Debut Novelists Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Anindita Ghose Talk of the Writing Process

The surge of female writing has led us to many fascinating stories that all of us can relate to. But do women tell stories differently?Indian debut novelists Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Anindita Ghose reflect on this. Does a woman write or tell stories only as a woman or does she speak from other social positions? How does a gender lens to writing make storytelling richer and deeper? All these conversations were alive at the SheThePeople Women Writer's Fest, which is the world's largest gather of Indian and international writers who discuss the power of writing and stories.

Founder of SheThePeople Shaili Chopra was in conversation with debut novelists Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Anindita Ghose who revealed their journey as writers.

Why Anindita Ghose chose to write

Anindita Ghose made her debut as a writer with The Illuminated. She credits the author Arundhati Roy for inspiring her to write a book. "I always wanted to write. I want to credit one woman writer in particular for making me believe that me as an Indian woman could write a book that could hopefully travel the world. I was 13 when The God of Small Things was out." She added that she has been a voracious reader because being a younger sibling, she would read whatever her elder brother would read.

The God of Small Things was the first book by an Indian woman that she read. Since Roy was someone Ghose could relate to, she found her inspiring. Ghose started her career as a journalist and features writer. Her journey as a novelist began in 2015 when she started writing her book.

Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari opens up about her experience as a writer

Renowned filmmaker Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, who is well known for films like Nil Battey Sannata, Bareilly Ki Barfi, Panga etc. made her debut as a novelist with Mapping Love. For her, Reader's Digest has been the place where she could read writings from all around the world. "For me, Reader's Digest has been the place where I could get to read a lot of writing from across the world in here," she said.

Coming from a family of professors, she couldn't easily take up art or writing as a profession. So she went for the field of Commercial Art that would pay her well. But she always wanted to put down her words on paper. She believes that whether others like our work or not, it's ultimately our journey we express through our writing.

Divide between personal life and the characters

When asked if their books are reflections of their personal experiences, Ghose made an important observation. "Someone there's this sense that men write from pure imagination but women draw from their own life," she expressed. While writing, she did say though, she found inspiration in people around her. "I think everything is from the life around me and yet nothing is from the life around me. It is very hard to draw that line."

When designing her characters and their journey, Iyer Tiwari says, she felt writing is fiction and sometimes it's via real life experiences. In her opinion, character development happens through a journey in the mind and on paper.  It also depends on how the writers want to craft the whole journey. She develops her characters keeping in mind what readers expect from them. She applies this same theory to her movies as well.

The mother-daughter relationship in The Illuminated

Ghose pointed out how women characters in novels written by men are always portrayed as either 'good' or 'bad'. They are very boxed and not layered. Now that more and more women are becoming writers, the mother-daughter relationship is bound to be explored. This is the primary relation a woman shares with another woman. Her idea was to show women finding their identities from the perspective of two women. The mother and daughter in her book helped her show two different vantage points of generational shift or privilege. With more and more women turning to writing, mother-daughter relationships can now be explored in all its ambiguity and greyness.

Was reading significant in Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari's life?

The Nil Battey Sannatta director believes in reading all kinds of books because stories come from everywhere. It is important to understand the process of writing in every form. So reading has been an important aspect of her growing up. However, in the past few years she hasn't read too many books because she didn't want to get influenced by other novelists while writing her book.

The secret of the 'moon' in The Illuminated

Anindita Ghose's novel was initially supposed to be called The Moons of Their Lives. Even the cover of the book shows the moon in its different stages. Talking about its significance, Ghose said that she used the 'lunar trope' throughout the book. The women in the book are named after the moon and chapters are moon phases. The men on the other hand are named after the sun.

The idea was how we think of the moon reflecting the light of the sun. But can the moon find its own light if the sun gets eclipsed? When Rabi dies, how do his wife and daughter navigate life? The author explores this and other aspects of the lives of the women in the novel.

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