Lakshmi M Puri speaks to Trisha Mukherjee about writing her debut novel 'Swallowing the Sun' in her 70s, and looking at the freedom struggle with a fresh lens.
How did you approach the setting of the freedom struggle with a new lens?
The freedom struggle is a live character in my novel and not just a backdrop. It begins as an era of darkness but soon is illuminated by the flares of a cultural renaissance in Maharashtra, a civilisational reawakening among the Western-educated youth and their embrace of social reform. My protagonists are driven by their revulsion at the coloniser’s double standards in teaching them liberal values but practising oppression.
Why did you name the protagonist after your mother?
Malati is modeled on my mother—in spirit, character, and partially in the trajectory of her life. She was a self-realised woman, one who taught us that girls were equally essential as boys. Malati embodies that belief and is taken by me through divergent paths that my mother aspired to but could not traverse.
Patriarchy is as much a problem today as it was in Malati’s time. Was it difficult to relate to a 20th-century woman?
When I was scripting the patriarchy breaking, I relied on my parents’ journey, and felt as if I had lived in that era. Many readers have told me that Malati and Guru were progressive not only for their time, but also for today and tomorrow; in how they dismantle patriarchy that persists despite the advances we made in the 21st century.
What kind of research went into recreating that period?
I had to rely on my memories of what I had heard from my parents, and draw on the 148 letters written, mostly by my father to my mother, between 1929 and 1932, besides rereading Marathi literature from that era.
I also researched historical events and figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Jinnah, Annie Besant, Jahangir Petit and Bal Gandharva among others, who I get my characters to interact with.
What made you turn to fiction writing after a successful career as a diplomat?
I wrote 100 pages in Hungary when I was the Ambassador there. But I got daunted by the sheer ambition of it. When I returned to India and Covid struck, I knew it was now or never. I think for every stage of life you need a noble purpose to thrill your being. So, Swallowing the Sun came to me just at the right time.