“Buddhua shoved a basket load of frayed and faded Gulmohar blooms into the furrow. The furrows on the forehead of the gangly Gulmohar deepened from the piling danger. Was Winter the new Summer of global warming?”
-Pg. 113, Geisha in the Gota Patti
One might begin to think that this question has been posed by a writer who has her fingers dug deeply into the earth about climate change. And that who we are meeting in this interview has her head and her new book wrapped around world issues.
But if you read the quote closely, you will begin to unwrap layers of meaning that will make you sit up and appreciate the brevity of the writer’s skill at bringing together several aspects of life in three succinct sentences, that end in a question laden with gravity.
Step into the world of Chetna Keer’s writing, reflections, and her quest for a dialogue that rises over the mundane while being firmly etched in it. Geisha in The Gota Patti, her third book in a trilogy is an astounding amalgamation of cultures and issues, all woven into a fictional plot, with multiple characters and an atmosphere that speaks for itself.
Going back down the memory lane, watch the unveiling of Geisha in the Gota Patti on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBsp5MZgWzH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Readomania: What is your fifth book, Geisha in the Gota Patti, about?
Chetna: This third book of my Gulmohar Trilogy (fifth book, otherwise) is a multi-layered narrative threaded with heart-tugging leitmotifs of hope and healing. At one level, it is a suspense saga pegged around former diplomats who meet at a reunion and how secrets start tumbling out, much like the plaster peeling off the ancestral Purani Dilli kothi.
At a deeper level, the saga spells out subtle subtexts of peace and wars, their shadows and scars.
Readomania:Tea plays a very central role in the story. Tell us about that.
Chetna: Yes, this book is a pulsating portrait of the power of Tea. Tea-sets and teapots are almost like a parade of characters. Tea myths and tea traditions are the tapestry threading the tale. Geisha in the Gota Patti toasts Tea as a healer in today's time of world strife and wars. It is an ode to the charm of chai, as is aesthetically evoked in the cover.
Readomania: Your Gulmohar Trilogy boasts strong women protagonists. Are they drawn from real life? Tell us about the characterisations.
Chetna: Yes, the Gulmohar Trilogy is women-centric with powerful protagonists ---- Lollita to Bade Beeji. They mirror strong women around us. Lollita, as a sareeholic book blogger, climate warrior and much more, has shades of so many of us forty-plus women and that's what makes her so relatable. Bade Beeji's character, inspired from my own Grande Matriarchs, is also so universal in appeal and reminds readers of their own matriarchs by any name, be it Beeji, Ammi jii or whatever.
Watch Chetna sharing a step with other women in a light-hearted moment:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEfK-2oyKsQ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Readomania: Tell us about your journey from being a satirist to suspense writer.
Chetna: My evolution from satirist to suspense writer is mapped by the journey of the Gulmohar Trilogy itself. The first book of the trilogy --- Giddha On My Gulmohar --- is more of satire. The other two --- Garnets Under My Gulmohar and the latest Geisha In The Gota Patti --- herald the switch to suspense.
My writerly journey is best described by a food analogy. Being a satirist is like a chef doing egg sunny side up. Transitioning to suspense was like a chef learning to do a lasagna, learning to do the layers (of twists and turns) perfectly.
Watch a glimpse of Chetna’s journey as author of Geisha in the Gota Patti:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIriW6YhGan/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Readomania: Did the book entail a lot of research? Can you share some of your research methods and techniques with us?
Chetna: There was indeed the madness of wading through maze upon maze of material. Ah, but there is method in the madness.
Reams and reams of research went into this saga, be it diplomatic episodes or tea folklore.
Most diplomatic anecdotes and tea traditions are rooted in reality.
Sifting the tons and tons of research was the challenge. How much to weave, how much to leave.
Since Geisha In The Gota Patti is a tale pegged on diplomats, my research broadly worked at two levels. Personal and virtual.
Many of the diplomatic anecdotes were culled from friends with diplomatic connects or backgrounds. Some diplomat characters are very much inspired from real life.
An enormous part of the research also rolled off online archives, be it insights into diplomat traditions, rules or history.
Like I said, there was thus much method in the madness.
Readomania: You have a distinctive writing style evident throughout your Gulmohar series. You blend in vernacular words with English and often coin new terms. Also, the metaphors that you use are superlative. Tell us, how did you devise this style?
Chetna: The Gulmohar as a metaphor in my trilogy has its birth in the Pandemic. The Gulmohar outside my Lockdown window, sandwiched between the greyness of two high-rises, bursting into bloom thus became a metaphor for red hot Hope on the black canvas that was the Pandemic.
Metaphors are intrinsic to my craft as the tales are threaded with a lot of visual vocabulary. The metaphors signify the subtexts, the gravitas embedded in my Gulmohar sagas. The metaphors stem from seeing things through a layered lens, from discerning deeper connections.
The wordplay, witticisms and coining of expressions are an extension of my writing style as a satirist. A style evolved over three decades through my columns that I have been penning, for the Hindustan Times and other publications. It is this vocabulary of a satirist that also seeps into my writings as a novelist.
Readomania: Please tell us about the influence of Lin Yutang on your book.
Chetna: In our charmed childhood, my father fed us more on a diet of Oriental and Russian literature than western books. Lin Yutang's masterpiece was one such hardbound classic he gifted me. Therein were sown the seeds of my fascination for the tea treatises and other philosophies it contained.
The making of Geisha In The Gota Patti was thus like a revisiting to not only Yutang's Oriental philosophies but also a revisiting to my golden girlhood.
Readomania: Geisha in the Gotta Patti stands as a testament to the possibility of the book’s environment being carved into characters itself, whether it be the kothi or the trees or the roshandaan, or even some of the furniture in the house. When can the book’s environment be characterised, according to you?
Chetna: The personification of particular pieces and props from the story's backdrops is intrinsic and unique to my Gulmohar trilogy. The props are personified because they propel the plot. Not for the mere heck of it.
The gargantuan Gulmohar, the relic roshandaan, the carved chest, they all are the eyes and ears mapping the twists 'n' turns of my thriller.
Here’s a little extract from the book:
Readomania: The book narrates some of the lesser known yet intriguing folk lores around tea. How did you get hold of those?
Chetna: Naanis and daadis have been walking talking encyclopaedias on tea tales and traditions. Much of the tea tales in the book thus came from my family matriarchs. Some tea tales I owe to friends in the Forces, who would narrate these enchanting tales of tea traditions in foreign countries.
The tea lore rooted in the hills was culled from my earlier trips to the tea terrains of Himachal.
“Lollita was suffused with a sense that what sprawled before her was a survivor landscape. a tea terrain where upon the tombs of Time were etched wisdoms that come only from ruins and rubble.”
-Pg. 115
Loads and loads of labour thus went into distilling and brewing this enchanting suspense saga that is Geisha In The Gota Patti.
Summing up, Geisha In The Gota Patti is like a charmed cup of chai, its exotic aromas of mystique and mystery to be savoured sip by sip.
Get your favourite brew and read away! Thank you Chetna, here’s wishing you many more flavours and books.
Click here to get a copy of your book.
Chetna Keer is a novelist, HT columnist, satirist, TED Circles panelist, poet & Creative Writing Mentor.
She's a former Lifestyle Editor and senior journalist, having clocked over 25 years in the print media. Her writings have been published in leading publications --- Deccan Herald, Hindu and The Week to The Tribune, India Today and Femina.
Later, she was guest faculty at New Delhi's Indian Institute of Mass Communication, and Creative Writing Mentor for Deepalaya's media program, in collaboration with McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute, New York, USA.
Currently, she pens popular Hindustan Times column “WITerati”, critiquing the social media.
Troll-itically Incorrect (2018) and Veggies Go On A Beauty Parade (2005) are her earlier books.
She was invited to be a Speaker at Whitmarsh Knight Memorial Lecture on Climate Crisis, 2019, Bishop Cotton School, Shimla. She has been invited to leading litfests, from the Pune International Litfest to Khushwant Singh Litfest and the Sanawar Litfest at Kasauli to Chandigarh Litfest 'Literati'.
Her 'Gulmohar Trilogy' mirrors contemporary ecological concerns and social issues.
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