Rheea
Mukherjee, two of whose stories have appeared in Out of Print, has a collection, Transit
for Beginners, just published by Kitaab. We are thrilled for her, and
really pleased to publish a conversation that emerged after editor, Indira
Chandrasekhar read her collection. Both A Larger Design and Rectification Still
that appear in the collection were first published in Out of Print.
O
of P: Your work is rife with stories of families coming part at
the seams – something that only embeds them more deeply in the inexplicable
bonds that make meaning out of that ambiguous unit called family. I think
particularly of Wedding Guests, and, in an odd way, of Unspeakable. Would
you care to comment on that?
RM: You know, I honestly think even the
most functional families are coming apart at the seams. I am not saying this in
a pessimistic manner. And I don't think it's always a bad thing. There are
several individual ‘other narratives' going on even in the closest of families.
Some of them are straightforward: double lives and secrets. But most of them
are psychological: the private battles of interpreting life and reality. And
those experiences aren't discussed (nor can they be easily translated) at the
dinner table.
I had someone in mind when I
created Mrs Bose [in Wedding Guests].
I wrote her character with a lot of sensitivity, which is ironic because in
real life I would be blunt or uninterested having a conversation with a person
like her. In comparison I was so gentle and understanding with her confusion,
her cultural identity and her eroding relationship with her son. In my own
family there have been times I have been so dismissive of that generation’s
emotional complexity and battles. Mrs Bose allowed me to fix that. It allowed
me to sit down and think through a generational gap. The story, Unspeakable, on the other hand is a
doomed love story, but I think the narrative was built on the complexity of
family. It let me write about the utter unfamiliarity that exists between the
closest of people. The truth is, you will never know your mother’s deepest
angst or private passion. You will never have a handle on how your sibling
really feels about life or what emotional scars they hide. We use the phrase
'family secret' a lot, but I think it's less to do with secrets and more to do
with humans attempting to simplify things that are intensely complex.
O of P: Many of your characters have a sense
of honour. I find that somehow touching, and hopeful. Sai, in Hungry is
an obvious candidate, but also, Rudra, in an abstruse way, in Transit
for Beginners. In Cigarettes for Maya, Maya’s awareness of what
is the honourable way to act and the conflict caused by social hierarchies
is acute. Are these deliberate characterizations, did you want to create people
with honour, or did the stories make these characters emerge this way?
RM: I always look for the good in people
I least expect it from. Some of my stories have examined people who exhibit
stereotypically ‘bad behaviour’. That said, I also hint at their capability for
good. Subconsciously though, I want to work with a far more sinister idea –
that it’s the people who are passive, mundane, the cogs-in-the-wheel, if you
will, who are capable of the most dangerous behaviour, and that’s apathy.
Apathy lets so much evil go on. In comparison I find the people who struggle
with moral codes and reject standard protocol far more hopeful. Because they
have drive and purpose. There is something deeply disturbing about a country of
people following, doing, working, and consuming without any trace of inner
motivation.
In Cigarettes for Maya, the cigarette wala Maya befriends does comment
on inter-class relationships. However Maya and her urban flimsiness are ripe in
the narrative, while the lower-middle class cigarette wala seems to be
respectable and honest. In retrospect, I think I played it very safe with that
story. It was a black and white narrative. It is also the first story I ever
wrote, and although it’s gone through rounds of edits, you can see how that
story stylistically is very different from the rest. You mentioned hope,
and I am glad you find that in my work. I think a lot of this book is about
finding hope in one particular moment as opposed to finding final closure. I
think that represents life, we’re living and resolving things every second.
O of P: Even
in the searing and often tragic conflicts in your stories, the sense of setting
is layered with observation, and occasional nostalgia. As if the difficulties
are only more enhanced by the affection for place that you, as a writer are
conveying to the reader. How do you work on describing places – do you, for
example, make notes when you are somewhere in case it will be useful for a
future story? Do you retain a visual memory in your head? Do you take
photographs?
RM: It’s funny that you mention that
because I am a terrible documenter. I never take notes, and never use pictures
as a reference for my work. I think my life has contributed to how a
sense of place pops out in some of my stories. I take a lot of emotional
cues from different environments. My life was spent between two countries quite
literally. I was born in the US lived there till I was 10, then moved to India
and finished my schooling here. At 18, I moved back to the US for college.
I had my degree in social work so I worked as counsellor for a bit and then did
my MFA in creative writing before coming back to India. Bangalore has always
been home, but the amount of transition I have experienced has organically
allowed me to write about place without any effort.
O of P: May
we spend a moment on your writing method? As a writer, I like talking about
this because writers can be so diverse in their approach to their work. Are you
a systematic writer – do you write everyday? Or do words spew out of you in
fits and starts? How do you begin to overlay the necessary layers of restraint?
RM: I am anything but a systematic
writer. I am also a very lazy writer. I solely rely on creative bursts and
caffeine. It’s very random; I’ll have an idea, a certain piece of news, or some
mundane conversation with a friend, something will trigger a story, and it
comes to life in my head. One thing that has been happening a lot less is
creating an end in my head before I type it out. Unspeakable had an ending in my head, but that was an easy end.
Bitter-sweet love and a family secret that can never resolve itself does not
allow for a comprehensive ‘ending’.
When I was writing Transit for Beginners I felt a stronger
sense of closure. I also think it is the only story in the book that is plot
directed. The reason for this is because it was inspired by something that
happened to me in Changi airport. The actual story is pure fiction, but let’s
just says that there was a similar experience.
I need a purpose to write –
something happening in the world that is sitting uncomfortably with me, needs
to resolve itself through writing. When I wrote Doldrums it was a reflection of how my life had partly
become, trapped within an urban paradigm with expectations and duties that were
not motivating my imagination. Sexual abuse and depression are other themes
that show up in my work a lot. I think they will always show up in my work
directly or indirectly.
Creating regularity as a
writer is tremendously difficult. In the last year running Write Leela Write
with Kalabati Majumdar has allowed me to grow as a person and as an entrepreneur,
but it has also cut into my fiction writing time. I have been writing a lot
more non-fiction; these pieces are easier for me, because they are for
magazines with deadlines and one thing I do really well is sticking to
deadlines. With fiction it’s my own pace, and I can be tragically lazy about
it. I have to finish my novel by the end of this year, and thinking about it
makes my hands sweat. Because at the end of the day writing is hard work, it’s
going beyond that spark of an idea and putting meat on it. It’s layering your
characters and creating narrative arcs. I think writing a novel is much harder,
because you can’t get your little idea out there and be done with it. In that
way the short story has been indulgent, it’s the best of both worlds, it lets
me create a world, get my point across and be done super quickly. One reason I
have been struggling with finishing my novel is because of the amount of
consistency I have to create while continuously developing the heart of the
idea. I suspect it will take a moment of potent creative energy to get me on
track. Let’s just say that I am waiting for it.
O
of P: As an editor, I am always curious about how much writers
engage with an editor before publication. Did you work with someone, or did
your publishing house impose any editorial rules on your work?
RM: Well, one thing about these stories
is that they read very differently from what they initially were. My book spans
stories I have written over the past ten years and during that time I have sent
many of them to literary magazines. That’s when the rejections started to roll
in. It was a force that propelled me to revise my stories and really understand
the beauty of editing. If you were to see some of my stories as first drafts
you would have shaken your head with utter disappointment. For some stories I
changed major plot points, for example in A
Good Hostess, Asha resorts to medicating her husband for attention.
For years that story did not have the medication bit in it. That crucial bit
came to me only 2 years ago and the story is 8 years old. It changed the whole
feel of the story.
So coming back to your
question, by the time my stories got published they were in much better shape.
I had dozens of literary magazine editors write me personal rejection notes
about some of my work; it allowed me to flesh out my narratives a lot more.
Kitaab was very permissive about how my stories read; they did not have any
issues with the macro parts. I had a super copy editor from Kitaab, Shruti Rao
who went through everything line by line and caught some ironic mistakes
and inconsistencies. I struggle with mild dyslexia so I can’t proof anything,
even if my life depended on it. When it came to final proofing at the
typesetting phase, my partner Indra diligently did it for me.
