This story is from July 4, 2020

‘I got trolled... and I feared a backlash was coming’

‘I got trolled... and I feared a backlash was coming’
Ranchi girl Kritika Pandey's story 'The Great Indian Tee and Snakes' won her the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. The tale of love and a lynching set in Jharkhand is very much a story of our times, the engineer-turned-writer tells Amava Bhattacharya over email
‘The Great Indian Tee and Snakes’ seems rooted in Jharkhand. There's the craze for Dhoni, the lynching of the boy in a skull cap and the lightning rod that is non-veg food.
But these also place the story in any Tier-II city
My attempt was to write a story that is deeply local and global at the same time. However, there is no one definition of local, to start with, especially not in India. Towns and cities in Jharkhand are distinct from those anywhere else. So my first and foremost challenge was to try and make the story accessible to readers all over the country. Which is why, while there are references to Dhoni and the Chhotanagpur Plateau, I also chose to highlight the tensions around non-vegetarian food, which is a more universal aspect of small-town India. Then there is also the fascinating relationship between the brides and the girl who applies mehendi on their hands. My hope is that readers think of it as a story of our times while getting a glimpse of Jharkhand.
You’ve not named any of the characters in the story. The girl and the boy are introduced by the markers of their religious identity. Was this deliberate?
This was a deliberate choice. Names are also identity markers. If I had referred to the protagonists with their respective names, I’d still be drawing attention to their religions. Which is why I turned this attempt on its head. The girl is ‘the girl with the black bindi’ and the boy is ‘the boy in white skull cap’. These are religiously charged markers, yes, but if you repeat them enough number of times, then they are just that, a bindi and a skull cap. I wanted the readers to see how easy it is to forget the religion of a person if you really got to know them. She is just a girl and he is just a boy and they are both human beings trying to make sense of an unfair world.

Was it a choice to make the story a love story that is also political? Do you fear this will affect the reception to your work?
This is definitely a story of love but it is not only a love story. The girl thinks she loves the boy, and she is allowed to think that, but who knows what love is? What I was more certain about was that the girl is attracted to the boy. We need to allow the girl to feel sexual attraction without having to shy away from calling it so. Right-wing Hindu men cannot stand the idea that a Hindu girl would chose to admire a Muslim boy. So, of course, I got trolled on social media. And I’d be lying if I said I don’t fear backlash against my work. But I also know that I write with a sense of responsibility towards people whose voices are historically marginalized.
How much did growing up in Jharkhand make you the writer that you are today?
I was born and brought up in Jharkhand. I have seen Ranchi changing from a very quiet, uneventful town to a bustling capital city. I went to school and college in Jharkhand. And I saw the structural discrimination against the Adivasis everywhere. My engineering college was built on land unfairly acquired from the Adivasi long before I was born. When I was a kid, every other day there was a bandh because of the conflict between the paramilitary and the Naxalites. But there was no attempt on the part of our parents or teachers to educate us about the issue.
You’ve worked as a teacher in villages in the state. Do you agree with the remark that there exists two Indias?
Absolutely. If you are reading this, then you know how to read and write in English, which means that you belong to the privileged minority. I saw the conditions of the government schools of Jharkhand and was appalled. Why did I get the kind of education that I did while those kids in Mesra couldn’t even spell their names in Class 5? As far as I was concerned, if I wasn’t going to use my education to raise the concerns of those who don’t have the sort of social capital and visibility that I do, then there was no point of me being educated in the first place.
Does the debate about the relevance of the Commonwealth concern you as a postcolonial writer?
Winning the Commonwealth Short Story Prize reminds me of my responsibilities as a writer. I think the debates around the contemporary relevance of the Commonwealth are important. As a citizen of a postcolonial nation, those debates concern me. But I have made peace with the fact that we live in an imperfect world. If there’s a platform that is helping me amplify my voice, then I believe I should use it to say something that needs to be said.
You pursued engineering at BITS Mesra. What made you take up creative writing?
I got 97.2% in Class X. After that, no one wanted to hear how much I loved literature. I was doomed to be an engineer because I was the school topper. I didn’t pick engineering. It was picked for me. And I had been writing since I was in Class VII. So I never had to transition from being an engineer to being a writer.
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