8.13 Reenita Hora: On Fiction as a Weapon Against Forgetting

Episode Transcript
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Tara Khandelwal (00:00):
So if you're a regular listener, you know I

(00:04):
love a good historical novel,especially when it's during the
British Raj and flips the ideaof a colonial hangover on its
head. But before we dive in,take a second to hit that follow
button on Spotify Apple podcastor wherever you're listening,
and don't forget to follow us onInstagram for updates and
everything bound is up to now,let's get to it, because today's
book really checks all the boxesfor me. Jane austenite,

(00:27):
flirting, fierce female lead andan Indian tragedy with emotional
stakes. My guest today is rinitahora, whose novel vermilion
harvest is set against thebackdrop of the Jallianwala bag
massacre in 1919, and againstthis horrific moment in history,
Renita weaves a love storybetween Aruna Dugal, who's a

(00:49):
strong, opinionated Anglo Indianschool teacher, and I asked Pete
Mohammed, who's a Muslim lawyerin training with a rebellious
streak. And their chemistry isso undeniable, but there's so
much danger surrounding them.
And when Aruna learns forgeneral Dyer is up to she must
race to warn Ayaz, who's aboutto give a speech at the park. So

(01:11):
there's a lot of tension,politics, emotion, all the right
ingredients for a historicalnovel. And you guys know I love
that genre. So Renita, welcometo the show. I'm so excited to
talk about this book and talkhistory with you.

Reenita Hora (01:28):
Thank you so much.
I am so excited to be on thisshow. I've been looking forward
to it, and I'm just thrilledwith your opening and listening
to how much you love the story.
I mean that just does it all forme.

Yeah, I am a history buff, and I love how you
go all the facts together in avery interesting way through the
story. So before we go into sortof the nitty gritties of the
story, what drew you to theJallianwala Bagh and Amritsar
during this time period? Youknow, I went to visit Amritsar a
few years ago, and I went tovisit the site of the
Jallianwala Park, and I actuallysaw the bullet holes. And, I

(02:07):
mean, just seeing that visually,it was just so striking. And
your book really made thatperiod come to life.

You know, in some way, shape or form, I have had
this story in my head, in themaking for some 30 plus years. I
would say, I know that soundslike a long time for a book, but
if I go back to the year that Iwas in school, in 11th standard,

(02:36):
that particular year, there werea few different things that
happened. Firstly, I was in aplay, in a house play, which was
also set against this tragedy,the Jallianwala Bagh massacre,
and that perhaps was one of thethings that first drew me so
closely to this event inhistory. I am Punjabi. I come

(02:59):
from a Punjabi family. Mymother's side of the family has
a home in Amritsar, you know, onthe outskirts of the cantonment
there. So there was somebackground that I grew up with.
And my late grandfather, myNanaji, I remember him telling
us the story about how he passedby the entrance of Jallianwala

(03:23):
Bagh a few days after themassacre, and he saw this pile
of chappal slippers stacked up.
And they had stacked them up tosort of redistribute, you know,
those slippers. And it left sucha visual in his mind. This was a
story that he passed down to us,and we carried down, you know,
to the, you know, through ourfamily line. And it's

(03:48):
interesting, because when Imentioned this anecdote at some
of the book clubs that I havebeen presenting at, for people
who are familiar with Amritsaror Punjab or this specific
tragedy in particular, thisparticular anecdote really
strikes them. You know, it'salmost shocking. So going back
to when I was in 11th standard,a friend of mine, a very good

(04:15):
friend of mine, said to me, youknow, I want you to read this
book. We would read bookstogether, and I was not into
love stories, you know, it wasjust not my jam. And she wanted
me to read Love Story by EricSegal. And I said, How can you,
even, you know, present me witha book, you know, where love

(04:36):
story is the title? And shesaid, Well, that's why I knew
you would be resistant. Butyou've got to bear with me,
because you've got to read thisone, because this one you're
going to fall in love with.
Forget the title. And she wasabsolutely right. You know, that
was perhaps my first exposure towhat I really define as an epic

(04:57):
love story, and some. Somewheresort of in my gray matter,
something set in, you know,saying, you know, one day I want
to write an epic love story likethis, and I'm going to fast
forward many years to the year Isaw Titanic, and that reminded
me of that moment. And then fastforward to many years later,

(05:18):
where I was writing young adultand reading a lot of young adult
and John Green's 14 hour stars,another epic love story, and all
of these pieces came together.
This is when I realized that mylove story is going to be set
against the Jallianwala Baghmassacre. And, you know, like I
said, it took some 30 years orso for that to come together.

I love that story. And you know how creative
juices get flowing? There's somany inputs that build up over
time. Now, coming back to thebook, you know the two main
characters, they are Ayaz, who'sa Muslim lawyer in training, and
Aruna, who's an Anglo IndianHindu teacher. And they've
fallen in love. And this kind ofinterfaith love used to be, and
it's still not something that'saccepted by a society. And

(06:04):
you've said that this book isnot a love story, and reading
it, I understand why it's verymuch a political and historical
novel. But can you tell us aboutthis relationship and how you've
used this relationship toshowcase what happened in
Jallianwala? Bagh,

absolutely. I mean, I would argue that it's
not a romance, but it is a lovestory, right? It's not a romance
because it doesn't fit theromance formula. The romance
market is, interestingly enough,the biggest reading market,
certainly in America. I'm notsure about India, or the rest of
the world, not in India. Yeah.
But there's this very specificformula where the story must end

(06:45):
in happily ever after or happyfor now. And this is not the
case with my story. And justrewinding for a second to when I
read Love Story by Eric Segal,it amazed me that that was a
love story, but it wasn't aromance. And I was like, how can
that possibly be? No, that isliterary fiction. So this is

(07:06):
what I was trying to do here.
And for me, the politicalbackdrop was perfect, because I
really wanted to delve into thehistory of the time, because I
remember when I was in school,and I think for most of us, I
don't know what the historytextbooks look like these days,

(07:29):
but we got maybe two paragraphsabout Jallianwala Bagh, you
know, in our history in 10thstandard, ninth standard history
textbook, not more than that. Soyou had an idea, but a very
brief idea, but it was veryimportant to me. Firstly, a lot
of my stories, even young adultrom com, totally different. Have

(07:51):
these Punjabi characters,themes, backdrops, backgrounds.
I didn't necessarily plan itthat way, but I guess this is
the space I'm coming frommyself, so I can speak to it.
But there was so much of thepolitical story of India at the

(08:13):
time happening in Punjab, andthat's something I wanted to
explore. Also this particularmassacre, this incident is the
one incident that really we cansay sparked our independence
movement, which, you know, tookuntil 1947 so many, many years.
But this really set it. Therehad been meetings and ideas and,

(08:36):
you know, sort of gathering ofminds and exploring this idea of
what home rule is and what itcould be. But I think this
massacre really put everythingin motion. Also, when I embarked
on the research, I myself wasshocked to find that there was
so much happening in Amritsar,in Punjab, elsewhere in India,

(09:00):
sort of leading up to the daysor the day of this massacre,
April 13, right in Amritsaritself, there was so many events
that could have ignited amassacre, or, let's just say, an
incident of their own, but theywere curbed, or they were
controlled, or, you know,somehow prevented from catching

(09:22):
fire, so to speak. And I didn'tknow any of that, so I really
wanted to bring that to theworld, but to Indian readers,
like I said, all we got werethese two paragraphs in the
history book. So we knewnothing. Right outside of India,
they literally know nothing. Imean, what I get all the time
is, oh my gosh. I never knewthat such a thing ever even

(09:43):
happened in India. So I thinkit's up to us storytellers to
bring these stories to theworld. In the USA, where I live,
interracial relationships.
Interracial marriage is par forthe course. This is what people
do. We are Indians. Our childrenare marrying non Indians, etc.

(10:06):
In India, this is not the case,as you say, not back then,
certainly not back then, andmostly not even today. You know,
it's it's taboo, it's a no, no.
So I was very, very keen to sortof explore that, and through my

(10:27):
characters, my protagonistsexplore what strife is. So
there's religious strife, thereis forbidden love, and that in
and of itself, I mean, in anytime period in India is, is, you
know, it's going to causeproblems, right? But now you've
got this major political event.
You've got this Anglo IndianSchool teacher being Anglo

(10:51):
Indian that, in and of itself,you know, causes a huge, you
know, slew of problems becauseshe's born of a Hindu, Punjabi
mother and a British father. AndI won't go into any of the
spoilers as to the backstory ofthat, although it is referenced
in the book. But you know, she'san outcast, and she feels,

(11:14):
because she is a feistycharacter, she feels that that
position, being Anglo Indian,being outcast anyway, gives her
license and leeway to go aboutthe city, explore the city, in a
way that a normal Punjabi girl,whatever you however you want to

(11:34):
define, that normal Punjabi girlwouldn't be able to do right?
But she says, who's going tojudge me? They're judging me
anyway. So I might as well go toa dhaba. I might as well go to
these crowds, which, you know,where you're not going to find
women. Basically, you know, Imight as well go and ride in a
Tonga to school every day,something that you know, a

(11:56):
female school teacher would notdo, things like that, and she
falls in love with this Muslimman where, again, as I mentioned
earlier, she's the outcast inhis family. He's going to be the
outcast in her family. It'sgoing to be a problem, but that
becomes a microcosm of problemsset against this macrocosm of

(12:19):
problems that are happening inpolitical India, where there is
also inter communal rife, interreligious strife, right? And we
see that. We explore thatbecause the British policy was
divide and rule. Let's keep theHindus Muslims and Sikhs apart.
Let there be infighting, becauseas long as everybody's fighting

(12:43):
in and amongst themselves, wehave the power, right? So that
was beginning to change. Therewere, there were aspects of
change in Amritsar at the time.
There was a ram nav meprocession celebration right
before the Jallianwala Baghmassacre, and specifically,
Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs werecelebrating together. They were

(13:06):
drinking out of the same cup.
And this was really veryunnerving for, you know, the
deputy commissioner at the timeand the British, you know, at
the time, because their wholeidea is like, Okay, if, if, if
if these Indians are going tounite, you know, then that's
power building up against us.

(13:26):
And it's the same thing. So youso that's the macrocosm. And
then you see that on themicrocosmic level with Ayaz and
arunas relationship, yeah,

I loved all the characters. And I really liked
the protagonist because I amvery, I was very fascinated by
the Anglo Indian part of itbecause she has this constant
feeling of not being accepted.
The Indians think that she istoo British. The British don't
accept her because she's tooIndian. And she never tries to
hide it as well. Like her mothersays, you could just be a fair
skinned Indian people. No needto know. You're just like

(13:57):
everybody. And Aruna says shedoesn't want to hide. You know
who she is, so I wanted to know,you know, a little bit more
about that. What was it reallylike for Anglo Indians? I found
that very, very, veryfascinating, that whole strand,

oh my gosh. This is a topic that has also
fascinated me. All my life, I'vehad this morbid fascination, and
it really morbid is the only wayto describe it. I grew up in a
very traditional Punjabihousehold where the Anglo Indian
community was severely lookeddown upon. You know, if I'm to

(14:38):
be 100% honest, and I've saidthis at various book clubs and
meetings, and you know, I willinvariably meet with other
Punjabis and say, but you know,we didn't look down on the
community my family, did, youknow? And there was a very large
Anglo Indian community inCalcutta, which is where my.

(15:00):
Punjabi family hailed frombefore they sort of, they moved
from Punjab to Calcutta toMumbai. That was their
trajectory over the years. Andthey would see, you know, these
Anglo Indians born out of mostlylocal women and British Army
officers, not strictly, butmostly. That's what you saw. And

(15:22):
again, as I said, looking theylooked upon them with complete
distaste. This community did notfit into the Indian community.
They because they have thisBritish blood, and they're
impure and they're, you know,it's almost like the pariahs,
or, you know, born out of theseBritish officers who've got

(15:45):
these other families elsewherein England, or whatever. So, you
know, have no time for them.
They did not fit into Britishsociety either. So they were
given these sort of halfwaygovernment, lower level
government jobs, jobs in therailways, jobs in schools, jobs
in the post office. These jobswere deemed to be too good for

(16:06):
Indians because they weregovernment jobs. Yet there
weren't enough British people inIndia to take on all these jobs.
So why not give them to the halfBloods, if you will, speak, if
so to speak, and I'mintentionally using these words,
which are awful words. I mean,in the US, I'd be canceled
instantly for using these words.

(16:28):
But I've been using themintentionally, Half Blood,
mongrel, pariah, just to showyou the kind of language and
terminology that has been usedto describe the Anglo Indian
community. Years ago, I was inHong Kong. I was a journalist on

(16:50):
Public Radio, and I wasinterviewing an Anglo Indian
musician, this young man, and ofcourse, I interviewed him about
his music, but I was fascinatedby his backstory, and the
interview just went into a wholeother direction. But I was
asking him all these questionsabout what it felt like to be an
Anglo Indian, and I remember himtelling me that his entire

(17:14):
family of some 3040, people, bythen, picked up and moved out of
the outskirts of Calcutta to aplace in England, not like a
suburb of Birmingham or like oneof the one of those towns. And
it wasn't until they moved thereand had settled there five, 610,

(17:35):
years into it, that they finallyfelt like they had their own
identity, their own place,without judgment, either from
the Indians or the British. Sothis is something that has
broken my heart and has given methis sense of morbid
fascination, like I saidearlier, and I really wanted to

(17:58):
explore this, and found a placeto do that with Aruna.

Yeah, I found it also so fascinating, you
know, because she teaches in theschool with other British
teachers, and then she kind of,you see her becoming more and
more patriotic and standing upto them at the same time. You
know, the tongawa is refusing totake her because he thinks he
she is British. So it's alsokind of a little bit of a coming
of age story where she isfinding herself, and I really
like that theme as well. Anotherthing that I found fascinating

(18:27):
was that, as you said, you know,everyone knows a lot about the
Jallianwala Bagh massacre, but Ifound it very fascinating the
way you described the tensionleading up to that event and
what was happening in Amritsarand Punjab the day by day. You
so, how you structure the bookis, you take it day by day,
which I found is veryinteresting structure, you know,

(18:48):
you describe the hartal, thegrowing tension because of this
unrest over the Rowlatt Act,which allowed Britishers to
arrest Indians on any crime, youknow, they can make anything a
crime, which was kind of wild tosee. There was a anecdote where
somebody had got arrestedbecause they just had a copy of
the book das capital on them.
And we see characters like Dyer,general Dyer, who's, you know,

(19:11):
horrible, villainous character,come in and out. One of the days
there's a bomb threat, one ofthe days Gandhi isn't let into
Punjab, I could see a lot ofresearch has been done to make
the structure happen. So whythis, day by day, structure and
the growing tension? And werethere any moments that were
particularly hard

to write? All of the moments were, I wouldn't
say, easy to write, but I felthad to be written, because,
again, I had researched themthrough sort of non fiction
books and documents and thingslike that. And, you know,
general Dyer's court trialactually was very, very through
a lot of light on the situation,but we don't know this and and

(19:56):
most people are not going topick up non fiction texts to. To
figure out, you know, why orwhat. But you know, because I
was so fascinated by it, I said,Okay, to me, historical fiction
means taking real history,actual historical days, events,
places, situations, and placingmy fictional characters in these

(20:19):
scenarios to see how they mightreact, to explore how they might
react. Yeah, so because in myresearch, I found that, as you
just mentioned, there was somany little incidences that led
up to the actual massacre thatcould have been a full blown, if

(20:41):
not massacre, then a very largeincident in and of themselves. I
felt that that had to be thebackdrop for this story, okay?
And she is Aruna is a younggirl. After all, she's a woman,
but she is, I mean, she's a kid,also at the same time, right?
She's a teenager. They're bothteenagers, 18 and 19. And

(21:06):
although we suppose, and webelieve that 100 years ago or
so, they were probably a lotmore mature, when you think
about it, kids are kids, andshe's going to be worried about,
you know, this young man she'squoting, and where is he? And
how am I going to find him? Imean, these are not days of
phones and cell phones, and shehas no idea, right? So I thought

(21:28):
it would be ideal to have her gothrough that struggle of, where
is he? Where do I find him?
Where could he be if she knewthat? Okay, he is a student,
but, you know, he's taking partin these Congress meetings, and
he is corralling people to takepart in the hotel. So he must be
here. He must be there. He musthave gone to there was a funeral

(21:50):
set of funeral processionshappening one morning, and you
know, she knew that he'sprobably going to be
participating in sort of theMuslim funerals that needed to
happen that day, etc, to raisethe stakes, to raise the
tension. And it was very tense,because the hotels were supposed

(22:11):
to be peaceful. They were beingmodeled upon hotels that had
taken place in just before that,days before that, in Delhi or
other places, Gandhi ji wascalling, you know, for these
hartals, some of them turnedviolent because human nature,
even, you know, in a time ofpeace, or to, you know, embark

(22:33):
upon a peaceful protest, thingsturn violent because passions
and emotions are high, right?
And so I really wanted to sortof explore all of that. And
General Dyer, in fact, comes inat the very, very end the truly,

(22:53):
a day or so before the actualevent, uninvited, unannounced.
He comes from Jalandhar. He wasnot asked, as far as we know or
understand, to show up. Therewere others who had been
assigned to sort of take care ofthe Amritsar situation before
him, and they had so calledeither failed or gotten fed up,

(23:15):
or, you know, were told you'renot doing a good enough job,
whatever the case might be. Andhe sort of shows up. She gets
wind of the fact that thisgeneral dire person has shown
up. He's come from Jalandhar.
What is he doing here? He'sapparently planning something.
He's apparently issued a curfew,but nobody knows about this
because he hasn't really issueda curfew. There's a curfew, but

(23:37):
they haven't really issued anotice. They've just given it to
a few people. How are the restgonna find out? And they're
specifically targeting thepeople who plan to gather at
Jallianwala Bagh on April 13,because it's the day of essaki,
you know, it's the springharvest festival, so people are
going there to celebrate. Andshe knew that, she knew he knew
that. And you know, this is whatis happening. So it was very

(24:02):
important for me to reallyencapsulate all of these
different events into the story,to sort of build the tension,
build the stakes, and build sortof the angst that the
protagonists would be goingthrough at the time.

Yeah. And I, said, I really like that day by
day structure that you put intothe story. And I think that's a
good thing, because the storydoes take place over just, you
know, just a few, like, a week,kind of correct, you know, yeah,
and the stakes are super high inthat week. So one thing I

(24:39):
enjoyed also was the Jane Austenas floating in the first
chapter, the very first timeyour protagonists meet. And we
see Aruna carrying a Jane Austenbook in her bag, and they bond
over this, and they startfloating with each other, and
Jane Austen quotes, and theyquote Pride and Prejudice and
Mansfield Park. And it was funto read because it's like every
reader's fantasy to have.
Someone could Jane Austen atthem? So tell me story behind

(25:01):
this. Why Jane Austen?

So this was interesting because I was
speaking with my agent at thetime when I was writing the
book, and she said, okay, okay,so I must say the book I have
had written, or that had beenreleased previous to this was a
totally different book, but itwas a young adult rom com.
There's a little more calm thanrom but operation mom, my plan

(25:29):
to get my mom a life and a man.
Very funny story set incontemporary Mumbai, and there
were a lot of pop culturereferences in that book. And
generally when you're writingyoung adult and contemporary
young adult, that's tends tohappen, sort of, you know, the
couple will bond over popculture, pop culture references.

(25:51):
So when I started writingvermilion harvest at that time,
I thought it was young adult.
Mean, you could look at the ageof the characters and argue,
well, it's still kind of youngadult, but it's historical
fiction. But, you know,everybody has different
opinions, and it doesn't fit inthe young adult section of the
bookstore. But my agent at thetime said, okay, so what are the

(26:17):
kind of pop culture referencesthat these two are going to bond
over, what would they talkabout? What would they use to
flirt? How would they flirt? SoI had to really think about that
and pop culture. I mean, thatwas wow. You know, what are they

(26:39):
going you know, there's nomedia. There's no I mean, even
radio was not really a thing insome households. We you know,
Aruna has a radio in herhousehold, but it wasn't
prevalent. It wasn't everywhere.
So the one thing that she wouldhave had and Ayaz only because
they're educated, right?

(27:02):
Therefore, they would have hadbooks in English books. She's an
English school teacher, so shewould have read English books.
Ayaz is also comes from aneducated sect of Muslims, and he
is a law student, so he wouldhave read English books. So it's
very, very specific, because if,again, if you look at people in
general in India, may not havebeen educated, may not have

(27:26):
access to books, and if anyaccess to literature would not
necessarily have been Englishliterature. So I drew upon this
to have them bond. And you know,definitely Jane Austen Mansfield
Park, you know, all of thosePride and Prejudice had been
published and would have beenread at the time. So I had to

(27:48):
pick and choose and being verysort of, you know, female
driven, it seemed to fit with,you know, arunas character the
way I was building it. So I usethat. And I also had to think,
as I mentioned, about how theywould flirt, you know, where
they would sort of court, wherethey would go off to steal a

(28:08):
kiss and etc, what would beappropriate, inappropriate, or,
you know, I had to do a lot ofresearch about Amritsar, the
city, what you know, the makeupof the city, the maps of the
city where young people go. Thatwas more difficult, not being
from there, having spent thetime there to do the research,

(28:29):
but really having to sort of diginto the minds of the locals,
but the locals today, to try andthen backflip that to 1919, and
you know what would be happeningthen? So, so, yeah, that's where
that came from.

Very interesting way to think about
it, you know, because it's sortof pop culture references and
the talking points that thesetwo would have had to connect
on. So your book is also, youknow, your book is obviously
very, extremely rooted in Indianculture. There's this first
scene where you're at a dhabaand Amritsar, and all the men
are enjoying their meal. And inthe scene, Aruna narrates, it

(29:07):
was uncommon for women to beseen in a dhaba, so the men just
stare at her until she notices arat by her leg, and all hell
breaks loose. And the book isvery quintessentially Indian,
and yet your book was firstpublished in the US. So I
actually was very curious aboutthat. What was that like? Did
you have to explain the culturalsignificance? What was the

(29:27):
publishing process? And then,how did this book then come to
be published in India?

Such a great question. You know, willingly, I
would have preferred to have hadit published in India first.
You're right. It's a very Indianbook, the time period, the
topic, all of that. I did pitchit to publishers in India, did
not find any who wereinterested, and I couldn't
understand why. I just couldn'tsay, you give a reason, no, no

(29:56):
reasons, you know, and for the.
Life of me, I couldn'tunderstand why, because it's
such a I mean, this is an Indianbook and an Indian story, right
in the US. I'm from the US. Sothen I said, Okay, let's, let's
do the US. In fact, before I didthat, I actually did sign with a
UK publisher. However, I pulledout of that because, for various

(30:19):
reasons, decided that theyweren't the right publisher. And
in the US, the US is not reallyinterested. I mean, they do a
lot of historical fiction, butthis is very specific, and it's
set in India, based in India, soit doesn't really fit the Own
Voices sort of category, becauseit's not the experience of the
Indian American. So from thatpoint of view, it's not the

(30:44):
first kind of book that mostpublishers here would publish.
Eventually. I did publish itthrough Indigo house, which is
an indie publisher here in theUS. And I think what really did
it was the editor at thepublishing house is Irish, Irish

(31:04):
American, actually. And thestory of the Irish and what
they've been through in many,many ways, resonates with what
the Indians have been through aswell, vis a vis the British. You
know, it's not a complete sortof apples to apples comparison,

(31:24):
but there's a lot of overlap inthe kind of angst, the kind of
trauma, the kind of challengesand difficulties, you know, in
those relationships. And Ihonestly think that's what did
it now, I have to say she is anamazing, amazing editor, and in
a very short span of time, hadended up reading the book way

(31:47):
more than I had even at thetime, and probably even today,
she's probably read that bookmore than I have myself. You
know, it's come to that point.
It came to that point A whileago, and she said to me, she
said, Renita, every single timeI read it, I just start crying.

(32:14):
And even though I'm used to it,even though I know, even though
I feel that this time I can getthrough it, it just brings me to
tears every single time I don'tknow what you have done. And I
said to her, I said, Lynn, atthe risk of sounding like a
horrible, mean girl, I just haveto say, I have never been

(32:34):
happier to make somebody cry,you know. So it was published
here by indig No house, andafter that, in fact, it was
weird circumstance. My next bookthat is coming out is called ace
of blades, and it is the late itis the memoir of my late father,
r k Malhotra, who is the pioneerof India's razor blade industry.

(32:59):
That is being published in Indiaby Jekyll, and I specifically
chose Jekyll. Jekyll does a lotof work in nonfiction. This is
nonfiction, but it's literarynonfiction, so it reads like
fiction, you know, memoir. But Ispecifically chose Jekyll for
this, and then in that process,I sort of looked at Jekyll

(33:23):
publishing ace of blades inIndia and indig No House
Publishing vermilion harvest inthe US. And I said to myself,
You know what, Jekyll, youshould be publishing vermilion
harvest as well. It's fiction,it's historical fiction, but
it's it's this interesting mixof fact and fiction, and I think

(33:43):
that really struck them. Oncethey read the manuscript, they
were like, this is verydifferent, and it's different
from what we do usually. But youknow, this is history, and I
think that's what sort ofintrigued them. So then they
bought the rights, the Indiadistribution rights, publishing
and distribution rights for thebook. You have

gone through a variety of careers before you
settled into full time writing,which I'm also interested in
your writing journey, because,as you said, you write young
adult novels. You've had yourown Ayurvedic consultancy.
You've worked in print andradio, marketing and
communications. So how did youend up in full time writing?

Oh my gosh. So in some way, shape or form
throughout my working life andcareer, my job, my daily job, my
daily bread, has beenstorytelling, right? You're
right. I've worked in the fieldof Ayurveda, but that was
storytelling, because, what isthat? How does it work? You

(34:42):
know, it's literally, it was, inmany ways, explaining the story
of Ayurveda each time. Andactually, those were my very
first books. You know that Iwrote my career as a journalist
in print, on radio, broadcast,Marketing and Communications.
All of these basically, arestorytelling modalities, you

(35:05):
know, platforms, things thatrequire stories to be told, to
sell a product or a service or,you know, etc. So it was always
in me and part of my day job insome way, shape or form, but I
started writing books in I thinkit was 2012 2013 round about

(35:27):
there actually a little bitearlier, if you actually look at
the non fiction books and theplanning and you know the time
frame, the thing is, when youare in a full time career,
you're tired at the end of theday. So, you know, it's like,
where do you find the time youreally need to have the
dedication, the motivation tosort of take carve out that

(35:49):
extra time in your day to writeyour book. And I would do it,
but I was always exhausted,always couldn't find the time
when there was something atwork, which was pretty much all
the time, you know, that neededto take priority, and always
took priority over my books,naturally, right? So my books

(36:11):
would sort of sit on the backburner and, you know, Stew. And
I have discovered over the yearsthat being an author is it's not
an easy thing, because it's onething to write your story, which
is something I love to do. Ilove to sit here in my home
office, shut the world out, shutout everything I know and write.

(36:34):
I mean, that is my pleasure, myhappy place. You know what gives
me joy? But authors have to putas much into marketing their
books, at least in this day andage, and nine out of 10 authors,
or maybe 9.9 out of 10 authors,right? And that takes you away
sort of from the writing, butit's also very tiring, and I

(36:58):
found that over the years, whileI was focusing on this day job,
you know, I'd write a book, thenI'd let it sit, you know, for a
few years, then I'd do anotherbook, and you sort of lose the
momentum, you know, for theseare the marketing and audience
building things like that. Soit's not necessarily a good way
to do it, of course, authors ingeneral, and you know, flatly,

(37:21):
speaking for most of us, wedon't have the luxury of being
full time authors. That is aconcept that, you know, unlike
the Jane Austen years, you know,whatever, it just doesn't exist.
So I took a conscious decisionin the middle of the pandemic,

(37:43):
mid pandemic, to quit my day joband focus on developing my IP
full time. And this is in theUS. This is in the US. Exactly
my last full time job was withSRI International, Stanford
Research Institute. I washeading their marketing and
communications. It was very bigjob. COVID. Now we're working

(38:06):
from home. It was all goinggreat. It was all going really,
really well. But I was itchingto develop my stories, and I
choose that term because really,it's a combination. At that
time, it was a combination ofbooks and audio. And very soon
thereafter, I started writingscreenplays as well. And I had

(38:28):
just crossed 50, and I said tomy husband, I said, Listen, none
of us are getting any younger. Ididn't go into this at a young
age. I need to do this, and Ineed to do it full time. Now.
I've always been sort ofjealous, if you will, of full
time authors, you know, peoplewho have the ability to just
spend their entire day writing.
I always said that I want to bethat person, but when, when one

(38:50):
day said I'm going to do it now,and he categorically looked at
me and said, You are completelydemented. And he wasn't entirely
wrong, you know, because thereisn't a day that goes by since
that, you know, I don't gothrough that, you know, sign
curve, effect of, I'm on a highbecause the story is everything

(39:11):
to sort of, you know, you'repushing and you're selling, and
you're in the bookstores andyou're at the book clubs and
you're talking, you know, reallytrying to build the audiences.
And that's not easy. So it's,you know, it's a very real
thing, and you don't have thesteady paycheck coming every two
weeks anymore, that thatstopped, you know, the day, the

(39:31):
day I made that decision. Soit's, it can be quite unnerving.
And you know, there's, there'slots of incidences where your
work is, you're getting apublishing deal, or a screenplay
is, it's pushing forward, butthen something happens, you
know, and it doesn't happen. Soit's again, it's, you know, the
ups and downs of daily life.

(39:54):
It's very real.

But I like that. It's your happy place to
be in your writing room. Whatother historical periods are you
going to write about?

Oh my gosh, this particular one has led me down
the rabbit hole, because in thebook, I reference very briefly,
the gadar movement and theghadar mutiny. And I speak to
you today from my home in SanFrancisco. And when I started
researching this, I just cameacross fascinating archives at

(40:28):
UC Berkeley and other places,but specifically UC Berkeley,
which is relatively close byabout some of the first Indian
immigrants to the United States.
Many of these were members ofthe ghadar Party, which was

headquartered.
What is the ghadar party? Couldyou refresh? Yes, absolutely,

okay. We had our first armed revolution against
the British in 1857 which failedafter that. The next sort of
piece of history that you reallyhear about is 1919, Jallianwala
Bagh massacre. Now, in between,there was a movement to embark

(41:12):
upon another revolution, armedrevolution against the British,
to bring the colony and bringthe Empire down. This was being
planned by a group of Indiansoutside of India. Many of them
were ex British Army soldiers,Sikhs and Gurkhas who had left

(41:32):
the British Army, and there wereothers who were just freedom
fighters of sorts, but it wasdeemed to be safer to plan this
armed revolution out fromoutside of India, because within
India, with the British ruling,their spy network and
intelligence is amazing. Soinvariably, the people who were
there, many, many of them whowere part of this movement were

(41:55):
caught and hanged instantly. Andthere's various anecdotes and
stories about about them. Andyou know, there were all of
maybe two or three women that weknow about who were involved.
Madam kama was one of them, andtwo Punjabi women. And in San

(42:15):
Francisco, this place wasactually deemed to be the
headquarters of the ghadarmovement because they printed a
propaganda newspaper called theghadar it was printed in Hindi,
in English, Gurmukhi, Urdu and aslew of other languages as well,
and it was literally sent tothese Indians around the world,

(42:38):
the Indians stationed in placeslike Singapore and Hong Kong and
Germany and Canada, Oregon, etc,to basically bring them
together. And they were planningthese gun running trips where
they were sending guns andbullets to India, funded by the
Germans. This is 1914, 1516, youknow, those years. And the whole

(43:06):
philosophy was, if the Britishare enemies of India and the
British are enemies of Germany,then India and Germany must be
friends. So literally, theGerman consul general in San
Francisco was fun sending fundsto the ghadar party here in San
Francisco to print thispropaganda newspaper and send
guns and ammunition to India forthis armed revolution, which

(43:28):
failed. The armed revolutionfailed, but the stories around
it are fascinating, and I havejust gone down the rabbit holes.
I've been spending days andweeks in the library at UC
Berkeley because you're notallowed to bring the documents
outside. They're not digitized,so you have to go there and
study them there and then leave.
And you know, there's not enoughtime in the day, which drives me
crazy. But I have been lookingand looking and looking and

(43:51):
looking to find the woman'sstory, the female story, and
it's very much a story of men,but I have found, finally,
Padmavati Chandra, who was thewife of Ram Chandra Bharadwaj,
who, let's say, ran the printingpress. And it's fascinating

(44:12):
because he was arrested. Theywere arrested in something
called the Hindu Germanconspiracy trial as soon as
World War One broke out, becauseAmerica joined the war, and now
they're breaking the neutralityagreement. It gets into various
political details, but it isfascinating, and this is
definitely something I'mresearching right now for a book

(44:35):
and possibly a film as well.

Oh, that's amazing. I was actually going to
ask you about the film stuff aswell, because I attended your
talk, yeah, at so house. And itwas with the maker of kesri two.
No, not kesri Two. It was withthe maker of a TV show about
Jalen wala bag. And then. Three,two was also releasing that
weekend. I really, I reallyenjoyed that film as well,

(45:05):
because it was about, you know,the lawyer who sort of
prosecutes general Dyer. Ididn't know that part of history
exists. And this story is sointeresting, because when one
thinks about the Indiandiaspora, you think of it as a
very recent phenomenon, youknow, in the last 4050, years.
But, you know, I never thoughtof it as something that exists
even sort of like 100 200 yearsago. And it's so interesting. It

(45:29):
just makes me think about all ofthe periods of history, and
there's so much to excavate, andthere's so many stories that
have yet to be told. And I thinkthat's why I really like
historical fiction, because itbrings alive this history, and
the authors who write it, theyare doing the work, you know,
sometimes, because as readers, Iwould find it very boring to go
and sit in archives, but you aredoing the work of going and

(45:51):
sifting through all of thosearchives and all of those
documents and, you know,hundreds and hundreds of pages,
and then putting it together ina very Fun story. For someone
like me who is a history buffbut doesn't want to do the work
to learn about it. So I reallyam very excited by all the
possibilities that are out therefor people who want to write

(46:13):
historical fiction.

It's fascinating.
It's really fascinating becauseit throws light on so many
issues, which, as you said, wesee in the social fabric of
India, of America, of IndianAmericans today, but that were
relevant back then. You know, inCalifornia, you see, I've
written a children's book, ayoung children's book, a picture

(46:39):
book. It's called Sundari andmundris Lori adventure, and it's
about two sisters in FresnoCalifornia and how they're
celebrating Lori. And it's afantasy story, and they get
portaled into the story of DulaBhatti through their
grandmother's shawl. But why Ichose Fresno California is
because there's a very largeSikh community. It's a farming
community, and they are actuallythe very some of the very first

(47:03):
immigrants into America, Indianimmigrants. And many of them
came or out of this, you know,gadar movement, and being
farmers, or being, you know,from the Sikh community, and
finding land, they settled thereand sort of develop when
Padmavati Chandra, who I'mresearching, when her husband

(47:23):
was arrested, she went to thefarmers to raise money for his
bail and things like that, youknow. So it's all connected, and
we know that this communityexists here, but we don't know
about the struggles they wentthrough, you know, at the turn
of the century, and I foundplenty. I mean, I could go on
all day. Give me a timeout, youknow. And I agree with you. I

(47:44):
mean, these stories need to beshared. They need to be shared
with the world at large, butthey need to be shared for us
Indians, because we have noidea. I had no idea. I had no
idea at all.

So tell me more about the film stuff, because I
saw that. The head of Sony liveis also given a blob for this
book, and he was also there atthe event. So is there something
happening with Sony live?

I don't know. I you know, Sony live produced Ram
madhwani, waking of a nation,which was we were on the joint
panel together at Soho House.
And, you know, RAM, I can see,just from watching his series,
has been fascinated by, youknow, the same piece of history,
the same events that I havebeen, you know, he in creating

(48:30):
his series, and I in sort ofwriting this book. I don't know
whether Sony live would, doanother Jallianwala bag story,
but shogato, who had Sony live,was my first ever publisher. So
there's, you know, some historyback that you know from there,

(48:51):
vermilion harvest is beingshocked. That's all I can say
right now, separately, I do havea Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi
lyricist and musician who hasfallen in love with this and
wants to create music around itfor a musical, theatrical,

(49:18):
musical, which would also lenditself, probably, to film. So
I'm just really excited, becausefor me, as far as I'm concerned,
I've birthed this story, and forit to pick up, you know, take
wing and fly. Other folks needto come into the picture and

(49:40):
sort of collaborate or sort ofrun with it. So I've had a few
different inquiries. I don'tknow what will pan out, so we'll
see.

But I like what you said about, you know,
creating your IP, because that'sexactly what this means. You
know, the IP can exist in manyformats, and I'm always a.
Opponent of that as well,because then the story lives on,
and then the author gets so muchmore value out of the story that
they've created. So really happyto hear about that. Okay, so now
we are going to go to our lastsection of the interview, which

(50:13):
is a fun quiz round where I'mgoing to ask you some questions
and you have to answer in oneword for one sentence. Okay, so
you're a children's book authoras well. Which do you prefer
writing for children or writingfor adults?

I think adults are children, so it's one in the
same.

Lovely your favorite character from
vermilion harvest?

Oh my gosh, that is so tough. I think in many
ways, the fav, my favoritecharacter, is Aruna mother I've
got mother issues, I've gotmother issues and daughter
issues in every book that Iwrite.

Let's pause on the fun quiz a bit, because I
actually wanted to ask you aboutthe mother the mother daughter
relationship and that theme, itwas very small part of the book.
And I actually would have likedto see more of arunas mother
because whatever was written wasvery fascinating. There's a tug
of war between the two of them,where she's always trying to

(51:06):
curb her and she's saying, youknow, it's not good for you.
It's not good for you. And yousee that struggle in every
mother daughter relationship andevery child parent relationship,
even today, which I found very,very fascinating. So yeah, tell
me more about the motherdaughter relationship.

Oh my gosh. I mean, Aruna mother is in what
she feels is a really, reallybad place, because she is
raising this daughter who wasborn out of, unfortunately,
raped. She was raped by aBritish officer. She was thrown
out of her own family. He gaveher quarters on the outskirts of

(51:44):
the cantonment, not inside thecantonment, but on the outskirts
of the cantonment, for her tosort of live and raise this
child. And she knows that she israising this daughter who is not
going to be accepted. You know,if everybody knows that she's
Anglo Indian, and this is one ofthe reasons why? She tells us,
she said, Listen, you could justpass off as a fair skinned

(52:04):
northern Indian girl. Why don'tyou know? Why do you insist? And
Aruna, of course, is very fast.
She wants to show the world whoshe is, and plus, she's a school
teacher, and the regularnorthern Indian girls don't get
those jobs anyway, you know? Soshe feels that it's out in the
open to some extent, anyway, butstill, as a mother, she worries
and worries and worries abouther daughter. You're not going

(52:26):
to be accepted by Ayaz and hisfamily. It's not safe for you to
be out there. What if you loseyour job? Why are you going to
these dhabas and riding in thesetongas and, you know, going out
into, you know, the markets andstuff like, you know. Why are
you not learning from yourfriend Amrita? You know, she's a
good friend of yours, but she'smarried and she has a young

(52:47):
child, and she doesn't do theseoutlandish things like you do.
So she definitely has a lot ofthese maternal instincts.
Mothers all worry about theirkids and their daughters, you
know, and Aruna takes care ofher mother, so she knows that
she has just as her mother isresponsible for her, she too is

(53:08):
responsible for her mother. Sheis the earning member of the
family at this point. So shefeels very, very responsible for
her mother. And she is alsocaught in this tug of war,
because she wants her own life.
She wants this independence. Sheand Ayaz have these dreams of
moving to this liberal citycalled Bombay, where they

(53:30):
believe that nobody will judgethem. You know, they'll be free
from these dismissive eyes. Butat the same time, she's got to
think about her mother. Shecan't, you know, that's, that's
all, that's all she has in theworld. So it's a tough
situation. I didn't want themother daughter relationship to
sort of get in the way of themain love story. So it's

(53:52):
definitely a sub story. Also, Ihave very, very deeply explored
mother daughter craziness anddysfunction in a comedic manner
in my book, Operation Mom, wherethe daughter is actually setting
up the mother. So I said, Okay,let me, let me do something
different here.

Nice. Okay, a book of yours that you
absolutely want to see onscreen.

Oh my gosh, every single one of them. But I've
just mentioned two vermilionharvest operation mom,

okay, other historical fiction books you'd
recommend to our listeners,

I would definitely recommend too big to fail, which
is about the global financialcrisis. It's more recent
history, but it is fascinating.

Other books on the jallianalla Bagh massacre
that our listeners should readto know more about it.

There's a slew of non fiction books that came out
in 2019 around the 100th yearanniversary of the massacre.
There is one which is there aretwo biographies of general Dyer.
I would highly recommend them.
There was another one called theAmritsar massacre by Ki. Should
decide recommend that as well.

(55:01):
But these are history books

and one comfort read that you keep going back
to,

oh my gosh, anything by David Sedaris. David
Sedaris is a humorist. He is,you know, he writes these
outlandish, crazy stories abouteveryday life, and sort of my
favorite, my entry point intothe world of David Sedaris was
his an essay that he wrote aboutbeing an elf at Macy's during

(55:30):
Christmas time. It's calledSantaLand Diaries.

Great. We'll check those out. Thank you so
much for this conversation andbringing Jallianwala Bagh to
life. I really, really enjoyedit. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.
I'm so happy to be on the showand to bring these stories to
your readers. Thank you. Hopeyou

enjoy this episode of Books and Beyond with
bound.

Michelle D'costa (55:55):
This podcast is created by bound, a company
that helps you grow throughstories. Find us at Tom India on
all social media platforms. Tune

in every Wednesday as we peek into the
lives and minds of somebrilliant authors from India and
South Asia. You.

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