Rachna Singh, Editor, The Wise Owl talks to Nishi Chawla about her book Silent Walls, Speaking Stones.

Rachna Singh, Editor, The Wise Owl talks to Nishi Chawla, a scholar, playwright, poet, filmmaker, and novelist. Nishi is a true polymath whose creative pursuits straddle continents and art forms. With ten plays, three novels, and eight poetry collections to her credit and several acclaimed art house films streaming on Amazon Prime, she has carved a distinctive space at the confluence of literature and thought. Her forthcoming novel, Silent Walls, Speaking Stones (Pierian Springs Press, USA, Fall 2025), set in Ayodhya, examines the intertwining of faith, identity, memory, and grief through the story of a divided family in a divided land. In this candid conversation, Dr. Chawla speaks about finding the human heartbeat within history’s turbulence, writing from the diaspora, and seeking light in the fissures of faith.

 

Thank you Nishi for talking to The Wise Owl about your latest book.

 

RS: Your novel Silent Walls, Speaking Stones situates itself in Ayodhya—a city that is both a geographical space and a deeply symbolic one in India’s cultural psyche. What drew you to Ayodhya as the setting for this story, and how did you approach rendering it as both a living character and a historical backdrop?

 

NC: When I chose Ayodhya as the setting for Silent Walls, Speaking Stones, it was not merely for its geography but for its profound symbolic weight. Ayodhya lives in India’s collective psyche as both a sacred space and a site of deep division. It exists simultaneously as a place and as an idea - a city where myth and memory, devotion and dispute, coexist uneasily.

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What drew me to it was this very duality. Ayodhya’s silences, its stones, its fractured histories - they seemed to whisper stories that went beyond politics into the realm of human feeling. I wanted to explore how a city so charged with ideology could still contain ordinary lives, private griefs, and moments of tenderness.

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In my novel, Ayodhya becomes a living character. Its walls watch, its stones remember, its air vibrates with both prayer and conflict. The title itself - Silent Walls, Speaking Stones -  grew out of my sense that even in stillness, Ayodhya speaks; even in speech, it conceals something ineffable.

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For my protagonist, Saanvi Trivedi - born of a Hindu father and a Muslim mother - Ayodhya mirrors her own divided inheritance. She cannot choose one faith over another, one truth over another. Through her, I wanted to show how personal identity and national history become intertwined in ways that are both painful and illuminating. To me, Ayodhya is not a battleground of gods but a landscape of memory and yearning. I approached it with reverence but also with empathy - to reveal that beneath its loud debates, the city’s quiet humanity endures. In the end, Silent Walls, Speaking Stones is not about taking sides; it is about listening - to the murmurs of the past, and to the voices that history too often silences. (Incidentally, that’s an excellent interview question - and a perfect opportunity to reveal the artistic, emotional, and philosophical layers behind 'Silent Walls, Speaking Stones.') 

 

RS: The novel’s emotional core lies in the grief of a Hindu father and a Muslim mother, even as their personal loss mirrors the nation’s ideological fractures. How did you balance the tension between the private grief of a family and the public turmoil of a country without turning the narrative into a political polemic?

 

NC: That’s a deeply perceptive question. It gives me a chance to express how I kept Silent Walls, Speaking Stones emotionally grounded while dealing with politically sensitive material. At its heart, Silent Walls, Speaking Stones is not about ideology - it’s about loss. The conflicted passion of a Hindu father and the quiet love of a Muslim mother stands at the center of the novel, and while their sorrow unfolds in a deeply divided world, I wanted to make sure the story remained human, not political. For me, emotion always comes before argument. The parents’ pain echoes the fractures of the nation, but it isn’t symbolic; it’s deeply personal. Their tragedy is not a metaphor for India - it is a moment of love interrupted by history. I tried to let that intimacy guide the narrative.

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Balancing private grief and public turmoil meant writing through silence. Grief doesn’t need to shout; it’s often most powerful in stillness - in gestures, pauses, unspoken prayers. I wanted the reader to feel before they thought. Toni Morrison once said, “All good art is political, but it doesn’t have to be polemical.” That line shaped my approach. The novel looks at the ideological fractures of Ayodhya, but never preaches. Its politics are emotional - rooted in empathy rather than rhetoric. Ultimately, Silent Walls, Speaking Stones is about love enduring in a divided world. The family’s private pain becomes a quiet reflection of the nation’s larger wounds - not as commentary, but as lived truth. It’s a story of two people, two faiths, and one shared silence.

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RS: You’ve described the novel as a meditation on history, memory, and identity. How do you see these three forces interacting in Silent Walls, Speaking Stones? In what ways does Saanvi’s journey reflect the struggle to reconcile inherited history with individual identity?

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NC: For me, Silent Walls, Speaking Stones is an exploration of how history, memory, and identity constantly shape one another. None exists in isolation. The novel asks: how do we live with the histories we inherit - especially when those histories are divided? Saanvi, the young protagonist, inherits a fractured past: a Hindu father tied to politics and a Muslim mother forced into silence. Her identity becomes the space where their divided histories collide. But she refuses to let her life be defined by that fracture. Through memory - both personal and collective - she tries to reclaim what has been lost, to find her own truth amidst inherited silence.

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In the novel, memory becomes resistance. It allows Saanvi to question the official histories she has been taught and to listen instead to the buried, emotional ones — the ones that survive in gesture, prayer, and grief. I see Saanvi’s journey as emblematic of many in modern India - people trying to reconcile who they are with what they have inherited. Her search is for integration, not erasure; for a way to honor both her mother’s and her father’s truths. Ultimately, Silent Walls, Speaking Stones suggests that identity is not about purity or singularity - it is about holding contradictions with grace. We are all, like Saanvi, mosaics of memory and history, trying to make peace with the fragments we carry.

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RS: As an Indian author living in the U.S., you bring both distance and intimacy to your portrayal of India’s socio-political landscape. How has this diasporic vantage point shaped your understanding of faith, belonging, and the complexities of Indian identity in your fiction?

 

NC: As an Indian author living in the United States, I inhabit a space of both intimacy and distance that profoundly shapes my portrayal of India’s socio-political landscape. Growing up in India, I absorbed the textures of daily life, familial expectations, and religious traditions, which gave me a visceral understanding of faith and identity. Living in the U.S. allows me to revisit these experiences with reflective distance, questioning assumptions, social hierarchies, and the pressures of public narratives. This dual perspective is central to my novel on Ayodhya, a city that is both sacred and politically charged. The story explores the tensions between personal morality and public expectation, particularly through the lens of the protagonist’s father, a politician whose private choices challenge dominant narratives of faith and loyalty. From a diasporic vantage point, I can portray these conflicts with nuance—highlighting the moral ambiguities and human complexities that are often lost in polarized accounts.

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Faith, belonging, and identity are inseparable in my fiction. Diaspora sharpens my awareness of how these elements are performed, contested, and experienced differently in multiple contexts. Belonging is both a lived reality and a reflection, shaped by memory, distance, and cultural negotiation. My narrative seeks to honor the authenticity of Indian life while probing its contradictions, giving voice to characters who navigate interfaith relationships, societal expectations, and historical burdens.

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Ultimately, the diasporic perspective allows me to hold multiple truths simultaneously: the intimate knowledge of lived experience and the critical clarity of distance. It shapes my prose, my ethical responsibility as a storyteller, and my commitment to portraying India not as a monolith, but as a complex, evolving mosaic of human emotion, faith, and identity.

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RS: Saanvi’s mother, Yasmin Khan, embodies quiet strength and resilience, navigating love, loss, and religious dissonance. What role does the feminine perspective play in this novel’s exploration of faith and reconciliation?

 

NC: In my novel, the feminine perspective, embodied by Saanvi’s mother Yasmin Khan, is central to exploring faith, identity, and reconciliation. Yasmin represents quiet strength and resilience, navigating love, loss, and the complexities of a relationship across religious divides. Through her, the novel examines the intimate, often unseen dimensions of faith—the daily choices, ethical dilemmas, and emotional labor that constitute lived belief.

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Yasmin’s perspective highlights reconciliation as a personal and relational process, rather than merely a public or political act. She negotiates the pain of separation, the challenges of raising a child across religious and cultural boundaries, and the tensions between societal expectation and personal morality. Her story shows that true reconciliation requires empathy, understanding, and the willingness to engage with difference in everyday life. By foregrounding the feminine lens, the novel also offers a counterbalance to male-dominated narratives of power and politics. Whereas male characters contend with authority and historical legacy, Yasmin’s struggles are internal and ethical, emphasizing patience, attentiveness, and moral courage. She functions as a mediator and bearer of collective memory, illustrating how women’s choices shape family, community, and the transmission of cultural and religious identity.

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Ultimately, Yasmin’s character demonstrates that women’s perspectives are foundational to understanding the nuances of faith and belonging. Her resilience and ethical agency illuminate the complex intersections of love, religion, and identity, showing that reconciliation and moral integrity often manifest in quiet, relational ways. Through her, the novel emphasizes that the feminine perspective is essential for capturing the emotional and ethical depth of India’s social and spiritual landscape. 

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RS: You’ve said that you weave historical details into individual chapters to deepen the emotional texture of the story. Could you talk about your process of blending historical fact with fictional narrative—where do you draw the line between research and imagination?

 

NC: Blending historical fact with fictional narrative in my novel is a careful balance between research and imagination. I begin with extensive immersion: archival records, historical texts, oral histories, and newspaper accounts provide the factual backbone of the story. Yet facts alone cannot capture the lived experience of people navigating faith, identity, and political tension. Imagination fills in the emotional and moral texture that history cannot fully convey.

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For example, the political and religious pressures faced by Saanvi’s father are rooted in real historical events, but his private relationships, ethical compromises, and family interactions are entirely imagined. The line between research and imagination is drawn by plausibility and ethical responsibility: historical impossibilities are avoided, sensitive realities are treated with care, and documented events are respected, while the interior lives and moral dilemmas of characters are explored creatively.

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My process is iterative. I write a chapter, then revisit research to ensure accuracy, adjusting details or timelines as needed. Historical facts are often woven into dialogue, sensory descriptions, or internal reflections rather than presented as exposition, making the socio-political context part of the lived experience of the characters.

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Living in the U.S. provides a critical distance that allows me to interrogate historical and political narratives with clarity, while imagination allows me to inhabit the emotional and ethical realities of the people in the story. This combination ensures that the narrative remains grounded, authentic, and empathetic.

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Ultimately, blending history and fiction is an act of ethical imagination. Research provides the framework; imagination animates it, giving readers insight into the moral, emotional, and human complexities of life in Ayodhya—where personal choices, faith, and identity intersect with the broader sweep of history.

 

RS: You are a rare creative who moves fluidly between literature, theatre, and cinema. Did your experience as a playwright and filmmaker influence how you structured Silent Walls, Speaking Stones—perhaps in its dialogue, pacing, or visual imagery?

 

NC: My experience as a playwright and filmmaker deeply shaped the structure, dialogue, pacing, and visual sensibility of Silent Walls, Speaking Stones. From theatre, I learned the power of dialogue and subtext - every conversation in the novel is crafted to reveal character, advance the plot, and sustain tension. Pauses and silences are as expressive as words, creating rhythm and emotional resonance reminiscent of a stage performance. Pacing is also informed by theatrical practice, alternating moments of intensity with quiet reflection to allow emotional stakes to build naturally.

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Film has influenced the novel’s visual and spatial awareness. I approach scenes as if framing them through a camera lens, creating immersive imagery of Ayodhya’s streets, homes, and temples. Light, texture, and sound become narrative tools, allowing readers to experience the city through sensory and emotional perspectives. This cinematic sensibility also informs narrative structure: the novel moves fluidly between the intimate interiority of characters and the broader socio-political landscape, much like a film cuts between close-ups and wide shots.

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Both theatre and cinema have heightened my attention to the performativity of human behavior. Characters navigate public and private roles, and subtle gestures, expressions, or hesitations convey moral and emotional complexity. Rhythm, too, is central: long reflective passages alternate with dialogue-driven sequences, mirroring the cadences of stage and screen.

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In essence, the novel is an interdisciplinary creation. Theatre taught me to craft dialogue and pacing with precision; cinema taught me to render space, imagery, and sensory detail with immediacy. Together, they allow Silent Walls, Speaking Stones to move dynamically between memory, history, and moral complexity—immersing readers in the emotional and visual world of Ayodhya while conveying the subtle interplay of personal and political life.

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RS: Despite its exploration of ideological divides, Silent Walls, Speaking Stones seems to hold space for empathy and shared humanity. What message or emotional truth do you hope readers carry with them after closing the final page of this novel?

 

NC: While Silent Walls, Speaking Stones explores ideological and religious divides, its deeper aim is to illuminate the shared humanity beneath those divisions. Ayodhya, often seen as a site of irreconcilable conflict, becomes in the novel a space to examine the moral and emotional lives of individuals navigating faith, family, and societal expectation. I hope readers carry away the recognition that human beings are rarely reducible to simplistic categories of “us” and “them,” and that empathy is possible even amidst profound disagreement.

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The novel emphasizes the quiet, often unacknowledged acts that sustain relationships - listening attentively, showing patience, acknowledging moral dilemmas, and choosing integrity over convenience. Characters such as Yasmin Khan, Saanvi’s mother, exemplify resilience and moral courage, demonstrating that empathy and shared humanity are not abstract ideals but lived practices. By focusing on these intimate experiences, the narrative shows that reconciliation - whether familial, communal, or personal - is fragile yet attainable.

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Ultimately, I hope readers finish the novel with a sense of moral and emotional resonance. I want them to feel that love, memory, and empathy endure even amid division, and that moral courage often resides in small, everyday acts. The story invites reflection on how we see and engage with one another, highlighting that while ideology may divide, the capacity for understanding, compassion, and shared humanity remains within reach.

 

Thank you for taking time out to talk with The Wise Owl about your latest book. Here is wishing you and your book great success.