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Indian-American Author Discusses Her Work

USINFO Webchat transcript October 5

Indu Sundaresan, author of the acclaimed The Twentieth Wife and newly released The Splendor of Silence, answered questions from participants at Frankfurt’s Book Fair, the world’s largest trade fair for books, held annually in mid-October in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Following is the transcript:

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of International Information Programs
USINFO Webchat Transcript

Acclaimed Indian American Author to Chat with Frankfurt Book Fair

Guest:      Indu Sundaresan
Date:       October 5, 2006
Time:       6:00 a.m. EDT

USINFO WEBCHAT MODERATOR: Join Indu Sundaresan, author of the acclaimed The Twentieth Wife and newly released The Splendor of Silence, on October 5 at 12:00CET (6:00am EDT) to participate in a live Webchat with participants at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

QUESTION [Victor]: Hi Indu, I was very impressed with your descriptions of India in the 17th century in The Twentieth Wife. Two questions:

1. Did you research the history of India for the book, or did the descriptions come from stories passed down from your parents and grandparents?

2. Do the places you describe still exist in India?

ANSWER [Indu Sundaresan]: 1. Hi Victor, thanks for writing in. I did research both The Twentieth Wife and The Feast Of Roses (the sequel) extensively before and during the writing of the two novels. And all my research was done here, in the Seattle area, from the local library system and the University of Washington's Suzzallo and Allen libraries.

Between these two libraries, I found enough translated travelogues, manuscripts, memoirs to fashion out the lives of the characters in 17th Century India.

As for the stories from my father and my grandfather -- they were more bedtime stories, and tales of their friends and acquaintances. My father taught me how to tell stories, a skill I used when I began writing.

2. Most of the places I describe in the two novels still exist, after some 400 odd years, and considering their age are in excellent repair. If you get a chance to visit Delhi, Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, you will see these magnificent forts and palaces where the Mughal kings lived. In most of these places, there has been an extensive and somewhat recent renovation, so the marble floors are pristine, the semi-precious inlay work on the ceilings and walls are still intact -- it is not difficult, when you are there, to imagine that Mehrunnisa (known as Empress Nur Jahan) and Emperor Jahangir once lived here.

The one place that comes entirely from my imagination is the huge chess board in The Feast Of Roses. I made up a life-sized chess board in one of the palaces for the scene where Mehrunnisa plays chess with a courtier, Mahabat Khan, and defeats him, thereby establishing her supremacy over him. The two players use "live" pieces to play with -- the rooks are baby elephants with mahouts that command them to move from square to square, etc.

The idea for this scene, however, comes from a life-size parcheesi board that is engraved on the floors of one of the courtyards at Fatehpur Sikri (which is an entire ghost city in red sandstone near Agra, abandoned soon after it was built in the 1570s). Legend has it that Emperor Akbar used slave girls as "pieces" and had them move from one square to another when he called out the moves.

WEBCHAT MODERATOR: We would like to welcome everyone who is now logging on to our chat in Germany as well as Indu Sundaresan who is logging in from Seattle, Washington.

Due to the time change between Germany and Washington State, Indu is up right now at 3:00am chatting, so we want to thank her for her dedication.

Q [Victor]: How long have you lived in the United States? Was it a huge "culture shock" when you arrived?

A: I've lived in the U.S. for the past 16 years. I came here for graduate school at the University of Delaware, in economics and operations research.

Culture shock ... yes and no. Most of my ideas and impressions of the U.S. were based on movies and books, and it wasn't until I came here to experience life firsthand that I realized how erroneous some of those impressions could be, and how accurate they could be also!

For the most part, my first few years were in an insulated university environment, but the happiest realization still is that in the U.S. you can be part of the society and still maintain your own ethnic and cultural identity. I am, today, both Indian and American, more effortlessly than in any other country in the world, I think.

WEBCHAT MODERATOR: More information on Indu Sundaresan and her writings.

Q [JOE]: The Splendor of Silence was set in India during World War II. Was this easier to write about than India in the 1580s?

I read that your dad was in the Air Force. Did this help you write Spendor?

A: Hi Joe, thanks for being at the forum today. In some ways Splendor was easier to write from the point of view of creating an atmosphere for the story. It wasn't an entirely new or unknown world, as in TTW and TFOR. And there is, also, a lot of material to research from -- almost too much!

Splendor is set in four days in May of 1942, and the last few years before independence from British rule in India are very well documented, so I had to cull through and find what I wanted for the novel -- the viewpoints of my Indian protagonists, and the viewpoint of my main American character, Sam Hawthorne, who is in India as part of the U.S. forces to help in the retaking of Burma.

To answer the second part of your question, I grew up on Air Force bases and have a sense, if you like, of what cantonment life was like -- the Officers' mess, the dress whites after 6pm, no children allowed after a certain time, etc. A lot of impressions that find their way into Splendor when I describe the army bases there.

WEBCHAT MODERATOR: For those who are logging in from somewhere other than Germany, here is information on the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Q [JOE]: Thank you for talking with us today.

I loved The Twentieth Wife and was wondering how The Splendor of Silence is being received?

A: There have been some very good reviews for Splendor, always a good indication of how well a book is being received. My best marker for this, however, is when I go out on tour and read and talk with readers in various cities -- that is when I really know.

And the tour is going to happen in little bits and pieces with Splendor (an appearance at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association meeting in mid-October and Miami, Coral Springs and Palm Beach in November) because I have a very little baby!

Q [Frankfurt Book Fair]: Hello from the Frankfurt Book Fair, where India is the guest of honor. Having been raised in India, but now living in the United States, do you see yourself more as Indian or U.S.-American or are you "in between" cultures?

A: Most, if not all of my writing, both novels and short stories, centers around characters and situations in India -- it's a way for me to maintain a strong connection with the country of my birth and my early years. I do have a lot of family in India, as also in the U.S., and that is how I define myself. As I said in response to another question, I am Indian and I am American -- but I am, really (and I think most people are) defined by and for the people I know and love, both Indian and American.

Q [Frankfurt Book Fair]: Indu, this is Kunal from the Frankfurt Book Fair, I am from Mumbai India and exhibiting at the Book Fair. I wanted to know the difference you feel about the India you knew five years back and the India today and the knowledge of the same with the fellow Indians who live in the U.S.

A: Hi Kunal, I think most Indians who leave India to live elsewhere find themselves in a time freeze -- the India they know is always the India they left behind, and I do find myself constantly surprised that things have changed -- attitudes, perceptions. But of course, there is always an evolution, I am just not in India to see it, and as a writer it is always interesting to watch and listen when I visit India -- who know, story ideas for the future, perhaps?

Q [Frankfurt Book Fair]: Do you feel that is a particularly rich era, as it were, for Indian writers who write in English?

A: Yes, there is such a wealth of literature in English both from within India and without. Why now ... I'm not entirely sure. I went out with the manuscript of The Twentieth Wife for five years before I found an agent to represent it (and Sandy Dijkstra sold it to my publishers at Atria Books, Simon & Schuster in something like a weekend), but the timing was right, the book was at its polished best ... a lot of things happened at the same time.

I think we (Indian writers in English) are speaking out, a lot of us have a lot to say, people are listening, there are a variety of voices, both contemporary and historical (as in my case). I think it to be simply wonderful.

Q [Frankfurt Book Fair]: Could you, please, let us know whether there is a special training for authors in you country e.g., literature institutes?

A: There are a lot of MFA (Master of Fine Arts) programs that "teach" creative writing in most of the universities in the U.S. But I took night classes at the local community colleges here, this was well after I had written four novels.

I have two previous (unpublished) novels, and then TTW and TFOR, and then I went out and took my first class. The classes taught me how to edit my work, how to revise. I guess what I'm saying is that writing cannot be taught -- you write and then you listen to what others have to say about your work and you learn to edit. The writing has to be all your own.

Q [Laurie]: Dear Ms. Sundaresen, I was wondering... You grew up in India and received a degree in economics there. How did you come to the U.S., and how did you become a writer?

A: I never considered writing to be a career, but the idea must have been percolating somewhere in the back of my mind. After I finished my graduate degrees, I bought a computer, sat down and wrote a novel (and another one, and then The Twentieth Wife).

It sounds simple, but it really was that easy -- there were no doubts that I couldn't do it, I just went into the writing with a simple faith and a confidence. Of course, it then took five years before I found an agent, but the early part of the process came from within and without any doubt!

WEBCHAT MODERATOR: Once we conclude this chat, you will be able to find the transcript on our webchat station, as well as a list of upcoming webchats.

Q [Laurie]: I loved your book about Mehrunnisa. How did you as a modern woman of the 21st century come to write about harem life as it existed during the 17th century in India?

A: Hi Laurie, thanks for your question. I wrote The Twentieth Wife and The Feast Of Roses because I was fascinated by Mehrunnisa's life -- the fact that she was a woman who wielded such enormous power in 17th Century India, from behind a veil, behind harem walls.

There was that love story also, between Mehrunnisa and Emperor Jahangir, just one generation before the love story behind the Taj Mahal, and yet because Emperor Jahangir built no monument such as the Taj to celebrate his wife's life, most people remember little about them.

Both parts of Mehrunnisa's life made up the entire story that I wanted to tell, and one could not have been interesting without the other.

The other fact is that no one else has bothered to write out her life story in such detail -- and there really is a wealth of information out there in historical documents if you go looking for it, as I did.

Q [e]: I think you are a very good writer. What type of novel will you write next?

A: Thank you. I intend to go back to Mughal India and pick up the storyline somewhere in the mid-1600s, a few years after Mehrunnisa's death, during the building of the Taj Mahal.

I've always wanted to write this novel, but I had to leave Mughal India and the mid-17th Century for a few years and come up to 1942 to write Splendor, because Splendor simply had to be written first!

Q [e]: What part of India are you from? Did you come to U.S. by yourself, or did you come with your family?

A: My family is from the south of India, near Madras (Chennai as it is now) but I grew up all over north India on Air Force bases around the country -- Jodhpur, Jamnagar, Lucknow, Pathankot.

I came to the U.S. alone, initially, for graduate school at the University of Delaware.

Q [Frankfurt Book Fair]:  Where was Salman Rushdie born?

A: Mumbai?

Q [Frankfurt Book Fair]: Who are some of your favorite Indian authors and what draws you to their literature?

A: There are many favorites, and most are favored because of specific books rather than the entire body of work. Chitra Divakaruni for the poetry in her language, Amitav Ghosh for the atmosphere he creates, R. K. Narayan also for atmosphere and language. Ruth Prawar Jhabvala because she understands her characters well.

WEBCHAT MODERATOR: I just looked and Indu's novels are translated into German and can be found at the German version of Amazon.com.

Q [Laurie]: What kind of a woman is your heroine Mehrunnisa? Can you tell us a little bit about her?

A: Mehrunnisa was thirty-four, widowed with a child, well past the age when women were considered desirable, when she married Emperor Jahangir and came into his harem as his twentieth wife (hence the title of the first novel).

This woman then, over the next 17 years of her husband's rule became the most powerful Empress in that entire Mughal dynasty. She gave public audiences (albeit still clad in a veil), made court decisions, signed on farmans or imperial edicts, had her own seal fashioned. She had coins minted in her name (a privilege ONLY extended to ruling royalty, not to spouses of) -- the only hallmark of sovereignty that Mehrunnisa did not exercise was having the khutba (the official proclamation of sovereignty) read in her name, the muezzins still called out Emperor Jahangir as the ruler of the empire.

And she did all of this after stepping into a harem where there were women already well established into the heirarchy, already in favor, already powerful, though only within the harem walls. Mehrunnisa took power away from these women and exercised it both within the imperial harem and at court, also dealing with Sir Thomas Roe, the first official ambassador from the court of James I of England and an early representative of the British East India Company.

I could say more, much much more about her ... but you should read The Twentieth Wife and The Feast Of Roses for more!

Q [Frankfurt Book Fair]: Have your books been published in German? Do you intend to come to Germany for a reading tour at some point?

A: Yes, Krueger Verlag is the publisher of the two novels.

The Twentieth Wife is titled Pfauenprinzessin in German.

The Feast Of Roses is titled Kaiserin Der Rosen in German.

The Splendor Of Silence will also be published by Krueger Verlag, but I don't have a German title yet.

More about both novels and all international editions are on my Web site.

Q [Guest]: Just wondering if there is a translation for Ghias? What does the name mean if anything.

A: I don't know the meaning of Mehrunnisa's father Ghias Beg's name, but if anyone else out there does, would love to know.

WEBCHAT MODERATOR: It seems that our time is already up.

We would like to thank our German friends who took the time to send in some great questions. And our sincere thanks go out to Indu for getting up so early to chat with everyone. Your novels are very beautiful and a true pleasure to read.

Would you like to give any closing remarks?

A: Thanks, Tim for being such a good moderator for this forum! And I want to thank all of you for logging in or stopping at the booth to read and ask questions -- it's always a pleasure to answer well-thought out questions.

I do hope to come to Germany sometime soon to read from my novels, and perhaps then can meet some of you in person!

WEBCHAT MODERATOR: The Webchat is now closed.  A transcript of today's Webchat will be available on our USINFO Webchat Station within one business day.

(While guests are chosen for their expertise, the views expressed by the guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of State.)