A woman in India

Potter in Jaipur

I returned from my second trip to India a couple of weeks ago. On the plane home, a young woman got on at Frankfurt and asked me where I'd been. She told me about her plans for a big trip to India next year. She was full of questions about what it's like for a woman to travel alone in India. She was 21, excited, and scared, too. Probably a sensible way for a 21-year-old woman to feel about travelling anywhere.

It's not easy to travel in India, and it's probably less easy for a woman travelling alone. I'm old enough to have slightly younger Indian men call me "aunty" (which is an affectionate term for an older woman. I answered, "Who are you calling aunty, uncle?") and younger women call me "Amma" (which technically means 'mother' but is a term of respect something like Ma'am). I wonder if it was partly my age that kept me from being harassed, beyond the normal annoying questions about nationality and offers from touts at the tourist sites.

But I'm not naive and I know that my age can't protect me from a certain kind of contempt towards women who presume to take the same privileges as men, a contempt that is not unique to India. So when an autorickshaw driver took me on a long and winding tour through the crush of metal workers and mechanics shops in a dingy part of Varanasi, I looked out and saw only male faces and I felt nervous. Another day, walking in Mumbai, I found myself leaving the busy streets full of women shopping. Suddenly, there were no more women, just men smoking and gossiping in clusters on the sidewalks. I turned around and walked back the way I came.

While I was staying at Nrityagram, a dance community outside of Bangalore, the dancers were preparing for a trip to Egypt. They received instructions from their hosts about how to dress: no bare arms, no shorts, no cleavage. It was going to be hot. They grumbled about what to bring. Why is it a woman's job to protect the sensibilities of oppressive cultures everywhere? This morning I read this article about modesty on The Feminist Wire. The concept disgusts me, too. And I don't believe that modesty protects anyone either. 

Woman selling spices in Jaipur

One night as I was reading the Bangalore newspaper, which was full of stories about rape, like all the Indian newspapers are these days, an Indian woman and I got into a discussion about how relatively safe the streets are in various parts of the world. Is India more dangerous for women than other places?Are the streets in Canada or the US safer? I don't know. And that's the thing. You never do know.

India again

I arrived in India just over a week ago to do some research for the novel I'm working on now, tentatively called Sing a Worried Song. Though it's mostly set in rural Manitoba, its frame story is in Bombay in 1970, a time when many European and North American hippies were drawn to India by its spiritual allure.

When Indians hear that it's my second time in India, they ask me, "So what do you like about India?" And so far I've found that I don't really have an answer. It's so maddingly chaotic at times, trying to cross the street is suicidal, and trying to find my way around (I have a terrible sense of direction) is so frustrating it's (almost) funny. For instance, in Mumbai, I was looking for a certain restaurant and as I walked, I passed some artists who had their work displayed for sale on boards. I saw a beautiful pen and ink sketch of an elephant trunk that I knew my friend Diane would love so I thought, I'll stop here on my way back. Five minutes later, I passed the same drawing. No, it wasn't a print. It was the same damn drawing and I'd somehow made a complete circle. Yeah, well that's what I've read about people who are lost. Eventually, they will always circle back to where they began. I was hungry and hot, so I gave up and ate somewhere else. My only salvation is the autorickshaw drivers who can always find where I need to go, if I can't.

I think what first drew me to India was the books I read, by Rohinton Mistry and Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy, and also Forster's A Passage to India and the crochety traveler, Paul Theroux's The Great Railway Bazaar. I wanted to see some of it for myself. I love the food, the music, the colours, and the fact that even amid the chaos, there is great beauty. But that could be said about many places. I'm in the countryside in the south right now as I type this, listening to the rumble of an approaching thunderstorm, and the birds going crazy as the sun goes down. The sky is the red ochre hue of the earth here. The crows cackle like monkeys. I still can't put my finger on what it is about the place.

 

Sita's wise counsel in the Ramayana

I've been reading Arshia Sattar's translation of Valmiki's Ramayana, published by Penguin Classics. At nearly 700 pages, it's a bit intimidating. But once into the story, it's hard not to be swept along by this story of the virtuous prince Rama, exiled to the wilderness by a greedy stepmother. His wife Sita, used to a life of luxury, insists on accompanying him.
She warns Rama about the weaknesses that arise from desire. One of these is inflicting violence on others simply because of "the proximity of weapons." I feel for her as she warns Rama that "like dry fuel bursts into flame when it is near a fire so too, a Kshatriya's passions are ignited when he has a bow at hand."
Americans, South Africans, listen to Sita's wise words.

Questions for the Blog Tour That Ran Itself




I'm participating in a kind of old school chain mail experiment (via Internet), where writers answer questions about their next writing project. We each tag five more writers, who you'll meet at the bottom of this blog, and they tell five more and so on. There are no cumulative cash rewards, unfortunately, and no promise that passing this along will bring you good fortune, but just in case it's bad luck to break the chain, here goes. I answer questions below on the novel I'm working on now. And below that, you'll meet some new writers who you can visit.

What is your working title of your book?

Sing a Worried Song. It's a line from an old blues tune called Worried Man Blues.

Jaipur, India flower merchant- FG

Where did the idea come from for the book?

A few years ago I read, or heard, a little snippet of a story about a woman who had traveled to India and been so affected by what she saw on her taxi trip to the hotel from the airport, that she holed up in her hotel room for two weeks, unable to leave it. She was paralyzed by culture shock or some kind of profound terror. That story stuck with me and, over the years, whenever I thought of going to India, a place I find myself drawn to, I thought of the woman in the hotel room. I suppose I worried it would happen to me. The idea grew from there. I wonder...What if...?

What genre does your book fall under?

Fiction



Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I can see Evan Adams (Thomas Builds-The-Fire in Smoke Signals) as my character, Joseph. He needs to be about 30, but he looks younger than he is. I'd also love to meet him. He's not only an actor but a physician. Talk about a Renaissance man.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
I actually dislike talking about my books before they're finished. It's a bit of a superstition, or maybe just a suspicion, that if I talk it out, I won't need to write it. But I did agree to this chain interview! So here's what I can safely say: It's a novel set in rural Manitoba and Bombay, India in 1970.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

My hero, Denise Bukowski, represents me.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

It's still in progress, but my last novel took about three years, if I disregard the original draft that I wrote ten years earlier.

Below are links to some of my favourite and talented writers you can visit:
Anne McDonald
Sean Johnston
Nabina Das
Alix Hawley

Message for tagged authors:
Rules of the Next Big Thing

***Use this format for your post
***Answer the ten questions about your current WIP (work in progress)
***Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing:
What is your working title of your book?
Where did the idea come from for the book?
What genre does your book fall under?
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Include the link of who tagged you and this explanation for the people you have tagged.
Be sure to line up your five people in advance.

Room with a view

I recently read The Unquiet Mind of Hilary Mantel, an article about two-time Booker prize winner Hilary Mantel. When she writes, she looks out on a view of the sea, where, as the interviewer says, "there is no sign of human life; nothing except waves and clouds." I think that must be the perfect view for a writer.  A view like this is not blank; sea and sky constantly change. This summer, I spent some time on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Islands I watched being hammered by waves disappeared in fog on the following two days. Ships passed. Whales sent up spouts of spray as they swam by. Storms rolled in. But the expanse of it, the way it literally opens perspective, has to be good for writing.

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In the interview, Mantel says, "...of course when you write, you put into every sentence an overflow of meaning, and you create in every sentence as many resonances and double meanings and ambiguities as you can possibly pack in there...." The interviewer, Sophie Elmhirst, follows this remark with the comment that Mantel "can sound arrogant." To me, though, this is just a writer talking about how much fun she's having. 

I've felt that little hit of pleasure -- especially while revising, when I have a better handle on what I'm working with -- when I know that some small thing has a resonance that maybe no one else will even notice. But I know.  

Mantel also says that "...to be a novelist is to relish uncertainty, to be shot with doubt." I think that explains why so many writers are almost superstitious about discussing something they're writing before it's done. You don't know exactly what's going on or why and you don't want to know. Part of the fun of writing is discovering what you're doing through the writing.

A crush on Uncle Leslie

Margaret Laurence looking untouchable.

I got a nice email this morning from a woman who read Shelter and said she'd developed a crush on Uncle Leslie. I felt the same way about him when I was writing the novel. Uncle Leslie has integrity. There's a moment in the novel when Maggie turns to him for fatherly affection and he has to overcome his uneasiness about the appropriateness of the situation. He knows it would be suspect to an outsider. But he also knows she needs him. I didn't really write any of that, but I was thinking it, and admiring him.

I fell in love with all of my characters at different points when I was writing. I was thinking about that this morning and wondering whether that needs to happen when writing a novel. I was really pleased when an editor told me she thought Emil was "hot." I thought so, too. Same thing with Vern. And I loved Rita when she first appears. To me, she's so capable and competent and untouchable, in a fierce, independent way. I heard Eden Robinson say once that her characters sometimes go off and do their own thing. Rita was like that. I had ideas for her and her role in Maggie and Jenny's lives. But at some point I realized that she had ideas of her own. Then, as the people you love best do sometimes, she began to frustrate the hell out of me. She becomes emotionally self-destructive, and stubborn to boot. Her untouchability becomes a liability and she won't listen to reason (from me or anyone else). Still, I love her. But I hate her a bit, too.

Research

Flora's Fountain bookstalls. Photo by Damitar Mazanov.

I got these three old guidebooks through Abebooks. I like to imagine they came from one of the bookstalls near Flora's Fountain in Bombay. The One and Unique Pocket Guide to Bombay was published in 1966, but has 1967 stamped over that date, so I guess we're to assume it was updated, by the stamp if nothing else. It's organized by itineraries. The first says: "So you are in Bombay. Let us go exploring this City. May be, you are a stranger to the city; may be you have friends or relatives to take you round. Be warned, these well-meaning folks may be of no help to you to know about the places and things in their historical context." But I'm in good hands, redolent of old basement and damp cardboard or maybe monsoon mildew. We begin at Churchgate Railway Station.

The Fodor's Guide to India has underlinings in red ink and smells just like the Bombay guide. Through the underlinings, I'm following the curiosity of some other traveller, back in 1969, when Ravi Shankar and the Beatles helped make India the place to visit. This one has maps. I love the blue of the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. The guide calls Bombay, a "city that belongs to itself."

I'm glad that some people can't bear to throw away a book.