Your story “Prophecy” revolves around a young Indian man, Deb. Deb’s dominant family members, her grandfather, father, and uncle, are in the real estate business, and she starts working there when she turns 22. What made you decide to tell Dev’s story?
I grew up around men who lived in so-called “joint families” – families who lived and worked together. I was intrigued by the complexity of such an arrangement. If that person is also your business partner, what about your relationship with your parents and siblings? What kind of struggles and competitions will occur? And once you’re in such a system, how do you get out?
Judging from what I witnessed as a child, separation of “joint families” can be cruel. Minor financial disputes can estrange relatives, and personal or business-related disputes can fester into problems that divide households. I wanted to explore what happens to young people who begin to see the flaws in such arrangements. Once he has enough courage to imagine a more independent life for himself, how can he carry out an escape?
Dev meets and falls in love with a woman who has a less traditional lifestyle than his own, and more specifically, a woman who rebelled against her parents’ traditional marriage. The cultural distance between them is at the heart of the story. It’s clear what Dev sees in Jagriti, but what do you think she sees in him?
At their first meeting, Jagriti and Dev bond over their shared disillusionment with Dev’s family’s real estate company. I think that the fact that Dev actively stood by Jagriti’s side in that moment is telling her that there is a free-thinking part of him that wants to be expressed. Then she witnessed his desire to expand his ideas. It was our mutual decision to first borrow her books and then study astrology. They know that they need to understand the world they come from before attempting to create something new for themselves. I think Jagriti sees in him a reflection of her own questioning and critical mind.
Did they know from the beginning that the fate of their relationship would depend on their Vedic astrology readings?
yes. I often write towards specific images or scenes that seem to shine for me. In this story, so to speak, I was writing to get to the scene where Dev is drawing his daughter’s birth chart in the hallway of the hospital. From there, I worked backwards to understand the story. Why did this man know how to draw a birth chart, and why did he have to do it so desperately at that moment? , I thought maybe I was given a reading at some point predicting that I wouldn’t have children because I needed hope that my newborn daughter would survive.
I also grew up hearing a lot about astrology. My parents’ birth charts were read when they decided to get married. And so were the birth charts of many of my friends. I’ve always been curious about the ethics of these readings. What did the astrologer see and keep hidden within himself? And what prejudices did the astrologer bring to this work? Having this magical ability to predict the future It struck me as ridiculous that marriage would be recommended or rejected based on the word of a complete stranger who claims that. Of course, I was also hooked on the idea that someone actually had this power. So love and astrology have long been intertwined in my mind, and these opposing forces, one spontaneous and miraculous, the other paid and meticulously calculated, have always been intertwined in my mind. I wanted to explore how we can exist in the world. Same universe.
The character of Bhakti Bai, Dev’s housemaid, is a kind of throughline in the story. Why did you find her so helpful to your storytelling?
When I wrote the first scene of Dev and Bhakti Bhai in the kitchen, I realized that she had foreknowledge about Dev’s situation, that is, to convey the message that Dev was invited to remain in the meeting. I was fascinated by how he used her. It then became clear to me that Bhakti Bai was the woman in the house who knew the men best. She is physically closest to the men during meetings, constantly bringing things in from the kitchen, and can probably hear some of their plans through the walls. All this gives Bhakti Bai knowledge that no one else has. When the time comes for Dev to leave the business, she becomes the perfect person to advise him on the matter. It also helps that she has no stake in Dev’s social success. Even if Dev quits the family business, it won’t affect her job. This allows her to act selflessly when it comes to him. Unlike Dev’s own father, who has to think about business and his social status, Bhakti Bai is in a position to support Dev’s happiness.
At the end of the story, you move forward many years, allowing Dev’s child to play the coda, so to speak. Why did you decide to include this other perspective? Or is it a voice that has been telling the story all along without us even knowing it?
One of the first drafts of this story also had a coda voice at the beginning, structuring the story as a kind of monologue. This felt necessary to me at the time. Because I knew there would be unanswered questions in this story. The question was, “What did the astrologer actually see in Jagriti’s chart?” So I’ve always imagined it as my daughter’s story. Or rather, it’s a daughter’s attempt to understand what her parents are saying, but it’s still just an attempt after all.
This is your first article in The New Yorker and you are currently working on your first novel. Can you tell us a little about how you came to write and the book you are currently working on?
My parents are very interesting storytellers. However, I hope parents read this and don’t feel self-conscious about what they tell me. A lot of what I write comes from them and from our lives in India and Dubai before we moved to America when we were about 16 years old. I think much of my writing career was the result of missing people and places so badly, similar to my parents wanting to know more about the people and places they missed.
My novel is about a young woman who reunites with her childhood nanny for a few days in Mumbai after many years. I consider this book to be both a book about returning home and a book about building a family. That is, it focuses on the question of who can build a house and call it their own. Like many of my works, this is also a kind of love story. ♦