Author Aanchal Malhotra: ‘The transition from historian to novelist was extremely difficult for me to do’

It was at the end of 2016, even before Remnants of a Separation (her first book) came out. I started writing it in March 2017. I don’t think I could have written it without writing the other two books. There were a lot of nuances that went into thinking about this; all the finer details. The beginning came from a small story my mother told me about my grandfather who was a chemist by profession. He would get extra samples of different essences like rose, apricot and apple among others which he would pour into the water of the air cooler and the entire house would be suffused with a singular smell. I found it really amorous, romantic and innocent. It stuck with me and, I think, that’s where the character of Vivek came from. He was very much based on that and anchored on that memory.

Author Karan Mahajan once said that there is a kind of self-hypnosis that happens in fiction that allows you to enter the landscapes you may not otherwise be able to enter with your thinking brain, and I think he was right. We were talking about why the city of Lahore enters his fiction and he says he can’t reason it out. It’s just part of him and, maybe, fiction is like that. You start to make associations and one thread becomes another until it becomes a cluster. I cannot explain how a story completely comes together. It is my first novel and it was far more challenging to write than non-fiction; more so for me, because I was writing about people’s lives from start to finish. The transition from historian to novelist was extremely difficult for me to do. Fiction is so expansive, unpredictable and so difficult but so much fun when you get things right. It is still difficult for me to imagine that I have built a world.

There is so little known of the role that Indian soldiers played in World War I. Where did you find the information and how did that become such an integral part of the story?

Apart from Mulk Raj Anand’s Across the Black Waters (1939), not a single novel has been written by an Indian or Pakistani about World War I. The only fictionalised account I can think of is Rudyard Kipling’s The Eyes of Asia (1916) which the government had commissioned him to do. There are some non-fiction accounts as in 2014, there was a resurgence in trying to understand the role of colonial troops in the war after the centenary. There was research being done and letters being translated, but there is no novel and certainly no larger film or series. The only one in Punjabi was Sajjan Singh Rangroot (2018), starring Diljit Dosanjh, that I went to the theatre to see.

Maybe it’s collective amnesia or a lack of interest in colonial troupes which I find very alarming when you start to understand their extraordinary contribution to the war. I first came across these stories when I was doing research for my books on the Partition. Men and women who had fought in World War II spoke about their fathers and grandfathers who had served in World War I. I could not believe it. Subliminally, I knew that I would make the first World War a large part of the book in a life-defining way and I think Vivek was the perfect vehicle for that story.

Can you elaborate on why you found a fiction novel harder to write than your non-fiction books on Partition?

It is because of the kind of history I write — oral history which is dependent on field research and interviews. When you do that kind of work, your content is in front of you. When you interview people, you know the colour of their eyes and skin, how the room looks, etc. It was these details I really took for granted. When you’re writing fiction and trying to imagine a totally fictionalised landscape based in the past, how do you imagine what the house looks like or the colour of the walls, or if the room is square or round or what the people are wearing and what their dialect is? These are things I wanted to be exceptionally accurate at. I come from that historical background and it absolutely got in my way. How much detail is too much detail? I don’t think I have the imagination or the depth of knowledge to create an entirely new world. I must borrow from the real world because in historical fiction, you are trying to create an opening and insert characters that are plausible and in turn, make them real enough so that they are absorbed into the landscape. However, not every novelist is also an historian. What happens when you’re not only a historian but have also been at the forefront of creating an archive of that particular history? I was in a very unique position but that also becomes a sort of a handicap because you know too much sometimes and you want to put it all in your first novel. It is very hard but I would definitely do it again.

The romance in the novel plays out between Samir who is a perfumer and Firdaus who is a calligrapher. How did these two crafts enter your novel?

Calligraphy happened because I am a printer. It was some sort of way to return to what I am as an artist and working with paper, ink and dye is what I know. It’s a very labour-intensive craft and something that is dying. I sought out calligraphers in Urdu Bazar and Chitli Qabar to understand how to even hold the qalam. I am a method writer. When Sameer says that Firdaus puts her head down and presses the bamboo reed to the paper and it makes a sound, I wanted to know the sound it made. That’s just me. I always want to know more than I write about it.

Perfumery came because of the story my mom told me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it but I am not a great nose. I shadowed perfumers. I visited France and Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh to understand the different methods of making perfumes, extraction and what is culturally correct. I had very unusual conversations with smell scientists. I sought out author Cynthia Barnett who had written an extraordinary book called Rain: A Natural and Cultural History (2015). Samir’s character is all about rain. I am a great researcher. I do think it was very much like writing about Partition. There was a certain amount of knowledge you had but you had to understand that you don’t know everything and you have to be very humble about it.

Talking about Partition, is there another book in the pipeline on the subject?

I’m not writing about Partition again. It’s been too much and too long. I have been too deep into it and I can’t see with clarity anymore. I cannot take care of people’s sadness all the time. Also, a bit of space helps you to get a fresh perspective on it.