Bhavani did the following brief interview to create the story above.

News Today - Interview by Bhavani Prabhakar

through email 3^rd December 2020

(On Dangling Gandhi and other short stories)

1. Tell us about yourself including how you were raised, where you were raised.

Jayanthi Sankar: Born in Madurai as the eldest of the four, I was brought up in various states of India, exposed to different languages and cultures of India. My father, a central government Engineer, used to be transferred often, and therefore I grew up in various states right from Coimbatore to Shillong. 

After graduating in Physics from Seethalakshmi Ramasami college, Trichy,  in 1985, I was immediately married off. After two years in Angmaly in Kerala, a year in Trichy, and another year Chennai, we migrated out of the subcontinent.

In 1990 when Sankar, also an Engineer, got a job in Singapore, I came here with my two-year-old elder son. My younger son was born in Singapore.

More than anything else, the library branches in Singapore captivated me the most. I felt so much at home because of the new beautiful world they opened for me. Thus, in my twenties, I started reading more voraciously than before, and that changed my life.

I am mostly into freelancing jobs of transcriptions, translations, proof reading, editing and subtitling for almost two decades now except for the three years of full time journalism three years back that gave me a taste of the field.

2. How did you develop your interest in writing? For how long have you been writing?

Jayanthi Sankar: I have been writing since 1995, and my passionate reading has made the writer out of me. I owe it to NLB (National Library Board) of Singapore. Whoever has not experienced our libraries has not seen Singapore fully, I always believe. 

The fiction reader in me grew and evolved incredibly fast. And also a critic that I only observed, later on, had emerged in me. And at one point in time, I’d challenged myself, "It’s easier to criticize, have you ever tried any?" Until then I didn’t even know I could write or I would ever write in my life. Within the next few days, I tried crafting a short story only to discover the creator in me, and after that there was no turning back.

3. What inspires you?

Jayanthi Sankar: Like any of us, I carry in me so many themes, questions, incidents, and characters imbibed deep in me since my childhood, when I used to be a quiet observer responding in syllables when asked questions. 

I write and rewrite many times in my mind before I type/write. Editing like a sculpture is a different process altogether.

Theme and characters churn out from within to disturb me. I give in, to focus, interact and live that life — a process by which I get to live the lives of hundreds of lives, both painful and pleasurable. In and out of the real world can be challenging but the result will bring the needed balm later, my creative mind knows.

4. Who inspires you?

Jayanthi Sankar: Everyone including strangers I come across, people I meet, interact with and get to know is my inspiration. And right now, in recent years, my readers inspire me the most. Their reading motivates me. Generally, I have hardly had particularly anyone who inspires me. All the fiction writers I enjoy reading certainly inspire me, all the time.

5. What is your writing process like?

Jayanthi Sankar: As a fiction writer, sometimes I create characters to sail through an issue in a backdrop and at other times I treat an issue through a backdrop with a set of characters. I write and rewrite in mind so many times that the theme mostly chooses its form, tools, tone and the narrative style, and it churns up to the surface, and that's when I start writing. I live much in the fictional world, living the lives of my characters. In and out of the real world can both be a pleasure and a pain. While reading the end product, if I feel it’s come out as I’d perceived in my mind, the joy that I experience is incredible, to stay in me for long. So, crafting is the challenge I go after, again and again.

I always challenge my brain to weave a story that can also challenge a seasoned reader - one of the reasons these stories are better enjoyed and assimilated when reading one at a time. Connecting things while crafting would demands some effort also from the reader later.

I believe in leaving ample space for my readers, and that creates an abstractness that most of my readers love. It leaves more than enough space for that participation from the reader. The modern and post-modern literature is more about this participation of readers, and a short story's primary role is not just to make the reader resonate/ empathize with the character or theme but also to make the reader think broadly on the theme.

6. Name a few of your favourite books, and why are they your favorites?

Jayanthi Sankar: Apart from my all-time favourites like Haruki Murakami’s ‘The Kafka on the shore’ for its treatment of magical realism and application of the Freudian psychology, Khalid  Hussain’s ‘Thousand Splendid Suns’ for the Kabul he showed and the realistic depictions of the three important women characters of three generations, my recent favourites are Devi Yasodharan’s ‘Empire’ for the fluid and credibly enjoyable setting of the fiction in the Chola period, all works of Manu Joseph for their narrative styles, humour, and the freshness. Not to forget the works of Amitav Ghosh for their extensive research on the history of their backdrop. And apparently, this list is ever-growing.

7. Tell us a bit about your book.

Jayanthi Sankar: This set of short stories that artistically break the traditional rules of storytelling to bring about freshness, so Singaporean, India, and Asian. About 10 out of the 12 short stories ranging right from the 1905 colonial period in Singapore, the period of the independence struggle in India to the contemporary modern themes such as  'my mother is a feminist’ are truly SingLit, aptly published when we celebrate our Bicentennial. 

8. Can you elaborate for us on that breaking of rules?

Jayanthi Sankar: As a reader, I make sure I joyfully catch up with that, and that brings about the needed transformation in the writer in me. As I evolve as a fiction reader, I learn about many interesting ways to tell stories. Most of them appeal to me, but my mind always wishes to break the rules to come up with entirely new ways of storytelling, evident in Dangling Gandhi.

Learning the fundamentals over the years and breaking them to create is an art that brings with it an incomparable joy. I learn and unlearn crafting my narratives, setting my challenges and objectives. And I also love breaking my own past records. Fiction is constantly evolving like any other, I believe.

The readers who are unaware of short story as a form that has evolved much over the years and that intro, character development, pre-climax, and climax is an almost an outdated style of storytelling seek my help in reading. Most of the seasoned readers could sense these varied ways of storytelling, and some of them also say that certain stories are fresh from that perspective.

9. What, in your opinion, is the specialty of this book?

Jayanthi Sankar: Most of my readers who’ve been reviewing are fascinated by the variety of themes and varied styles of storytelling. These with the diverse backdrops are obvious specialty, although seasoned writers can go into the layered non-linear narration to enjoy more.

The collection certainly has all the features like smooth readability, with an anthropological approach, interesting experiments both in content and form that any good collection would have.

Although different readers love different characters, most of the readers appreciate one particular character Mani in the second story. That character stayed deep in me since my mid-teens. When we were in Shillong, one of my father's friends, a Sardar uncle who used to visit us once in a while had shared about his ancestors, and once when the power cut, we used candles to continue talking. What he said was more of a passing comment, but it stayed in me. When I crafted this particular story few years back I was appalled by the impact it’d had on me.

10. Why have you named it 'Dangling Gandhi'? Why did you not pick some other title?

Jayanthi Sankar: The title story Dangling Gandhi is only a subtle metaphor. Although my favourite story of the collection is another, I decided on the title for the book as it suits all kinds of uncertainties and doubts of our times, the world over, on Gandhism as well as the nonviolence he upheld, becoming more and more debatable in this modern world. However, the story hardly touches on these, interestingly.

9. Briefly going through, your book seems to be multi-cultural. Tell us a bit about it.

Jayanthi Sankar: Having lived in Singapore for 30 years I naturally write about the people issues and culture of Singapore. Diversity is synonymous with Singapore, and when I write about our city, I effortlessly reflect only that. It is quite natural.

And, migration for me has always meant observing people, knowing people, listening to people, making new friends, attending new schools, talking to people of various backgrounds. When I think back now, migration within the subcontinent of India during my formative years meant exposing to different languages and cultures, therefore, issues, travel, and food.

11. How long did you take to write this book? What kind of hardships did you face throughout, from writing to the publishing phase?

Jayanthi Sankar: I wrote the 12 short stories of Dangling Gandhi except one between 2015 and 2017. The book was ready for publication in 2017, but getting a suitable publisher was not easy. A few renowned tier two Delhi based publishers were ready but either urged me to buy copies in bulk of expected me to invest. Some of them had it for 29 months.

Now, it’s not good enough for an Author to create well, she should work many times harder to create and expand her social network, and readership, I understood, as most of the publishers upon reading my proposal mail sent lengthy forms to fill. The form contains most of the questions suitable for asking marketing persons, PR, and distributors. So, an author is expected to do everything, and that’s precisely why literature pitiably ends up on commercial grounds. I am learning alot here.

Monopolization of the big names in the publishing industry is hurting the publishers. Therefore, it's a pity even some of the genuine publishers also can't do more to help good manuscripts. I firmly believed in my work and therefore chose to wait. Zero Degree publication took only weeks to answer. It was so encouraging when Ramjee spoke to me over the phone to express his reading experience. I thought, "Here is one publisher who can value the literary merits of the book." It felt good to be read by a publisher.

12. Are you working on any other book?

Jayanthi Sankar: Before 2019 ends, I would’ve completed the first draft of my novel that I am currently writing. I was supposed to have completed it in 2018, but the novel the research completely sucked me in. Happily, I spent a year and a half in that although I only required one-hundredth of the notes.

Title: Dangling Gandhi
Author: Jayanthi Sankar
Genre: (Literary) fiction/short stories
Published by: Zero Degree publishing
Year: 2019 / ISBN: 978-93-88860-03-12
Pages: 154
Price: Rs.220