Shashi Deshpande’s dignified presence, her innate warmth and
grace, can win the hearts and minds of anyone from aspiring writers to
intellectual opponents. Her twinkling eyes belie a razor-sharp mind; one who
sees through human subterfuges and smiles at the quirks and ironies of life.
This prolific author began her career with short stories and
has gone on to pen nine short story collections, twelve novels and four books
for children. She has also written
essays on topics such as feminism, literature and language. Translations are
another part of her rich repertoire, and her own work has been translated into
several languages. Among her many honours, is India’s prestigious Sahitya
Akademi Award for her novel That Long
Silence. Her latest novel, Shadow Play,
has been shortlisted for The Hindu Prize, 2014. She was honoured by the
Indian Government with the Padma Shri in 2008.
Deshpande’s fiction is rife with women who display uncommon inner
strength as they cope with frustrations and disappointments in love, marriage,
family life, and come to terms with thwarted personal aspirations. As they
struggle within the constraints of their daily lives, they realise truths about
themselves and strive to rise above their circumstances. Their personalities
evolve as they test the boundaries of their resilience and courage. In That Long Silence, Jaya's life crumbles around
her as aspersions are cast on her husband’s professional reputation. He loses
his job and the foundations of Jaya’s seventeen-year-old marriage and family
are rocked. Jaya is haunted by her memories of a repressed childhood, her
failure as a writer, and of growing disenchantment with her marriage and her
children. In A Matter of Time, Gopal,
a respected academician and caring father and husband, abandons his family
without warning, for reasons even he cannot articulate. His wife Sumi is
compelled to seek shelter with her three daughters, in the home of her parents.
The silent ancestral home unveils its mysteries, stories of sorrow and loss.
This tale spanning three generations, weaves an intricate tapestry of the
characters’ passages through love, loss, endurance and glimpses of hope. The Binding Vine[M1]
is another moving exploration of the dignity and forbearance shown by women as
they face the daily challenges of life. The lives of three women who are
"haunted by fears, secrets, and deep grief" (Washington Post)
are bound together by strands of life and hope—a binding vine of love, concern,
and connection that spreads across chasms of time, social class, and even
death. The Baltimore Sun declared the novel, "Chekhovian
. . . Deshpande’s story of a woman who loses a daughter is linked to the
politics of India and its tradition of patriarchy."
The range and variety of Deshpande’s work is displayed
in novels such as Come Up and Be
Dead, which can be termed a literary mystery. A school is shaken from its
normal routine by the suicide of one of its young students. Rumours and
speculations thicken the atmosphere around characters who could very well be
our neighbours or relatives. The
Narayanpur Incident is a novel for children set in the heady days of
India’s freedom movement against British colonial rule. Babu and Manju find
themselves swept up in the popular protests during the Quit India Movement of
1942. Their schools close down, their father is imprisoned, and their older
brother Mohan goes underground to join the freedom fighters. The children move
with other family members to the obscure village of Naryanpur. Waves of
turbulence rocking the nation reach even this remote place, where children fall
victim to police atrocities, and a group of children gather the courage to
stand up to the colonial police.
There is so much more to say about her work, which is best
expressed by the author herself. We at Kitaab
thank Shashi Deshpande for being with us and sharing exclusive insights
with our readers. This interview is published in Kitaab
1. How
much did your environment shape your writing? As the daughter of renowned
Kannada dramatist and man of letters Sriranga, you would have grown up in the
lap of literature. Might your interests have taken a different turn if you had
been nurtured in a more mundane milieu? Any anecdotes you would like to share
about your first experiences in writing?
SD: It is
always difficult to answer hypothetical questions like this one. The facts are
that my father was a writer, our house was full of books, there were often
literary friends visiting and literary conversations going on. But the huge
passion for reading, for words, for language -
these were mine. I read everything I could lay my hands on, including
dictionaries and self-teaching books,
like books that taught French, German, Hindi and so on. The interest in people was also my
own. So I guess I was born to be a writer. In fact my father was troubled by my
habit of reading books other than texts and that, unlike my sister, I never got a first or second
rank. He often said that I would grow up to become a clerk in the Collector’s
office! (I’m grateful he took it for granted that I would shape my own future,
that it did not depend on who I married.) In fact, there was a time when my
father asked my teachers not to allow me
to borrow books from the school library. Did that help? Not at all. My friends
borrowed the books I wanted and handed them over to me.
As for writing, it took me a long time to begin writing, though I do remember entering a writing competition
run by the Illustrated Weekly of India
and getting a prize. And writing a story for a school exercise. That was all.
But I wrote diaries (soppy ones, I’m sure) and letters to pen pals. Real
writing began after I was married and had two children.
2 Among
the many memorable characters you have created, which is your personal
favourite? If you were to begin writing that same story today, how would your
own subsequent life experiences impact that character and her story?
SD: It is very hard to say who is my favourite
character. It’s like asking a parent about her/his favourite child.
However I suppose I can say that the
character closest to my heart is Aru, who first appeared in A Matter of Time. I admired her greatly
but was unable to make her the heroine in that novel. I made a kind of promise
at the end of the book that I would make her the heroine next time. And nearly
twenty years later Shadow Play came
to me in which Aru played the major role. Generally characters make a graceful
exit once the novel has been written. The fact that Aru stayed with me for such
a long time shows how much she meant to me.
3. Your
fiction is widely appreciated for your ability to weave complex nuances and
intricate layers of significance into what might appear at first glance as
tales of ordinary people leading ordinary Indian lives. Did you consciously
choose your subjects, or did the stories choose you?
SD: There are two questions here. The first one is whether I consciously choose my
subjects or do the stories choose me. No, I never choose a subject and then
begin writing. I could not and would not
do that. The people come first to me and
lead me into their lives, and then their stories evolve through their
characters, through their interactions with others, through the choices they
make. Actually, I don’t even know how
the novel will end when I begin writing.
But the point I
really want to make is about your comment
that my stories are of `ordinary
people leading ordinary lives’. In the 5th question, once again my
stories and novels have been described as `revolving around ordinary middle
class women’. I am a little intrigued by the word `ordinary’. I would have
thought that all, or, at least most writers, write about ordinary people.
Extraordinary people are few, maybe a handful in an entire generation. Besides, however ordinary
we may seem to others, to ourselves we are always extraordinary, we are unique,
we treasure that `special-ness’ of ours greatly. It is this special-ness that
the fiction writer looks for in human beings, it is this uniqueness that the
fiction writer finds. Therefore I do not understand why my work is often
singled out as being about `ordinary people’. So too, `middle-class’. I often
wonder what class of people other
writers write about, whether any writer thinks of class at all! Most writers
write about the people they know best,
that’s all!
4. One of the Nobel Prize judges for literature
judges, Horace Engdahl, stirred a debate very recently when he pointed out that
we are endangering literary fiction when we treat it at par with commercial
fiction. Publishers say that commercial fiction pays the bills while literary
fiction brings awards and accolades. Do you think the balance between literary
fiction and commercial fiction has been lost, even here in India?
SD: Yes, I read
some of his statements. But I am not able to understand why there should be a
conflict between literary fiction and
commercial fiction. And I’m not sure that he meant that only literary fiction
is endangered by treating it on a par with commercial fiction. I think that
literature itself is harmed by such a
treatment, if it really happens. It’s true we need all kinds of books, not only
because the publisher needs to make money but because of the vast number of
readers with a vast number of tastes out there.
All readers cannot appreciate the same kind of books. The problem, as I
see it, especially in India, is that we
seem to confuse fast-selling fiction with significant writing and then giving it undue importance. Until now,
our country has not seen the kind of
sales figures some books now have and the media
has gone overboard celebrating this success. The publicity and hype attracts more readers
and not-very-knowing readers think these books are a must-read. That we are not able to draw a
line between writing which sells well and writing which is good and will last,
that we allow statements about the need to dumb down the language for readers, doesn’t augur well for the future of good
writing in India. We need literary
books, we also need well-written books which are not so literary, but certainly
we don’t really need badly written books.
5. You
have written several volumes of short stories and novels for adults, which often
revolve around ordinary middle class Indian women striving to break free from a
painful past, and seeking dignity and grace in their lives as they deal with
the constraints of their present day existence. You’ve also written books for
children. Come Up and Be Dead is a
mystery set around the suicide of a schoolgirl, followed by the death of
Pratap, the brother of Kshama, a teacher. What are your impressions about the
comparative challenges posed by these diverse genres of writing? Does
alternating between different genres give you a respite from the monotony of
focusing upon only one? Does this help you to gain fresh insights?
SD: All writing is a challenge. Whether it’s a short story, a poem, an
essay, a drama or a novel – each genre
poses some challenges. And there never is any monotony in writing just one
genre. For instance, I prefer the novel to all other forms and I am at ease and
comfortable with it. But I started with short stories and then, when I felt I
could, I wrote a novel. For quite some
time I wrote both short stories and novels, but slowly the novel, being a more
demanding form, in terms of time, took over. Then I wrote short stories only
when commissioned. I also wrote a large
number of prose pieces, either for talks or as essays. These too came out of my
feeling that there were things I wanted to say about Indian Writing in English, about language,
about women’s writing, feminism etc. Now I feel I have said all that I want to say, but still write
reviews when asked. So it is a question of wanting to write about a subject and
using the form the subject demands. As
far as insights are concerned, these can come through any form of writing.
6. Recently,
a Malayalam language writer said that Indian writers focus on personal agonies
and that denies them place in world literature. Do you agree?
SD: I dislike
generalisations and I don’t take such statements seriously. Why single out
Indian writers as focussing on personal agonies? Writers everywhere have done
and will do that. According to me, what makes it difficult for Indian writers
to find a place in world literature is the plethora of languages, the `frog in
a pond’ attitude that the small readership gives and the lack of world-class
translators.
7. What
do you feel about the proliferation of literary festivals? Are they a welcome
move to bring authors closer to their readers? Or do they distract readers as
well as authors from the very private enjoyment of reading and writing?
SD: Literary festivals can be fun and they are a good place for writers and readers
to meet – no doubt about that at all. But there can be too much of a good thing
and that’s what literary festivals are becoming in India
8. What
advice would you offer to upcoming writers?
SD: I would say read, read and read. Then write, read
your own work and be honestly
self-critical. Never feel complacent about your work. That’s death for a
writer.
9. What
are you working on now?
SD : A novel – what else?
Technology is
advancing by the nanosecond, sweeping us into the tide of change. New gizmos
and gadgets are radically transforming our lives. Electronic devices are our
closest companions today. Wherever we go, the network follows. Social networks
in the virtual world are overshadowing reality. We have no time to look at or
speak to each other, though we tweet and text eternally. Recent research in
Birmingham Business School (UK) shows that frequent posters of selfie photos or
self-portraits on social networks alienate those close to them, thus weakening
supportive human bonds. Is interaction between people and lifeless gadgets
becoming more important than connections between human beings? Are we placing
more value on technology and prepared to offer less to each other?