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AUTHOR'S NOTE
The first time I thought about writing a story that takes place
while south Indian women get together to make mango pickle, I was
living in a dinghy little apartment in Staines, about 30 minutes
away from London. The apartment was close to a church and on a very
busy street, and between the gong of the church bell and the
screeching tires of various cars, my concentration was completely
shot and the story remained dormant.
My husband and I
had just married in a small ceremony in the island of Kauai in
Hawaii. The only people at the wedding were the priest and a
photographer who was also the witness. We told our families we were
going away on vacation and then called from our hotel suite to let
them know that the deed was done. We'd been living together for a
couple of years and no one was shocked when we got married, but I
started to wonder.
Growing up in
India, I didn't dream nor have a nightmare (same difference) of
marrying a foreigner. But I found myself in exactly that position
after I met my husband who comes from Denmark. My family is a small
one and breaking the news that I was dating a Dane was hard but not
catastrophical. But what if I had a large family, the kind that was
fairly conservative, the kind I needed and wanted acceptance from,
the kind I could lose, what would I do?
I have friends
from India who married in the name of love and have been completely
disowned by their families. A friend of mine married an Indian, but
from a different caste and parental disapproval has become a way of
life for her. Another friend eloped and married a man from a
different caste and his family is still seething, even though they
have a beautiful granddaughter and the marriage is almost half a
decade old. If these families went into total cerebral shock when
their daughters married Indian men from different castes,
what would they do if their daughters wanted to marry foreigners?
So I merged my
idea of writing about the making of mango pickle and this "in a
pickle" situation, where a woman from India falls in love with a
foreigner, in the case of The Mango Season, an American, and
wants to marry him.
So I sent Priya
home to India, and though I haven't been back in eight years, I can
well imagine the culture shock. I have experienced it several times
when I watch an Indian movie or when a friend back in India says
something that burns my ears through the telephone lines.
Priya's family is
nothing like mine, her experiences and emotions are all her own. I
was not in conflict as she is or concerned about losing my family or
my sanity because of the "foreigner" in my life. Priya's fiancé,
Nick, is nothing like my husband Søren, and Priya's family is
nothing like mine. And because her life is so different from mine,
yet in so many ways similar, I enjoyed exploring her emotions, her
struggles and the politics that complicated her relationship with
her family.
Writing
this book also
gave me a chance to watch India unfold from a different perspective,
that of a semi-foreigner, since that's what Priya had become after
living away from India for seven years, just as I feel I have.
Writing this story was a wonderful journey and I have to admit, at
the end, I was a little sad that it was over and curious to see what
would happen next. |
I
winced; I was doing that complaining-about-India thing all of us
American-returned Indians did. I had lived here for twenty years,
yet seven years later, the place was a hellhole.
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