5.29 Shastri & Jai: Redefining Gender Stereotypes in Indian Diasporic Writing

In this exclusive series in partnership with Penguin Random House India, we will shine a spotlight on two compelling contemporary voices each month, individuals who are reshaping the landscape of Indian literature. 


In this special episode of Books & Beyond, Tara and Michelle talk to two Indian diasporic writers – Shastri Akella and Jai Chakrabarti, about their books that break the mold of conventional storytelling and offer nuanced perspectives on gender stereotypes. 

Being Indian writers based out of the US, how do they explore themes of gender, sexuality, and identity in their works? How do they challenge the stereotypes and expectations of Indian culture and society? How do they celebrate the diversity and complexity of the LGBTQ+ community in India and beyond?

They discuss Shastri’s “The Sea Elephants” – a queer coming-of-age novel about a young man ‘Shagun’ who joins a street theater troupe and discovers his feminine side. And Jai’s “A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness” – a collection of stories that explore family, culture, and identity across borders, featuring characters who defy gender norms and embrace their true selves. 

Tune in to have your perspectives challenged! 


Book mentioned in this episode : 
The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
The Gathering by Anne Enright
Close to Home by Michael Magee
The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkein

Authors mentioned in this episode : 
Salman Rushdie 
Fareed Zakaria
Aanchal Malhotra
Bernard Malamud
Michael Cunningham 
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni


Produced by Aishwarya Jawalgekar
Sound edit by Kshitij Jadhav

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.

Transcript

Michelle D'costa  00:10

I'm Michelle D'costa.

Tara Khandelwal  00:12

And in this podcast, we uncover the stories behind some of the best written books of our time

Michelle D'costa  00:18

and find out how these books reflect our lives and our society today. So tune

00:23

in every Wednesday to enter a whole new world with a new author, and a new idea.

Michelle D'costa  00:30

Yes, and after three years and 2 million listens, we are back with all faculties and fire

00:37

with hard hitting questions and life changing books.

Michelle D'costa  00:40

So let's dive in. This episode is part of our branded series with Penguin Random House India. Hi, everyone. Welcome

00:49

to Books and Beyond. And we have a very special episode because in this episode, we are speaking to two talented Indian writers from the diaspora and through their books, one of which is a debut novel and one is a collection of short stories. They are redefining masculinity.

Michelle D'costa  01:07

Yes. So to begin with the very first author, Shastri Akira, his explosive debut novel, The sea elephant is actually about Shackleton's journey from not knowing how to be like a man to falling in love with a man in a very toxic masculine world, and how he navigates these complex dynamics at home from having a father who wants to correct his ways, you know, by sending him off to a camp that claims to have a cure for boys like him to dealing with bullying for having man boobs at school to find a finding, you know, his calling in acting through various feminine roles that have dropped with the and other women from the myths and you know, finding his found family in a theater group. And then he actually falls in love with Mark who is from a Jewish migrant community settled in Canada. So we'll find out whether, you know, shotguns past actually haunts him or whether he actually moves on and, you know, claims his future.

Tara Khandelwal  02:06

Yeah, and whether he and marks relationship, you know, survives the fact that he's dealing with his past. And on the other hand, we have J Chakrabarti short story collection, a small sacrifice for an enormous happiness. I really, really love this book, because it has so many characters, and it's about what it means to have a family today. And the characters explore these complex relationships they traverse between cultural identity sexuality, the characters are set in India and in America. I love the humor in the book, because a few of the stories are about the title story is about the journey of Nikhil who is in love with Sharma. They're in a relationship, but Sharma is married. And Nikhil really wants to have a kid with Sharma. And you know, he feels a little lost seeing Sharma who's a closeted gay man living with his wife. And there's so many interesting stories, you know, there's a story about an American musician, who is traveling to India to see his guru for the last time. And he makes a promise that he can't keep there is a story about a young woman who leaves her child behind, and comes to America to take care of the child of a biracial couple, you know, there's so many elements, and there's so many things that these authors have in common, that are so different, and I can't wait to explore all of these elements. So welcome.

03:31

Thank you, it's so great to be here with you.

03:34

Thank you. Likewise, I'm just really happy to be here.

03:37

We also know that you guys admire each other's works. And your books are very similar. They're also different in a lot of ways, right? So they're similar in the fact that there are these characters that navigate these very complex family dynamics. They are defying the familiar norms, intergenerational sort of dynamics in the book, and they're also a different from one another, because one is this, you know, amazing sweeping novel that goes into the lives of this one character shall go. And another is a short story collection. Can you tell us you know, what do you guys think of each other's work? What was the starting point was your introduction to each other's books as well?

04:21

Sure, I couldn't begin. I mean, I had the privilege of reading Chaz threes debut novel The C elephants before it came out. And I was blown away for some of the reasons that you just mentioned, the fact that this was a sprawling novel, it was considering so many questions around what it means to love what it means to love secretly, what it means to grow up with myths and histories that are both important and essential, but also in some ways, weigh us down at times, and The fact that it was willing to take enormous risks as a novel and to move beyond the expectations that I think we we might have of any given book, I think it's really a unique book in that way and redefines some of these notions of masculinity that, that you've mentioned earlier. So I was really just just honored to read it. And, you know, I'm very, very excited to read all the books that Shastri is going to write next as well.

05:31

Thank you, Jay. That means a lot. And I'm also really grateful for the blurb you've written for the see elephants. During the pandemic, I remember I was a resident at the fine arts work center, which is this writing residency and my agent was in the process of trying to sell the book. And that's when I discovered a play for the end of the world, which was such a striking premise about Rabindranath Tagore, those play being reenacted in a concentration camp, and how one of the survivors from that play ends up going to New York. And I think I just found a deep sense of resonance with the idea of somebody who's trying to move away from their past, but somehow the past has this magnetic gravity on them, which keeps pulling them back and doesn't let them fully be who they want to be in their new relationships, both with their significant other, but also with the new friends and new font families are trying to build. And of course, there is the whole theater aspect to the story, too. So he magically found that very resonant. And just the prose of the book was just so beautifully written sentence by sentence, I remember I would go to some of my fellow writing residents, and I would like knock on their door and read out sentences from the book out loud, because it's, it's almost musical, I wanted other people to hear it. There's some scenes, it's been a couple of years, but they're still etched in my brain like this is fantastic scene, where they're in the subway train in New York, and the train halls and where to get out and walk through the tunnels. So there's so many moments that just stay with you. And I think that good fiction has a very unique power of, of just remaining in your consciousness long after the book is done. And I think that's true of his work as well.

Michelle D'costa  07:12

I just love this connection. And honestly, when we sort of did this book pairing came about how there are so many themes that sort of overlap between both of your books, and that they're sort of companion books. So one team that that really, really stood out was obviously toxic masculinity. And both of you have, you know, literally shown them like through two very vivid scenes, in in shocking ways, right? So can please both of you give me one instance from your book, which actually really hits the nail on the head when it comes to toxic masculinity. I mean, which scene was the most representative of that, according to you?

07:48

It's a great question. I suppose the the one that comes to mind for me is this scene from the story prodigal son. And in that story, you have an American man who's going back to India, to meet his guru for the last time. And in that story, the tourist, if you will, this American man who's coming to India has a lot of assumptions about what the family will expect of him and and why they want him there. So I think he sees himself in a sort of like exalted role, and doesn't think very carefully about the guru or the guru son. And it turns out that he has a moment with the guru son as well, which creates a lot of problems, or his relationship with the family thereafter. But I think he is approaching it as some tourists unfortunately do, which is thinking of this family and this trip as a visit. And then he can move away from them, he can go back to his own family 1000s of miles away. And I think that feeling of being able to be temporary, in a situation where you can extract something from people, but then you can move away, and you can go back and have a good life. To me that feels really emblematic of toxic masculinity, because you're not immersed in that world, you know, you're willing to kind of let yourself have some distance around it, which I think is can be a little bit dangerous at times.

09:36

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think that's a part of the reason why schagrin has to leave home and he has to leave, wherever he's from, whether it's the boarding school or his his childhood home, to get away from those inherited ideas of masculinity and even when he's in the street here at true. You inherit these values to such an extent that they become a part of you to dismantle In them takes a while. A lot of times, I think having allies who can sort of push you in a healthy way really helps and Sharon's allies are Su and sai in the book, who push him in a direction that is more fulfilling to who he is. But to answer your question for me, it was Rusty's character, Sharon's first crush was also his classmate at the boarding school. I think that, for me, was the first name that popped into my head when I heard your question, because he's young, he's he's a high schooler. And you can see he's already so deeply imbibed gendered notions of behavior of how you're supposed to conduct yourself. And then using those notions to not just on yourself, but to police others. This one scene which writing it was hard, it's a simpler scene, but when he tells chagrin that you know, you, you're going to die, and then nothing of your family trace will remain, but you know, someone like me will marry and my family name will survive, which is just to me that one dialogue is so emblematic of how masculinity is not just perceived, but then it's propagated because then you have a kid, and not just any kid Amilcare, and then you pass your last name, and all these gender notions along with the last name to the kid, because it's just been inherited, he's just mouthing them. And you know, he's going to be like, like, instead,

11:25

what I liked about both of these books is that it showed both sides, right, so have these sort of made characters, so emblematic of this kind of, sort of traditional masculine notion that is so noxious for people who do not embody that. So in your workshops in CFS pathology, I mean, he was really very, very scary. In Jays book, you know, when the couple goes to adopt their child in India, you know, you can see that the husband is sort of the breadwinner, or he sort of, you know, more aloof, and there really has to be a lot of convincing and there's a twist in the story, you should be able to explain better. And I also liked, on the other hand, where you have these characters that completely go against that notion of, you know, this masculine version that, you know, you're supposed to be shotguns character, of course, you know, we see sort of that evolution and how difficult it is to redefine what it means to be a man or what masculine actually mean. So that sort of push and pull, I thought was very, very interesting in the books.

Michelle D'costa  12:31

Yeah, and, you know, reading these books, there was one question that that kept coming up, in my mind, is why, you know, sort of tell this story about toxic masculinity, about all of these issues that that sort of come across, I would say why and why now,

12:47

okay, I can go first. But next time, it's your chest. So, for me, I think a lot of the organizing principle for these stories was around this notion of family and what it means to cultivate the oftentimes a chosen family and family that you've may not be born into. And it really took off, because there was a point years ago, where my partner and I really wanted to have a child. And we found it very difficult to have a child, as many people do these days. And it took years for that to actually materialize. And then a child came into the world and view found the idea of actually having a child having been these independent artists to be, you know, quite challenging as well. So it was many stages of life transition. And I really was starting to think about what does it mean to be a parent? What does it mean to be parented? What are the kind of histories that I have inherited from my parents? And what are the ones that I am consciously or unconsciously passing on? And so this includes, of course, these questions of masculinity, how I show up as a man in the world, but it also includes other questions of how we interact with each other. And throughout that was kind of the thread that I was looking at when I put these stories together is what does it mean? To be a parent to be mother to be fathered or to act as a mother or father in this moment, especially when we are oftentimes so far away from our biological families, as is the case for myself and for my partner?

14:30

I was tasked with a bit of a tangent, but I promise it is connected to the question. I was talking to some of my students and we were talking about the new Batman and the reason the new Batman with Robert Pattinson, for me resonated so deeply, even though it's slow paced and long is it's the first time we see a superhero film in which the superhero is not the one and only for solving all the problems. He really depends on his community and his people to do work the times when he failed and He needs to help him support of people. And I really think, for the sake of our collective mental health, it's so important to shift away from that notion that we need one hero, we need one breadwinner, we need one male figure who solves all the problems. I think a lot of the toxicity comes in from that from the power of it, but also the pressures that that involves. And I think for me, growing up seeing that paradigm play out and a lot of the meal caregiver caregivers, my family, not just my father, but also his brothers. I just felt like if that pressure was not there, there would have been very different individuals. And of course, it took me a long time growing through my 20s and getting into my 30s, to have enough of a distance to see that they themselves are struggling with a lot of pressures. So I think I, it became very important for me to have a character who it's okay for him to ask him, not just him, but Mark marks character too. They don't, they don't struggle with saying, I don't know how to do this, they don't struggle with saying, this makes me feel helpless. And to say that, that's okay. And I see a lot of pop culture now, bringing in that notion, which is just very refreshing to see, I just finished watching guns and gloves. And there's that scene in which the teacher, there's a student who has a crush on his teacher. And at some point, he just breaks down and crack starts crying. And the teacher says, Well, you should cry, it's okay for boys to cry, because it sort of helps unburden. And also, you've done something wrong, I think the way she sort of handles that is amazing, because she calls him out, but she's also empathetic to him. So I think just having that shift, where we know that the traditional notion of masculinity has to be dismantled for the people surrounding toxic men, but for the men themselves, I think I'm hoping to see elephants as one of the boys is that sort of helps push that idea and normalizes it and makes it the new normal.

16:59

And how much of you know your own life is in the CLO,

17:03

I would say his emotional architecture is very much like my own his narrative, the external narrative is fairly different. I did, you know, I did shadow a street theater troupe, I traveled with them, I didn't act with them, I would freeze in front of the camera. But I wrote for them, we traveled along the Ganga in India, when we were writing the story when, when they were performing, and I was sort of rewriting some of the myths for them. I think some of the pressures, that shoving faces I did face like the pressures for arranged marriage. And I think the first scene that came to me, when I was writing this book was I was going through this intense phase of pressure. And I was trekking in the Himalayas, because it was working out of Delhi them. And I had the scene that came to my head where this young man is alone at home. And he's transferring pictures from one wall to the other one with the wall of the living and one with the wall of the dead. And at this point, the wall of the living has only his picture. So that was the originating image. He's transferred one last picture to the wall of the dead, and he's the last member alive. And I just was so fascinated with that image that I had to keep writing my way into it. And I almost journaled from his perspective. Who is he? What is he in this world? So that idea of how we sometimes we go out into the world to achieve all these things, what we're trying to do is to really find a cure for loneliness, and solitude. So I think that's that was the originating image from how I dealt with my own solitude, these pressures sort of showed into a shocking story.

18:42

Just to add, I think I totally could sense that emotional truth. From the both of y'all in the books.

Michelle D'costa  18:49

Yeah. And I want to add two things here. One is, regarding what Jay mentioned about being temporary, you know, this, this very, I would say, very tricky position of, you know, sort of not being in one place, right. So I actually do, I'm in India now, I was born and raised in Bahrain. And we would usually come to India, you know, during the monsoons here, right. So July and August are heavy monsoons, and Bombay. And it was a summer vacation for us over there. And I still remember the scene where we were sort of a group of, you know, these Gulf on NRI kids. And some of them were pretty mean. Okay. And I was just, I was just wondering, you know, how did these bodies come here, they shouldn't have come to India on vacation. And there was this instance, I still remember this very vividly where this one boy was very mean to a boy who was from the same same building, but he was basically based in India. And basically why he was being so mean was because he could get away with it, right? And he didn't even inform us that he was flying the next day. So he will already be mean. And then the next day he would, he just disappeared, right? And I was thinking, see, nobody else would have this privilege because if you're living in the same area, you wouldn't get away with it. So that Something that really struck a chord with me, Jay, and Shastri, um, as you mentioned, yes, you know, narratives are changing. And when you mentioned about, you know, guns and gulags, I just remembered this ad, that book had put out sometime back, it was called start with the boys, where they show that you know, from from basically when our boys small, we tell them, you know, don't cry, and then slowly as they grow up, because all these emotions are sort of, you know, repressed, and it comes out in weird ways. And it's sort of they become these toxic, you know, violent men. I think that was a very good ad. So I do think that yes, we are slowly sort of shifting this narrative not only in in OTT platforms, but also in advertisements in different ways. Yeah, and

20:42

if they could just say, an ad that like what I loved about Chester's book is that Shastri is also, in addition to looking at what's happening now in the contemporary world. And also going back and looking at myths, and the stories that we have inherited, and how in some of the, the framework of those stories, there's also the potential for this more inclusive masculinity. And, you know, I mean, as a Bengali, for example, like I think about the the rugged narrative, right? I mean, you have and, you know, in the story of the requests of me, as somebody who's come, who's come together, because of the community of people who are each contributing something so that the evil power can be, can be put back. And I think like, there's a way in which we can also go back to our stories and find what is powerful and beautiful there and, and revitalize them for them for this moment, as well. And that's something I really appreciated about the sea elephants

21:43

get a lot of these myths, when you read them in the original text, the, there's so much more rich and nuanced than the watered down versions that we see now. And I think that idea of censoring something where you remove all the nuance, because you want to promote a certain ideal is scary. And now there's in the US, there's all this dialogue on bookbinding. And to me, and why it's important not demand books. And to me this century, modern primordial texts is a version of bookbinding, right? Because you are taking something the author intended to be read, and then you've just removed all that. And we have so many images wranglers character who is trans in a very quintessential with the original text of it, if you read it, they have pronouns that they then pronouns in the text itself, but then think that all of that richness has been eliminated, is I think it's important to bring the stories back.

Michelle D'costa  22:44

Yeah, totally. I was just about to mention Chaturanga. Because when I read that, it sort of, you know, really, really made me understand, you know, how we can sort of twist myths and sort of sensor and filter everything that we know, to sort of fit our ideal or the sort of stereotypes that we have, you know, come to know, you know, so talking about stereotypes, there's one thing that I noticed very common thread between both of your books, we often hear that, you know, boys are closer to their moms. And this whole mama's boy trope is something that both of you have, you know, supported and given a very interesting spin in your books, right. So in Shastri spoke a shotgun is actually very close to his mother. Right? And, and we do see her as this figure who sort of protective in a way, but also she's she's sort of a villain in disguise, because she's not, you know, she's not sort of there. I mean, she's there, but she's also not there. She's also somewhat sometimes taking the father side. But what I really liked about you know, both of your male characters is that both you're so close to their mothers, right, though their mothers have this huge influence on their lives. what eventually happens is they actually break out of that pattern, and they eventually stand up for who they are, and they do what they want. So I'm curious to know, did this come out very organically, or was this intention?

Tara Khandelwal  23:56

Yeah, just to add, like, I think one of the stories that I really liked a lot, you know, in Jays book, there were two actually that showed the, you know, the Mother Son dynamic. One of the stories is about how a couple has broken up, and how the guy who is an Indian, the guy's mother has hired a tantric to come and sort of, you know, be with him. And he's, he lives in the US. So it's really funny because the tantric shows up in you know, his classroom. And there's this plot to like, kidnap his ex wife, it's hilarious is a lot of humor. And the other one that shows like very interesting sort of, like, family dynamic is the one where, again, there's an interracial couple, mother of the man hires Ronnie, Who is this lady who pretends to be the guy's mother, and she comes when the guy is out of the house, and she comes and when the girlfriend enters the house, and she's hired to convince the girlfriend to break up because the mother wants a better match for the, for her son. So these types of stories, you know, that's why, you know, the Mother Son thing was, I think very common between both of the books, which we found very interesting. Yeah,

25:17

I mean, I will say that in those two stories that you mentioned, so in a mother's work, for example, I was thinking about this, you know, very common match maker, archetype and story that we have. So, I mean, I think probably all of us have, have had some encounter with a matchmaker at some point in our, in our lives, or at least know people who have had encounters with matchmakers. So that's a very common trope in India and other cultures as well. And, and so I was thinking, Well, what if we turn the knob on that a little bit, and we ended up with somebody who is a match breaker. And I think this is something I sort of generally do in my stories, which is okay, think about, well, what is a stereotype? Let's say, or what is something that is working in the world today the way it is? And then what if we were to just sort of Twist the knob on that a bit? And what sort of emotional truth could we get out of it, then? And so that's where this idea of a woman who is basically hired to break a couple apart came? It's, you know, I thought that was much more fun to play with than a matchmaker because, in general, when I'm sitting down to write a story, I am feeling the anxieties of influence, right. So in other words, I'm feeling that oh, there are so many stories that have been written and so many wonderful stories that I have read. And so what is it that I can, you know, really contribute to, to this narrative? So, so there, so I'm thinking, you know, how can I support it in a way that feels genuine and true to me. And so this, this notion of twisting the dial, is important, or as you mentioned, in the tantric story, where it's kind of an absurd premise that a tantric from India is sent to New Jersey of all places to help a man reconnect with his love, and sex life as it were. So, so I think, yeah, I mean, those are both cases where I'm trying to subvert a traditional narrative.

27:21

Just as a little footnote story to what Jay mentioned, back when my parents my mom was trying to get me to have an arranged marriage, there was this one matchmaker who insisted that I married this girl because she's going to be very good for my career. I was working for Google at the time. And she's he, he said, Oh, you don't want to get married to her, you will get promoted to a director level. And they can what's in it for her? I mean, and he's like, don't worry about that. So great. So yeah, obviously, time God didn't go down that route. But they're matchmakers and countries have matchmakers. To answer your question. I think, for me, when I was writing the story, as I was writing my way into the story, I had this epiphany where I realized with caregivers, it's important to break away from them and yet love aspects of them. Because if you try and make the cut extremely clean, you sometimes end up going in a direction that because your intention is only to make the cut clean, it's not to sort of prevent their influence or a part of you that they don't agree with. And I think that is important to identify parts of themselves that are influencing in a negative way and break away from those and yet love the other parts of them. Because then I think it's a lot more organic, you're focusing more on your growth rather than trying to cut a caregiver off. And I think caregivers, oftentimes that grew up in very different environments, they grew up in very different values. Like I was just thinking about my own parents, my dad was a team when India became an independent country. So he grew up in a very particular idea of what Nationalism means how we need to build a country. And for him to have a gay son was just the exact antithesis to what he was still he needs to do in this world. How do you find a sense of grace with your caregivers, while also protecting your identity? For me that achieving that balance in the study was important. This translator Michael Cronin has this amazing quote, where he talks about our home is oftentimes a history is a project of all of our histories and cultures. And so at home having an identity that's against that history or culture is hard, and you necessarily have to break away from home and I use my Cronin I was teaching a Bollywood class and I use Michael Cronin to talk about English, English and Queen and having both this films both Ronnie and Shashi Scattergories have to leave home and live somewhere else to have their own identities. I was also thinking about Andrew Solomon, who wrote this book called far from the tree, where he talks about vertical identities where there are children who are very much like their parents. They continue to lineage like a farmer's child becomes a farmer. But then there's the horizontal identity apple that falls far from the tree, whether it's a prodigy or a gay child, parents don't know how to make sense of that horizontal identity. So it's important that the child goes out into the world and builds their own family around their primary identity. And that in turn allows them to make, there has to be healing, there has to be growth. And from that healing, you can sort of reach back and make peace with your caregivers.

Michelle D'costa  30:28

Yeah, and especially, you know, talking about caregivers, and I think this power hierarchy, right there, apart from the very strong, you know, women who are mothers in these books. For me, I think two of the most memorable characters were the caregivers in the form of the IRA in Angel series book where she she sort of understands what Sharon is going through in school, and she gives him a tip to keep our audience under his armpits and says, See, you will be burning as soon as possible. And then you can just escape and sort of, you know, stay away. And I just, I loved that warmth, I love their relationship and sort of the situation that they develop, which no other sort of character develops with him in the book and ingest collection. Oh, my favorite story was the input. You know, just just to see that the nanny who comes from India, and as you mentioned, you know, being a parent, all of these, these dynamics really comes across in that story, especially because the nanny does have her own child who's back home, and yet she's your, you know, in a different continent, or looking after someone else's son, right. But what I liked is that they have their own agency, right? These both of these women in their own ways, they have their own voice. So I'm really curious to know how both of you met these women in real life. Who are they based on? And how did these characters come about?

31:43

I think for me, there's something powerful about an intimate about sharing a cup of chai. And I think that happens. For me, that relationship started with them sharing a cup of tea, and I had that image in my head. And I said, Okay, if he shares a cup of tea with her, they will become really close allies into this also the idea of pouring some into a saucer and you're sharing that cup of tea. I just wanted that for Shaban with is character. I think for me, it's sort of like a conglomerate of some of my really close female identifying friends from India. Michelle, like you I, I was raised to live in the Middle East, I used to live in Qatar, and then I moved to India for good. So one of the first teachers I had there was that sort of very caregiving, but also very strong person, which I appreciated. You can walk all over her, but she was also your ally. So I think she was like a mixture of a teacher who was very strongly influential. And one of my closest friends who lives in India, Sue's character is actually based on her pretty much everyone else's fiction, but Sue's character is 100% based, and one of my best friends based in India, so.

32:55

So I mean, I will say that I was raised with a lot and surrounded by a lot of strong women. And so it's important for me, I guess, suppose to, to reflect that experience from my childhood. But in general, I'm thinking about something that Michael Cunningham told us and in graduate school, which is that, imagine that every minor character being a major character in some other story or some other novel, right. And so whether it's a major character in a story, or whether it's somebody minor, it's feels very important to me, ethically, as a writer, that I think about them having a great degree of agency that I that I think about them having the potential to shape shift the story. And I'm somebody who doesn't write with an outline. So I write and discover as I go, and my favorite experiences are as a writer are really when a character surprises me. So I'll go along. And I'll and I'll think, oh, okay, well, I didn't realize, for example, in the import, that this young woman from India, who was taking care of this toddler, I didn't realize that she herself was a mother, until I got to that scene, you know, and so for me, it's those discoveries being open to the idea that, you know, people have full agency, regardless of whether they're minor or major characters. And like chastity mentioned earlier, I also journal in the voice of my characters, and that's forbidden for me one of the most effective ways that I get closer to my characters just sort of trying to write in their voice and try to find their voice, even if the novel or the stories in third person, and it just, yeah, develops that intimacy that I think is so essential protection.

Michelle D'costa  34:46

Okay. So I think, you know, from all this, this basically, this process of like you said, you know, there are memories, you know, from meeting really, really wonderful people in our lives to sort of go into this imaginative zone where you're journaling, and you're sort of imagining Like you said, discovery, right being a pantser. I also feel that another big aspect of the book that I loved and I want to know how it came about was the fact that, you know, these characters have secrets, right? And actually, secrets is the crux of their story, right? Like, especially with Shastry is novel, The sea elephants, we do know that the book begins with the death of twin sisters of Sheboygan. And you know, he's harboring this dark secret, and it's haunting him throughout his life. Right, whoever he meets, He's just worried about whether people will find out and actually ingest collection find

35:31

out sorry, just to add context to find out that he thinks he's responsible for the death of the sisters.

Michelle D'costa  35:38

Yes, yes. And also in, you know, in this connection, they do have a secret. So there are secret affairs, you know, there are secret desires, there's so much happening. So, no, you know, what the secrets sort of? Did they sort of come about while you were planning these stories, or were they always the, you know, a pivotal part of the narrative,

35:58

I was talking to my friend, Sue, and we were talking about how it's almost most of the people in our lives don't know us fully, like very few people can know us fully, if at all, possibly, most people will not know you fully that you live your whole life without anyone knowing every aspect of your life, because we just don't share certain aspects with even your closest people because you worry that that's an aspect that they don't agree with. So you want to keep the relationship and therefore the concealment comes from that. So it's this twin idea of people not knowing you fully, and combined with the idea of how much are you willing to bear this burden for secret, be your own Atlas, because you want to retain a relationship and you don't want to lose somebody in your life. So Sharon's case, he doesn't want to lose mark, or Sue or the other people in his life. So he's, he's bearing this burden within him until he actually talks to mark and something about the fact that he's able to reveal the secret of Mark, and Mark doesn't go away, he's still there. That for him is a profound experience that Oh, I can actually talk about this and people will not leave. And I think part of it also comes from the shaming that happens. Like you know, when rusticles Mo, your sister killer, there's no word in Hindi for Sister killer. And then his own, you know, his mother, when they have that when he breaks the Hanuman statue. And his mother says, Do you want to talk about how they died, implying that there is a sense of implicit, he's implicit in causing the debt. There is a certain early in his adolescence a reinforcement that yes, you are responsible to there is the belief that gets externally reinforced by his mom and by his crush, and it takes the arrival of his foreign family to dismantle that belief. Because a belief like that that's so deeply inherited, you don't think you can sort of investigate on your own enough, you need the support of your community to do that. But also think in fiction. Secrets can serve this really powerful thought narrative device where they push the story forward, because it's the bishop Cobian gun, the moment you see a gun, you know, it's going to explode at some point, or it's going to fire. And I think that's the secret, the secret will come to the surface at some point. That's, I think, when a story has a secret promises, the revelation of the secret and how things will crumble around it. This is very classic narrative trope, which I think in literary fiction serves to push the plot forward, but also allows characters to grow and character's relationship with others to grow. Because in telling the secret the character has grown in the way the other characters respond to the secret changes the relationship itself. So it sounds the more human character driven purpose, I think, and literary fiction.

Anupama Chopra  38:42

Yeah, I think that's one of the best parts about fiction that, you know, so many books have these characters sort of keeping these secrets, and then when the revelation comes a little they reveal it or when they want, it's certainly a Bode plot device. What I really like, you know, about both these books and about literary fiction is that you can sort of, you know, go into characters in our lives and you can understand and go deep into certain themes, without it seeming very preachy, or without it being like a lecture, you know, so if I just compare, you know, the recent bill, Bobby, which was supposed to be all about feminism, you know, instead of showing it through the story, there were lectures, it was very preachy, it was sort of, you know, thrown at your face, versus in a beautifully crafted story, like the ones that you have written, you feel those themes of, you know, whether it is what is masculinity mean? Or whether it is, you know, what is keeping a secret do to you, or whether it is abandonment, right. You feel those through those characters in our parks and in our journeys, and I think that both of you have done that so, so beautifully. Another theme that I really liked is the theme of abandonment.

39:55

And, you know, chastity in your book, you have chadburn was running away and you Has this fear that, you know, the person who's gonna go and take him to this conversion camp is going to sort of show up and find him. And so he abandons his mother he abandons you runs away from the school, he's in hiding. And so, you know, you show that really well, in your short story collection, I, I think my favorite story out of all, was the story of the American. We've talked about this story as well, in this interview, goes to meet his guru is a musician and he goes to meet his guru one last time, he has a family in America, you know, he has a tryst with a guru son, and in sort of like a heated moment, he promises the gruesome that you can come and live with me in America. And you know, in the daytime, everything looks so different. And he's just said this thing, and he's made this promise, and now he can go back, or what does he do? Okay, spoiler alert, he sort of leaves the family and leaves this guy behind. And obviously, the very upset and all of those things. And he essentially, you know, can't keep his promises He abandons them. So those sort of themes, you know, I think, came across very well, in both of your books.

41:10

Thank you for that beautiful drawing out of those themes. Firstly, I mean, I think this notion of abandonment is something that I think about a lot. And so there's that story that you mentioned. And then there's also a stories around adoption. And so like adoption, you know, can in some ways, also feel like a kind of abandonment. And that's something that I've always been kind of, you know, really interested in, which is, what does it take for us to leave someone behind. So in the case of the the story, we've been talking about prodigal son, I mean, this is an American who has had this long relationship with his Indian, Guru, musician, teacher, and with the guru son, and then he is willing to do something that I think is quite unethical, and leave them behind, and what is it? What does it take for him to do that? How does he then live with himself afterward? And so I'm really interested in pursuing that question. And in the first version of that story, I ended with the story still set in India. And then when I revised it, I realized I wanted to talk about the after effect, wanted to talk about how somebody would feel once they've abandoned somebody, you know, and in the case of this young American man who's abandoned his, his guru, Simon, he is living a perfectly fine life. He has a family, he has kids, they're, you know, living comfortably. And he's also at time seized by this terror, that he can't quite understand. And to me, that is that combination of being able to live, quote, unquote, a normal life and to also at times be seized by an unexpected terror is, is interesting. And I suppose that I am drawn toward that sense of juxtaposition. When I think about things like abandonment,

43:21

when I had a question, I immediately thought of the title of your story collection, Jay. And I think oftentimes, an abandonment is seen as a sacrifice you're making in order to get something else because whatever else you're getting, feels either more valuable, or something you can live with versus what you're sacrificing. Sometimes I think it happens in a way that's less aligned with your own personal values, and it's more aligned with inherited values. This is what you're supposed to do, because this is how you're going back to your team. You started with this and how am I supposed to be here, so therefore, let this go. There's a line in the sea elephants with algae, the dad tells the son that to be virtuous, the choice you make when your body tempts you to be otherwise. So he's saying you sacrifice something so essential your sexual orientation in order to live in alignment with how society dictates mentioned, live setting, oftentimes abandonment, is that sacrifice the price you're paying, whatever you abandon always haunts you. It's like a ghost. It's always in the room, and it never leaves. So that also becomes a very powerful hunting, I think is a powerful narrative device. Because it's so true of the human experience. Right? So when we were in high school, we've abandoned friendships or abandoned things because we felt shame that would make us less likeable, that haunts us and sometimes things some of those choices that I've made. They still stick with me.

Michelle D'costa  44:48

Yeah, definitely. I think I did. Very interesting observation. Tara. I think abandonment is something that keeps keeps coming across. And and for me, I think one thing that that also really well To me in the connection was sort of this time travel in, you know, both of these books, it takes me back to a time to a period where I think, you know, things are quite different, right? Like nowadays, you know things like when you talk about a contemporary world, you have social media, you're so much of distraction, you have everything. But reading of books, it sort of took me back to this time where you know, there are all of these things are not there. So, you know, especially somebody who grew up in the 90s, where the world was quite different from now it does seem like even though it's just a decade ago, it feels like it's a whole world apart. So, you know, Shastri, I want to know from you, you know, what is the most nostalgic part of the 90s for you, you know, if you could actually go back in time, what would you want to sort of, you know, have today, and what is something that you absolutely don't want to bring to the present.

45:46

The first thing that came to mind, it's weird, because I mean, I grew up in the 90s, in India, too. And just the way television worked, at least to the early 90s, we would just have, we didn't have cable, until almost 97. So we would the only show, I would, I would love to watching The Jungle Book. And so every Sunday morning, that was my incentive to wake up is to wake up and watch The Jungle Book. So I think finding things that are exclusive that where you are, you know, music, music wasn't tapes, and then eventually CDs. So you couldn't have an access to endless number of songs, the way we do now, in Spotify. See, we're very mindful about what you can access our photographs, camera had only 36 images you could capture. And I love that like no looking back the idea of a resource being exclusive, and therefore so much more valuable. I mean, now I keep adding so many songs to Spotify, and oftentimes, I don't even listen to them. Whereas then like wherever I collected, it actually listened to those and loved making mixtapes, anything surrounding culture that was exclusive, I think that I really value I didn't know he'll ever be able to bring that back again. I do appreciate that thing. Ott has allowed filmmakers like Raj and DK to bring in stories that would not have come back 10 years back. So I think it's sort of a paradox. But I would not want to take away the voice that a lot more creators now have, which I felt like they did not have back then there is a lot more openness to narratives that are away from the norm now, which was not there in the 90s. Even this book, I'm the CLO fence in the early 2000s, the early 2000s, the early nights, like 2016 2017, when I was trying to sell it, there were agents who told me that oh, you know, this is too gay. I don't think people would want to read this book. But then between 2016 to now there's been such a sea change, where I mean, I was I think even four years back, I'd been worried about this book coming out in India and the kind of repercussions that might have for my family, which now I know there are people who will not like it, but it also has its own audience. I mean, I'm just so grateful that I get to have this conversation with the three of you. So I think that sort of openness of dialogue and room for creators are not necessarily following a certain legacy that's not been made. I think those two I'd keep.

48:01

Yeah, I mean, like chess, three, I'm thinking fondly about the fact that I only have one notion one introduction to is the TV stations in my in my youth. And there were only cartoons on Saturday mornings for the first stretch of my childhood, at least. And there are ways in which I can think about those experiences fondly. And he can think about how a power outage leads people to sit on the balcony, light a candle and tell stories. And they can think about that quite positively at the same time. In general, I feel that nostalgia can be a bit dangerous as well, because we can think about oh, the good old times. And we can forget about all of the challenges and all the trials and tribulations that we lived through. But we have in our memories changed and adjusted. And all the ways that you know, shots, three is mentioning around like being inclusive toward people, but just, you know, in all the ways in which I think this moment may actually be a really wonderful moment for us to live in. I think when we let ourselves feel nostalgic, we might revisit our memories and change them as we do. And is this typical? So I would say that I feel very wary of getting too nostalgic about the 90s or 80s or whatever. And I want to as much as possible, see things from multiple sides see things from the point of view of people who may not have been privileged in those moments.

49:40

I agree with that. I think that's very interesting that Josue said your book, you know, people said that what might be too gay, and it just, you know, got me thinking that, you know, recently we've seen gay characters in books, you know, and the stories are not just about coming out or being closed. You know, we show was extra screen, which, you know, characters just are, you know, and I think, you know, we interviewed on erode Mahali, and whose retina reading guide and there's only other instances where we see more and more movies now the characters just aren't. And I feel that that so that's also now so important in terms of sort of represent representation, you know, when it used to be you see a brown person in a, in a book with American protagonists or certain American setting, it doesn't have to be an immigrant story they can just be. And I think that that is sort of a powerful thing that's happening as well. And I think Jen, your work, you know, there was a lot of sort of normalization of those inter racial couples were, and even in chasis, were Shagun sort of fell in love and mark, and these sort of inter, religious, interracial things were represented by Well, I also wanted to know, from both of you, you both are writers who don't live in India, and are writing about India. And there is a tradition of writers, you know, a very critically acclaimed writers, you know, lots of, you know, the writing is just so fabulous for both of the books, and, you know, lots of amazing reviews, all of those things. So, does that sort of make a difference for the setting that you're in? How is it for you as diaspora Indian writers writing very much about, you know, your countries?

51:27

Yeah, I mean, for me, it means that I should be writing about the diasporic experience. And so there are some stories that are set in India, there are some stories that are set in America, and stories that are sort of moving in between them, and I think that is representative of my life. And, you know, there's some stories with Jewish characters as well. And that's also part of my experience, having a Jewish partner. And so I, when I think when I start to write a story, or a novel, or think about how to arrange a story collection, I always kind of asked myself, well, what is the perspective that I can bring to this? And is this a story that I ought to write, I think there are plenty of stories that, that I am not qualified to write, and, you know, I don't think I ought to write those. And so as somebody who was born in India, as somebody who was, you know, spent my early childhood there, and all of my summers there, you know, like, there's, there's certain story that I feel like I can inhabit. And there are other stories that I feel like I can't, and, you know, somebody who has lived in Brooklyn, New York for many years, I mean, you know, there's certain kinds of stories about Brooklyn that I think I can write that feel emotionally true to me, and those are the ones that, you know, feel like they would be part of my collection. So in general, I think that as we arrange our stories, or novels, I think we also have to think about who we are and the way in which we are in conversation with stories

53:04

for me, because I lived in India through my late 20s. And came to the US to do an MFA in Creative Writing, and just decided to stay here after that, which was not my plan. But I realized, especially India for specific time and place is a very much a part of my consciousness, specific cultural aspects of India, are very much a part of my consciousness, geography too. And yet, I realized I needed to be away from them to be able to write about them with both fondness and with a critical lens. Even though there was nobody looking over my shoulder, I couldn't give myself the permission to write with the sort of freedom that I needed to be able to write these stories within CLF. And so my short fiction, I mean, I hadn't even come out until I came to the US, I just believed I was asexual in India, and the thing, sometimes it's paradoxical. But that kind of physical distance allows you to write with the degree of intimacy that physically being in that location sometimes can be hard, especially the aspects of the place that are not in alignment with who you are becoming, I think we're all constantly evolving, right? We don't stop changing ever. So when your geography is not aligned with your evolution process, whatever that might be. Having that distance allows you to write about it. And for me, that was the great gift. And at the same time, because I work in academia, I have this luxury of having the summers off, and I still can go spend time with my friends and my mom in India, but then also know that there's something about the comfort of a two way ticket, knowing that I have a return ticket that brings me here allows me to be there more freely. So I think whatever and right, India will very much be a part of that because I love the country. I'm critical of it. And I think oftentimes, when you're critical of a place, it's seen as Oh, you're not patriotic, but I think patriotism has to be replaced or the form of life that's more healthy, and we are critical of the people we love recruited A lot of our children are critical of our parents. And that doesn't come from a desire to put somebody down, but to help them grow into their fullest version. So that sort of critical perspective is only able to happen for me when when I'm not there.

Michelle D'costa  55:14

Right. And you just in addition to that, I'm very curious about how these books have been received in the US, I do know that they have been published there. And then it's been published in India as well. Especially because there are very, very specific cultural references, right, especially jazz collection, when I read about the country, you know, jumping inside the window appearing here and there, I kept thinking, okay, you know, how do Americans see this? And also the bug room? Right, there's a special room, you know, just for bugs. And it's sort of it's very, very cultural, you know, especially with chasseurs book, The myth of the sea elephants in the first place, right, missing the whole Indian epics in, you know, basically, we are rich in epics and a lot of these stories, so I really didn't want to know, what has been the reaction in the US How have they received these books?

55:57

Yeah, I mean, when I read from that story, when the doctor came to town, I always have to kind of explain what in the world that have gone through actually is, you know, I think it's, it's hard for me to know exactly how how stories get received. But what I what I appreciate about how fiction can is generally read today is that you don't have to explain references like you can trust a reader to do the work, if they are not have the cultural background, that the story is set in that you can, you know, you don't have to over explain things, as you might have been expected to do. Even a couple of decades ago, if you were writing fiction that involved India that was published in America that, you know, you can challenge your reader a little bit. And as a reader, I want to be challenged myself, you know, if I'm encountering a cultural situation that I might not be familiar with, or a history that I might not be familiar with. I have Google at my side, I can look things up. So I feel all the more enriched for it. And I hope that's how readers who may not be familiar with things like Don tricks are in the tradition of bug rooms, for example, you know, which, which is something that is in my family history, you know, that they would be willing to be immersed and maybe look things up, or they're interested to learn more?

57:29

Yeah, I think I love that. I think it's sort of to add on to what John just said, I think there used to be a time when if you used Hindi words, or you know, Telugu words in English, you have to italicized them sort of set them apart, which I was very uncomfortable with. And luckily, my editor both here in Muncie, in India, they never pressured me to do that. We have so many words like English is meant to be a language of many, the French words and all sorts of words, which we no longer italicize. Why should I italicize the languages I bring in. And so I think this idea of that goes along with this fairly new perspective of not needing to explain everything. And I think oftentimes, the surrounding context of the story gives you enough. And if it doesn't, then you know, if the narrative doesn't allow you to give enough contextual information, people can always look information up. And I've been lucky in that the reviewers who have reviewed the book here, have not mentioned that being a little alienating, there have been a few Goodreads reviewer who said, you know, it was challenging, but that didn't stop them from reading. So I think I'd rather the narrative be more organic to the story. Rather than be at these artificial information providers.

58:45

It almost feels like I think when I do that is the composite the narrative looking at the reader and saying, Okay, this is what this means, which can be very disruptive. So, I mean, if you look at Lord of the Rings, there's so much it's got elevation, and it's got a whole new language, and people went with it. But I think now readers are offering the same grace to, you know, not European archers, which I feel very lucky to be writing at a time like this.

59:09

Yeah, I think for a long time, a lot of the Indian fiction that was published in the US to involve sometimes it's been has been putting mangoes or monkeys in order for, you know, to, to be picked up by a major publisher. And I think, thankfully, we have evolved beyond that. And what Indian writers are, quote unquote, allowed to publish today is, there's a much broader spectrum.

59:32

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I like those are the best in the world. You know, I studied in the US around 12 years ago. At that time, I had got people asking me, oh, you know, do you know how to speak English and all of that? And I just said, Google, or empathy, Roy goodwill, Salman Rushdie, Google Fareed Zakaria, we have a very rich tradition of writers writing in English that are being sort of recognized internationally. And that is happening more and or, you know where you know, even writers who first get published in India and now then getting published internationally like Archer Malhotra, China's per yard, all of these writers, what are the books that you really both of you that you really love? What would you recommend for Indian readers who want to read about sexuality, family and immigration?

1:00:22

I think one of my favorite books, I mean, I love God of small things. I think anyone who likes reading from India loves that book, the way I've not seen any other book that embodies the perspective of children and uses that lens to talk about big issues like caste and religion. Because you see a child observing the reader knows more than what the child does, that I have this little sheet for myself every year, a few days before my birthday, I read the book again, and finish on my birthday. So that's like my little gift to myself, because her voice is, I've read it like 14 times. So I think she's got a singularly powerful voice, especially in that book aren't that the ROI. But in terms of I think the specific themes you mentioned off later, I really liked Douglas Stewart's fiction, his novel, his second novel, young mango, especially was so good. It's such an immersive experience and brings in religion in a way that I think readers from India will be able to identify with, because it's about this love story that blossoms between two adults, since one was a Catholic, and the other was a Protestant. And it set in Glasgow at a very particular time. Douglas Stewart also writes fiction that's very working class and you know, somebody who grew up not with a lot of wealth, that was something identified with a lot. So I think he's somebody I'd recommend. Immigration. One of the writers, again, I really liked is Michael Cheban. His book, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier. And clay as one character was a migrant. In the way, it also brings in comics and uses them as a framing device to talk about what these two kids because there's one kid comes in from Europe, and the other kid is already in the US. And these two cousins, the friendship that farms between them, and again, how this character is coming from Europe is haunted by his past. And yet at the same time, their kids have a way to sort of move on but don't really move on. That is very nicely shown. And I think that's true of all immigrants, even if it's not trauma that's driven your migrant here, their consciousness is always split between multiple places, which can be both good and bad, depending on the context. So I think that is a great book with in terms of immigration is nothing else that pops to mind. I do like a lot of Irish writing, too. I think, writing from Ireland, somehow of all the the European International Writing, it really resonates with me, there's something to the cadence of the prose, but also the way they see family and invite her novels, including the gathering, which won the Booker, the way she talks about family feels very resonant to me as an Indian reader. So I would recommend her work as well. And most recently, Michael Mackay I think that's his name, he wrote this book called close to home, which he said in Belfast during the whole colonial troubles and certainly that kind of post colonial experience in in readers can identify with, but at the same time, the relationship the main character has with his sibling and with his mom is also very felt very relatable to me. So that's our close to home, I strongly recommend that book as well.

1:03:27

I love so many of those books that you mentioned, and especially the God of small things, which is one of those books that's on my reread list as well for how it plays around with time and thinks about this notion of family. So a few other ones that that come to mind for me, and starting with a short story writer who some people may not know of Bernard mela mood. And this, he won the National Book Award in the 1950s in the United States, so, but it's not so well known now. But I was an immigrant and writes a lot of stories from the perspective of what it was to be an immigrant in New York at that time. And so when I think about a writer like Joon Baba Harry, who's coming, you know, decades later in writing her own kind of immigrant fiction, you know, I think that folks like Malin mood and, and grace Palea really kind of helping to set the stage for, for what is possible and how you can really go deeply into character driven immigrant fiction. And speaking to some of those other themes that you mentioned, I think the the work in general of Michael Cunningham, who of course, is really well known for his novels, but I think especially in his short stories, really encounters these questions of sexuality and violence and what it means to be a man in this moment.

1:04:49

Michelle and I had bought on, like, try to read God of small things when I think we were like 1514 or 15. By coincidence, we didn't know each other back then. I just didn't understand I didn't have the sort of mind space to read it. And so we, we read it, I think one or two years ago and, you know, completely different experience we were mind blown. I mean, what a beautiful book, you know, and I always had this magic block answer because I didn't really get into it when I was much younger. And it really is a wonderful work of fiction. And just to add my recommendations. So in terms of like short stories, I think one or two of my favorite writers are Akhil Sharma, and your binary because of the way that you know, they also Beaudry immigration family and these teams. So that's it for me and, Michelle, you want to add in your recommendations?

Michelle D'costa  1:05:43

Yeah, I think I have too many I mean, every time I read new books, I have new favorites. So like for now, I think Shastri and Jays Books Are My current favorites. Actually. Not kidding. I can just talk about the book for us. But yeah, I think Jupiler healing was the first writer. You know, when I read the namesake, it was the first time I felt I should be sort of telling stories about migrants in the Middle East, for example, because I have never read come across stories about my families. And you know, though, of course, the story was what a Bengali Hindu couple. You know, in the US, it made me think about okay, what about characters who are you know, a lot of South Asian migrants in the Gulf Actually, many, many of them and you know, people don't get citizenship unlike, unlike the west so we do have a different story to tell. And I think Jupiler Harry was was the first writers to sort of make me think in that direction. So yes, that's she's my favorite

1:06:31

trip itinerary energy to I was thinking she's, she was written like immigrant fiction. She was I just because it came to reading a little later Chitra Banerjee first and then discovered in Bulgaria, and I also love the fiction of Akhil Sharma. I think the recent a few years back, we issued his first novel obedient father, it's so good, it's heartbreaking, but also so, so powerful.

1:06:54

Absolutely. So many, you know, fantastic Indian writers that are just breaking sort of, you know, into the global stage, including the both of you. We're coming to the second last section of our interview, which is called the quiz round and Michelle is aquas pastor, so, she will be asking you some interesting questions.

Michelle D'costa  1:07:13

Yes. So, you will have three options you will have to pick one of them okay. This is for Shastri okay one character from Indian myths that you love a Sita be dropped with the sea Chaturanga Okay, all right. This is a j one female character from your collection that you would love to spend a day with a the tantric who arrives in the US to solve an Indian man's marriage problems. Be Julia the white white sea or thrifty Who is the woman from the village who marries Sharma to keep nickel secret?

1:07:46

Oh, that's that one's easy. I would definitely want to spend time with the tantric is pretty awesome.

Michelle D'costa  1:07:53

Yes, good. Okay, awesome. Um, this is for both of you, your go to method to reveal harsh truths to a fictional world, a humor, be metaphor, see, well written lines.

1:08:06

I think for me, it's humor, because oftentimes, there is another writer, African writer who talks about forgetting her name, but she talks about how for a lot of us, humor and trauma are so intertwine that oftentimes, the way you talk about something traumatic is by joking about it. I didn't necessarily do it as much as the elephant. But I feel like that's a very powerful device to talk about something art that resonates

1:08:31

with me as well, I will give a nod to metaphor because I think there are a lot of things that we can't quite capture in words that metaphors can kind of point us towards. So poets talk about this as the this notion of the ineffable, which is like, you can't quite describe it in words, but you can sort of point us toward it. And metaphors help you get there.

Michelle D'costa  1:08:52

Nice. Okay. This is the last one and the fun quiz. Which line you wish didn't exist? A, if you had balls, you would have done that. Be? Be a man. See, men don't walk like that.

1:09:08

Can I choose all three? Yeah, that's fine. I think all three should just taken out of dialogue. But I think if I had to say, one, I would see option BPMI. And I mean, that's just, that's the worst.

1:09:22

Yeah, I mean, I think it completely would make sense in the context of dialogue, but But yeah, I want to remove all three from our speech as human.

1:09:34

Yes. So yeah, I think yeah, when we were discussing the theme of toxic masculinity. Michelle and I were just talking about you know, the things that even we've grown up hearing which, you know, sort of we had to unlearn and the way we interact with people sitting here man, don't don't be a you know, don't don't cry like a girl. During that as a girl is obviously like, what is it supposed to be? You Yeah, so I'm happy that, you know, there's more discussion and more books and odd and all of those things that are, you know, shining a light. And also, you know, there's a lot happening in terms of people speaking about women's issues and all of those things. And we've interviewed lots of authors and as women ourselves, we're very much tapped into that. You know, that movement. But I also feel that, you know, it's important to talk about these kinds of issues as well. So there's a recent podcast that it's a video series that I started hearing, it's called via man, it's by an accompany Giles, UVA. And he's actually interviewing, you know, these different celebrities or different kinds of sort of like people in the limelight, about what it means to be a man and all of these things that were taught, you know, whether it's sort of meant on crime and can't express emotions. And just one last sort of anecdote. Listeners, I remember is that as women also be taught certain things about what men should be and should not do as illegals, and I remember, I'm eight years older than my little brother. So when my brother was born, I used to have a ICER, I took him with me to my carpool. So in my carpool to go to school, there was 333 boys and two girls. And one of the boys just like loved my little brother, and he wanted to play with him all the time, you want to cuddle and he was being very affectionate, very emotional. And I was shocked. I said, Oh, you are, you know, being kind of maternal in a way. And I was like, well, you are showing so much emotion and love was this. I never seen it. I never knew that, you know, this was normal. And that was sort of like a turning point, even in my like, head where these definitions, these labels, these stereotypes, I think there's no space for them at all. And I'm happy that, you know, I fiction is addressing them.

Michelle D'costa  1:11:52

So this brings us to the last round, I would say the most fun round of the interview, and it's called the rapid fire round. So you won't get time to think and you will have to just reply in a word or in a set, one Indian customs that you had to outgrow in the US. This is for both of you.

1:12:10

I think for me, it was drying clothes outside, because I was so used to doing that. And you can't really do that here.

1:12:17

Yeah, my mind was going towards clothes washing and drying as well. Yeah, it was something that I was just imagining the balcony and clouds on the balcony. But yeah,

1:12:30

if it could be translated into one other Indian language, which would you choose?

1:12:35

Well, I mean, I'm from Kolkata. So for me, it would be Bengali, Bangla.

1:12:41

I mean, I think for me, I'd say Hindi, my mother tongue Telugu, but I love Hindi as a language. It just feels like oftentimes, I think in Hindi before I speak in English, it's a language it's very close to my heart set to Hindi. Nice. Okay,

Michelle D'costa  1:12:55

what is your favorite Indian dish?

1:12:57

So many to choose from? For me, okra, bindi, I love Pindi.

1:13:03

Yeah, I, I like straight food. So things like charts or egg rolls, we call them in Kolkata garty rolls, that sort of thing.

1:13:13

What is the next book that both of you are working on?

1:13:16

I'm working on a fantasy novel. It's set in the future in the US. And it has two characters. One is a Kashmiri doctor. And the other is an Irish vampire who's been given political asylum in the US. So it's about those two characters and the love story that eventually develops between them.

1:13:37

Sounds fabulous just Well, I'm working on a new novel. And it's also set in the near future. And it's kind of really exploring how AI is changing the world around us. But I'm trying to do it in a more character focused way. I have a background as a computer scientist and AI practitioner. And so for the first time, I'm actually bringing that into my fiction, which feels really fun.

Michelle D'costa  1:14:10

Wow, that sounds really exciting. I would say I can't wait for those books to come out. In India. This brings us to the end of the episode. It was just wonderful, interviewing both of you together and just love to see the similarities and the sort of juxtapositions that both of you have, you know, done really, really well in the book. So thank you for your time. And please do keep writing what we would love to read your next books as well.

1:14:35

Thank you. This was amazing. Thank you for just reading our work so thoughtfully. And this also pairing me with Jay, I just loved being in the same virtual room and salt with you.

1:14:45

Thank you. Yeah, it's such a privilege when you have readers like Tara and Michelle to see the work so deeply and what a joy to finally get to meet Shastri. So thank you so much.

Tara Khandelwal  1:14:57

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you So here we are, where the end of yet another journey into the many worlds of Books and Beyond with bound. I'm Tara Karneval.

Michelle D'costa  1:15:09

I'm Michelle D'costa. And this podcast is created by bout a company that helps you grow through stories find us, I found India on all social media platforms. So tune

1:15:20

in every Wednesday if you live, eat and breathe books and join us as we discover more revolutionary books and take into the lives and minds of some truly brilliant authors from India and South Asia.

Michelle D'costa  1:15:35

And don't forget to keep your love for stories alive for books and beyond.