A Conversation with Githa Hariharan
Arnab Chakladar: I think one of the remarkable things about that collection is the number of different voices you use in it -- a very varied set across gender, class, region etc.
I want to make it quite clear that in my life my choices have been dictated by what I perceive as the feminist choice.
Githa Hariharan: Yes, I consciously tried out different things. In "Gajar Halwa" I was trying to figure out how to "splice". Then when I had a collection of stories, I thought, I've never written a ghost story. So I sat down and wrote "The Rainmaker". That burst of energy, and that single-minded phase of self-conscious experimenting, may not come more than once in a writer's life. I am only grateful it happened to me at the right time. Now I am not sure I would write the same sort of short stories at all -- if and when I go back to them.
Arnab Chakladar: So, The Art of Dying was sort of like training for you...
Githa Hariharan: Yes. I had to also decide what being a writer meant to me. If your first book gets noticed, you can't help reacting in some way to expectations. Some of these expectations were that I should continue writing about women in the way I had in Thousand Faces. I had a problem with this. I was very clear I was not going to become some sort of a "specialist". There seemed to be something a little condescending here. It was as if I was being told "we'll accept your 'expertise' when you write about women". I didn't want to be pushed into any corner or categorized too easily, too soon, in terms of either subject matter or style.
Arnab Chakladar: Let me ask you a little more about your discomfort at being pegged as a "specialist" in women's issues. Shashi Deshpande is someone who has said that she is uncomfortable with being described as a "woman writer," that this is a term she finds limiting. What are your thoughts on this issue?
one of the first lessons you learn as a writer is that there's some sort of truth -- some sort of fidelity to the character -- that you have to follow
Githa Hariharan: There are two questions here. Am I a writer particularly concerned with "women's issues"? And am I a feminist? The answer to both questions is yes. I want to make it quite clear that in my life my choices have been dictated by what I perceive as the feminist choice. I want to say this because many women are very anxious for some reason to say "I'm a humanist, not a feminist," that sort of thing... We can't be wary of the word feminist because there are people in the world who misunderstand the word or have done disservice to the word -- you can't use most words then! And anyway, however you define yourself, all our work is informed in some way or the other by feminism, along with the ideas of Freud and Marx. And this goes for both men and women, of course. So the answer to your question would be that I am a writer (as opposed to a woman writer) who is a feminist, along with several other things!
Let me make a little digression here: some of my women friends were a bit unhappy with the ending of The Thousand Faces of Night. They would say things like "first of all, you've got this wimpy woman...". You know a lot of people think your first novel is autobiographical, and of course those who know me know that between Devi and me lie many leagues. And I'd say, "in college I knew many girls in the hostel who lived pretty wild lives, and the next thing you heard of them they had arranged marriages. And that is partly what I wanted to understand by putting such a life in a context." And at the end she goes to another man! You know, the ultimate crime! Of course, we would have liked her to immediately march to parliament for women's rights!
(laughter)
But one of the first lessons you learn as a writer is that there's some sort of truth -- some sort of fidelity to the character -- that you have to follow.
Arnab Chakladar: Being a feminist and a novelist doesn't mean that your novels will be feminist manifestoes...
it's all too easy to assume this role of spokesperson because of your class background or the little space you have got on the public stage
Githa Hariharan: Exactly. Being a writer and a feminist doesn't mean you write tracts and pretend they are novels. I was not writing a blueprint. I wish I could -- then I wouldn't just be a useless novelist but doing something much more useful. But I didn't/don't have a blueprint. As for being a "woman writer" I would say such a label is legitimate or useful only if it is used with some rigor. It is useful to study women's writing and Dalit writing and so on in an academic context. I don't think it is terribly useful if the labels become lazy, a way to ghettoize. And that applies not just to "women writers" but when you are elsewhere, to "Indian writers" as well. Of course, you are sometimes forced into a situation where you "represent" Indian women, or women writers, or Indian writers. But I do feel uncomfortable even when I see I have to do this sometimes. It's all too easy to assume this role of spokesperson because of your class background or the little space you have got on the public stage.
Arnab Chakladar: And there are a number of people who seem to welcome these situations! Increasingly there seem to be a few people who constantly show up in newspapers etc. in the U.S, at least, as translators of all things Indian.
Githa Hariharan: My friend Sujit Mukerjee who wrote wonderfully on translation, used to call them dwarapalikas. My experience is that if you go to three different events, say, you find that in one, you are being whipped on stage for writing in English, in another you are the third world writing back, in another you are the woman taking on patriarchy in all languages, in east and west... The thing is to secretly build on your sense of self as a writer, keep bringing what you are writing or want to write back to the center of your field of vision. I can't speak for other Indian writers, but I must say this is easier to do sitting at home in India. I must remind myself of this next time there is a very long power cut.
when people ask if the first novel is the most autobiographical, I say, "no, no, Vasu Master is"...and they look at me as if they are thinking, "My god, she's weirder than we thought".
Arnab Chakladar: We'll come back to the question of language in a bit. To continue with the question of gender: You talked about your work not following exactly your feminist beliefs and politics. Now you are someone who has, outside of her work as a writer, participated in gender politics in Indian society in a very engaged way and effected change. Could you say a little more about this?
Githa Hariharan: Just because The Thousand Faces of Night or When Dreams Travel address the lives of women directly, or in the second case power politics in relation to gender, this does not mean that the other novels are not informed by questions of gender. I don't think I could write a single page that would not be informed by my beliefs, or for that matter, my confusions. My work grows out of my feminism and other political beliefs. Which doesn't mean a novel I write is some kind of handmaiden to ideology.
Arnab Chakladar: When I taught In Times of Siege in Colorado last year one of the things we discussed is how much, in addition to the political narrative, this was a novel about gender -- how Shiv's transformation towards action is actually accompanied by a sort of feminization -- he becomes a better housekeeper etc.
Githa Hariharan: And also the question of the kind of relationship they can have outside the physical -- which, of course, is over-determined from Day 1. Talking about gender concerns being there, though not in an obvious way -- The Ghosts of Vasu Master was my most ambitious attempt at looking at gender elliptically. And I think that is actually the most autobiographical of my novels. Which is why when people ask if the first novel is the most autobiographical, I say, "no, no, Vasu Master is"...and they look at me as if they are thinking, "My god, she's weirder than we thought".
(laughter)
Arnab Chakladar: If we could return to the question of your work with issues of gender outside your fiction...
Githa Hariharan: Yes, you were asking about my involvements with gender issues outside my fiction writing. I always feel nervous about answering questions like these, because I don't want to make it seem that I do more than I actually do! But certainly, all my adult life, I have been involved in some way or the other -- often in modest ways -- in the activities of women's groups, secular cultural groups, anti-nuclear groups. The guardianship case in the Supreme Court was just the most visible. I also write as often as I can about some of these issues. Otherwise, it's behind-the-scenes small involvements, just the same as what a lot of people contribute year after year.