Women And Womanhood

Bangalore-based author Anita Nair, is out with her 12th book, Lessons In Forgetting (HarperCollins), a story of a corporate wife facing a mid-life crisis and a professor whose daughter's life has been ruined after a dreadful night of partying. In conversation with Aayush Soni, Nair talks about writing in urban India, the role of a corporate wife and her forthcoming book.

One of the striking features of the book, Lessons In Forgetting, is its narrative which keeps switching between the past and present tense. Why did you choose to write in such a manner where the tense keeps changing?
It all began with the metaphor that I used, that of the cyclone. The power of the cyclone is such that you have to experience it; talking about it thereafter, there's a distance between what happened and the complete imagery of it grinds to a halt when you talk about it in the past. Initially, the book was written in the past tense but I thought there was something that wasn't happening.  I tried this method on an experimental basis with a chapter and it worked very well. It just swept me away like a cyclone should and I believe that when I work with metaphor, it shouldn't be restricted to the narrative, - it should find its way into the structure and the form as well. I do it for my personal gratification and I enjoy it very much. Also, what the characters were doing at a particular point in their lives was kept in the present so that it conveys a sense of immediacy.

The standard question: How much of Anita Nair is Meera (the protagonist) and vice-versa?
I wish I could say I was a lot like Meera because she's a much organised person which I'm not. I do have a quiet life and worked in the corporate sector for a while and my husband continues to do so. But I think it ends there. Also, most characters in the book are caricatures but there are some who are based on my friends such as the photographer.

In the book, you've included a corporate wife's guide to entertaining people which seems to give the impression that there are only a few things that a corporate wife can do. Isn't that a negative impression you are portraying?
I think it is very true. Having been in the corporate world, I've interacted with client servicing guys and I've seen that their peripheries are stuck to a narrow realm and anything beyond that doesn't interest them.

Another marked feature of the book is the absence of Meera's own identity; she's Giri's wife, Nikhil's mother, someone's sister and so on. Is  this a sad reality of today's woman? That she is unable to carve out an identity for herself?
What happens is that if she  a woman starts asserting her individuality then the transition (from something else to her own identity) is easy. But someone who subsumes herself into the identity of her husband and allows her other roles to contain her will find it difficult and wouldn't even know where to begin. And I've met so many women in their mid-30's who start getting this restless feeling and think 'what have I done with myself and where do I begin?'

So is  the short liaison with Soman an attempt on Meera's part to assert her own identity?
To an extent, yes. At one level there is this feeling of rejection because her Meera's  husband has left her for a younger woman and there is also this feeling that she isn't attractive anymore. So she is immensely flattered when this young, good-looking actor is romantically inclined towards her and, secondly, she uses this opportunity to make her feel better about herself.