Interview by Dr. Gurpyari Jandial Jan 2009

Dept. of English Studies

Faculty of Arts

Dayalbagh Educational Institute

Agra

India

> Dear Ms Baldwin

> I will not say much about how much I have admired your books because firsly you must be tired of hearing it and secondly because if it were not so I would not be working on them.The topic on which I am working is Feminist Ideology and Gender Consciousness in Indian English Women Writers and I have included 'What the Body Remembers' and 'The Tiger Claw', both of which left me disturbed in different ways.

Glad to hear you were disturbed. I'm not sure what Feminist Ideology means -- I flee ideology anywhere I feel it.

I hope your subject will address the problem of lack of gender consciousness in Indian English Male Writers (such as by omission of reproductive and menstrual issues in the construction of female characters).

> My queries are simple:

Not simple, not at all. No question is simple, you know.

> 1. Would you like to be called a feminist?

A feminist is someone who believes in the radical idea that a woman is a person.

So yes, I'm a feminist. What's the alternative? Being a chauvinist or worse, a misogynist.

And by the way, when interviewing a male writer, do you verify if he is a feminist? Maybe you should -- we would all enjoy stories written by feminist male writers.

Referring to What the Body Remembers:

> 2. Were you directly affected by the Partition?

No, of course not -- I was born in 1962! My Nana and Nani were affected.

And I grew up in Delhi where 40% of the population consisted of Punjabi refugees from Partition.

> 3. Is your story primarily about Satya and Roop or about what happened to India in 1947.

That is for the reader to decide. A story and any writing is an act of communication. The reader completes that act. So different readers will be touched by the story in different ways depending on their own experiences.

Referring to The Tiger Claw

> 4. What made you write about Noor. Do you see her as a symbol of what a woman can endure.

No way.

Noor is not a symbol, she is Noor. She is a person.

She endured by resisting all the way to the end.

I was attracted to her because, like me, she belonged to several groups and had ties to many countries. But beyond that, Noor's story was so interesting because she took action, going into the war zone, braving the Nazis to find her beloved. As a member of the French resistance, she caused and participated in terrible damage, death and destruction. She used her brain, and followed her intuition after her British superiors told her not to worry about the double agent in their employ. Noor was betrayed by everyone around her.

And she continues to be betrayed. Indians can only see her as Indian. Indian Muslims only see her as an Indian Muslim, forgetting she followed an all-inclusive brand of Sufism preached by her father, Hazrat Inayat Khan. The French can only see her as a resistante. To the British she is that "foolish and naive" SOE agent whose stupidity got her caught by the Nazis -- officially, the British still deny that the SOE betrayed hundreds of its own agents during WWII. Noor's family see her as the sweet gentle daughter of Hazrat Inayat Khan. The Nazi interpreter who treated her differently from every other captured SOE agent could only see her as an "Indian Princess," an exotic erotic figure to be rescued. Recently, she has been betrayed again by a non-fiction biography with a Foreword by M.R.D Foote, the official historian of the SOE, the very agency that betrayed her. Maybe Noor's is the quintessential story of Muslim women -- betrayed over and over, and often by the well-intentioned.

> 5. What is your vision of the Indian Woman today, specially considering that you are settled abroad.

The Tiger Claw is about a woman in the 1940s. If there is a single "vision of the Indian Woman today," please let's get rid of it immediately. Instead, bring back all the ambiguity of the classic stories in which women like Draupadi were she-roes and had personalities.

Do you ask male writers if they have a "vision of the Indian man, "a vision of the American man," or a "vision of the Canadian man?" Individualism is permitted for men -- why not for women?

I'm not "settled abroad" - I was born in Canada, I live in the USA, my heritage and relatives are Indian. I have family in India, but I also have a husband, cousins, uncles and aunts in North America. I feel at home anywhere and everywhere -- perhaps mistakenly :-). You could also believe I'm abroad and an outsider everywhere -- depends on your point of view.

What I hope for is this: for every man and woman, Indian or non-Indian, to be considered an autonomous person; it's high time.

> It was a joy to hear from you. If I have said anything you don't like I apologize.

No, but your questions seem addressed to a rather pompous figure. I picture him/her wearing a wig and sitting on some cloud throne. Whereas I'm a working writer, telling stories.

> Finally thank you for giving us Satya, Roop and Noor.

Satya, Roop, Noor and all my other characters thank you for your interest and for perpetuating their being.

Greetings of the season and best wishes for 2009.

Shauna