Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni -February, 1999 Buy Sister of My Heart at Amazon.com

Listen to this interview in RealAudio Read a Book Review of The Mistress of Spices

MC: In the three books of yours, which I have read, and actually some of the poetry as well, there are the characters of a woman from India, many of them come to America one way or another in all of these stories. I wanted to know first of all what your own background is and how you came from India to here.

CBD: I came from India now over 20 years back, and I came to do my graduate studies and then stayed on, which originally I had not known I was going to do. But I stayed on, I got married, I teach, and I write. And in some ways I think coming to America is really what was a catalysts to my writing.

MC: In what way?

CBD: I think for one thing it made me much more aware of the importance of identity. In India I was so immersed in my traditional culture that I really didn't give it much thought. It was only after I came here and in some ways lost part of it that it became important to me. So writing became a way of reclaiming that, understanding that, and also understanding what my new role was here in the west, in America, as a woman of color.

MC:And this is in some ways what the woman in "Sister of My Heart" and the character in the "Mistress of Spices" goes through, some of that process themselves that you're describing.

CBD: Right.

MC: The experience of the two main characters in "Sister of My Heart" grow up in a very particular kind of way in India, supervised--something that perhaps American girls aren't quite so familiar with.Can you describe a bit their upbringing and in what way it affected their outlook?

CBD: In "Sister of My Heart" I wanted to go back to a very traditional kind of culture that is still very much a part of Calcutta, which is the city I grew up in. Calcutta is a--as you know, it's a huge and teaming city. It has many lifestyles. But one of the ones that fascinated me when I was there is the old one, which in some ways you see symbolized in the old buildings, just like the ones in which Sudha and Anju grew up in. The big old marble mansion, which is kind of crumbling, and yet the people inside are holding on very tightly to their traditions. So Sudha and Anju have a very strict upbringing. They are pretty much not allowed to go anywhere unless they're chaperoned. They go to school, and they come back home, and the mothers want to bring them up in the way that would be fitting to the old-family tradition. And Sudah and Anju are both aware that this is not how everyone else in Calcutta lives. They are very aware of women that they see outside who are going off to work, some of them are driving their own scooters to work. Women are out there shopping; women are walking the streets. There's just so many, many lifestyles. And this knowledge affects them in an interesting way.

Sudha becomes aware of the comfort of being in this world of women, and being protecting, as if it were from the outside world. And Anju is very impatient. She chafes against it. She can't wait to break out of it.

MC: One thing that strikes me in your writing is the character of the widow and her sort of unique position in this structure that you're describing. The widows are not allowed to remarry or generally don't according to the tradition, and they wind up leading a very different sort of life, let's say, then they would have if they had husbands and could participate more fully in the social goings on. What is it about the widow character? I think there is certain strength in that too, and perhaps that's what Sudha was finding.

CBD: Yeah. I think you're very right in pointing that out. I think the widow has traditionally held a kind of paradoxical position because on one hand the widowed older women are obviously powerful in the household. They are the ones who carry their traditions on. They are the storytellers. They are the ones who decide what ultimately is allowable and is not.Now, people think that India--people often think of it as a patriarchal society where the men hold the power. I think older women in that society hold a tremendous amount of power as we will see in later parts of "Sister of My Heart." The widowed mother-in-law of Sudha is the one who runs her household as well--

MC: --right--

CBD: --and who makes the decisions.So, I think women have this enormous power, but it's power within a sphere. It's power within the home structure, or even in the case of Anju's mother who runs the family bookstore--she's going against tradition, especially in these old-respected families of going outside and working; something she wouldn't have done if her husband had been alive to run the bookstore.

MC: Uh-huh.

CBD: That's something in a way which gives her an added strength and an added power of personality. So in a way her widowhood has given her that.

MC: Right. Now, it's easy I think, for say an American woman like me, to think that a woman brought up in that kind of structure, that when she comes to America, perhaps freedom is the biggest thing that she might appreciate at first. But it's sort of a bittersweet experience I think. So what are some great things, and then on the other hand, what are you really giving up too, when you come here from that sort of background, and from so far away?

CBD: I think bittersweet is really a good word, and an important word, because again, cultures are so complex. America is, in ways, the last great myth of the twentieth century. People all over the world think that if they can just get here, maybe all their problems will be solved. This is the perfect land.

And Anju in some ways has a bit of that in her. She's read all these wonderful books about America. She's fascinated with, you know, the literature of America. And her husband too, who has lived here for awhile, has told her that in America you can be whoever you want to be. And she does find a lot of freedom. She is allowed to do a lot. But she finds that along with the freedom comes a lot of responsibility, a lot of being alone, and she finds that she really begins to miss that extended world of women that she was impatient about when she was in India.

MC: And so in a sense she sort of gained her own individual power but lost that power of--

CBD: --of community--

MC: --community.

CBD: Yes. And I think she feels that most when at the end of a long day of work, she comes back to her apartment, and she opens that door, and she knows that there's no one in there. She's going to be all by herself.

MC: You talk about the myth of America and the storytelling of these older women in the family in India, and I think one of the characters--I forget now which one it was--was very fascinated with let's say fairytales, and the stories of her childhood.

CBD: Right. Sudha is the one who--

MC: --Sudha, I'm sorry. Right.

And there's a crucial moment in the story, when they're trying to communicate over the telephone and at great distance, and somehow it's the power of a mythical story that saves the day. Now, for me that's what the "Mistress Of Spices" is. It's like a myth for the twenty-first century let's say.

CBD: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

MC: And in a way it's very different from "Sister of My Heart" in the style of the writing. And, yet--

CBD: --yeah--

MC: --at the center there's this power and this importance of a myth and a story. How do you--how would you define that now for us in terms of your writing, and is that really a very important part of your writing?

CBD: Yes, I think it is, and more and more it's becoming central to my writing because I think myth and storytelling are so important in cultures. No matter who we are as people we need that. Those old tales speak very deeply to us in a way that is more intuitive than logical.

MC: Uh-huh. But you're not repeating old tales. You're creating new tales.

CBD: And--yes, exactly. And in the retelling of these old tales in the old traditions, a tale changes every time.

MC: Uh-huh.

CBD: So that in the retelling we're recreating--we're taking something from the past, adding to it something from the present, and creating a future for the tale and for ourselves.

And as you pointed out in "Sister of My Heart" there's a crucial scene where Anju has stopped speaking. She won't communicate to anyone, and she won't--if people are--people speak to her on the phone from India--she's in America--she won't respond. And the only way in which Sudha is able to break through this is to retell a mythical tale by putting themselves in it--Sudha and Anju become the characters in this tale. In some ways it breaks through that wall that Anju has created.

MC: Now, these old myths and stories were created within certain social structures that at the time, we could say, were much smaller and more limited. Here we are going into another century, and you're here in America, and I've read your book of--you know, your books, and my daughter might read your books. Who are these myths for? If we're creating this new mythology, let's say, is it for a more generalized sort of audience, or is it still for a specific kind or group of people who are going to understand certain key things in the story that they'll relate to?

CBD: I think myths are really for a larger audience. Now, when they begin in a social structure, they might be told to a particular people. But when we look at all the people who come across those myths, many of them from different cultures, for various reasons they come across those myths and those old tales. Those tales speak to them, so how can we say that those tales were not meant for them because those tales have power over them; they touch them, and they change them. Just as they in their retelling will change those tales and create we hope new myths for the twenty-first century. And I think, in fact, immigrant life--immigration itself is going to be one of those major myths of twenty-first century because that is a transformation. In my life that has been the most transforming thing that has ever happened to me physically, you know.

MC: and you'll still sort of working all that out.

CBD: Yeah, yeah. And probably will the rest of my life.

MC: Have your books come out in India?

CBD: They have.

MC: And how do you feel like your received say in India compared to in America with your work? What sort of responses do you get from either country?

CBD: I've been getting very good reviews. "Arranged Marriage" and "Mistress of Spices" have come out, and Sister will come out later this year.

MC: Uh-huh.

CBD: So the responses so far have--they have been very good. The reviews have been good, and my family is still talking to me.

MC: That's always a relief I suppose.

(laughter)

CBD: Yes. I think that's the ultimate sign of success.

MC: Uh-huh. And here in America you're on a quite extensive tour now.

CBD: Yeah.

MC: Have you been doing some public readings in various places where--

CBD: --yes, I have--

MC: --people can come and--

CBD: --yes, I have. This is now the third week of my tour, so I've read in cities like Chicago and Washington and very different cities; Ann Arbor and--

MC: And do you--

CBD: --Austin--

MC: --find a sort of wide array of people that are coming to hear you?

CBD: Yeah. Yeah, very much so. People of--and depending on the place it's different, but I would say generally it's about half-and-half. Half south Asians and half people of all different ethnicities, which I think is wonderful. I'm very pleased at that, that mix of people of different cultures.

MC: "Arranged Marriage was a volume--well, is a volume of short stories, and it seems to me almost that "Sister of My Heart" is perhaps, you know, a lengthened out version of one of these stories of--

CBD: --exactly--

MC: --again, of immigration, of a woman finding her identify, sometimes breaking away from, sometimes clinging to the tradition that she's come from. "Mistress of Spices" is something a little different. It's really a mythical, magical tale. Can you tell me something about the writing of that book and why you chose to write it that way?

CBD: Sure. Actually, there's a real story behind "Mistress of Spices" which is that just before I started on it I almost died, and this is when my youngest son was being born. I had a near-death experience in the hospital and had to remain in the hospital for a long time. But during my near-death experience I had a vision where I was floating up above somewhere, and when I was looking--when I looked down, I saw this scene. It was like how you see from an airplane; fields, little squares and rectangles and borders. And as I was looking down, I knew that I was looking at my lives, that I lived many lives, and I was going to live many more, and they were all spread out down there. And it gave me a real sense of the fluidity of life and death and how we do move from one identity to another and from one existence or world to another. And I wanted to write something about that. And since that experience was kind of a mysterious mystical one, I think the book ended up being that and creating that same atmosphere.

So we have what I would like to think of as a mythical story, a mystical story, and also a metaphor for immigration, what you leave behind, what you bring with you, how you negotiate the boundaries between those things.

MC: Uh-huh. Okay.

Where do you go from here? I know you're all caught up. You have a family, and you have these books out, you're on this tour, but somehow I think there must be something else in the pot.

CBD: Oh, in terms of my writing, I'm working on my next project, which is a collection of short stories. It will be about immigrant life, and there will be several themes that I touch on.

But I think--perhaps because I have two little ones now, and I'm thinking very much about bringing them up in America, it's going to be about--many of the stories are going to touch on parents and children.

MC: Uh-huh.

CBD: First the parents that we leave behind when we come from India. I think this is a major issue in the immigrant community, not just the South Asian but many of the immigrant communities where the parents are left behind. Often they follow us here. Naturally, not because they want to live in America, or they like the lifestyle here but because we are here, their flesh and blood is here. And so they become very lonely in America. And, yet, if they don't come, then they're very lonely in India.

MC: So either way it's a difficult situation.

CBD: It's a very difficult situation. The other part of the problem is that we are now trying to bring up children in this country. And many of us as Indian parents have an idea of parenthood that was created in India, but that doesn't necessarily fit the needs of this country and the need of a hybrid generation; Indian as well as American.

MC: Right. And I think something, you know, that I've always looked at and admired is this idea of the extended family, when it comes to raising children in terms of--

CBD: --yes--

MC: --the very practical reality of, you know, when you're at an age when you have a career and perhaps it's the most important years of your career as well. And the idea of parents who are there, who help with the children and that there's something beyond say sending them off to school.

CBD: Right.

MC: In terms of that whole child's background is something which you might cherish the most about your experiences.

CBD: That is so true. That is so true. And as a Mother, now I realize how much--how wonderful that is to have this extended family of aunts and grandmothers and just neighbor women who are your close friends that embrace your child and to whom you can give your child from time to time for safekeeping and for a--

MC: --right--

CBD: --different kind of relationship. I think it's so healthy for children to have good relationships with other adults other than their parents who they love and trust. And without an extended family here, without the extended structure being set up, we--all of us, not just Indian mothers, but all of us I think have to work really hard at trying to fill that gap for our children.

MC: Right.

You're writing very prodigiously, I'm wondering if you've had the temptation or maybe some offers to branch out into some other mediums.

I can see "Sister of My Hearts" so easily as a wonderful feature-length movie, and I wonder if there's been any of that in the wind.

CBD: Well, like they say from your mouth to God's ears.

MC: Oh, okay.

CBD: But, actually, "Mistress of Spices" is being made into a movie.

MC: Uh-huh.

CBD: And the screenplay is already written. I'm not writing it. The director who is a wonderful woman, a director of Indian origin. Her name is Garenda Chedha. She made a movie you might know called "Pogi On The Beach" which won a lot of accords in England and--I think in other places as well. She has a very strong feminist vision and "Pogi On The Beach" is about a group of Indian women in England who have many problems, but one day they decided they're just going to rent a bus and forget all their problems and go to the seashore and have a picnic. And it's about how that trip changes them in important ways.

MC: That sounds like a good story.

CBD: So I think she would do very well with "Mistress of Spices" because she's very in sympathy with the idea of strong-women characters who heal themselves and others around them.

MC: So we can look forward to "Mistress of Spices" one of these days soon I hope. And in the meantime, people should look for your book, "Sister of My Heart."