Sujata Massey on Her New Novel, The Satapur Moonstone

As part of Reading Women’s month on India partition narratives, Kendra and Autumn discuss Sujata Massey’s newest novel in the Perveen Mistry series, The Satapur Moonstone, which is now out from Soho Crime.

From the episode:

Autumn Privett: You’ve mentioned in other interviews that Perveen is based on a real historical figure. Could you talk a little bit about who that historical figure was and why you decided to write about her?

Sujata Massey: Well, there were actually two women lawyers in India who practiced between the 1890s and into the 1930s. And the first one who’s really well known is Cornelia Sorabji, who never married, and she had this fascinating career where she represented all kinds of women and children all over India and traveled to find them. A lot of them lived in seclusion. So I was very inspired to learn about the kind of work an early woman lawyer might do, studying Cornelia’s memoirs and her letters. And I want to make it clear that it’s not that Perveen is Cornelia. There are some things that are really different about the two of them. But you know, one of the things that’s very different is that the first woman lawyer, Cornelia, supported British rule, and my Perveen is interested in freedom, you know, freedom from British rule. So that’s a really huge difference between the two of them. I did look at the way these women lawyers worked and the challenges they had and the fact that really it was very hard to practice unless you had somebody in your family who was willing to work with you. And that’s the situation for my lawyer in my book that she works with her father.

Kendra Winchester: And you mentioned that Cornelia represented a lot of women and children in her practice. Are parts of the books that you’ve written so far based on any of Cornelia’s real cases?

SM: I wouldn’t say real cases. I do know that she visited with women in seclusion and tried to find out what was going on and, in many times, prevented those women from being harmed or losing their fortunes. So I started with that idea. But what got me really interested in crafting the exact plot for The Widows of Malabar Hill, which is a mystery about three widows, married to the same man who passed away, who are in danger of losing their fortune, their children, and a lot more. I learned a lot about that situation by reading a history of law during that time and understanding that women’s rights were different, depending on what religion they were. I was very interested in that.

And I realized that certain religions had advantages with financials, and certain ones had advantages with freedom to leave a marriage. And all that is, you know, taken from books on law. That was a really big inspiration for that exact plot that I have, including when I talk a little bit about the issue of domestic violence.

KW: So you mentioned that you read a book about the different laws based on the different religions. What other research did you do when you were preparing to write the Perveen Mistry series?

SM: Well, I traveled to India. I stayed in Bombay, and I made an effort to go through this old neighborhood called Fort, which is where the high court is. The University of Bombay is there. All kinds of buildings that I’ve mentioned in the book. And also I was in Colaba, which is where the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel is. And I often did it walking with another woman, and I was fortunate enough to spend time with several Parsi women, so I got a look also into their home life. You know, one of them was a Parsi woman lawyer, which was really extraordinary, a really nice coincidence. And then I also spent some time touring around with a retired woman professor from the University of Mumbai, who is a Muslim. So I was able to talk to her a lot about the customs for women and what she remembered the grandmothers in her family doing. And so those were really fun ways to research. I even got to eat inside the Parsi cafes. I mentioned a cafe called Yazdani, and it actually exists for anyone who goes to India, who goes to Mumbai.

AP: That is really fascinating, and it makes sense that you went there to do your research because, in both books, as I was reading, I just felt so immersed in the surroundings and what was going on. That immersive experience was just so much fun, and I really enjoyed it. The mystery aspect of the book, of both the books in the series, I love because I love mystery novels, and they’re one of my favorite genres. But what made you decide to tell Perveen’s story as as a mystery versus like a historical novel or another kind of format?

SM: Well, I come out of a background of having written both mystery fiction and straight historical literary fiction. And I was never one hundred percent satisfied with either of those fields. And so I just wanted to unite them. One of the things that was great about being a mystery novelist is you could kind of keep track of your story. You know, there’s not a lot of room for excess baggage in a mystery novel, and you really have to end each chapter in a way that people will want to keep on reading.

But I wasn’t telling quite the stories I wanted to tell. So I thought that just writing a straight historical novel would be though the way that my career should go. And I tried that. I did that in 2013. I had a novel come out called The Sleeping Dictionary, which is a book I really value, and I loved writing it. It was very hard to get the same kind of audience and reviews that I did when I wrote mysteries. But I wanted to still write historical, so I combined the two. And I really feel like it’s what I was meant to do all along. I wouldn’t have known that in the beginning. I sort of had to try these two different genres before I decided to do the genre which combined them both.

*

KW: So our contributor Sumiayya, whose family is from India, she and I were researching the partition of India. And so I found it very interesting, reading about all the different religions in India and the religious diversity. I was just so impressed and it was just so thought provoking, the way that Perveen interacted with these different characters in the book that have the different religions. So as you were writing the books, what role did religious diversity play? Were considering what adventures Perveen might go on to and how she might interact with these different characters?

SM: I think about it a lot. My father was born in India during the British period, and he grew up in India. And you know, he actually left for Cambridge. So in a way his journey is a little bit like Perveen’s, although he is a Hindu not a Parsi. And one of the things my father has told me about his childhood is how much back and forth there was between Muslim and Hindu families, and that they would go to each other’s homes for holidays. They would break bread together. They loved each other’s sweets. I want to write about that time. I want to write about how people have been together, and how they have learned from each other and enjoyed each other. And yes, there were differences, and there can be suspicions. But, they really did well together, especially during this period.

And when you talk about how many religions there were in that there were Christians and Parsis and Jews and Sikhs also in Bombay, all contributing. You know, it was a really beautiful thing. Just as I celebrate these buildings that are often now being torn down, and you know one of the things I love about writing historical fiction is I can preserve these places. Who knows, they could be gone in ten years, but they are still alive in my books.

And I want to talk about those relationships and get people to maybe trust each other again.

KW: It is interesting that I talked to Veera Hiranandani for this theme and she wrote The Night Diary, which is a fictional account of a 12-year-old having to move from what is now Pakistan to India because she is a Hindu. And she said that one of the biggest reasons that she wrote the book was to preserve that story. Her family had to move. Being Hindu, they were part of the migration. And so she said that she thought it was very important that we preserve the past, so that we may remember, so that history doesn’t repeat itself. And I feel like, in a similar way, that you’re preserving the past of almost like a golden age or a positive way before the partition. And in that similar way capturing the history of India with the Perveen Mistry series. So I find that just really beautiful in that way.

SM: I’m looking forward to reading that book that you just mentioned. Right now, it’s a period where there is a growing separation of religions, and it’s much much stronger than even 10 years ago. So I think that this series potentially has a little bit of a role as a little peaceful place to go and to consider looking at people in a light other than, you know, they’re not me.

AP: Yeah, I think that’s so wonderful. And you know, even reading this series, I felt like I realized, as I was reading about India in this time period, like how little I actually really knew about the history of India, apart from unfortunately like the stereotyped images we get here in the US. And so it actually made me want to read more about India in this time period, and even—we haven’t quite talked about it yet—but the British rule in India, you know, those kinds of things. I really had just no idea about the detail or what was going on. So I really felt like I learned a lot as I was reading too.

SM: Thank you. Yeah, there is a wealth of material out there when you you get into it. In general, my whole theme for this series is to present a completely different view of India than is widely known. And it’s not like it’s a sanitized view or a PR view, but it’s a view of just so many different socioeconomic classes, so many different religions.

Parents who are conservative, parents who are supportive and progressive. I’m trying to do just like we have in fiction set in Europe in the United States.

*

KW: Most of the British contact that we have in the first book was Perveen’s best friend, and that was in a very limited capacity. They have some discussions about British rule and what that looks like. And this is the 1920s, so it’s about twenty years before the partition, give or take a few years. And so you can see the stewing resentment in the political situation ongoing. And so we’ve actually had some people ask us about the Perveen Mistry series as we gush about it. Is it leading up to the partition of India? What’s going to happen to Perveen? I’m like, well, there are a few years yet.

SM: I don’t know that I would get to partition. You know, because we’re talking about 1947. This is 1921. I think very slowly because I like keeping Perveen in kind of this youthful state. A really big thing that I’m going to have to face in the next few books is whether Perveen will return to Oxford to eventually get her degree so she could be a barrister. You know I have to think about whether I want to do that or not. There is some very exciting things coming up. What I usually do is I look at what’s going on in history.

And the big things that happened in the early 20s were the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward the eighth and was briefly on the throne in Britain before leaving to marry Mrs. Simpson, he was then the Prince of Wales. He came to visit Bombay and India, and there was a tremendous amount of unrest. And this whole visit has been very well documented, so I’m working with that.

At the same time, Mahatma Gandhi, his movement was becoming this sweeping force, not just for the elite but for the everyday man and woman. So that is impacting. So I think about those political events of the 1920s as being the things that I’m concentrating on, rather than taking her through the Partition. But you know, it does take you through independence.