CHENNAI: In the realm of literature, where words are beats and sentences are compositions, Anita Nair stands tall as a master storyteller, weaving her magical notes across the minds and hearts of her readers. Known for works spanning from literary fiction, crime fiction, children’s fiction, poetry, and essays to travelogues, screenplays, translations, and many more, she has carved a name for herself in a sea of authors.
“I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and that was the one thing in my life about which I felt convinced. But when I was younger, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about; as I got older, this progressively became clearer. By that point, I had decided that I wanted to write fiction, and this paved the way for me to step into the shoes of a storyteller,” she says in a chat with CE.
Her recent children’s book Bipathu and A Very Big Dream takes the readers down a memory lane, where nostalgia peeks at the set of emotions being felt. A story about children from village areas, specially curated for them to read, this book published by Penguin Random House is a treat to the yearnings of one’s dreams and wishes.
Excerpts:
How was the story of Bipathu and A Very Big Dream born?
We never set out to write a children’s book, and in this case as well, it was pretty unexpected. So while I was back in my ancestral village in Kerala, a team from Maharashtra that runs a magazine for encouraging rural children to read, reached out to me to write a little story for them. It was then that the images of children I met there drew up on me, which led to the birth of Bipathu’s character. The story just bloomed around my experiences with characters from that village, and Kaikkurissi being a familiar space just made it easier. Later on, when I was rummaging through something, I stumbled upon this Bipathu chapter that I had written and decided to do a full-fledged book on her.
Kaikkurissi, the place that is predominant in a few of your works, makes a re-entry in this book. Was it planned?
When I was working on my audio story called The Little Duck Girl, I was wondering where to locate the story. But since I had worked on Bipathu’s character earlier, I thought of revisiting Kaikkurissi, as this place always gives me space when I am short on exploring my imagination and time. It is my go-to place, especially when my deadlines are near. Moreover, Kaikkurissi and the story seemed to come together, and that was how it made a reentry into Bipathu and a Very Big Dream.
I heard that the characters Saad and Duggu in this book have a personal encounter tagged to it...
A friend of mine has a son who has cerebral palsy, I met this child once and got to spend some time with him. He has a little brother, and we ended up going to my library and playing on my computer all while trying to make a conversation. So this encounter always stayed fresh in my mind, and while I was working on Bipathu, everything just fell into place. The fact that I thought about how courageous and valiant this child was made me want to draw him as a character in my book. Also, the fact that there are only a handful of books that talk about neurodiversity in children just gave me one more reason to write about Saad. And Duggu is a mountain dog that I made friends with during one of my trips. The way it cared for me just made me realise how much these animals love us.
What inspired you to introduce the blind character of Madama into the story?
I have a little cottage in my village, and next to it is a little road that leads to a Madrasa. So I started getting interested in the children who passed by me every day, and they too were equally interested in me, as I was not the kind of person whom they generally saw around that place. Randomly one day, a little boy started calling me ‘madama’, meaning a foreigner, and following this, that term was taken up by others. And about her going blind, I can say that a little bit of personal touch has been added to it. I have a very serious vision issue, and when I wrote this book, the condition was really bad. I had just gone in for my eye surgery then. The uncertainty of how things would go just made me locate myself there and talk about blindness, especially since I still deal with the fact that I am partially sighted.
You often explore themes like identity, feminism, and societal norms. Have these themes been embedded into this book as well?
In a way, yes. For example, in this novel, I have introduced football as a game that Bipathu enjoys playing a lot. So looking back at the village, this characteristic of Bipathu shatters the societal norm of girls just sticking to their indoor activities. And also, back in my village, I could see two economic extremes within the Muslim community, and that is what made me introduce characters belonging to both of these strata into the story. So, this book was a revisit to my childhood, or to my days as a child, and the stories and experiences I had growing up.
What differentiates writing for children from crafting adult fiction?
Firstly, no matter whom I write for, I always ensure that I don’t talk down to my readers or patronise them or so. While writing for children, there would be a complete switch of personalities, as it requires me to step down to being a child and recall my likes and dislikes at that age. I often end up writing from the mind of a child and become very personal in that sense, whereas while writing for adults, my characters are often created from imagination just like other writers, even though I tend to pool in personal experiences for those characters.
Are you currently working on any new stories?
Yes, I have a novel, a part of the Gowda series, that will be coming out in December. I am now putting the book to bed, as they say, which is basically the hygiene check, editing, and all of that.