Anuradha Vijayakrishanan: The accidental novelist from Dubai

For Dubai-based Indian author Anuradha Vijayakrishanan, publishing is a necessary evil. It is something of a means to an end, she tells Khaleej Times.

“Even though I used to be involved in a lot of art and culture and ‘writing’ in my college days, I never felt compelled to take myself seriously,” she says.

It was a chance encounter with prolific author Kamala Das that made her realise that these artistic endeavours actually meant something. “I got my first publishing credits when I was pursuing my studies in engineering college. It was a two-page feature of my poetry,” she says.

Since then, there has been no looking back.

Anuradha is also a retail banker. “In fact I came to Dubai purely for professional reasons. I have a full fledged career in retail banking and I am still working for a bank here in Dubai,” she says. The author has been in Dubai since 2010.

Anuradha’s debut novel Seeing the Girl was released at Jashanmal Bookstores in the Mall of the Emirates recently. Seeing the Girl was released in India at the World Book Fair by Lifi Publications in New Delhi in February 2014. The book was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2007 while it was still a manuscript. In 2010, her poetry was nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prize.

Seeing the girl is the close-knit story of three women who live inside one another’s lives — dangerously.

A family plays out many lives under many roofs yet remains bonded by blood, literally. Janaki, Amma’s elder daughter, is poised to enter into a conventional ‘arranged marriage’ when unanticipated events break out. A marriage takes place; a daughter is exiled from the sanctuary of her home, while the other struggles to build a life. Then someone dies, caught in the vindictive shadow-play of life and secrets that must stay buried.

Janaki, the complex protagonist, narrates this dark and intricate story while meticulously observing everyone and everything around her, pausing to let Amma and Leela interweave their versions of the truth too. Along the way, Janaki discovers the answers she didn’t know she needed. Yet the story never ends: the survivors are merely tired victims who must outlive every fatal tragedy.

“The idea for Seeing the Girl came from one of my own short stories. I sat down one day and began expanding the story and the original short story grew into a novel. The book is literally about ‘the girl seeing process’, that perhaps is something most sub-continental women need to go through, irrespective of their caste, creed, religion, or race,” says Anuradha.

However, the author insists that there is no feminist ideology whatsoever in the book. “There is a strong set of feminine voices in the narrative. However, there is no ideology or socio-political baggage. There is no element of autobiography at all as well. I drew inspiration, to a small extent, from the kind of milieu I am familiar with. I have not used specific geographical location nor have I tried to recreate a city even if it is my hometown,” says Anuradha.

The dark narrative too was unintentional. “I am not really a technically aware or qualified writer. Most of my writing accomplishments are still (in) poetry.”

Her poem first appeared in print under the editorship of Kamala Das. Granta and British Council first published her fiction in the select New Writing anthology series. Her work has appeared in Magma, Orbis, Stony Thursday Book, The Pedestal Magazine, Soundings, Aesthetica, Asian Cha, Eclectica, Asia Literary Review, Mascara, Indian Literature and Nth Position among others. Her poetry and prose have won prizes at various literary competitions.

dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com