Finding Our Stories

If you set a story in an exotic place, someone invariably will ask you why you chose it. I set a mystery series in South India, and I have lots of reasons to do so. There are the obvious ones and the not so obvious ones. I love India and have lived and traveled there. I know the country and some of the people, and I can work out a story in that setting. India is an exotic setting that attracts some readers who otherwise wouldn't read a mystery. Like me, they want to read about India from different perspectives, and a mystery novel is one of them. So, those are the general ones.

Lakshmee at her temple.

A very real and not so obvious reason is that I want to write about women, and in Kerala I meet a lot of women who tell me their stories. The women of Kerala continue a long and illustrious tradition of operatic tales of woe that have changed little over the centuries. They are found in the old literature as well as at today's kitchen table.

During my first visit, in 1976, I learned enough of the local language to be able to carry on simple conversations with most people. I certainly couldn't dissect a novel, but I could read and discuss the main newspaper articles, get around on buses without English language signs, and listen to tales of woe. If I sat down to have a bowl of fruit with a vendor at the beach, I heard all about her life. Each encounter like this can be considered nothing more than a pleasant interlude for a foreigner, or each one can be recast as the door into a story.

The first story came from Lakshmee, our maidservant, who told us tales about her family and everyone else's. These stories were never malicious or unkind, but often involved the final years of the British in India, the odd and hilarious ways Indians in other parts of India behaved (South Indian women are very liberated, and North Indian women must cover their faces if the father-in-law enters the room). Story: A devout worshiper of Shiva who performs puja twice a day continues to see the world through the perspective of the matrilineal system she has grown up with long after Western ways have been adopted.

Lakshmee & cousin at Kanya Kumari

I met her cousin, who was Catholic. The conversion of one branch of Lakshmee's family to Catholicism three generations earlier had opened an unbridgeable gap, but Lakshmee and her cousin found common ground in their declining years. Both women traveled with me to Kanya Kumari, where the confluence of three bodies of water is considered holy for Hindus. Both women sought to bathe in it, or at least sprinkle themselves with the water. Story: After three generations, two cousins of different faiths, one Hindu and the other Catholic, come together.

Muslim village woman

Kerala is home to every great world religion, including Islam. When I traveled into the hills one Sunday afternoon, I met two women out walking. One asked me to take her photograph. This angered her younger companion, who walked on, leaving her friend behind. The older woman talked to me at length about her family, not all of which I understood. Both the photograph and the conversation were unusual because she was Muslim, and Muslims are forbidden to have representational images. (Flora and script are acceptable.) Story: A woman who lives in a small, conservative village breaks the rules to talk to a stranger passing through.

Fisherwoman in the city

Because I often stay in a hotel on the beach, I meet a lot of fisherwomen. We see them in the city selling fish house to house, in the markets, and along the city and outer roads. If they have time, they will tell me their problems, ask me about mine (I try to offer something worth listening to), and sometimes ask for a photograph, though they don't seem to want a copy. 

The exception is a woman I met in a narrow lane in Trivandrum, who stopped me, posed for a photo, and then gave me her address. Story: A woman of strong will who has no time for the foolishness of foreign tourists goes out of her way to have her photo taken and to ensure she will get a copy.

Despite the differences in culture and history, women throughout the world are not themselves different. We live very similar lives, face the same challenges, and dream about the same things--a better life for ourselves and our families. In Kerala I listen to stories, offer what sympathy I can, and imagine plots rolling out for another book.

  

Paths to Publication: Sisters in Crime, New England, Workshop

I used to go to Decorators’ Show Houses with a friend to marvel at the ways other people could spend their money. I never expected to have a room like anything I saw in one of the houses. I went just for fun. My friend, on the other hand, went to pick up ideas. She wanted to get one or two ideas each year that she could try out in her own home. I thought that was realistic.

On Saturday, March 29, 2014, Sisters in Crime New England held a daylong workshop on the many paths to publication—traditional, small press, self-publishing, or a combination of two or all of these. Writers on five panels talked about their experiences finding agents, working with editors, choosing to self-publish, learning the ups and downs of going it alone as an Indie, marketing, and more. They shared their experiences, discoveries, advice, and support.

I’ve been published in all three ways, beginning with a reference work in 1988 followed with 8 novels from commercial presses and 1 as an Indie, but I knew I would learn something. And I did. I picked up two or three ideas to try out in my own writing and publishing career. Not all of the ideas suggested would work for every writer, but there was, I think, something for everyone, the beginner, intermediate, and expert (whatever that one is). So, here are the ideas I liked best for my career and I plan to try them on my new Anita Ray mystery coming out in May 2014. For the Love of Parvati is set in the hills of central Kerala during the monsoon. The story features a family estate, a very lucky goat, a temple, and a leopard, along with the rains.

First, I liked the idea of a marketing giveaway. Many writers do bookmarks, so it’s hard to make mine stand out in the pile. One writer puts a miniature of her book cover on a matchbox. Another made small seed packets with her book cover and planting information. I decided to go back to an earlier idea I’d had and set aside, but this time approach more realistically—recipe cards. I can cards for the many dishes mentioned in the Anita Ray books. I love Indian food and I know I’m not the only one, so I think a few simple recipes on recipe cards might be fun.

Second, several writers talked about the groups they belong to, and how they can extend their advertising reach by getting a mention in the organization newsletters or magazines. I like that idea, so I’m looking at unconventional sites for reviews or mentions of the book. A dear friend has a cooking blog and plans to showcase the book along with a recipe for an Indian dish. He came up with the idea when I told him about the book, and I’m grateful to him for the offer and for sparking the idea.

Third, I’m used to handing out bookmarks whenever I do an event, putting them on chairs and sliding them into any book I sell, and leaving them with booksellers. All that is standard procedure. But I am now going to experiment with adding them to everything I mail—bills, donations, etc. I’m curious to see if that has any effect on sales or what kind of feedback I’ll get.

These are not very original ideas, but they will give me a new way to reach readers and, I hope, stimulate me to think of more ways.

  

Review: N. Gopinathan Nair--His Life and Times

I like to think that when I sit down to write a story I have done enough research to give the novel a feel of authenticity—the scene, characters, and problems ring true to the reader. Getting to that point isn’t always easy. I can and have asked odd questions of elected officials, local police men and women, social workers, and nurses. These questions help me get at the facts of a situation, but every writer knows you need more than that. You need the “feel” of a situation, the atmosphere of a neighborhood, or the sense of a community.

The last time I was in India, just a year ago, a friend gave me a copy of her father’s collected essays, which she had helped her mother compile. As I started to read through the essays in English I felt an entire age opening up for me. N. Gopinathan Nair was one of those men who live fully in their time, and in their own way participate in shaping their country’s future.

All of my characters in both series, the Mellingham series and the Anita Ray series, have a back story, and this is the kind of work that I turn to, to get a sense of the world some of them might have known.

The scribe Remembered: N. Gopinathan Nair—His Life and Times, edited by K. Saradamoni with biographical preface by Saradamoni and visual essay by G. Asha. (2012)

The early years of a new nation are heady exciting times. The reports and articles by journalist N. Gopinathan Nair are a record of these crucial early days and issues in the history of Kerala and India. Gopi, as he was generally known, was best known as the founder editor of Janayogam, the first weekly and later daily newspaper of the undivided Communist party in Travancore, before it merged with two other areas to become Kerala.

Born in 1923 outside Kollam and educated in Kuala Lumpur, where his father worked, and the Government Boy's High School in Kollam, he later attended the American College in Madurai. Gopi was profoundly influenced by Nehru’s writings. He turned from an early interest in science to journalism for his career.

Gopi wrote for many newspapers and publications over the years on a wide range of topics. He was especially attentive to legislation that would address the ancient and onerous burdens on landless farmers and other laborers, the lack of education for those outside the elite groups, developing technology in the new India, and creating a stable government to benefit the many castes trying to move into the modern world. His articles often included carefully researched data for skeptical readers and historical background information to flesh out a discussion of contemporary problems and proposed solutions.

The book comprises essays and articles in both Malayalam and English, depending on the original publication, as well as several tributes and reminiscences. There are numerous photographs of Gopi and his family throughout the years.

Gopi’s wife, Dr. Saradamoni, prepared an extensive introduction and his daughter Asha collected and arranged a number of photographs that add another rick layer to Gopi’s biography.

To purchase the book go here: www.facebook.com/NGopinathanNair

Closing the Circle

(This post was originally published on Author Expressions on February 3, but I felt it was important enough for what I have been writing lately to reprint it here with a couple of photos taken in 1976. In the photo on the left, Lakshmee has set up her images in her family temple in her compound; she gave me the larger oil lamp and the water pot, both older pieces. In the photo at right, Lakshmee stands in front of her front door.)

Three weeks in India is barely enough time for me to get settled, unpack and get in touch with friends, but that was all I had. It was easy for me to do nothing but read, write, visit with friends, and think about where to have lunch or dinner. But I had one other task to attend to.

For over thirty-years I had the friendship of a woman who worked for me and my husband when we first lived there, and in her later years we became her main support, since she was by now a widow as well as childless. Being old and poor in India is not a good prospect, and although Lakshmee worked into her eighties in various capacities (selling wood which she stored in her house), she clearly was in decline. She died in September after an operation for a badly broken leg.

I knew this through emails, and sent money when asked and followed her medical care as well as one can from the other side of the world. When I arrived in India, I went to see one of her former employers who had been helping in her care and passing along information to me. To my surprise, Lakshmee had left something for me with one of her doctors.

The Triveni Nursing Home is an ayurvedic hospital where Lakshmee often went when she felt unwell, or, in my view, lonely and sad, and they always took her in, even if she showed no signs of having any money. I had told them I would cover her costs and they never seemed to worry about it. When I went to visit them in January, Lakshmee’s doctor informed me that she had left her puja items for me. I promised to return to pick them up the following week because the doctor’s maidservant was cleaning them (those wails of pain you hear are antiques dealers groaning across the country).

When I first met Lakshmee she was a complete surprise—someone who opened up doors to another world, a world that a colleague once told me was often unavailable to others. And at the end she was a surprise too. The puja items weren’t the usual ones I had seen her use—the steel water pots, the little lamps, the wooden incense holders. These were heavy bronze pieces that must have belonged to her parents—a heavy oil lamp and a water pot, and a small incense holder and oil votive lamp. A friend looked them over and told me which ones were the oldest and how I could tell.

I brought them back and they now sit in my library. I don’t recall ever seeing Lakshmee use them, and it may be that at one point she realized they were too valuable to have around for anyone to see; she had only a padlock on her front door, and had been robbed at least once. She was cautious with things that mattered to her, and she put away her puja items. And now I have them, an unexpected gift from someone who gave me so many over the years.

Lakshmee was, in the slang of the moment, the real deal, a traditional Nayar lady for whom the traditional culture was still more real that the modern world, and certainly made more sense. She had a clear and strong personality, and not surprisingly she shows up in some of my favorite and most vivid characters in the Anita Ray series. You’ll meet her in the next Anita Ray, coming in June 2012. If you want to know what Lakshmee was like, look for Gauri in The Wrath of Shiva. She turns the plot upside down, and then rescues it.