An Interview with Anita Nair

The recurring question is what makes Nair’s writing different from other Indian women writers writing in English. What sets her apart in a class by herself is her humanistic vision, social reality and social consciousness, which make her empathize with man, woman, child or creature when they are in a sticky situation. Nair doesn’t call herself a feminist even when she takes up women’s causes. She states, “I am not exactly a gender-correct person.” (Nair, 2008). To make a point, when Anita Nair walked into the small advertising agency she was working with, a dancer in full regalia who had been sent by a publication as a rate card performed various mudras to demonstrate the rates. This set her off on a research into writing the book Mistress to bring out the grey area in the life of art. Anita Nair is very conscious of her part in tweaking the conscience of the individuals in the society. She asks a lot of questions. In an interview to The Hindu Anita Nair shares, “Creative writing is dancing with Gods,” and calls it “a divine celebration.” (Hindu, 2006). She was happy for her career as an advertising writer to take a back seat as she had decided that her aim was to become a writer. She finds the writings of Kamala Das, Jeet Thayil and Vijay Nambisan very interesting. In May 2012 Anita Nair was honoured by the Kerala Sahitya Akademi for her contribution to Literature and Culture. She was recently awarded the FLO FICCI Women Achievers Awards 2008 for Literature. Her novel Mistress was on the long list for the Orange Broadband prize for fiction for 2008. It was also a finalist for the LiBeraturpreis 2007 in Germany and for the PEN/Beyond Margins 2007 Award in the U.S.A.  Her novel Lessons in Forgetting is made into a movie. It has been selected in the Feature films section of Indian Panorama, 2012 in the 43^rd International Film Festival of India being held in Goa from 20th -30th November, 2012. For her, writing is an attempt to understand life, society and human beings. Her books are set in the everyday world of India. She chooses settings that are familiar and creates them with this “sense of belongingness.” Anitha has one child, and lives with her husband in Bengaluru. 

The interview:

1. Do you believe that education and economic independence for women would make them self-reliant sooner or later?

It isn’t easy to be a contemporary Indian woman. This is a woman more aware of what is 

right and wrong and who knows there is an option to choose how she wants to live her life. But 

something holds her back. The 2000 year old Indian culture expects her to be the custodian of 

the traditional culture and hence she puts her desires on a back burner. Men tend to move on with giant strides while policing women’s progress and curbing it. I think women in India dream of the same things that women all over the world do. Freedom. Security. Dignity. Love. Laughter. Sex. Happiness. Nice clothes. Good Food. Jewelry. Vacations. Miracle cures for grey hair and cellulite. Muscle tone and unwrinkled skin…I’m not being facetious but in my travels I talk to people all the time. Strangers and people I am introduced to and I discover that beneath our skins all of us dream about (of) the same things. It’s perhaps the priority that’s different. It’s only fair that women in India be allowed to move on and move up as much as the men are doing…Education, financial freedom, career prospects etc have improved the lot of the Indian woman. Sadly the village women are still untouched by these factors that have in many ways liberated the urban woman from the tyranny of the traditional culture. And it is the traditional norms that keep woman tied down and the fear that if she were to swerve from the accepted path, she will be ostracized. The fear of society is a great impediment to personal freedom whether it is for a man or a woman and in a country that has always considered women to be inferior beings, women are that much more hesitant to assert themselves or merely claim their rights. And this makes me eager to present Indian woman as she is rather than the doormat kind of person she is often projected to be as… The way I see it, an Indian woman is someone who has a core of steel despite being wrapped in many layers of tradition.The difference between India and the west are we shy away from breaking ties with our family.  In fact, such severance happens only in extreme instances. Lot of women put up with abuse etc because it still isn’t easy to be a single woman in India. There is social ostracization and financial insecurity and the feeling that she was at fault somehow. I think young women these days should aspire to mesh traditions and a liberal outlook. And priority should be education and economic independence. The rest will follow naturally!

2. Radha or Akhila are two spectrums of opposition, one educated, non-working and married and the other educated, working and unmarried. Both opt out of marriage. What message do you like to send?

That marriage has to be an equal terms and not where she’s subservient to her partner.  Naturally a woman is that much more hesitant to assert herself or even claim her right. In fact, you will see a bit of Radha and Akhila in most contemporary women in India.

 3.  Elaine Showalter envisaged a muted female literary tradition left out of the dominant male tradition. Do you agree with this?

Yes.

4.  You reflect both male and female sensibilities with ease in your novels. How has this been possible for you?

I think that this will always be a hallmark of my writing, in the sense that it will always address aspects of human behaviour.

My first novel The Better Man was about men and was dominated by a male theme. So I don’t think that my writing is restricted to exploring facets of female life. I think what concerns me most is the human condition. It just so happens that the theme of a particular novel had a natural slant towards women. In Mistress, the focus was artistic integrity and there gender doesn’t matter.

5.  When you refer to men as feminists, what quality do you seek in them?

A sensitivity to get under the skin of a woman and see what shakes her world, her thoughts.

6.  How has your experience as a woman shaped you as a writer?

Only to a certain extent. I rely greatly on observation. I don’t allow myself to intrude into my writing. But my writing has been fashioned out of certain events in my life.

7.  How much do you subscribe to feminist thought?

Feminism as I understand it demands women is treated as equal to men.
I prefer to take a stance where I believe "about the right women have to be women without having to be inferior beings". And it was this I wanted to explore with Ladies Coupe. And also depict that it isn't easy to be a contemporary Indian woman. Even since Ladies Coupe, I have been referred to as a feminist writer and I have vehemently opposed this for these reasons. One, I do not set out to write what I write with the notion of ushering in change. The creative process begins for me when certain aspects of life trouble me. I then try and explore why it is the way it is. But in doing so I merely hold up a mirror to the society we live in. At no point do I delude myself that by doing so I will help start a social revolution. It isn’t my intention in the first place.
Secondly, while several women’s issues are close to my heart, I find I am unable to agree with everything that feminist theories propound. And hence to identify myself with something that I do not completely endorse would be wrong and unethical.
And finally as a writer what may interest me with one book may not matter to me when I am working on another book. Hence to bind myself to a particular ideology or writing would mean gagging my thoughts and limiting my boundaries. While I may return to female centric storylines, I am not sure that this is all I would ever write. Perhaps by my failing to identify myself as a feminist, I am playing safe. But I believe that I owe it to the writer in me to be unfettered.

8.  Do you believe that the oppression of woman originates solely from patriarchal setup? Is she also to be blamed for her condition?

I don’t believe that oppression of women originate solely from the patriarchal setup. Women do not stand up for themselves and tend to take easy way out of silence. Moreover her well being is still so hinged on approval that she’s willing to compromise again and again.

9.  Do you have a special liking towards any of the characters you have created in your novels? What made you create such a character?

No

10. Your male protagonists Mukundan or Koman are realistic and well-rounded. How do you bring in so much conviction into your male characters when you are a woman yourself?

Pretty much in the same way that I create my women characters, I step into the shoes of the character I create and whether they are male or female they tend to be viewed and decided by me in the same fashion.

Bibliography

1.   Nair Anita. Goodnight and God Bless: On Life, Literature and a Few Other Things, With          Footnotes, Quotes and Other Such literary Diversions. New Delhi: Penguin books, 2008. 191. Print.

2.       For whom writing is a demanding mistress The Hindu. Online edition. 12 Feb 2006. Web.