Chetna Keer is a novelist, satirist, "Hindustan Times" columnist, TED Circles 2020 panelist & Whitmarsh 'Climate Change' Memorial Lecture speaker. Chandigarh-born Chetna is a former senior journalist and guest faculty at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. You can read more about her here.
Readomania caught up with her to know more about her latest book, Garnets Under My Gulmohar
Readomania: Tell us, how did you conceive your protagonist Lollita? She is a saree aficionado just like you. Is that where the similarity ends or are there more?
Chetna: Lollita is a classic case of ‘Art imitates life’. Lollita is you, me, she…any forty-plus creative or working woman professional who wears her age and attire with swag ‘n’ style. Yes, her saree-a-holicism resonates my own saree love as it also mirrors my personal philosophy of #SupportSwadeshi and #SupportWeavers, woven into the warp ‘n’ weft of Lollita’s characterisation. Her travails as a Book Blogger are borrowed unabashedly from misadventures some of my fellow authors or I encountered in this whole new reality and realm teeming with Influencers to Lit Agents. That said, Lollita is much more than a sum of many parts. For instance, she evolves into a sleuth of sorts in Garnets Under My Gulmohar (GUMG), which I am not!
Readomania: GUMG is a very well-crafted destination thriller. What went on in your mind before penning this story? How did you choose the locations?
Chetna: Rather than me choosing the locations, the locations chose us. If I may put it so. The Himalayas, in particular the quaint colonial hill town of Kasauli, which has been like a second holiday home since childhood and is like some past karmic karmabhoomi, serenaded and seduced me like a sassy Senorita to pen the book there. The hillside folk wisdoms mirrored through the quintessential khadu Bhopa Singh, the sights, sounds and smells were so in sync with my storyline, that they tiptoed into the narratives as the unspoken, unobtrusive yet omnipresent backdrop curtain of a theatrical studio.
Readomania: You have a penchant for satire and it is always done so humorously and skillfully. Does that come from your journalistic background?
Chetna: Credit bit of the wit on my DNA. It was my late Dad who schooled us in seeing life funny side up. It was he who fed us on a robust diet of Russian literature and readings of other classics.
So, the satirist in me has been hugely shaped by the Masters, from Nikolai Gogol to Alexander Pushkin to Oscar Wilde.
The stint in journalism, too, has played its part as it honed the humourista in me through "middle" writing and early columns like ‘Haywire' and ‘Tweak Speak’ to the current column for Hindustan Times ‘WITerati’, the latter being a satirical critiquing of social media trends.
A food analogy best conveys the essence of my journey from satire (Giddha On My Gulmohar) to suspense (Garnets Under My Gulmohar). Satire is like a chef doing an egg sunny side up. As a satirist, I was tossing up Life funny side up. Shifting to suspense has been like a chef learning to do the layers of the Lasagna. It’s about getting the layers upon layers of suspense perfectly right. GUMG is thus my ‘Literary Lasagna’!
Readomania: Your metaphors are to die for. Your prose is almost like poetry and you have a very distinct style of writing. Has it always been so or have you cultivated it?
Chetna: Credit the poetry in my prose on my late mother. As I have said in my Acknowledgements of the first ‘Gulmohar’ saga, Giddha On My Gulmohar: “Maa, you are the pearls of poetry in my prose ..."
The Pandemic played a huge part in unlocking the poet in me, as it did catapult us into a nation of bards. By making one travel inwards when we couldn't travel outwards. So yes, the poetry in my prose has been chiselled by the choppy timelines we have recently navigated.
And how can I not thank you, my expert Editor ‘sahiba’, for your discerning eye to appreciate the metaphors and symbolisms, for polishing the narrative, and for the creative liberty to let my poetic prose flow freely!
Readomania: You have touched upon so many relevant socio-political issues in your book. The TV news circus, the aftermath of Covid, global warming and the need for recycling, social media wars and the feverish competition among ‘influencers’, to name a few. Was that intended?
Chetna: As a chronicler of contemporary contexts, yes, the socio-political milieu is the lens through which I have filtered the storylines. The characters are creatures of the current cataclysmic or comic contexts, where the landscape of influencer wars to TV channel wars are the backdrops and props propelling the narratives.
#ClimateChange is a compelling subtext, like a haunting score softly humming in the backdrop. The lockdown-shadowed lives of weavers and artisans limping into the post-Pandemic’s rebooting reality are another backdrop tell-tale template filtering the #SupportWeavers and #SupportSwadeshi subtexts.
Readomania: The character of Bade Beeji is so much ahead of her time, isn’t it? She come across as a woman with a mind of her own. Your women characters are indeed very strong.
Chetna: GUMG is indeed a very woman-centric suspense saga. Bade Beeji and Lollita embody the two generations of strong women through which the parallel narratives are plotted. The post-Partition generation versus the post- Pandemic one.
Bade Beeji is a brand ambassador indeed for the progressive post-Partition generation of women who were spunky and spirited without flaunting labels like feminism, who were fashioned by a vocabulary of values they lived inside out, like wearing Swadeshi on their sleeve, literally and figuratively.
Readomania: I don’t think anyone can describe a piece of art or couture or jewellery like you do. Are you a connoisseur of the finer things yourself?
Chetna: Thank you! Yes indeed, I treat my books not only as a labour of love but also as a work of art.
A keen eye for aesthetics, a taste for the finer things of life resonates in my imagery, in the metaphors. Being steeped in arts and crafts, each prop propelling a scene is etched out in a way a sculptor would sculpt an objet d' art. From Bade Beeji 's telescopic table to the relics of the Raj to the craftsmanship defining the Seventh Bibliophile’s ‘sole’ affairs, each prop is perceived and portrayed as a pièce de résistance.
Readomania: Food plays a big part in GUMG. You have described the local culinary delights of the various places in such a mouth-watering way, it makes the readers salivate! Was there a motive behind that?
Chetna: We Indians are big-time foodies. Since this is a destination drama, hence food has been employed as an evocative lens for not only showcasing myriad cultures and cuisines, but it also mirrors the moods of the twists and turns defining the destination saga.
From the baklava to bread pudding, the mezze platters to mirchi vadas, each culinary prop mirrors the moods of the mystery.
Readomania: Tell us a little about the cover of GUMG.
Chetna: The cover embodies in all its magnificence the metaphor that is the Gulmohar. The leitmotif of the looming climate crisis is elegantly evoked in the rich and resplendent imagery of the cover. Kudos to Sourish and Dipankar for so creatively curating the Cover.
Judge the book by its cover, I say.
Readomania: Do we expect to see Lollita going on yet another adventure soon?
Chetna: Lollita looks to be unstoppable. The love being lavished on Lollita by booklovers shall, I hope, pave the way for more gripping 'Gulmohar' sagas.
Hopefully, the Gulmohar shall bloom for another season, for another reason.
Readomania: Thank you Chetna, for this wonderful conversation.
Her latest book, Garnets Under My Gulmohar is available on Amazon and Readomania
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