Anita Nair’s latest novel, Eating Wasps, is about women—all kinds of them—and how they go through that four-letter word called ‘life’. There are broken women just as there are plucky ones. There are women who may have buckled under pressure at some point in their lives, but who now know better. There are the confident ones who have it all, yet who were cowed down by an ex-lover-turned-stalker. With Eating Wasps, Nair has brought a whole gamut of characters into our lives—women who many of us may recognise from our everyday lives. From acid attack victims to coy mistresses to sportswomen ashamed of their non-curvy, athletic bodies, Eating Wasps is about different “types” of women in different roles, invading our minds and hearts through Nair’s vividly descriptive writing.
The main protagonist of the novel is a writer who ends up taking her own life. Her lover ends up bringing home the bone of her index finger—because he loved the way she held her pen—ensuring that she continues to live on even after her death. In Nair’s extraordinary novel, women suffer not just heartbreak and jealousy, but even physical injury in a world where men have not been sensitised enough to understand what women really seek and feel. From younger girls to older women, Eating Wasps beautifully captures female emotions at different stages and different circumstances of their lives.
Edited excerpts from a conversation with THE WEEK:
There are numerous women characters. Each one is distinct. How do you dream them up? What goes into the process of creating them?
Very often, a scene appears in my mind first, in which a person is doing something or perhaps nothing. As a writer, I explore the dimensions of that scene and how that person reached that specific point. So, it could be the stillness of Najma sitting in a train station, or Megha’s face as the tarpaulin flap of the truck is pulled down, or Brinda dropping the badminton racquet at match point. Characters emerge from that, and I work on them to flesh them out. There is no time frame and they evolve as I write.
Many of your characters don't get a conventional happy ending, as it often happens in life. Was that a conscious decision? How did you feel about the endings for certain characters, because they undoubtedly evoke a lot of sentiments for the readers.
It wasn’t a conscious decision. It is how the story emerged. There is also the fact that I am not the kind of writer who can tie up all the loose ends and work in a pat ending. I respect my readers too much to insult their intelligence. I have always believed that literature should extend beyond the page and continue to live inside the reader’s mind. I want the reader to finish the story [if they feel the need to do so] the way they see fit. It is meant to make the reader think and dwell on it. That’s what literature and art should do. Evoke a sensibility within us which we may not be in touch with on a regular basis.
Anita Nair
You have done a remarkable job with the whole idea of 'life' and 'afterlife'. Your young protagonist doesn't even escape death and continues to live on. How did this idea of two worlds come to you?
Many streams of thought ran parallel in my head. I needed a thread to connect the multiple stories. I wanted an invisible narrator. Yet, I wanted the narrator to be the protagonist. And that’s when I remembered the story of this writer Rajalakshmi from Kerala, who killed herself in 1965. To this day, no one knows why she did it. I took a cue from that and turned my protagonist and narrator into a writer and a ghost who is condemned to live even after she is dead.
You simultaneously get into the mind of a little girl and that of an older woman, while showing us the thoughts, actions and reactions of the men around them. You bring these characters to life, imagining them and giving them a voice, as they may well exist around us. Does that come easily to Anita Nair the writer, or is it a lot of hard work?
When I work on a character, I slip into their skin. It allows me to be a little girl or an elderly woman or a young man with equal ease. I won’t say it happens effortlessly. There is a great deal of work involved in subjugating and burying who I am as a person before I can become the character and respond to situations as the character would, and not I as a person would. The emotional toll it exacts is crippling.
Tell us how the title came about, and the beautiful cover.
I think the entire expanse of thought distils down to its essence and the title is a result of that. With Eating Wasps, I was seeking a metaphor for the concept and this suddenly popped up in my mind. The designer of this beautiful cover is Bhavi Mehta. As with all books, I had a basic cover brief of a pair of lips on which a wasp rested, but I think Mehta took that thought and winged it to another level entirely. That is the genius of a designer like her.
What also makes your novel really appealing is that it is set in the present, and you have referred to events such as demonetisation. How long did it take you to write it? From conceiving the idea to publishing?
I would say the actual writing time was about a year, but I have been thinking about this book for several years now and had written parts of some of the stories during that period.
Tell us a little about your writing habit. How do you write, and at what time of the day? Do you use a word processor or do you write with a pen?
I am an early riser so I work in the mornings. I write longhand using a fountain pen and a ruled hardbound notebook.
What's next for you? Any other novels in the pipeline that we can look forward to soon?
I have the next Inspector Gowda weaving circles in my head, demanding to be written. I am also working on a children’s book which I had to stop mid-way. So, I will resume that soon.
