‘It is crucial for me to allow a woman to tell her own story’: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

To understand her novels, her writing process, the emphasis on strong female characters, her journey and more, we interacted with the author ahead of her appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2023.

Excerpts:

What inspired your latest book Independence: A Novel which chronicles the lives of three sisters navigating the partition?

I started thinking about this novel soon after I finished my previous novel, The Last Queen, about Maharani Jindan Kaur, the last queen of Punjab. Although she fought valiantly against the British, Jindan was ultimately unable to save her kingdom from their grasp. This was a dark moment in Indian history. I felt a deep need to follow up that story with a novel that depicted India’s triumph, her freedom from the British yoke. So about 2 and 1/2 years ago, I started researching Independence. I knew right away that I wanted to individualise the experience of this crucial moment in our nation’s history. And as always, I wanted to focus on women. Thus, I decided to explore the national struggle for freedom from the points of view of three sisters who are quite different from each other and who, in the process of living through this tumultuous time, learn what independence means for each one of them. I focused the story on Bengal because that is where I am from, and because so little has been written (in English) about the painful effect of Partition on the eastern border of India.

Your novels, in general, feature strong female protagonists. What is the idea behind the same?

Ever since my first book, I have been interested in placing women at the centre of my tales. Perhaps, this is because I had read so many books where the protagonists were male, or the woman character was presented through a male gaze. I feel it is crucial for me to allow a woman to tell her own story, or, in the case of Independence, which has three women protagonists, allow the world to be seen and interpreted through their eyes. It is also important to me that my woman protagonists be complex, flawed, and human—and for people to accept their shortcomings. My mother (who grew up in Bengal during the years of the Freedom Struggle and was a follower of Gandhi) has always been a big inspiration for me. She brought up my siblings and me single-handedly and taught me to stand on my own feet. Incidentally, she told me many harrowing stories about the Calcutta Riots of 1946, which she lived through, and other incidents that have found their way into this novel.

Immigrant experience forms a big part of your writings and you have earlier said it is a political act. Can you elaborate?

I feel, more and more, that all writing is a political act. In writing about social issues (and most serious books deal with social issues on one level or another), we are always pointing out problems about the way society is, and about how minorities are treated. This is certainly true about my immigrant stories set in the USA, in books such as Arranged Marriage and Mistress of Spices, which point to many challenges faced by the Indian American community. A novel like Independence is political in a different way. It tells the reader, Remember how things were when India became independent. Remember how the entire country came together to wrest our freedom from the British? Also remember the terrible killings during Partition, how Hindus and Muslims turned on each other in sudden hatred and rage, and almost a million people died. Let us remember our history so that we don’t repeat its mistakes.

In what ways has your own immigrant experience and personal journey influenced your writing?

I started writing several years after I moved to the US for my graduate studies. Being away from India, and missing my culture, family, and friends terribly, I turned to writing as a solace and to keep from forgetting all the things that had been so important to me. Also, being half a world away helped me “see” India more clearly, both its positives and its negatives. At the same time, I was an outsider in American society. It was exciting and adventurous, but it was also a difficult and lonely place to be. The combination was great for my writing. It enabled me to focus, feel, and remember my home country. And at the same time to look clearly at the immigrant community that was all around me and share their stories with my readers. Around this time, I became involved in the Women’s Center at the University of California at Berkeley, where I was studying. I started working with domestic violence organizations and volunteered with survivors and have continued to do so ever since. From that time, championing the empowerment of women so that they could lead lives of dignity became important in both my life and my writing.

Can you explain your writing process?

Each book has a different inspiration. Novels like Palace of Illusions and Forest of Enchantments grew out of my fascination (from the time I was a girl) with our amazing epics, the Mahabharat and the Ramayana—except I was more interested in the women characters, and always felt they had been misrepresented and misunderstood. The idea for The Last Queen arose when I saw a painting of Maharani Jindan and was drawn at once to her beautiful but stoic face. For Independence, the idea of three sisters (like in old Bengali folk tales) kept coming to my mind.

I mostly research by reading widely, mostly books and old newspapers. I like looking at images—old paintings, photographs, and even maps all serve to fire up my imagination. And of course, I read other writers. Tagore is a big influence on me. His novel The Home and the World was in the back of my mind as I wrote Independence. When I start composing, I have some of the story in my mind, but the later parts form themselves slowly and organically as the story moves forward and I understand the characters better. I am often surprised by what my characters do and how they grow and change. I think that element of discovery is important in a successful novel. As the poet Robert Frost said, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.”

From the Mistress of Spices to Independence, how have you evolved as a writer?

I hope I have learned more as I have progressed as a writer! I hope my characters have grown more complex. I hope my language has grown more nuanced. I hope I am better able to portray complicated relationships and situations. But some things are the same, such as the rush of excitement when I get a new idea. Then I don’t want to talk to anyone or do anything else. I just want to go to my study and write and write and write!

What can the audience expect from your session at this year’s Jaipur Literature Festival?

This year, I’ll be doing several things. First, I will be in conversation with Aanchal Malhotra about the new novel, Independence. Sudha Murty, whom I admire greatly, will be inaugurating the book, and I am so honoured by that. Then I will be chatting with Madhushree Ghosh about her new nonfiction book, Khabaar, about the Bengali cuisine she grew up with. The book is a meditation on immigration, family, and personal challenges, among other things, and has many wonderful recipes. I’m looking forward to it all, and, most of all, to meeting many, many readers!

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