Rachna Singh, Editor, The Wise Owl in conversation with Shinie Antony, a writer, editor and columnist based in Bengaluru. Her novellas include The Girl Who Couldn't Love, Can’t, and Eden Abandoned: The Story of Lilith. Her anthologies include Boo, Why We Don’t Talk, An Unsuitable Woman. Founder of the Bangalore Literature Festival and director of the Bengaluru Poetry Festival, her story A Dog’s Death won the Commonwealth Short Story Asia prize in 2002. A collection of essays co-edited with AT Boyle, exObjects: The Art of Holding On, Letting Go was received well. She is the recipient of The Wise Owl Literary Award for fiction and Laadli Award for her book Eden Abandoned. Her latest novel is The Haunting of Kunjamma P, a combination of life, satire and social criticism.

 

Congratulations on your new book Shinie. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with The Wise Owl.

 

RS: Most possession stories begin with fear. But here we have a demon-devil hybrid with literary aspirations and a heap of puns and tongue-in-cheek asides. The image of a devil with literary ambitions is wonderfully unexpected. So what made you pick up a demon-devil as the protagonist of your book?

 

SA: Everyone wants to be seen, to be heard. And I was looking for a worthy underdog – that’s how this creature came about, Rachna. He is a complete nobody in Hell, too junior, almost an apprentice. As a half-rakshas and half-pishach, owing to his parentage, he has his own issues.

 

RS: Kunjamma is devout, stubborn, dramatic, and often unintentionally funny. So did she bloom fully-born from your imagination or did she gradually reveal herself while you were writing?

 

SA: I know many Kunjammas, who adhere to the letter of a given religion. Rites and rituals are everything, they live for the optics of piety, and that unique superiority of showy faith.

 

RS: Kerala has a rich tradition of storytelling, folklore, faith practices, and social satire. In what ways did the cultural landscape of Kerala shape the voice, humour, and atmosphere of the novel?

 

SA: I am a Malayalee, as you know, and I did my college in Kochi. But having lived in the north most of my life, two things were of interest to me. One, what does it mean to be an Indian Christian, which is kind of an imported religion? Two, what are our stories, specifically from the south, being a part of this minority? Every bhasha has its own sense of humour. Colloquial wit hits hardest. I wanted, I think, in some small way to convey that way of talking in Malayalam, with incomparable phrases like kudachakram or even undampori, which is actually a snack but also used sarcastically. I adore the casual Malayalam rudeness, which indicates intimacy, even love.

 

RS: Humour can sometimes reveal uncomfortable truths more effectively than serious narratives. What aspects of contemporary society were you most interested in holding up to scrutiny through comedy?

 

SA: I try to go after moral superiority, the ‘I’m better than you’ face. What happens to us, in the end, is ordinary and commonplace. No one is happier than us or sadder. Being human is an astonishing feat in itself, no need to complicate it by saintly displays.

 

RS: The novel is populated by unforgettable characters, from the perpetually exasperated clergy to the seemingly indestructible mother-in-law, to the husband with his sexual fetishes, to a daughter with her accidental ‘lap dance’. Which character was the most enjoyable to write, and which one proved the most challenging?

 

SA: Paulose, hands down. Did I mention that Kerala is a hotbed of misogyny? Maybe I feel like that because I am a Mallu. But that covert lecherousness and his simpleminded pleasures and the way he flicks his mundu up and down, which makes him look busy and jobless at the same time… My editor Abhivyakti Singh at Hachette India said Paulose deserves a book of his own.

 

RS: Beneath its wit and outrageous situations, the novel appears to raise questions about who gets to tell sacred stories and whose voices are considered legitimate. What made you dwell on this interrogation of authority and authorship?

 

SA: There is a line in the book, which is the most threadbare thing I had in my head when I started to write it: that evil is actually the fear of love. Life leaves us with no choice sometime but to actively reject affection, and to constantly court the wrong people, people guaranteed to break our heart. Then, when we look back, nothing can be edited. All is done, our story has been written, life has been lived. Ageing has that side-effect, it brings us face to face with the real us. Sounds gloomy, but that was my starting thought. Double D, of course, did his own thing throughout.

 

RS: There are moments in the book when readers may find themselves laughing and then immediately wondering whether they should be. Do you enjoy creating that sense of discomfort where humour and seriousness collide?

 

SA: Reality is so drab and dull, at least when we write we can give it that lemony twist.