No full stops for Abdulali

Her father, a retired air marshal grows orchids near Pune. Her brother works on Wall Street. And she flits between New York, Mumbai and Pune...

Her father, a retired air marshal grows orchids near Pune. Her brother works on Wall Street. And she flits between New York, Mumbai and Pune doing development projects for Ford Foundation. Sohaila Abdulali8217;s current visit to Mumbai, though, had nothing to do with women8217;s health issues that keep her busy at the Foundation.

The 35 year old was here for the launch of her first novel, The Madwoman of Jogare, which, like most other first novels, has an autobiographical flavour. quot;I write non-fiction to pay the rent, as fiction isn8217;t a profitable business for most of us,quot; she says.

The village where her parents chose to settle 11 years ago serves as the backdrop of her book, which, she says, is quot;about land, about how it should be used, about whether to cut trees to grow them.quot; That Abdulali loves the place is obvious from her account of the time spent with her parents. quot;We got electricity at my father8217;s orchid farm only two years ago,quot; she remembers. quot;Before that, it was playing scrabble in the candlelight andgoing to bed at eight.quot;

Abdulali insists her novel isn8217;t autobiographical. quot;It has the spirit of the place and deals with issues close to the life of people who till the land. The place is real but the people are not. I couldn8217;t make the people real. My parents are much too mad, no one would believe them in fiction.quot; The animals in the farm that figure in the novel are real, though, and she calls her quot;not a very well-behaved dogquot; one of the stars of the plot. quot;My family were the technical advisers, giving me details like which bird sat on which tree,quot; she says.

In sections that spread over three years quot;over three different monsoonsquot; this novel has a romance thrown in and a flashback to the colonial times. Abdulali is at a loss to explain why most Indian writers are so obsessed with the monsoon. quot;I have no idea, we just are,quot; she says, but continues: quot;My book is about my land and since they grow rich in the region I talk about, monsoons are what decide whether the people eat or don8217;t.quot;

Interestingly,the Madwoman of Jogare, makes just a couple of appearances, but is central to the theme since she does a dance to augur good monsoons.Writing a novel isn8217;t just about penning your thoughts. It is also about finding the right publisher, as Abdulali soon found out. In New York, she had to hunt for a literary agent first, since you don8217;t just go to a publisher with a manuscript. quot;It8217;s traumatic. Agents ignore you, don8217;t read your manuscript for months, don8217;t get back, and when you call, they don8217;t know you.quot; Finally, a friend asked her to get in touch with Harper Collins Publishers India. She called them from New York and they asked for the first section of her book. That was enough.

The Madwoman of Jogare has already taken a backseat in Abdulali8217;s scheme of things, as she8217;s busy writing her next novel set in New York, quot;about a bunch of Indians who don8217;t know what to do, where to go. I guess every expat has to write about that.quot; A Wall Street skulduggery sub-plot has been woven into the story, the backgroundfor which is provided by Adbulali8217;s brother. quot;But this novel is not as special as The Madwoman of Jogare. This is not about my life or about the place I love. My brother comes back from work and explains the nitty-gritty of finance which I am finally beginning to understand a little. It8217;s about some one else8217;s life, not mine.quot;

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But even exposing that part of her, is not easy for the rather-private Abdulali. quot;It was strange feeling, realising that complete strangers are listening to your words. Pretending that the audience doesn8217;t exist doesn8217;t work for me, as I8217;m too nosy and I want to see what their reaction is. Whether they listen or just pretend, whether they are attentive or fast asleep.quot;

Whatever be the reaction, Abdulali loves fiction quot;because you don8217;t have to stick to the factsquot; and plans to stick to writing. And nothing deters her, not even the absence of electricity which forced her to write chunks of The Madwoman of Jogare in longhand. Or even spending long hours in mouldy archives to get theflavour of the language used by the British rulers for her section on the colonial times.

She sees herself married soon,quot;though I don8217;t know when,quot; to the New York-based Tom Unger, who work in glass. quot;He loves neon colours and twists brightly coloured glass into funny shapes,quot; is her explanation of what he does for a living. And as she writes and writes some more, she hopes that one day she8217;ll join her contemporary favourites 8212; Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy 8212; in the Hall of Fame.