Storizen – July 2019

COVER STORY

JULY 2019 STORIZEN MAGAZINE | 15

Your books include a lot of
research and history. Do you think
that in this country, history has
been manipulated manifold?

I believe that in order to grapple
with the present, sometimes, we
have to engage with the past. I
don’t mean a rehash. What I have
in mind is a close scrutiny of
tradition, an exploration of
homilies, a deep dive into myths
so we can parse the narrative for
our stories and question the status
quo. Why, for instance, after 70
plus years of Partition, have we
not been able to lay the ghosts to
rest?

In 1947, when women’s bodies
became the battlefield, did that
template of sexual violence derive
from our foundational epic? Does
the fact that women bore the brunt
of that violence echo in this time
of #metoo?

In India, the past is forever

intruding upon the present. So

why not reckon with that past, I

asked myself, and invited the

dead to populate my latest novel.

The history of independent India

has literally been ‘his’ story. The

Radiance of a Thousand Suns

attempts to reconstruct the

(hi)story and add to it the missing,

suppressed, and absent stories of

women. As Niki, my central

protagonist in Radiance, says in

the novel: “Men’s stories become

a society’s narrative and our

heritage; women’s stories are

forced underground, sealed and

locked.”

Do you think few people may differ

with you regarding some events

that you have written? How do you

deal with such situations?

“Men’s stories become a society’s narrative

and our heritage; women’s stories are

forced underground, sealed and locked.”