CHENNAI: A uthor and poet Sharanya Manivannan’s book The High Priestess Never Marries recently won the South Asia Laadli Media and Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity, another feather in her cap for her powerful prose and engaging poetry. Recently at the Wandering Artist, she engaged in a wide-ranging conversation with writer Nandini Krishnan at The Write Choice, a new author-based series at the cultural hub. Excerpts from the conversation follow….
Writing as a choice
I’m not sure I had a choice to become a writer; it was the product of circumstances. But I have always loved books from the time I was a child. Even before I could read, I loved books as physical objects. And school was a magical time when I learnt to read and make sense of these things that I loved so much. There was no big epiphany about when to become a writer — I am just following a purpose. However, it is one of those things that need to be constantly remembered
and reaffirmed.
The Laadli Award
It’s not a literary award — it’s a feminist award. It’s a book about love, loneliness, choices, challenging hetero-normative paradigms and the meaning of solitude. I wrote a book that would fail the Bechdel test on every page, and for it to be understood and received for feminist sentiments makes me really happy.
On the forthcoming collection of poems influenced by the myth of Sita from the
Ramayana
I was exposed to the character since childhood, but it really formed an impression when I met Veenapani Chawla, founder of Adishakti Theatre in Puducherry. She had begun working on her own interpretation of the Ramayana. Through my friendship with her and Adishakti’s performers, I was exposed to archival material and different narratives, all of which challenged, subverted and reinvented the epic. My interest in Sita was primarily as a figure in exile – in solitude; not as a mother, daughter or wife.
Glorification of abusive relationships in
cinema and the novel...
I think it’s important to have different points of view because this trope has been repeated right from the time of the epics. We need more narratives of healthy relationships, or about the looking and seeking for a healthy relationship, even if it entails rejecting an abusive partnership.
Infidelity and open relationships
I think infidelity is in the eye of the beholder. Honesty between partners is the most important thing and whatever kind of arrangement you agree on is really between the both of you, or the three of you — or how many ever of you. It’s highly subjective.