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INTERVIEW
Priya Raghupathi,
a business analyst from New Jersey, and Amulya Malladi have known
each other for many, many years. They went to engineering school
together in India and have remained friends, through changing jobs,
moving countries, marriage and children (Priya doesn’t have any
kids, but Amulya does.) Amulya borrowed Priya’s name for the
protagonist of
The Mango Season
and some of her emotions, though that is still murky.
Amulya
Malladi: Well, this is vaguely uncomfortable, talking about
something that must make sense after the conversation is over.
Priya Raghupathi:
Oh, I don’t know, I’ll turn the floor over to you, as the phrase
goes.
AM:
Ah, but you have to talk about the book and ask me questions
about it, because I already did my job. I wrote the book.
PR:
Okay let’s start with the names in The Mango Season, they
were all very familiar.
Amulya:
Names as in, the names of the people?
PR: Yes.
AM: Hmm, I
did notice that…but later on. I know different writers write
differently, but I need to have the title of the book in place. I
can think about the book, even write a few pages but if I don’t have
a title, I can’t move on. And the title just comes; I don’t work
very hard at it. Same with names of characters, my fingers just type
the names and I settle down with them. I don’t second guess myself
too much.
PR:
We’ve heard all these names in our close circles.
AM: I think
I borrowed a lot of names from people I knew. I didn’t realize that
I was borrowing your name for Priya until later when I started to
read the blurb of the book and saw that she went to Texas A&M and so
did you. I did get some hints when Priya’s brother’s name started
out to be your brother’s name but I changed it without thinking
much. And maybe there were connections that came from our time
together in Hyderabad, as Neelima was also the name of your roommate
(and I didn’t realize that until right now). I did quote another
classmate of ours, Sudhir, in the book and used his name. Ashwin,
Priya’s father’s name came from an ex-boyfriend’s brother’s name.
Ah…the list is endless.
Even, Priya’s
boyfriend’s name came from an unusual place. One of my husband’s
friends had a baby boy and they didn’t give the kid a name until he
was almost six months old. And I think I was working on the book
when my husband told me they finally named their son Nicholas. And I
used it.
I don’t “steal”
names consciously. Later on I can draw lines and make sense of it,
but right then and there…it’s just something that works out.
PR: You also have a lot of references to the Bay Area and
Hyderabad, places you’ve been. Do you write about places you’ve only
been to? Even in your first book, you wrote about Bhopal, a place
you were familiar with.
AM: I think
it’s easier to write about a place you’ve lived in. The research
element definitely shrinks and you can write more confidently. I
also feel I have an obligation to write about a place I’ve lived in.
I have moved a lot in my life, as a child and even as an adult and I
just feel that it would be such a waste if I wouldn’t write about
the places I have lived in.
My third book,
Serving Crazy with Curry is set completely in the Bay Area,
while the book after that is going to be set entirely in India in
this small town by the Bay of Bengal that I was familiar with when I
was a child. And I feel that now I live in Denmark, I must write a
book set in Denmark with Danes. After all, I am so intimate with
this society, not just because I live here, also because I’m married
to a Dane.
PR: And I also think because you’ve lived in these places you
relate with them and not make up stuff.
AM: I don’t
mind making up stuff, especially about a place. After all, I’m
writing fiction, not a travel book. But I’d rather not make up
stuff.
PR: I guess writers do write about places they know.
Hemingway did go to Spain a lot when he wrote his books with that
backdrop.
AM: Even
Naipaul does that. He writes about Africa and Indian immigrants who
live there. Amy Tan writes about American-Chinese characters that
live in China and the San Francisco Bay Area. Maybe writers like to
revisit the places they have lived in, the experiences they have had
there.
For me writing
The Mango Season was like taking a trip to India. I’d forgotten
how good chaat tastes, or how good ganna juice tastes and when I was
writing about it I could all but smell that sugarcane juice. I miss
sugarcane juice! I remember how you and I would get off the bus from
college and eat roadside chaat and indulge in a tall glass of
sugarcane juice. Our mothers were never too pleased about us eating
and drinking that junk. Never stopped us though, even when we fell
sick because of it.
PR: Speaking of food, you know I found something similar
between your book and Like Water for Chocolate, that you put
recipes before every chapter, or almost every chapter.
AM: Well,
food is an integral part of Indian society. When we go to visit my
parents, my mother will ask us to sit and eat even before we have
set our bags down. Whenever I’d go to visit relatives, I’d find
myself spending a lot of time in the kitchen with someone or the
other, watching them cook or helping them cook.
And I love to
cook. So, even though Priya (not you, the book one) isn’t a great
cook, I think she appreciates good food because she grew up with it.
And I wanted to show the kitchen dynamics and politics as well. Lot
of women in one kitchen, there has to be some masala there.
Like Water for
Chocolate
is one of those books where the lines between reality and fantasy
blur and the end result is a beautifully written story.
PR: Like Water for Chocolate is like a water painting
with no defined lines. When you look at something, you think it’s
sort of a tree but it could also be part of the mountain behind it.
AM: That’s
a fabulous way of putting it. Laura Esquivel does have that magic
touch. I’d like to be like her when I grow up.
PR: When I first read The Mango Season, I thought,
"Why is everybody sounding so emotional? Do we really talk like this
in
India? We
definitely don't talk like this in the US." And then I thought about
it some. In the
US
you try to stay politically correct and calm and balanced. Even with
family and friends. But when you go back to India you realize that
people say exactly what they think. They do tend to get more visibly
upset. And the bad part is if you stay there for long enough it
can start rubbing off on you.
AM: Was
everyone emotional in the book? Probably.
Well, it's a
matter of time and place. Priya has come home after seven years and
she has something to say that no one is going to like to hear. Her
parents want her to get married and they'd prefer to somehow do it
without her permission. At Priya's grandparents’ house there is a
lot of tension because of what the sex of Lata's baby will be and
they're trying to get their youngest daughter, Sowmya married. After
years of trying and not succeeding that is a matter of constant
concern. And then there is the continuing battle over Anand and the
fact that he married a woman out of his caste. They are all
emotional because of the conflict-laden atmosphere they are in.
I don't think it's
a matter of being politically correct or not, it's just a matter of
what the situation is. People are not extra polite with family
because of the societal need to be PC. I think families are families
and every family has a different dynamic. I know several American
and Danish families where the conversations get loud and direct;
feelings are bruised and mended, same as any other family.
But you're
absolutely right about Indians being direct and emotional. I feel
that most Indians don't have filters. They say what they mean and
what they feel, without paying much heed to who will be hurt and how
much. And yes, Indians are very emotional as well and I have seen it
very clearly depicted when I interact with Americans and Europeans.
We feel too much and we react so strongly. My Danish family probably
thinks I am a little cuckoo because I go off the deep end very
easily and often.
PR: Another thought I had was that things seemed to tie out a
bit too nicely at the end. Do you feel like books are better when
there is sorting out at the end? Do you foresee writing a book where
you stop at "Well. So that's how things are. They didn't get any
better or change and there you have it. Such is life." Not
necessarily a sad ending but rather a non ending.
AM: I don't
know if things did get tied up too nicely. Her grandparents and
parents are still fighting over Priya’s choice of a husband. She's
still not able to tell them that Nick is black and when they find
out, it's obviously going to be considered yet another betrayal. I
actually wanted to leave things to show that this is how it's going
to continue. She'll never have her parents' full support and they
will always find something to complain about, and she will probably
give them enough reason.
From personal
experience, I know that my marrying a Dane was not well received by
my parents and even though, finally, it came down to, "You have to
do what you have to do and you don't listen to us anyway," we're not
all living like one big happy family. Sure, there are other reasons
why my parents and I don't get along, but I think one of the reasons
is that I'm married to a man they didn’t approve of. And I think
Priya will probably have the same experience.
Regarding if books
should have a nicely wrapped up ending or not, it depends upon the
book. Sometimes I read a book and the ending is left hanging and I
feel it's done for effect and not because the story demanded it.
Sometimes it's nice that the author didn't tie it all up. But again
that is a personal choice based on how a reader reacts to a story.
Take Gone With the Wind, I'm sure there were readers who
wished at then end Rhett and Scarlet held hands and walked into the
sunset, while I was pretty happy with ending and thought that was
the only way the book could end.
PR: Strange isn’t it? After all those years, so many things
have changed - our lives our careers and yet here we are …
AM: We’ve
known each other…oh, since we were in diapers. I think it’s rather
nice that you and I can still have a conversation about this or
anything else. I have found that I have lost touch with many of my
friends from the old college days, yet you and I have managed to
hold on and have some semblance of a friendship. Thank you so much
for doing this with me. When my editor said that I could do the Q&A
with you, I was quite thrilled that we could work on a joint project
like this and it has been absolutely wonderful!
PR: I agree. This has been fun. I’m really happy for you and
as always, my love and best wishes are with you.
AM: Well,
that’s a wrap! |
