Exploring narratives of relatable characters

Simran Dhir’s debut novel Best Intentions—it is published by HarperCollins India—is a confluence of politics, familial truths, and ambition.

Simran Dhir’s debut novel Best Intentions—it is published by HarperCollins India—is a confluence of politics, familial truths, and ambition. The engrossing 360-page novel delves into the underlying politics of our routine surroundings.

Through the lens of the protagonist Gayatri Mehra, a 32-year-old lawyer who works for a scholastic history journal, we step into a world where every character seems familiar. In this interview, Dhir—she is a lawyer-turned-author from Delhi—sheds light on the process of bringing this book to life and the research that went into the same. Excerpts…

Where did the idea for this book originate?
I have been an avid reader since childhood. There was a time around 2014, when I had taken a few months off work and I started visiting a library near my house. I used to read a lot. It was a history-focused library. I started thinking about all these ideas of history, who writes history, and who shapes these narratives. Gayatri’s character developed then, a lawyer interested in history.

Can you delve into the process of building these characters and bringing them to life through the book?
When I started imagining these characters, for me it was like imagining people at various places in Delhi. I had started writing the book when I was in Delhi and that’s also how the story starts. I did not plot the book in a lot of detail. I just plunged into the writing process. I was always very clear about the places in the book, what road I was thinking about, what house it was, the cafe they were sitting in, and so on.

Did you seek inspiration for the characters in the book from people you know?
To some extent, but not directly. For instance, I see Gayatri coming from a family like mine. While it is not exactly the same, it is a mixture of the people around me. It is difficult to separate stuff you take from your own life and your imagination.

Would you say Delhi is an important character in Best Intentions? Do you think one can contextualise the story to any other city?
I think Delhi is central to the story because of the mix of people and the concerns the story represents—the mix of politics, history writing, the idea of climbing up social ladders, the way the book has been structured as per seasons. For me, I can’t imagine this story in any other city.

A number of characters in this book are lawyers. Did your professional experience help you here?
I am not a litigating lawyer but a competition lawyer. We get glimpses of the courtroom in the book... that is not my work but I’ve, seen that happen. I am familiar with it but I don’t think I have used anything that I have worked on in the book.

The political and historical references in the story and its similarities with contemporary times cannot be ignored. What was the research that went into adding this layer?
I researched the history writing part of the story quite a lot. I read many primary sources at the library I used to go to, just for pleasure, but I was reading a lot… different versions of the same event and the dissent against what is called the ‘left wing/communist version’ of history. I was reading for interest really, but I ended up doing quite a lot of research and background reading on the writing of history. I spent a lot of time understanding what the issue at stake is and whether there are more layers that one just ignores when you overlay history with politics.

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The New Indian Express
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