A lovely interview in the Red Elephant Foundation. Thanks Kirthi Jayakumar.
“As an author and as a writer on women’s issues and feminism, what are your constant creative and thought processes like? Do you find yourself tending towards reacting, or is it more of responding, to things around you?
I would think it is always a mix of reacting and responding depending upon how issues impact you. For me, the women who drop out of the professional workforce and find themselves searching for purpose as their kids grow has been a strong influence, having been there myself. That was my protagonist in The Reluctant Detective. In Saving Maya, it was a woman struggling to rebuild her life after a divorce. Once Upon a Crush and All Aboard, which both frothy romances on the surface, dealt with the very real fear of crossing 30 and not being ‘settled’ which most women face, and specific to All Aboard, of being forced to take stock of your life, once the plan (marriage in this case) crashes. I listen, I observe, I react, I respond, and some of this filters down to what I write.
You’ve broken heteronormativity in your writing, presenting it like it is. What informs your thought process? As a writer, what were your key challenges in presenting a narrative on sexual orientation that isn’t lived or your own, directly?
I’ve always believed that we need to present all orientations in our literature, and that heteronormative relationships need not be the only ones depicted in our literature. As a writer, one writes on varying experiences, situations, times and lives one hasn’t lived. Different sexual orientations are one manifestation. I think as long as one approaches every situation, character and narrative with the determination to treat it with respect and truthfulness, the narrative will hold good.
Tell us about your new book.
My new book is titled Missing, Presumed Dead. It deals with a woman going missing, a dysfunctional marriage, mental illness and all the battles that break us, and sometimes we don’t emerge from. It is a psychological thriller, and I write about how perspectives and narratives change and how we can’t always trust what we’re told, or shown, and we don’t really know what is going on in anyone’s head. What inspired it was the strange thought that what if all one runs away from is the urge to be found.”
Read the entire interview here.
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