Richa Gupta’s stories in Slices of Life intend to offer a glimpse into the experiences of women who find themselves in a variety of situations. The author talks to The Daily Guardian about her new book. Excerpts:
Q. Slices of Life is about women from various walks of life, much like your previous work, Skeins. Tell us what draws you to write narratives about women and their lives.
A. My narratives explore the lives of women and their personalities and related themes since women are multifaceted, deeply invested in living and have a high intellectual and emotional quotient. Also, they face a slew of challenges since male chauvinism is so deeply entrenched in our society that it is second nature for even well-educated and so-called progressive families to consider males a worthy heir and a female child a financial burden.
Q. The book not only has a multiplicity of voices, but also literary styles and themes. How did you juggle with writing in such different genres?
A. I like to vary the narrative style, which is why Slices of Life includes stories narrated by an omniscient third-person narrator and a first-person narrative in “Knots”. Given my fertile imagination, any of several themes around me can spark off a tale: An urban housewife looking for a suitable cook, a thieving maid, a bride-to-be planning her marriage, an adulterous husband, a young girl awaiting love, a professional with a flaw, a woman whose talent has been buried and a marginalised family affected by the lockdown.
As an avid reader and a student of English Literature, I have read a variety of genres and traced their historical development from Chaucer to currentday voices in Indian fiction like Amitav Ghosh. I want to experiment with various genres like social satire, whodunits, multi-generational sagas, comedy, biography and even science-fiction. However, though inspired by illustrious works in various genres, I try to find my individual voice while writing. To best portray the plurality of life, I feel a writer should transit between genres like a chameleon and use the genre best suited to the theme. I don’t feel the need to confine myself to a single genre.
Q. Your previous books have been in the form of a novel. What differences, if any, did you experience in your creative process while writing short stories for Slices of Life?
A. It is interesting why I changed the format of my creative writing. After publishing my novel Skeins in September, 2018, I started writing “Knots”, a thriller that was originally intended to be a novel. But I got busy with family matters and gave “Knots” an early conclusion and changed it from a novel into a short story. I discovered it was easier to write short stories as I could start afresh after each story and did not need to ensure continuity across chapters.
Writing a short story is a totally different creative process from writing a novel. The focus has to be on one theme, and the plot and character development have to be swift. However, it is easier to draw in readers into the story, hold their interest and build it up to the climax or anti-climax. I grew to love this medium of creative writing since I could write ‘on the go’ in the gaps between my other activities. Also, it gave me a chance to explore different themes and genres. So, I wrote several more stories, the last one “Dusk” being written in April 2020 during the lockdown.
Q. The story “Dusk” is set against the recent migrant labour crisis and touches upon the intersection of class and gender. What moved you to draw a character like Bhanu? Is there a sort of social responsibility you feel as a writer of fiction?
A. I was affected greatly by the recent migrant crisis. Suddenly, this unseen section of our society that serviced our homes, built the city infrastructure, enabled factory production and asked for alms at traffic intersections came into focus as they voiced to television crews their hardships and longing to return to their home states. I developed the character of Bhanu based on the visual of a migrant woman I saw on television and by imagining her plight based on newspaper reports.
I depicted her plight, because as a writer I do feel a sense of social responsibility, as you say, and also because I want to portray women characters across all sections of society. For writers to be relevant, they have to portray the effect of important events on the lives of common people.
Q. The dynamics between women in the book shift from one story to the other, with “Bridal Wear” presenting a case of petty rivalry and the next one, “Watershed”, depicting strong empowering friendships. What made you decide to portray such varying relationships between women in the book?
A. That is true in life as well: While there are petty rivalries between women, there are also empowering friendships between them. Not all women empower other women; some do compete with and undermine other women in order to show themselves in a better light. While most women are loving and supportive, a few are selfish and manipulative. Just because I talk about a gender bias doesn’t mean that I cannot see their negative traits or their plurality of character.
The book ‘Slices of Life’, written by Richa Gupta, is published by Hesten, an imprint of Blue Rose Publishers.
