Devyani Khobragade, whom everyone remembers as the controversial diplomat arrested three winters ago in New York for alleged visa fraud involving her housekeeper, has, somewhat trendily, turned to fiction with a short story for publisher Juggernaut.
In The White Sari, Khobragade has created a moving love story weighed down by caste, ideologies, and a tragedy. We meet Ratna, her young protagonist, clutching a white sari with a gold zari border, recalling her days with the sharp-nosed, fair-complexioned Akarsh, whom she had met on December 6 the year before. The occasion was Maha Parinirvan at Chaitra Bhumi in Mumbai, the place of pilgrimage for dalits, where she went twice a year with her father, marking BR Ambedkar’s death anniversary.
What has happened in the year between the time we meet her and the last to stir Ratna so deeply? Khobragade writes about this seminal year in her protagonist’s life effectively, fusing romance with broader philosophies, dalit identity with life choices, individuality with age-old shackles. The subject is intimate, intimate enough to seem that Khobragade has done a good job of layering the story with episodes from her own life.
“Some of these experiences are of course, personal,” she told Scroll.in. “To write this story, I recalled all my childhood and adult experiences, tales and anecdotes of my parents and grandparents while growing up. Then I mulled over the structure of the story for a week and wrote it at one sitting over a long weekend in August.”
How she started writing
Perhaps writing has given Khobragade a chance to step out of the mayhem of professional life. Following her return to India after the debacle in the US and the relentless media exposure, things haven’t let up significantly: getting a fresh post at Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, and leaving it a year later after trouble over some media interviews; a tussle with the ministry and High Court over her daughters’ dual citizenship; being named in the Adarsh Housing Scam. There has been a series of controversies.
As a result, Khobragade now refuses to talk about her professional life. Currently she serves as Director in the Ministry of External Affairs. “Writing is creative, calming and constructive for me, helping me transcend from the individual to societal, from local to global levels,” she said. “I write all the time, mostly on planes and while travelling. It helps me analyse and get a grip on an issue. Writing is also my professional requirement and I owe a debt of gratitude to many of my caring seniors in the IFS who have honed my writing abilities,” she says.
How did Khobragade stumble upon the idea of writing fiction? She said, “Serendipity led me towards fiction. One day, Chiki Sarkar (publisher at Juggernaut) texted that she knows I am not a fiction writer, but would I attempt two dalit short stories for her? It was a challenge and I said why not?” As far as literary debuts go, it can be considered a noteworthy one, though the story itself is unoriginal, with a tragic love affair at its core. But its treatment, and use of the central plot to throw light on larger themes is what gives it heft.
The White Sari can also be seen as part of the emergence of modern dalit popular culture out of the academic fold, meant more for mass consumption and appreciation, more life-like – think of the spate of recent films, Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat and Fandry for example – rediscovery and newer adaptations of dalit poetry and literature by thespians and musicians, even a book on dalit food, Anna He Apoornabrahma, and dalit e-commerce ventures like Dalit Foods.
Khobragade, on her part, views The White Sari as a story about “the evolving of the social consciousness of a modern dalit woman in a post-Ambedkar-Movement era. It is an account of the existing social reality that reflects complex dialectics of pride, anger and agony that marks the psyche of a dalit today,” she said. Indeed, while this is only short fiction, easy to finish in under 15 minutes, there is a deep connection to Ambedkar’s philosophy and movement. This is something Khobragade feels close to.
“The story was an attempt to share the experience of the Ambedkar movement and the socio-political and cultural identity many dalits in our society today, including me, relate to,” she said. “My idea was to also share the thoughts and feelings, aspirations, material conditions of the dalit and neo-Buddhist culture in a fictionalised representation.”
Khobragade said she also enjoys writing on her experiences as a woman, though mostly privately. As for fiction, there is more in the works. “I would like to explore similar themes, and others too, which are empowering for women and girls,” says Khobragade, who particularly likes reading Kiran Nagarkar’s novels, and the feminist poems of Kamala Das.
How good is the story?
Purely on the strength of its writing, The White Sari seems uninspired in its opening page.
“The shifting sands made her feel as though she was being pulled towards the vast waters of the Arabian Sea, just as her breath was pulled away from her being. It made her think of her bond with Akarsh − there yet not there.”
But as the tale moves along, Khobragade moves to firmer ground, gathering emotional heft along the way.
“The last time they met, he had asked her to make up her mind. Exasperated, he’d said, ‘I didn’t fall in love with such a wimp. Aren’t you your Babasaheb’s daughter? And didn’t he say that intercaste marriages are the only way to break the caste system?’
Her reply was quick and sharp. ‘That’s the responsibility of you caste Hindus, not us.’”
Khobragade’s writing is simple, sensitive, and relevant, because it does manage to break out of the regular can-love-triumph-over-caste theme. The White Sari has many moments that feel dated, yet in others it reflects our times accurately. More importantly, the story zooms into the life of a tiny Ratna in a tiny corner of the universe, fighting inner turmoil that are really issues of the country at large, and of the world.
