The Wise Owl talks to Namita Gokhale about her book ‘Paro: Dreams of Passion’ which has completed 40 years and has now been published as a Modern Classic by Penguin. Namita needs no introduction to book lovers. Her work spans various genres, including novels, short stories, Himalayan studies, mythology, plays and books for young readers. She is the author of twenty-three works of fiction and non-fiction, including Shakuntala, Jaipur Journals, Things to Leave Behind , The Blind Matriarch, Never Never Land and the edited anthologies Mystics and Sceptics: In Search of Himalayan masters, Himalaya: Adventures, Meditations, Life (with Ruskin Bond) and (with Malashri Lal), In Search of Sita, Finding Radha and Treasures of Lakshmi.

 

Namita Gokhale is the recipient of several prizes and awards, including the prestigious Sahitya Akademi (National Academy of Literature) Award 2021 for Things to Leave Behind. She is the co-founder and co-director (with William Dalrymple) of the famed Jaipur Literature Festival.

 

Thank you Namita for taking time out to talk with The Wise Owl about your book ‘Paro: Dreams of Passion’ which has completed 40 years and has now been released as a Modern Classic by Penguin. What a fabulous achievement!

 

RS: When Paro was released in 1984, it created a bit of furore partly because it had as its protagonist a woman who made no bones about the cravings of her body or her lust for life and partly because it was a no holds barred account of the lives of the rich of Delhi and Bombay.  For the benefit of the readers please tell us about the moment or idea that sparked  the creation of Paro's iconic character?

 

NG: ‘Paro : Dreams of Passion’ isn’t only about Paro - it’s as much about Priya and the complex relationship between the two women. Similar dynamics also emerged between the two aged characters in my recent novel, ‘Never Never Land’ . And I got thinking about Paro only in the context of Priya - an intelligent and ambitious person but repressed by circumstances and society. The narrator Priya’s voice came to me after a long and eventful stroll with my nephew Rahul down Marine drive - once I found the voice I found momentum and was motoring .

 

RS: For me, both Paro and Priya are different facets of a woman, one a seductress, the other a staid miss, one who embraces life with open arms and the other who is timorous and afraid of being hurt. How did you develop the characters of Paro and Priya and what made you juxtapose them to enhance the differences in both?

 

NG: Priya and Paro came to me fully formed - I knew what they looked like, sounded like, the texture of their dialogue. I lived with them in the year I wrote the book and edited the first draft. I continued Priya’s story a quarter century later in the sequel I wrote, titled ‘Priya - In Incredible Indyaa’. It was a good book, but it lacked the magic of my debut novel. Paro was dead, and though her absent presence remained through the narrative it was all over somehow a bit flat.

 

RS: Paro reflects the socio-cultural landscape of India in the 1980s. For the benefit of the readers tell us what aspects of society you were aiming to critique or highlight?

 

NG: I didn’t aim to ‘critique or highlight’ anything. I wrote about life in Bombay ( not Mumbai) and Delhi as I observed it. Paro has been described as a cultural watershed, and indeed it foreshadowed the new India that was emerging around us. It was a spontaneous book, it hit a chord, and to my surprise continues to hit a chord. 

 

RS: Paro has a satirical and ironical tone. It laughs at relationships, it makes fun of the vanity of men and women especially their sexual prowess and needs. At the same time it talks about loss and death.  How did you balance humour with the more serious themes in the book?

 

NG: I was young enough when I wrote it not to know the unspoken unwritten rules of Indian society . It caused outrage because I laughed - affectionately, sometimes sharply - at the vanity of the male characters, their sense of entitlement. Paro knew the rules but ignored them - she lived instinctively on her own terms - and this is what has made the book endure. The late Khushwant Singh, who in a sense mentored the book by encouraging me, said of my work that I wrote about ‘love, lust and death’. Perhaps he was right …about this my debut novel and many that followed. 

 

RS: Your book was ahead of its time. It was considered scandalous in the 1980s but easily connects with today’s reader. Did you have to face any criticism from the so-called upholders of morality when the book was first published?

 

NG: Paro shocked people - perhaps because it wrote in a natural tone about sexuality, but more I think because it laughed at masculinity through Paro’s defiance of conversational stereotypes. 

 

RS: Your book was the frontrunner of a new genre of fiction and earned you a lot of critical acclaim as well. Our readers would be curious to know why you did not write in this genre again. 

 

NG: I did write a sequel to Paro titled Priya - which was again in the genre of social comedy. But for me each book is a quest, a journey, and I followed different paths in other narratives.

 

RS: How do you feel ‘Paro’ has influenced contemporary Indian literature, especially in terms of female protagonists and feminist themes?

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NG: I don’t think it had any direct or derivative influence - but yes it loosened up the atmosphere a little and led other writers to do their own thing.

 

RS: Looking back, is there anything you would change about Paro?

 

NG: Not a word ! Not a phrase !! I would change nothing. 

 

RS: When I was reading your latest book ‘Never Never Land’, I found echoes of Paro and Priya in the characters of Rosinka and Lily. Tell us how you traversed the road from Paro to Rosinka.

 

NG: Nothing was plotted or planned . Perhaps Paro and Priya just decided to manifest themselves in my work again - who knows ?

 

Thank you so much Namita for taking time out of a very packed schedule to talk with The Wise Owl. We wish you the very best in all your literary endeavours and congratulate you on writing a book that resonates with the readers even after 40 long years. That is what makes your book a modern classic.

 

Thank you !