Manju Kapur on The Immigrant
Manju Kapur talks to Faber about her latest novel, The Immigrant, an engrossing portrait of an arranged marriage.
Q. How long did you have the idea for The Immigrant before you wrote about it? Was there an impetus that drove you to write about this particular story?
This was an idea I had for a long time – partly as a response to the numerous NRIs (Non-Resident Indian) that any Indian is witness to. They strike one as not quite Indian, yet not completely foreign, they inhabit an in-between space that they themselves are all too aware of. In some ways it is an enabling space, but in some ways it also means you are fixed in a time warp. I wanted to explore these aspects of settling abroad.
Q. Have you ever lived abroad yourself? What was your experience of it?
I did my MA in Canada, and as a small child I lived in Washington DC; my father worked as the cultural attaché in the Indian embassy there.
It’s not easy to describe my experiences – writing The Immigrant was a way of coming to terms with all that I felt while abroad. I remember as a child feeling a total sense of shock when we returned to India, whatever India was, it was not our home, it was a strange and alien place. Years later in Canada, I felt it – not so much strange – as empty – but also enabling. I felt free – there was nothing I couldn’t do!
Q. Do you have specific views on arranged marriages?
It is entirely a question of personal choice. I have seen successful and unsuccessful arranged marriages, successful and unsuccessful love marriages. [The opposite of arranged in India is love, and then you have arranged love also - where the couple is introduced with the specific intention of marriage, once engaged they date, they fall in love.] Whatever the choice, the girl is brought up with that in mind – arranged marriage is not something you can agree to just like that when you reach marriageable age – it has everything to do with socialisation and expectations.
Q. Your books often focus on women’s lives in India. Is this something that you feel strongly about?
Absolutely. This is where I live, and these are the lives I observe around me. Women’s lives – at least here – I can’t really speak with authority about other places – are complicated and a source of endless interest. In India women are often caught between the traditional and the modern, caught between the family and their individual desires. As a novelist this is where I place my stories.
Q. Do you feel that women and their roles are more highly respected in the West, or do you feel that the opposite is true?
This depends on so many things! On class, on education, on urban or rural backgrounds. In general a woman’s role is often highly respected, even glorified – especially in traditional families. We have a whole slew of goddesses in the Hindu pantheon that represent all kinds of female power. Yet, how can I say, with our history of crimes against women, our low sex ratio, our female foeticide, how can I say that we respect women more than in the West? I can’t. We don’t.
Q. Your observations on the differences in the importance and structures of family life are incredibly insightful. For example, Ananda feels rejected when his uncle builds him his own room, whereas his uncle thinks that this is what young people prefer (a western ideal). Do you feel that India places higher value on family life than the West, or are they just different manifestations of the same thing?
Indians are obsessed with families – yes we do place great importance on the family – and this obsession is played out in various ways. It is the site of intense social interaction, it can be a source of economic protection, of protection against age, loneliness, sickness etc etc. It has often been said that this is because our society is less socially developed than the west, that we have to rely on our families so much. So the whole family thing is played out differently than in the West.
Q. Nina at first thinks that not working will be a wonderful way to live. Do you think many women in modern India feel this way?
Nina’s fantasy is one that working women tend to indulge in – how nice it would be not to work etc. But most women in modern India want to work – this is increasingly the trend. I see it in my students across various socio-economic groups. Even if they have to marry, they will think in terms of a job and a career. They see it gives them status and independence and they want that. Parents also want it for their daughters – thinking of a career as an insurance against possible disaster.
Q. Throughout the novel Ananda has huge respect for all things Western, often to the detriment of his homeland. Was this a difficult thing to write about?
Not at all! Indians do respect many things about the west. After we have been exposed to it in various ways for over 300 years and have always admired aspects of it.
Besides an NRI is always comparing to the detriment of both countries – depends on how s/he is feeling!
Q. Do you feel more sympathy towards a particular character in the novel? Why?
Not really. It’s hard to write a balanced book if your feelings incline you more to one character than the other. Although I started out finding it easier to write about Nina, I ended up feeling Ananda had got the worst of the deal. It was the mother I felt bad for – she was left with nothing. She was in a situation many widows find themselves in, when their children migrate abroad.
Manju Kapur lives in New Delhi, where she is a teacher of English literature at Miranda House College, Delhi University. Her first novel, Difficult Daughters, received tremendous international acclaim, won the Commonwealth Prize for First Novels (Eurasia Section), and was a number one bestseller in India. Her second novel A Married Woman was called ‘fluent and witty’ in the Independent, while her third, Home, was described as ‘engaging, glistening with detail and emotional acuity’ in the Sunday Times.
