00:17Alka Joshi, the New York Times best-selling author of The Henna Artist, as well as a popular
00:24writer of three other novels, did not know anything about the iconic Indian-Hungarian
00:29painter Amrita Shergil. As a painter and illustrator, as well as an art historian herself, it was a
00:37gnawing gap that she decided to fill with her latest work, Six Days in Bombay. The protagonist
00:44of her novel Meera is drawn from Amrita Shergil's extraordinary, albeit short, life as a painter
00:52in the Europe and India of the 1930s. Born to an Indian Sikh father and a Hungarian mother
00:59in 1913, Shergil died barely at 28 in 1941. That short lifespan was enough for Alka to expand
01:09as a novel of, as a blurb describes it, identity and self-discovery that takes readers from Bombay
01:17to Prague and Florence, Paris and London to uncover the mystery behind a famous painter's death.
01:24She spoke to MCR.
01:27Welcome to MCR, Alka. It's always a great pleasure to have you.
01:31Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be here.
01:34And I believe you're really churning out novels now.
01:38Wow. That's what I do.
01:41You know, I'm especially interested in your fictionalized sort of biography of the great painter,
01:49Indian-Hungarian painter Amrita Shergil. The last time we spoke at a different event,
01:57you mentioned that you didn't know anything about Amrita Shergil before you started.
02:02You hadn't heard of her at all.
02:04That is correct.
02:05So tell me how you got to her to begin with.
02:09Well, I was in New Delhi in 2019 and I went to the National Gallery of Modern Art,
02:15where I think it was about 14 of her paintings are displayed all in this one area.
02:21And I was so captivated by her art because I thought, oh, well, this is combining impressionism
02:28with a little bit of post-impressionism, some abstract work, some Modigliani, some Gauguin,
02:34some Cezanne. What is going on here?
02:37And then I looked at the dates that the paintings were done and it was right around the 1930s.
02:43And I thought, OK, now I have studied art history my whole life and my bachelor's is in art history.
02:48And I've never heard of this woman before. Why is that?
02:51Is it because she was a woman?
02:54So many female artists have been ignored over time.
02:58Number two, is it because she was part Indian?
03:02Because as we all know, she was Hungarian Indian.
03:06Is it because she died too young and she didn't have enough of a body of work to show?
03:11Well, that couldn't possibly be true because we know Jean-Michel Basquiat died at a very young age
03:16and yet we all know his name.
03:18So I thought, OK, let me explore a little bit further and see if I can find out some more
03:23information
03:24about her and turn this into a historical fiction because I'm not a biographer.
03:28I am a historical fiction novelist.
03:30So when you approach a subject like that from a historical fiction standpoint,
03:37do you draw on her real life or you're just imagining it on her behalf?
03:45I draw substantially from her real life, from her real personality and the kinds of things
03:53that she wanted to paint or create in art.
03:56So those are very much fundamentally in the character of Mira, who is our famous artist
04:04in Six Days in Bombay.
04:06And why six days?
04:09It's because she is in a hospital for the last six days of her life.
04:13And those are the days in which she becomes very much bonded to the night nurse who is taking care
04:19of her.
04:19And the night nurse is also becoming bonded to this painter because they both share dual identity,
04:25half Indian and half European.
04:27And unlike the painter, unlike Amrita, the night nurse has been very sheltered and very she is reluctant to pursue
04:39a larger life.
04:41But Amrita really encouraged me to see that women of any decade have always existed,
04:52who wanted to live a larger life and did so on their own terms.
04:56And so I wanted Mira, the character of Mira in Six Days in Bombay, to also live that life
05:01and to be a bellwether for the night nurse to be able to say, look, you could do this too.
05:09There's nothing stopping you.
05:11So that is how the story started.
05:15And that is where the blending of Amrita's personality and her straightforwardness
05:24and really her formidable presence in the art world in the 1930s blended into the personality of Mira, the character
05:33in the book.
05:34You know, as we know, Amrita Shergill died very young.
05:38Yes.
05:39Since yours is historical fiction, you had the liberty to extend her life, your character's life, Mira's life.
05:49Unfortunately, I haven't read it, but tell me a bit about that.
05:52Did you play around with her lifespan at all or you kept...
05:55I did.
05:56I played around with the lifespan because Amrita Shergill actually died in 1941 at the age of 28.
06:04She was complaining of abdominal pain about two days before she was about to mount the biggest exhibition of her
06:12life in Lahore,
06:13which, of course, was part of India before 1947.
06:17And she and her husband were living there.
06:19She's really excited about this exhibition, but she waits too long to be seen by a doctor.
06:25Her husband takes her to the hospital.
06:27In two days, she slips into a coma and she is dead.
06:30She was vibrant.
06:32She was healthy always before this.
06:34She never had any issues with her health.
06:37So my question was, how in the world did she die and why was there not a big investigation mounted
06:43about this?
06:44Her mother always felt that it was her husband, Amrita's husband, who had killed her and so on.
06:50So there were lots of theories about how this could have happened.
06:54But I thought, OK, why don't I use my historical fiction to try to figure out how Amrita or Mira,
07:01in this case, the fictional character, actually died?
07:05And what I found is that if I placed my novel in 1941, it was too close to World War
07:12II.
07:12And I don't want this to be a World War II novel.
07:15I don't want either of the world wars to take away from the story of this formidable woman.
07:20So I thought I'm going to place it in 1937, which is far enough away from World War II.
07:26And so in 1937, that's when our character of Mira lands in the hospital.
07:31And instead of being 28, I made her 29.
07:35And the night nurse is actually also 26.
07:38So they're very close in age.
07:40That's another thing that sort of bonds them together.
07:43You know, you have your background is art history.
07:47So you understand art very well.
07:49Did you in your novel, did you use any visual references to give it a different dimension to your character?
07:58Because it is, I mean, they live such different lives, artists.
08:03So I'm very curious as a writer, somebody who deals with words.
08:08Suddenly you're confronted with visuals.
08:11How did you bridge the gap?
08:13Well, I started off my life as an artist, as a painter, and as an illustrator.
08:19So it was something that I did even before I could pick up a pencil.
08:24I was always drawing.
08:25My parents were very perplexed about where that creativity came from because we don't have any artists in our family.
08:34But it was just something I was compelled to do.
08:37In fact, I even thought when I was in high school that I may end up becoming an artist as
08:43a career.
08:44But then I realized how hard it is for artists to actually make money off of their art.
08:49And I thought, well, I need something that I can actually pay my bills with.
08:54So I did not go into that.
08:56But I have a visceral understanding, let's say a tactile understanding of what it is to paint, what it is
09:04to see a life-size figure in front of you and to actually recreate that on a canvas.
09:09I know what it is to blend different kinds of paints and come out with colors that you hadn't expected.
09:15And I know what it is to create something, to have this compulsion to create that no one can take
09:21away from you.
09:22You know, you just want to do this thing.
09:25And there is, you know, there is no use for anyone trying to stop you from doing it.
09:30But Amritha, in her time frame in the 1930s, wanted to paint nudes as she was good at it and
09:38she liked doing it, both male and female nudes.
09:41But for some reason in that time period, it wasn't OK for women to be painting nudes, although for centuries
09:48men had been painting nudes.
09:50It was perfectly OK.
09:51So, of course, this was a gender bias that she did not comply with.
09:55She wanted to do it and she was going to do it.
09:58And she did.
10:00So I love this about her.
10:02I love this attitude that, you know, just because I'm a woman does not mean that you can stop me
10:07from doing this.
10:08And I think in my own corporate life, I always felt that way, too.
10:12Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean that you can pay me less.
10:14Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean that you can't promote me.
10:17Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean that you can talk to me in this disrespectful way.
10:22How would you describe Meera's style of painting?
10:28Amrita Shergill was somewhat genre fluid, if I can use that term.
10:34Yes.
10:34Is Meera genre fluid, too?
10:36Absolutely.
10:38Absolutely.
10:38And I used four of Amrita's paintings, actually describe them in the book.
10:45And these are four paintings that Meera, the character, bequeaths to the nurse upon her death.
10:53So the nurse is chartered with making sure that these paintings are delivered to the ex-lovers and ex-friends
11:02of the painter.
11:03Now, that is also something I'm borrowing from Amrita's biographies.
11:09Amrita was very sexually fluid as well.
11:13She slept with both men and women, and she left behind this wasteland of people whom she had betrayed, people
11:22she had left behind, people she had used.
11:26And so Meera has left a similar wasteland, and our nurse, Sona, is going to have to navigate through that
11:34wasteland to really find out who this woman was.
11:37And I think part of what was happening as I did the research on Amrita is that I kept finding
11:43these little pieces of her that are not commonly spoken about.
11:50And this was the narcissistic version of Amrita, this is the part of her that maybe we won't admire quite
12:00as much.
12:01This was the part where, yes, she did use people to get where she wanted to go, or she used
12:08people because they were there at the time, you know, they were available.
12:13So I wanted to get that across from the fictional character also, and the nurse is going to find out
12:23more about these things as she delivers these paintings.
12:26The four paintings that I used have a very similar, or three of them actually have a very similar style,
12:33and the paintings are the Brahmacharis, Bride's Toilet, and Three Girls.
12:41And they use a little bit of impressionism, and a sort of, you know, Modigliani-esque figures, which are very
12:52elongated bodies, elongated arms and legs.
12:57And the fourth one actually doesn't fit this mold, it's more of a Cezanne, and that is Boy with Three
13:04Apples, or Man with Three Apples.
13:07And that I liked because that was a lover of hers, or ex-lover of Amrita's, and she often portrayed
13:16him in her paintings.
13:18And I just found it really appealing.
13:21So those are the four paintings I picked out that this nurse is going to get a hold of and,
13:28you know, be able to deliver them all throughout Europe.
13:32I loved all of those paintings.
13:35Like, I chose the paintings that I love the best.
13:37Hi, Trey.
13:38Now, just as an aside, it's interesting you should mention Modigliani.
13:42There's a lovely painting by Amrita Shergill of her, I think, first cousin.
13:46You may have seen it.
13:48It's pretty famous.
13:48There's a very slender woman with long neck.
13:53When I saw it, it struck me precisely that this is like Modigliani.
13:59It's elongated.
14:00It's not consciously elongated, but you can make out that there is that influence.
14:04So it's interesting that you should mention that.
14:08Yes.
14:09When she was at the École des Beaux-Arts, she started at the age of 16, 17.
14:14And she was very much influenced by, of course, all of the instructors' influences.
14:20And some of those were Modigliani, Cezanne, Gauguin, Picasso.
14:27Matisse is really big at this time.
14:29So she decided to just blend a lot of different styles together.
14:37And I think that's where her genius lies.
14:39She's not trying to imitate any one painter.
14:42She is really blending styles in her own way.
14:46Yes.
14:47Since you mentioned the name Meera, it so happens that Meera Nair is making a sort of biopic of Amrita
14:58Shergill.
14:58Have you had any contact at all with her on this or no?
15:03I have not.
15:04I have tried to contact her, but I don't actually have a contact for Meera Nair.
15:09But I've just gone through her Instagram to, you know, try to direct message her.
15:14And I am so excited.
15:16Yes, her film is called, I think it's called Amir.
15:23I know I wrote about it.
15:24It escapes me now.
15:26But.
15:26Okay.
15:27Okay.
15:28Amri.
15:29Amri.
15:29That's what it's called.
15:30Yeah.
15:31Right, right.
15:31Yeah.
15:32And I'm really excited that that's happening.
15:34Because if we have a whole confluence of information coming out about Amrita Shergill, we should all globally be able
15:42to remember who she was and say her name in the same breath that we say Frida Kahlo, in the
15:48same breath that we say Georgia O'Keeffe or Mary Cassatt.
15:52You know, she belongs in that canon.
15:55Absolutely.
15:56I was about to say Frida Kahlo.
15:58So, unfortunately, her short lifespan had an impact on the output.
16:05I don't know how much she created in terms of number.
16:08I don't think her body of work is that large.
16:12What I read was that she created about 150 to 160 paintings in her lifetime.
16:17Yeah.
16:18And except for the ones that are being displayed at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, the rest
16:26of them are supposedly in private collections, which is why we don't see them all around the world.
16:33Right.
16:33And once the Indian government declared her paintings a national treasure, it is very difficult to get them out of
16:40the country to be shown in a global exhibition.
16:43We spoke of her sort of fluidity, sexual fluidity.
16:49Does your character have similar traits?
16:53Absolutely.
16:54Okay.
16:55Okay.
16:56Yes.
16:56Mira is.
16:56Tell me more about that.
16:58Yes.
16:58And what the nurse notices is that Mira is not at all shy about being flirtatious with the doctor who
17:07is tending to her in front of Mira's husband.
17:12And, you know, I mean, Mira's husband is standing right there and Mira loves to flirt.
17:18She loves to have the attention of the male gaze as well as the female gaze.
17:24She is, I think, you know, once again, narcissistic in the sense that she feels that what she does doesn't
17:33necessarily affect anyone else around her or she's just not aware of it and doesn't really care.
17:40And, you know, her charm works on everybody.
17:45And I think that in real life, Amrita was also an extremely charming character and really, you know, drew people
17:55to her in the way that Mira, the character, does as well.
17:58Given your background as a painter and an illustrator, how do you bring that view into your writing?
18:08Because one is entirely visual.
18:10The other is lexical, vocal.
18:13It's verbal.
18:14How do you, how do you, did you bury the two at all?
18:19Well, in my mind, I think of myself as a creative person.
18:23And so all of these different arts blend together.
18:26There is no differentiation in my brain between the different arts.
18:30It's just a way to create.
18:32It's just a way for the brain to say, okay, how do I communicate this?
18:36What is the best medium for me to communicate this particular theme or this particular person's life that I want
18:43to, you know, put forth?
18:45So it's seamless for me.
18:48And all those years that I spent in advertising and marketing, I was always combining the visual with the verbal.
18:56I always had to write the copy and figure out what the visual was going to be as well.
19:01So I think my brain is just configured to do both of those simultaneously.
19:06And if you'll notice, Mayank, all of my books always focus on art.
19:12Because that is just a big, big part of my life.
19:16It's a big part of who I am.
19:18And I love all kinds of different art.
19:21So we have the art of perfume making in the Perfumist of Paris.
19:25We have the art of gold production and jewelry making in the Secret Keeper of Jaipur.
19:31The art of henna in the henna artist.
19:33And then in Six Days in Bombay, it's this painting that Amrita Shergill was doing.
19:38You mentioned early on that you're already on to your sixth book now.
19:44The fifth is already written.
19:45Sixth is underway.
19:47Tell me a bit about both.
19:49It's so funny that, you know, when I was writing this trilogy, I never actually thought, okay, I'm just going
19:58to stop at this trilogy.
20:00I just thought, okay, I've written about these three characters.
20:02I really wanted to go on and write about Amrita Shergill.
20:06And so I started calling these a trilogy.
20:09It's just easier to refer to these three books as a trilogy.
20:12And they have all the same characters.
20:14Well, my editor said, stop calling it a trilogy because that means it's over.
20:19And I thought, well, no, that can't be true because look at Star Wars.
20:22You know, Star Wars has X number of prequels and X number of sequels.
20:26It doesn't matter.
20:27So with the sixth book, I do want to return to these characters.
20:31And we are going back to them.
20:33We have advanced the time period to 1980.
20:36And that was a seminal moment in all of the migration that happened between India.
20:42That was sort of the first big movement between India and America.
20:47So we had the high-tech, the first sort of petroleum oil and high-tech boom happening around the 1980s.
20:56And then there was another one in the 1990s and so on.
20:59So I like that time period and talking about that time period.
21:03And I'll have a chance to bring these characters from India to America and then back again.
21:09And I sort of like, I also love to play with this idea of how large the Indian diaspora is
21:17around the world and how many places we have contributed to the society that we choose to adopt.
21:26And I think that for me, it's very interesting for me to have my characters traveling through Europe, through the
21:33Americas, through all over India, and to be able to show people, look, Indians are far more diverse than you
21:43might think.
21:43And that we are capable in so many different ways and contributing in so many different ways to different societies
21:52that we live in.
21:53And for me, it's just fun.
21:55You know, it is fun to climb back into these worlds in the past.
22:00And it's fun to also do all of the research.
22:02For six days in Bombay, I had to go to Mumbai, Delhi, Istanbul, Prague, Florence, Paris, London.
22:12And I met with experts in all of those areas so that I could learn what life was like in
22:19a certain time period.
22:20So I met with art historians and, you know, just historical experts.
22:25And I met with a photo archivist who could show me what people were wearing, what foods they were eating
22:31at that time period.
22:33They would walk me around as I went to each of these cities so that I could imagine where my
22:39character is walking.
22:40Because so many of these places in Europe that did not get bombed during World War II are still looking
22:45exactly the same as they did before.
22:48So it's really beautiful to be able to capture what they might have felt like and look like at that
22:54time period.
22:56I think that, for me, a lot of the joy comes from meeting all of the people who are going
23:02to help me shape that story.
23:05Right.
23:05And to wrap it up, what happened to the one that was optioned for a movie?
23:11So that, yeah, that is still in development.
23:14And that's the henna artist.
23:16Yeah, right behind you, yes.
23:17Exactly.
23:19And Frida Pinto will star as Lakshmi.
23:22And, you know, I thought the process of development went really quickly.
23:26This is how naive I was when it was first optioned.
23:29And I thought, oh, within a few years, we're going to see a series or a movie.
23:33But apparently it takes about seven years for the average screen adaptation to realize, to be realized on the bigger
23:43little screen.
23:43So I think next year we'll be approaching maybe the seven-year mark.
23:49I think sometimes they just take too long.
23:52I think they make far too much out of these things, make heavy weather out of things which they shouldn't.
23:58I don't think it should take seven years to turn a book into a movie at all.
24:04Unless they're not that focused.
24:06Yeah, I think that Bollywood would not take that long.
24:10But Hollywood somehow has a lot of, you know, hoops that you have to jump through.
24:17AI will change that.
24:19AI will kick their behind.
24:21And I think because AI, you can literally make now an entire feature film in about five hours.
24:29Everything.
24:31I know.
24:31And, you know, I think Hollywood jobs are going away as a result of that.
24:35Yes, absolutely.
24:37Okay.
24:38On that note, Alka, I really want to thank you for your time.
24:41It's always a pleasure to engage with you.
24:43And my best to you on your continuing writing.
24:49Thank you so much.
24:50And let me know when this airs.
24:52I would be delighted to watch it again and share it on my social media.
