Suniti Namjoshi’s stories are set in the clearing where many worlds intersect. Animals and humans; earth, sky and water; technology and nature… flow into the realm of the other, creating magical patterns.
“Why are your stories so full of animals?” a young reader enquired of Suniti. She was recently at a bookstore in Bangalore, launching the latest in the series— ‘Aditi and her friends help the Budapest Changeling’ and ‘Aditi and her friends meet Grendel’.
“I like animals. I find them talking in my head all the time,” replied Suniti.
Suniti has published several volumes of poetry, fiction, an interactive novel (in which readers can add the last chapter), a memoir and some criticism. She drew attention to herself as a writer after Feminist Fables was published in 1981. Born in Mumbai, Suniti completed her early education in India. She served in the Indian Civil Service before leaving for further studies in Canada. She now lives and writes in Devon, UK.
How did you adjust when you left India for Canada?
I’m tied to India. You grow up in a place it’s in your blood. The initial year was very bad because you get a terrific culture shock. You think you know the language, you’re very westernised but knowing the language makes it even harder. You actually begin to see what they’re doing and how they’re thinking and it’s not what you're used to. Gradually, you learn a few things.
Do you assimilate or convert to ‘the different ways of thinking’?
Well, one thing that happens is, some of your bad ways of thinking get knocked out of you. In India, you’re protected. You can’t escape who you are. You say your name and all the family and caste connections are established. That’s very helpful. It’s also very restrictive. There, you’re just nobody from nowhere and that’s very frightening. You begin to understand that the advantage you took of privilege is an unfair advantage.
A writer’s consciousness of experience is more heightened. Would you agree?
Not necessarily. It should be but it isn’t. It’s not that writers are more sensitive or are better human beings than others. I used to like to think that perhaps they’re better. I’m beginning to think now, that all that a good writer is, is just that— a good writer.
What was the spur for your writing career?
I think I just like writing. When I started, I used to put in twenty minutes a day. When I saw that it is a serious job, I started putting in four hours a day. I was doing my PhD on Ezra Pound. It was very hard. I thought— if it’s so hard to write about a good poet, how much harder to be one. I’ve got to start working.
So you took the disciplinary approach to writing rather than the inspirational approach…
I don’t have any use for inspiration. You can’t depend on it. It’s like luck. 1% inspiration. You put in 99% perspiration and then, if you’re lucky, something might happen. For anything to turn out well, you have to work hard. You could be making shoes. You have to work at it.
How do you slay that monster— the blank page?
Different people have different things for that. I just say, four hours a day, even if it’s a blank page, even if it’s rubbish and then I throw it into the waste paper basket. I’ve done my duty. If I’ve produced nothing but rubbish, it’s not my fault. I’ve sat there for four hours. Now, it’s become two hours…
Has that reduction got to do with being a successful, published writer..?
No, it’s just age. I’m getting tired. I don’t have the same energy that I had before.
What about the other distractions… the relationships, the vacuuming, the dishes?
Well, you and finish with them, first thing in the morning. You put a ring around them. If necessary, get up very early. And you have to be a bit fierce about fencing them in. You have to be willing to work hard and do without other things like foreign holidays…
What did Aditi look like when she emerged in your mind?
I didn’t know how to write for children, so I put my own childhood into Aditi. She was wearing a poker-phulka (a small dress), just as I was when I was little. I wrote ‘Aditi and the one-eyed Monkey’ for my niece, Aditi, because I thought she needed books that were Indian, not just English.
You’ve put up tips for writers and started interactive web workshops for writers. Why? Do you feel the web has changed things for writers?
Oh, I put those up many years ago for fun. I’m glad you enjoyed reading them. Now, I haven’t really kept track of what’s on the web... I believe there’s more junk than help to be had from there…
Have you examined your motives for writing?
No. People ask. But I think the basic thing is I like it. I enjoy it.
Whom do you write for?
When it’s the adult books, I write for a specific type of reader. Say my friend Hillary, who has a certain kind of mind and who will understand certain things and then I hope everyone else will. When I write for children, I write for a certain kind of child who is interested in asking questions and thinking. For these children that I meet and who talk to me and send me emails or who come to a reading and become friends… I have some notion of what will make sense to them and what will amuse them. I try to balance that with what I find amusing and want to communicate.
