‘I try to find a quiet place in my house and write for 3-4 hours’

Noted Indian writer Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni speaks to Bhumika Popli about her new novel, the research that goes into her writings, and what made her shift from poetry to fiction.

tures of Kolkata where she has grown up to get the feel of vintage Kolkata. Fortunately, when I was growing up in Kolkata, there were still some of those old houses like the one she will stay in for a while, so I had those visual images. Now thanks to the Internet, one can see a number of images, so I got lots of pictures to understand that time. Also, there is a lot of instances in the book about food, so I had to read about that as well. At some point in the book, one of the characters turns alcoholic. So I had to study the behaviours of alcoholics for that. Q. In this book, you have explored the theme of past demons and the way the characters learn to forget their past. Could you talk about this? A. I think there are some past demons that the women in the book carry in their lives. There is a secret in one character’s past which will haunt her for years but in the end she learns how to deal whole sense of the culture of a city like in Oleander Girl. Similarly, I wanted to lay out the problems of immigrants like in The Mistress of Spices. Then I realised that a novel is the best form for me to do that. Q. Palace of Illusions is set back in time. Can you enlist the challenges a writer comes across when writing something set in that time period? A. For this particular book, the challenge was to do research of that time. It was based in pre-history, myth and epic. The challenge was to create that world. And the problem is we don’t know much about that time. Details like what kind of jewellery women would wear in the past, the food people ate and so on. Precision is important. If I am not precise as a writer, you as reader would have a difficult time imagining the scene. For instance, If I am writing about palaces, I have to get the details right.

“I have always loved reading fiction. As I was writing poetry, I began to see that I become more and more interested in stories. My poetry started becoming very narrative, I felt I needed a larger medium where I could develop the story, I could show the characters changing and so I moved to short stories.”

Q. Can you give us an insight into your writing process? A. I write regularly. I think that is very important. I usually write in the morning after my yoga and meditation routine. I try to find a quiet place in my house and write for three to four hours. I keep a notebook on my side for taking notes. I write for three days and I teach at a university on the other days. Q. Who are your favourite authors? A. I really like the works of Amitav Ghosh and Anita Desai. Also, I like Ian McEwan, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood and Tagore. Q. As a professor of creative writing at the University of Houston, Texas, what do you advise your students? A. I often say that you have to start off by reading and you have to read widely. You have to read different writers, but read like a writer. One needs to write down things you like in a notebook, which can be a scene or characterisation. One learns various elements like style, technique and so on. An aspiring writer should write regularly and edit very carefully.