Licence to Thrill

Shantaram—as the venue for our meeting,I don’t need a detective book. I am already in the world of Detective Lalli.

With a promised tour of Vile Parle East once the rain subsides,we settle down with our cups of filter coffee at the restaurant’s air-conditioned section. “This area is very parochial in nature,with a wonderful history. But it’s gradually getting isolated. It’s more Mumbai than Bombay,” she says. The fun for her is to introduce a woman detective in such a setting. The feel of this locality is evident in The Monochrome Madonna. And the fourth book in the Lalli series,I Never Knew It Was You,will weave into its narrative the transition that this area has made in the last one decade. “This book will reveal a bit more about Lalli and her world. Reading this series should be like getting to know a friend better over a period of time,” she says. The first two Lalli books are The Page 3 Murders and The Gardener’s Song.

Swaminathan has been in the news recently also for her book Venus Crossing: Twelve Stories of Transit,which has been shortlisted in the fiction category of Crossword Book Award 2009. This book is very different from Lalli books. “It was an experiment. It was a painful book to write. The stories were mostly from real life — either experienced or observed,” says the paediatric surgeon-turned-writer who had two more of her books,Nalanda Chronicles and Quarantine Paper,release this year.

Being with Swaminathan in her neighbourhood means that she is full of tales about things around us — the coffee shop near the station which plays loud music,a grumpy fruitseller and the rows of vegetable vendors where she loves to shop. But it’s the udipi’s décor that fascinates her. Things have changed since she had last been there. Its walls are now adorned with rows of wooden beams that have mirrors to fill the gap between them. What stands out is the picture of Lord Ganesha — rimmed with tiny bulbs giving away psychedelic lights — next to the cash counter. “I should have mentioned this in my last book,” she regrets and adds that she has to write about it in her next Lalli book.

Just then,the wall next to our corner table opens — or so it seems since the door too has the same wooden beam-and-mirror pattern. A woman in a very blingy sari darts out of it. Swaminathan looks at her quizzically. “I didn’t know there is a door here. Where does this lead to?,” she wonders. After some discussion,we arrive at the conclusion that probably it’s the door to the washroom. But that is short-lived. When a waiter goes inside it with a huge paper dosa,we conclude that it leads to the kitchen.

Swaminathan enjoys the guessing-game. After all,she loves discovering secrets of the neighbourhood as much as she loves writing about them. But then,writing detective fiction has always been a delightful process for her. “I want to share the same joy with my readers,” she says. For her,writing Lalli books are most relaxing. “I resent closed structures. So there are no fixed structures for them as long as the plot is stable,” she confesses.

At that point,our conversation is disturbed by a group of brightly-clad people going through the door. The mystery deepens. “So many visitors can’t go to the kitchen. May be there is a super AC room there,” she attempts another guess. I prod her to open the door. She rejects the idea. “Some mysteries should remain unsolved.”

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