Anju Gattani: Authors Interviewing Characters
ONCE AND FOR ALL, the long-awaited second installment of Anju Gattani’s WNDS OF FIRE SERIES is out and we’re delighted to feature this character interview!
ONCE AND FOR ALL
“Downton Abbey meets Sleeping with the Enemy but set in India!”—BooksByWomen.org
“A sensational blockbuster!”—The International Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Club Reading Nation
What would you do if your life was a web of lies?
Thirty-two-year-old celebrity, Sheetal Dhanraj, is married to millionaire Rakesh Dhanraj and mother to their eight-year-old son. The women of Raigun, India, envy Sheetal’s good fortune and ability to balance career, marriage, motherhood and uphold Indian values to perfection.
However, behind the closed doors of the marble Dhanraj palace Sheetal yearns for love but is trapped in an abusive and unfaithful marriage. A pawn in the Dhanraj’s web of deceit, Sheetal denies the silent suffering like a good Indian wife because her reputation is tied to her husband’s. Then a chance-meeting with her former college sweetheart shatters Sheetal’s world and her faith. Her marriage overturns. Her son’s life is in jeopardy. In a race against time, Sheetal and her son must escape the Dhanraj’s tyranny or forever be imprisoned in games of fate and death.
Anju Gattani interviews Sheetal
Sheetal paces her bedroom. The scent of lavender drifts from the open window, facing the front lawn, and across her room to the open balcony door overlooking the backyard.
“Sheetal? Do you want to talk now?” It is our fourth appointment after a failed three attempts where I’d tried convincing Sheetal to confide in me, but she wouldn’t. I explained the importance of sharing your feelings and being able to vent. However, she shook her head and held her silence for all three sessions. “Readers are waiting to hear what you’re thinking. Feeling—”
“How am I supposed to feel after the end? Especially after that kind of an end?”
I cross my legs and lean forward in the cushioned chair, pen in hand and align the sheets of paper on my clipboard. “You chose the end. What you thought would be best for you and Yash.”
“I only had two choices.” She pivots and marches back.
“Which is a good thing. Because you get to make a life choice. And I’m glad you’re talking by the way.”
“I really had nothing to say then or now.” She leans her back against the open window and crosses her arms. A breeze billows the curtains like wings around her frame and the gossamer drums the air in waves. “There was no breathing room in my life. You could have at least given me a few moments of relief in ‘Dynasties’. She grimaces, and the dimple in her cheek hollows the moment. “The story was like a giant spinning wheel that didn’t stop for me while everyone else got a break.”
“Every story is different, and each author has his or her own style of writing.”
“So, you admit you roller-coasted my story.”
“I didn’t intend to. The events just unfolded. But readers said they couldn’t put the book down —which is a good thing.”
“For you. Of course, it is. But how am I supposed to raise Yash in that environment? It’s like being a single mum. What choice?”
“You won’t be single. I mean, you would—technically speaking. But you have your family to back you up. After all, you abided by their decision, stuck to the marriage and did your best to make it work.”
“And before the end, you didn’t include the scene with Mama, Papa and myself. Why?”
I run my hands along the edge of the clipboard. What scene is she referring to? “After Aunty Hemu, I remember you had some time alone with your mother. The next scene cut to your bedroom with you and Yash.”
She pushes away from the wall and walks across to the balcony. “You omitted that scene on purpose? The talk they gave me.”
“How can I omit something I didn’t even know about? Plus I want you to understand that not every scene makes it on the page. I have to rewrite, restructure, cut and delete entire sections. That’s normal for an author by the way.”
She shakes her head, her back to me.
“So, what’s this talk you had with your parents?”
Sheetal steps on the mosaic tiles gracing the balcony floor, and I follow with pen and clipboard. The lawn stretches like a green carpet to a brick wall separating Rosewood Street from the Prasad property. Rose bushes blossom along a brick pathway that cuts through the lawn and ends at a gate fixated in the wall.
Sheetal leans left against the doorway and her shoulders tighten. “Arvind was standing here. Right here. And he asked me to marry him.” She blows air from the corner of her mouth and a wisp of her fringe trembles. “If only I’d said yes and trusted him. I wouldn’t be in this mess. The outcome would have been different.”
The fragrance of lavender and vanilla carries with the breeze. “Life is a chain of events. Choices lead to consequences. Your actions lead to a reaction.”
“If I’d been a stronger and more confident woman, I would have followed my heart. Not my head.”
“And who knows if that choice would have led to other regrets? What appears so logical in hindsight is because you’re looking back and seeing the consequences. But you like everyone else made the choice that felt right at the time. I couldn’t have made you a stronger person because you were at the time what you were. Your growth as an individual stemmed from the change story brings about in you.”
She looks at me. “I thought you believed that characters are the heart of story, and story originates from characters and what they want.”
I nod.
“I wanted to be with Arvind. Simple. You could have made him wealthier, given him a better class in society so that I didn’t have to struggle.” She shrugs and crosses her arms. “Who knows, Mama and Papa might have even said yes back then.”
“I had to work with Arvind’s character and limitations. I couldn’t upscale him for convenience.”
“Convenience?” Her voice perks. “My life was at stake.”
“It’s not like you were going to die—”
“A part of me did when I said no that day. Right here.” The slant of her cheek firms. “What?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Nothing.”
“What now?” She snaps.
I hope she doesn’t know the details of book two in the series—at least not just yet. “Nothing.”
“If only I’d had the guts to say yes to Arvind.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I tried to reason with Mama but—”
“You weren’t strong enough Sheetal or you would have. We have many more books to go and you’ll learn from the story over time.”
“What more do I have to learn?”
My heart sinks at the thought of what lies in store in book two, ‘Once And For All’. “Independence to begin with, in heart and spirit. We all have our own learning curves whether it’s fiction or fact.”
“You obviously have a huge one. Raigun doesn’t even exist on the map.”
“It’s a fictional city.”
“So, if you’re here with me in Raigun, doesn’t that make you fictional too? Technically speaking. You don’t exist either.”
A lump fists in my throat. “Look, a part of me died when you said no to Arvind that day. Right here.”
Sheetal closes her eyes.
“What now?”
“Nothing.”
“If only you’d said yes to Arvind.”
“I wasn’t strong enough, remember? Or I would have. You have many more books to go and you’ll learn from the story over time.”
I cross my arms. “What more do I have to learn?”
Sheetal pushes away from the wall and walks to the balcony’s edge. “Independence in heart and spirit. We all have our own learning curves. Whether it’s fact or fiction.”
“What’s fictional?” I join her, rest my arm along the railing, and lean forward. “Your world or mine?”
“Mine, obviously. Raigun doesn’t exist on the map. Technically speaking, I don’t either. And neither do the other characters or the story. Mama, Papa, Yash, Rakesh, Arvind. Meghaji, Nainaji—we’re all just figments of your imagination.”
“So?”
“So, why should readers care what I think or feel? Or the life choices I made? And why should I care that they couldn’t put down the book?”
“Because—”
“What fiction are you creating when you omit and now admit you didn’t know scenes that truly existed in my life that really did happen before the end?”
I shift my weight from the left foot to the right. “If you’d told me about the missing scene before, perhaps I’d have known.”
“How could I when technically I’m not even alive?”
—
Multi-Award nominated fiction author, international freelance journalist, blogger and former newspaper reporter, Anju was born in India but grew up in Hong Kong. She has also lived and been published in Singapore, India, Australia, USA and finally dug her roots in USA.
DYNASTIES, Book 1, Winds of Fire Series, Anju’s debut, was reviewed “Downton Abbey-style saga, but set in India!” and is the proud recipient of 2023: NIEA Finalist, Bests Book Awards Finalist, Georgia Author Of The Year Nominee and International Book Of The Month pick by the International Pulpwood Queen & Timber Guys Book Club Reading Nation.
Anju hopes her books will Bridge Cultures and Break Barriers.
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing
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