Interview: Techie, Foodie and Novelist

Writer draws on varied experiences: Always ready for new challenges, the prolific writer Bharti Kirchner tackles a different genre in Tulip Season: A Mitra Basu Mystery, her latest novel. 

Bharti Kirchner’s many journeys to and from
India, Europe and the United States, jobs in computer
systems management, and hobbies in cooking
and gardening have provided a wealth of ingredients
for her writing. She recently spoke to Khabar.

More than a decade ago, I met Bharti
Kirchner at the Pacific Northwest Writer’s
Conference. The petite woman—then the author of four cookbooks, four novels,
and many magazine articles—spoke
passionately about ways to improve
setting and sensory details in fiction.
She had a gift for explaining how to be
more attentive to colors, sound, touch
and smell in writing. Shortly after that,
Bharti came to our area for a reading of
her second novel, Sharmila’s Book, where
she patiently answered questions and
explained her writing process to our critique
group.

When we met again at an Indian
function in Seattle, she recognized me.
She and her husband, Tom, are friendly
and approachable. My husband and I
have met them a few times at each other’s
homes and have shared their interests
in traveling and cooking.

Using her
keen sense of observation and creative
concepts, she turned her skills to novel
writing. Like the author herself, her novels
traverse continents, and describe the
emotions of Indian-Americans.

Willing to take on new writing challenges,
the prolific writer has undertaken
a different genre with her novel Tulip
Season: A Mitra Basu Mystery. Even in this
genre, she has continued to depict the
emotions of first and second generation
immigrants. When Mitra says goodbye
to her mother, she thinks India “is
another mother, at times nurturing, at
times indifferent.” She feels a stranger
in her native as well as adoptive land,
but she finally feels “at home” when she
returns to Seattle. With a garden motif
that runs throughout the book, she contemplates
working through “cycles of
growth, bloom, decline, death and challenge.
Eventually balance [is] achieved,
beauty awakened, a miracle birthed.”

She came to our area, Skagit Valley,
famous for the largest fields of tulips
in the nation, to see the colorful
blooms, and I had a chance to learn
about her new book, Tulip Season: A Mitra
Basu Mystery. I asked her about transition
from cookbook author to novelist,
and her venture into the world of
mystery writing, a genre that very few Indian women writers have pursued.
What follow are excerpts from
that conversation.

What in your childhood instilled
a love of the written word in you?

I come from a family of literature-loving people. My family looked
upon literature as a high form of
expression of the human condition.
In the evening, we’d sit around my
grandfather who would read from a
Bengali classic, such as one written
by Tagore, Bankim Chandra or Sarat
Chandra. I was too young to take part
in the discussion that would follow,
but found it exciting nonetheless.
As I grew up, I wrote poems in Bengali
and read voraciously, not only
classic Bengali literature, but also
translations of European, American
and Russian novels. The Bengali
language is rich in both original
work and translations of world
classics, and those helped shape my
literary taste.

How did you decide you wanted
to leave your job as a software engineer
to become a full time writer?

The writing bug hit me. It hit me
so intensely that I did what you’re not
supposed to do—I quit my fulltime
job and plunged right into a most difficult
profession: writing. Family and
friends were skeptical, but I stood my
ground. I felt writing was in my bones
and I had no choice but to pursue it.
It’s not an easy transition, especially
when you’ve been immersed in a
technical field for so long. These days
I am often asked by the Boeing types
how did I make such a huge leap.
I can offer no formula. I jumped
into the big unknown with both feet
and fortunately was able to land on
solid ground.

Of the several genres you have
written—essays, articles, cookbooks,
and novels—what do you
like most?

Whatever genre I am attempting
at the moment seems to engage me
to the fullest. Fiction is the most tantalizing
and offers the biggest challenge.
I fall under its influence quite
easily. I believe that natural curiosity
and a sense of adventure propel me
to try new avenues of writing. It is by
no means easy to switch from one
genre to another. Each genre has its
requirements and you must read extensively
and learn the conventions
before you can make a go at it.

Do you only write about India?

No, I write with a global focus.
For example, an earlier novel,
Pastries: A Novel of Desserts and Discoveries,
is set in Seattle and Japan.
One reviewer described the novel
this way: This book explores such
cross-cultural issues as Seattle WTO,
riots, wasabi cheesecake, and Zen in
the workplace.

After writing four novels that
deal with human emotions and
universal themes of love, jealousy,
family traditions, social and cultural
problems, what made you decide to
write a mystery novel?

To make a long story short, this
novel grew out of a short story published
in the anthology Seattle Noir
(Akashic Books). The story was well
received and some readers asked
me if it’d ever be a full-length mystery
novel. That got me started. Now I
am glad I went that route. A mystery
novel forces you to look at the darker
side of the human nature, which
I hadn’t done previously. There’s
a quote in the book: “A weed is
nothing but a flower in disguise.” To
the extent I can, I’ve tried to humanize
my villains and not just expose
their misdeeds.

The protagonist in Tulip Season
is an “accidental detective” who
gets clues from her mother, and
from the taxi driver and dhobi (laundryman).
Is Mitra going to leave
her landscape business to become
a fulltime detective? Since the title
of your novel is Tulip Season: A Mitra
Basu Mystery, is there a mystery series
in the future?

I don’t know for sure what I’ll
be compelled to do next. In Tulip Season,
Mitra was forced into being an
amateur sleuth when her best friend
disappeared and no one seemed to
care as much as she did. Will another
devastating event happen in her life
to spark her into action? We’ll have
to wait and see. Writing is often a
game of waiting.

What are the challenges
and opportunities for South
Asian writers?

I think the South Asian writing
we’ve seen so far is really the tip of
the iceberg. There’s much more to
come, both from South Asian writers
living in the U.S. and from writers
who live in the subcontinent.
Many of the latter write in a regional
language and haven’t thus far been
translated. Some people say that
Indian writing is a fad and it’ll go
away, but I don’t worry about that.
There’s a saying in the publishing
industry, a cliché, if you will: Good
writing will always prevail. I believe
that good writing, whether it’s about
India or any other place, will always
find a home.

[Hemlata Vasavada is a freelance writer based
in Mount Vernon, Washington. Her articles have appeared
in newspapers, magazines and anthologies.]