my latest book, Independence, is built around memories of my grandfather's village.

There was no electricity in the village, so every evening he would light the lantern and call all of us cousins, and we would sit near him. The lantern would throw shadows on the wall and he would tell us stories, and I remember those evenings so beautifully. That’s when I learned the stories of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, and I fell in love with those stories. You can see how that influenced my life, made me into a writer.

Q: You’re such a prolific writer, Chitra. How do you get such varied ideas and how do you even decide which ones to explore? I believe you got the inspiration for The Last Queen at the Kolkata Literary Festival. The author, William Dalrymple, shared a picture of Rani Jindan on the screen, and you decided to write about her life. So, what was your process?

CBD: Thank you for that great question. You are right, that inspiration came to me out of the blue; it was so surprising. I feel so grateful, because I never know where the idea for a book is coming from. It’s not like I make a conscious choice. In fact, before writing about Maharani Jinda I was thinking about writing a novel on human trafficking, and I hope I will get back to that at some point. But it was like the universe sent me Maharani Jinda’s story and the more research I did, the more I became determined to write that story. Having written that story about the colonial period, it was really important for me to write the end of the story where India becomes free of the British yoke.

The characters just rise up and
take over my mind—they just take
over my entire life.

I wanted to write about independence, because my grandfather and my mother had both lived through the independence years. They really went through a lot of very dramatic experiences in the 1940s. But until I got the call from the universe saying, it’s now time to write that story, it was just somewhere in the back of my mind. It is quite a mysterious process.

These ideas are in the back of my mind, but then something happens, something that I don’t control, and I feel like I absolutely have to write the story. And when I start on a novel, it’s also a mysterious process. The characters just rise up and take over my mind—they just take over my entire life. Maybe that’s why I do have quite a few books, because I’m obsessed. When my writing starts, when I really get into a novel, I have no work-life balance, I’m just writing all the time. The words are coming through me, like being in the zone. That is how I come up with stories. Mysterious, always mysterious. Until the idea comes and hits me, I never know what the next book is going to be. 

I think I started writing as a way of
remembering them, and preserving
them in my heart. 

Q: A lot of writers will relate to what you just said. People want to know your origin story. You hinted at it with your grandfather a little, but when did the journey begin for you?

CBD: You know, I teach creative writing at the University of Houston, a wonderful internationally acclaimed program. I work with writers of all ages, and most of them tell me they have wanted to be a writer since they were 10 years old. But I was never like that—I didn’t want to become a writer at all! I loved reading. You will laugh when you hear this. When I was growing up, I wanted to become a firefighter, to ride on a fire engine and put out fires. And my family was very quick to put down that idea. Then I wanted to become a pilot, which was not going to happen. So I decided I would become a teacher, because my mother was a teacher and she was a role model for me. So, I am a teacher. The writing part came to me quite by surprise. I started writing after I moved to the United States, when I was 20 years old and very homesick. I came here for my graduate studies and I really missed my family and friends. America was very exciting, don’t get me wrong, but I really missed the known environment. Also, I had never been so far away from the people I loved, and I think I started writing as a way of remembering them, and preserving them in my heart.

A lot of my early writing is about the world I left behind. At the time, my grandfather passed away, and he was so important in my life. As a student I didn’t have the money to go back for his funeral, so I thought, how can I honor my grandfather? I’ll write stories about him.

I started by writing poems and that was a big impetus for me. Also, as fascinating as America was, it was confusing. I started writing stories of immigrant women, just to make sense of this new world in which I found myself, which wasn’t as glamorous as I imagined it to be. I loved many things about America, but it wasn’t the dream I had dreamed before coming, and I wanted to write the truth of that. So those things made me start writing and want to become a writer.

Q: That loneliness of being away from a known environment is something that is really relatable. Is there an anecdote from your immigrant experience that makes you laugh?

CBD: Sure. When I first came to the United States for college, I went to Ohio, where my brother was working as a doctor. We weren’t going to live in the same household, however, our mother wanted big brother to keep an eye on me. My brother and I had an understanding—you don’t tell and I won’t tell. Unlike New York and California, people in Ohio were not exposed to and had little knowledge of immigrant populations. This was long before the internet and very understandably, people didn’t know about India. And they would ask me all kinds of questions. Generally, I would give them truthful answers but sometimes I would feel a little wickedness in me.

They were fascinated by the bindi that I wore on my forehead, and my Indian saris, and they would ask, “What is that thing? What are you wearing? Is it like your third eye?” And some days, I would say, “Yeah.” They would ask, “What is the significance of the color?” And I would answer, “I was born with this bindi. I came into the world with a bindi on my forehead, and depending on my mood the bindi will change color. So you see this red one means I’m feeling dangerous today. So you better not mess with me!” And people would just listen. And I could just see that they believed everything I said, and I felt so wicked. I was a bad girl.

Q: You’re so good at storytelling; it permeates every aspect of your life. One thing we really appreciate in your writing is the common thread of strong women, whether it’s historical or mythological fiction. There are certain things women are restricted to, in the context of that time, especially in mythology, where there is a trope of the men being the more dominant characters. We can’t get away from societal norms and patriarchy. Despite this, what you have done is portrayed strong women, powerful feminists straining against their times, and they don’t conform to typical stereotypes. Can you talk about the ways in which you show these women defying the confines of their environment back then?

CBD: Yes, that is an underlying thread. It’s like a musical note that keeps coming back in my writing, because I think it is so important for us all, men and women, boys and girls, to read the stories of strong women. As women and students of literature, we’ve be reading about strong men. So, why shouldn’t men read about strong women? And of course, women should read about them. I think there’s a real potential for books to change the way we think, and therefore change the way we live, and therefore change our world. As a writer, I certainly hope for that.

If my books affect people’s thinking even a little bit, that will make me so happy; if it makes them a little more aware of the nuances of women’s lives. That is why I want to show women in role breaking situations, pathbreaking, opening up new worlds. And there were women like that.

Again, I go back to my grandfather; when I was little he taught me to play chess. He never thought I couldn’t learn because I was a girl. So I think a little bit of that came from my grandfather, who just tends to end up in my books in different ways at different times.

You are so right that having strong women is central to my writing. It is true with Draupadi in The Palace of Illusions, with Sita in The Forest of Enchantments. I did very careful research on those characters. People can say I made up my Sita and my Draupadi, but I wanted to put them in the center of the stories. I wanted readers to feel what they were feeling, and to hear them speak their words and speak about their lives, because I think giving a voice to women is so important, allowing them to really speak their mind, to speak their heart.

My hope is that through my books, I’m showing readers that these are women just like us, not some amazing heroic person that we can never be like. They have all got something to teach us. They have all got something we can take as our own.

I think there’s a real potential for books 
to change the way we think, and 
therefore change the way we live, 
and therefore change our world.

Q: So, within a mythological context, how do you place characters that break boundaries when the story is already largely set for you?

CBD: That’s a wonderful question. Because of various things that have happened in our social culture, we think that the stories of Sita and Draupadi have only one interpretation; but really, what most of us have in our minds are the popular movie retellings. If we go back to the original Mahabharata and the original Ramayana we see there’s a lot of nuance there. That’s why it was important for me to do really careful research, to look at those situations and not take the later interpretations of those situations.

I'll give you an example. In the popular retellings, paintings and movies of the Ramayana, when Rama, Sita, and Lakshman go to the forest, we usually see Rama in the front, protecting Sita in the middle, and Lakshman protecting her from the back. She’s bracketed between these men as though she were completely helpless. However, when we read the original Valmiki, or my favorite edition written by Kritibas Ojha in Bengali (1381-1461), we see that Sita was quite feisty. Before they go to the forest, Rama tells Sita to stay back and take care of his parents. He tells her he’ll see her when he returns in 14 years. Sita says, “No way! I’m not going to stay in this musty old fortress of a palace taking care of old people while you go off and have your adventure. I’m coming with you. Plus, I love you. I’m not going to be separated from you for 14 years.” She is the one who makes that happen. She’s not meekly following Ram, she’s his companion. She tells him that he can’t stop her, it’s her right. We’ve been given a version of the story that makes Sita meek and not an agent of her own life, but that’s not what’s in the Ramayana. So, I’ve tried to go back and look a little deeper.

Another thing about Sita is how strong she was. People talk about how she was sent away by Ram, and how terrible it was. Yes, she’s sent away due to gossip in the kingdom, but if we really focus on her we know she is completely innocent. And she knows it too. And she feels terrible that Ram sends her away on a pretext. But look at how strong she is. She is the first single mother in all of literature, as far as my research has shown. She doesn’t waste time feeling sorry for herself and, instead, focuses all her energy on being the best mother she can to these two children. She makes them warriors, singers, poets, everything; isn't that something? We’re not often led to think about the strength that it must have required to put away her own sadness and focus on what could improve her situation.

Q: You mentioned Sita being one of the first single mothers in literature. In Independence, Priya, the main character, wants to become a doctor, which was really difficult for women back then in the patriarchal profession. How did you research Priya’s character with the lack of resources and documentation available about these women?

CBD: I did a lot of reading, especially about the famous women of that time, and what they could and could not do. Because my grandfather, my uncle, and my older brother were all doctors, I had heard a lot of doctoring history as stories. My mother also wanted to be a doctor, but at that time the only field open to her was nursing, something that girls from “good families” didn’t do. I always felt it was so unfair, because I knew my mother was a smart and capable woman, and would have made a wonderful doctor.

So I wanted Priya to overcome that. In the 1940s women were fighting. Something interesting happens when there are large political upheavals—they also become large social upheavals. Women came out of the home onto the streets, and they marched, especially with Gandhiji. He was very pro woman. He said women must take part in the freedom struggle; we can’t have half the country not involved. So women broke a lot of boundaries, and I thought it was the perfect time for Priya to want to break that boundary, even though it was hard for her. There was a double whammy of colonialism and patriarchy in the 1940s.

We’re not often led to think about the strength 
that it must have required to put away her own sadness and 
focus on what could improve her situation.

Before independence, when Priya wanted to go to medical school, the British were still in power, at least in Kolkata, and the Kolkata Medical College did not allow women. Even after independence, it took some time for women to be accepted into medical universities. So Priya was fighting against a lot of things. And I was rooting for her. I don’t want to give away all her story, but she fights very hard in service of her dream. She shows her strength when she manages to perform the last rites for her father, something that daughters are not supposed to do according to the Hindu tradition. But where in any spiritual text are we told that women can’t participate? We have so many women saints, so many women doing amazing things in our mythologies, in our histories, in our Puranas. Why this? It has been a deep pain in my heart. So I did what writers sometimes do: if we can’t have it in real life, we’re going to have it in our books. And that’s why the three sisters perform their father’s funeral ceremony.

Q: As well as having strong women characters, your portrayal of relationships is also very sensitive. Among your many themes you also explore magical realism. Which of your books do you think defines your interest the most?

CBD: That is a difficult question. The books are all like my children; I love them all equally and probably the baby is the favorite. Right now, Independence is my favorite, because in that book I wanted to combine the stories of ordinary women who have to face challenges and tragedy and come through strong. I really wanted to portray that we all have that possibility. Even if we think we are very ordinary, we women have within us extra ordinariness with the power to change lives, our own and other people’s. Right now, those characters are very close to me. As I write, I get completely engrossed in them, what they can show us, how they can perhaps inspire us. When I say inspire, I don’t mean by being some great hero, but inspire us in their very ordinariness. That’s what I want to show; especially women who are not whitewashed. I don’t believe women need to be perfect. I think we are wonderful in all our human complexity. And the three sisters have their strengths and also their weaknesses. You don’t have to write about virtuous women, you don’t have to write about perfect women.

Q: Your head must be full of ideas for new stories. How do you know that a particular idea has potential?

CBD: It’s very serendipitous. It’s not a logical process. I sit quietly, I have a meditation practice, and meditation has really helped me in many ways; it certainly helped me to write. Meditation clears my mind and puts me in a place of silence. And when I come out, some things become clear.

Whenever an idea comes to me, I write it down. I never know which one will manifest, like seeds germinating. And it happens by itself, it’s not a logical process. I can’t say, “I’m going to write this book” and then write it—it wouldn’t be powered by the inner power. So I wait and see, almost like asking the universe, what book do you want me to write? Then I have to be silent. And a feeling comes up, an idea comes up, or I get a visual image of a character. It will really capture my imagination. When that happens, I know this is the one I have to follow. Then I get completely obsessed with that idea, almost like being in a daze. What I’m doing is inside, thinking about that character and that situation and that story. That’s when I know that this is the book, because I can’t think of anything else.

Meditation clears my mind
and puts me in a place of silence.
And when I come out, some
things become clear.

Q: In the early days, how did you react to rejections, how did you cope?

CBD: In the beginning, I got a lot of rejections. Especially when I was writing poems and stories, and submitting them to magazines, they’d send them back with a little note that pretty much said, “Maybe you should not quit your day job.” They were not very encouraging. I would get depressed and my husband would come home and find me moping in the corner, eating chocolates. He’d say, “Oh, you got another rejection, didn't you?” I’d say, “Yes, my life is over.” But then, I would start thinking about why did they not like the story, how I could improve it, and then I would rewrite it.

One of the best things I did was join a writers’ group, because sometimes you need other eyes on your writing, you’re too close to it. That’s how I dealt with rejection. Writing is what I want to do, so I can’t give up, I just have to get better. Then I just go on, that is the process.

Over the years, things have become much easier. When I write a new novel nowadays, I give it to my agent. So I don’t have to deal with rejection firsthand, and my agent will do the negotiating with publishers. But I’m still nervous and upset, because I don’t know where my book will find a home. And I still eat chocolates when I get nervous. So, it’s a process that continues.

All I will say to anyone who is a writer, is if you love writing, you just have to pick yourself up and keep going. You have to keep saying I’m going to make this better or I believe in the work I’ve created. And I have to keep searching until I find the right home for it.

Q: That’s so inspiring. How has your writing process changed from the beginning to now. Does fame and success affect it? 

CBD: No, it doesn’t. When I start and I’m writing in my study, I put everything else out of my mind. The only thing that matters is the book that I’m working on now; not even the book, the scene I’m working on now. I have to be really focused on what I’m creating right at this moment. Once I start thinking of anything outside the world of the book, it’s distracting. It prevents me from creating a really powerful world, and I have to be immersed in that world.

When I’m immersed in a book, there’s no space to be thinking about other things, even what’s going to happen to it later, or some other book that’s maybe being made into a movie.

All I will say to anyone who is a writer, 
is if you love writing, you just have to pick yourself up and keep going. 
You have to keep saying I’m going to make this better or 
I believe in the work I’ve created. 
And I have to keep searching until I find the right home for it.

So when you write, just immerse yourself in the world of your story, your poem, your novel, and don’t think about other things, so you can write it to the best of your ability.

Q: Which books have you read recently that you liked the most?

CBD: That’s a tough question because I have read so many. Let me think… Gitanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand, which won the Booker. That’s a beautiful book. I read it a few months back and was just blown away. She has a lovely character, an older woman, who is so feisty and fun. I love that book. Then, Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies. It has created such a beautiful picture of colonial India, colonial Bengal. And then the third one, which I have reread recently, because I love it so much, is Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale. I just love, love, love that book. I teach that book.

So when you write, just immerse yourself in
the world of your story, your poem, your
novel, and  don’t think about other things, 
so you can write it to the best of your ability.

Every once in a while, just to inspire myself, I read it as a writer looking at how she created scene, how she created suspense, how she created character, how she created a whole world. Those are three of my favorites.

Q: So, last question, what is your view of ChatGPT? Do you think it threatens creative writing?

CBD: Not at all. I love ChatGPT. I have long conversations with ChatGPT. Whatever brain is behind my ChatGPT is a wonderful one, it gives me lots of book suggestions. I say to it, I want to read something in this field, and it gives me lots of great suggestions. So it is my friend, I plan to use it all the time.

Q: Okay, that’s something new. Love that. Thank you so much.

CBD: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this conversation. It was fun.