Imaginary Keralas: Conversation with Anita Nair

A giant avocado tree frames the living room window in novelist Anita Nair's house as she talks to me one rainy mid-morning. Here are excerpts from a conversation with the young Bangalore-based writer who shot into the limelight with the publication of her debut novel, The Better Man, and kept everyone talking by remaining tight-lipped about the reportedly fabulous advance from her publisher. Sitting in her living room with its antique furniture, Kerala artefacts, and a painting by her uncle Peter Ganga, a New York-based artist, Anita and I talk about language, home, and art.

Absolutely--that's what I do. In some sense I have not been able to leave this village. So it is an imaginary homeland for me. Although it is in no way an idyllic, rural place. It's not at all what people think a village is -- a place of placid contentment. It is real, it is very dark. But topographically it is beautiful.

I've tried to stay away from ideomatic English. All Indians speak with an accent and I don't want to make a mockery of that accent. To do that is silly because I speak with an Indian accent too. What I have tried to do is write in plain spoken english without getting into accented english. I do not have to follow any trend for language pattern. I create my own rhythm, I follow my own rhythm.

It's called Ladies Coupe. You know, from the second-class reservation compartments in trains. I was travelling one night in one of these trains and the rest of the women were all middle-aged women. They were talking about their lives and swapping stories with absolute abandon. This book is very different from The Better Man in that it deals with women. There was some criticism of The Better Man because it had so much to do with men and very little to do with women. This new book is a women's book.

I don't set out to write anything that's gender-related. In the process, if anything comes up, then I milk it. Because I am not a great person who'll stand up and say, "I'm writing to do this or do that." For this novel, I wasn't thinking about gender. I had a story to tell. I was exploring certain issues that were important to me.

Yes -- this whole thing is about journeys women take in their own lives. I like to think of the book as a novel in parts because there are five other short stories interwoven into it. There is a single narrator, whose perspective is the overriding perspective of the novel.

No, this is not a feminist book at all. I have no problems with men. I just write to talk about different viewpoints. If it [the book] tackles feminist issues, that is incidental.

I wanted to talk about a repressed man who still hasn't thrown off his father's shadow. I just thought that was typical of a lot of Indian men. No matter how educated they are, or how successful they are. Men overall. They turn out to be replicas of their fathers.

I think the artist has it slightly better than the writer. There is an artistic community, whereas there is no writer's community (at least in Bangalore). Maybe there are closed, tight, very individualistic pockets.

Literally, I don't think so. I just came back from a holiday in Malaysia, and the only time I did a reading there was because we were going on holiday anyway. I hate this business of having to organize readings. Almost as if you're begging people to come hear you.

Metaphorically, yes, the book has taken me places. It made me think about what writing can do. What I can do with myself as a writer.

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