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| Edited By: Pooja Bhula |Source: DNA |Updated: Dec 05, 2017, 02:00 PM IST
Around 3.30pm on a Sunday, when I meet The White Window queen at her sea-facing apartment in Juhu, she’s already done five back-to-back interviews. While she’s enthusiastic all through the last one with me, she admits to feeling lost. “Since I have completed the manuscript, a part of my head feels empty. I don’t know what to do with it! I even asked my editor if this is normal? In fact, I recently submitted two versions for a column because I have so much more time and she called back saying, ‘What’s wrong with you?’,” Khanna says, erupting in laughter. Although she delves into serious subjects pertaining women in her collection of short stories, The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad, her sense of humour punctuates the narrative in just the right places. Edited excerpts from an interview:
I wrote a lot when I was younger. By 18, I’d written half a book and had a file full of these terrible poems on maggots, which my mother likes to believe were about mangoes. And then for almost two decades, I didn’t write anything. Post that, as you know, DNA can take the claim or disrepute for introducing me to this world.
Strangely, when I had to write that first column, I had so much to say, it came out really quickly and easily. If then, I had to follow the process I do today, or put in the time and effort it takes, I would have given up. People say it gets easier, but I think if you try to up your game, it gets more difficult. And I’m trying to do that constantly.
A lot of people came and asked me, ‘‘Whom did you base (protagonist) Noni Appa’s character on, she seems so real?” And that for me, was the biggest compliment. But the stories aren’t based on one person or one thing. I could build her character with ease as I’ve seen many people like her – fortunate to live in this multicultural world, I have visited the jamat khaana many times as a child. But in the end, they are all fictional. And fiction is liberating. With non-fiction, I wouldn’t be able to say what I have to, perfectly.
The story emerged elsewhere. I met this 60-year-old lady once and we ended up speaking about her grand kids. I asked what her husband does – turned out she had left him two years ago and had a boyfriend, who used to be a school or college mate. I always thought 50 was the end, but that day I realised there’s always an adventure waiting around the next corner if only you’re willing to let go, take a leap. She could have ended up alone and lonely – her bravery stayed with me and made its way to this story.
There's a scene where Nonni Appa's sister Binni puts a video tape in the VCR to show her a match for Mallika—I wrote it when I was 17. This was my third attempt at rewriting it. For some reason, the protagonist would change every time—at 17 it was the granddaughter; at 40 I picked the daughter and this time realised that Noni and Binni were the stars themselves and finally managed to accomplish something I'd been trying to for 20 years.
But the main trigger for was an image I had in my mind—of Noni Appa and Prahlad Bhai sitting in front of a gulmohar tree, him singing badly and her turing off her hearing aid. Sometimes you build a story around a character and sometimes around an image you have.
I’m part of a group called Rastaa Chaap. We work with the BMC, paint dead trees, preserve diseased ones and plant fresh ones. Being around trees all the time partly inspired it and then I read about a place in Rajasthan where they plant 100 trees for their children. I thought, ‘What if it was done for a rea son – one that’s gender-specific? And so Lakshmi Prasad’s story was born.
As for details, I research a lot – noting down colours of saris, what’s prevalent at a particular time, what existed then, what didn’t, etc. to ensure my depiction of time periods for each story is clear. It takes about two weeks; then I plot the stories in my notebook — it's my life! Longhand helps me think better.
Not really. Some write meticulously – one para at a time. I complete it from start to finish and go over it 20 times. If I’m stuck, I move to the next part and return later.
I realised only after I finished writing all the stories that they are about women finding their place, and equality. Even the strong pairing of sisters, Noni and Binni, wasn’t conscious. Which was interesting because although I’m very close to my sister, she rarely features in my columns—because she's always yelling at me, "Don't write this about me, don't make me look foolish". I guess, you pick topics that move you and weave stories around them. Another instance is the last story, The Sanitary Man from a Sacred Land, based on Arunachalam Muruganantham, who invented a machine for low-cost sanitary napkins. I came across him while writing a column and was so amazed that I replaced another story (for which I’d already written 10 chapters) with his.
All of them do. How do you create a character without putting bits of yourself in it? Lots of emotions they feel at various points, are what I have felt at some stage. But fiction allows you some distance, even if it’s about you, it’s nothing about you, which makes it meditative and calming.
A large part of who I am is because I grew up in this household of very strong, working women. We never really used words like feminism, but it was there in the way that everyone carried on. My mother or aunts never bent to the rules of society or prescribed to notions of women’s place in society. So when I got married, it didn’t occur to me to change my surname. For that matter, my sister didn’t change hers either. We are just the Khanna sisters.
Why is everyone asking me about feminism? This slant wasn’t planned! Right now, it’s at different stages everywhere. But it’s about what you teach the next generation, tell them everyday. Someone once told my daughter, ‘Oh, pretty girl! You can grow up to be Miss India’ – I said, ‘Why, she can become the Prime Minister. If I tell her marriage or fitting in is a goal, I’ll be doing her injustice. Likewise, the way my son looks at women is equally important.
People think a novel is somehow superior to short stories, but it’s not. It’s just a format you like. Three years of column-writing has made my writing succinct, if I can narrate a story in 20,000 words, why go for 40,000? Today, all of us have cultivated ADD; the same stories I used to devour, now take me ages to plough through. Right now, short stories are natural for me and I think, far more accessible for many.
