Spicy kisses from Shinie
Introduction: Shinie Antony has come a long way since her book of short stories, "Barefoot and Pregnant" and "Goddy Tales". Her new book "Kardamom Kisses" has taken four years for her to complete. The book traces the lives of two sisters, Disha and Drupa, who began their childhood years in Kerala, amidst a joint family that is torn apart by jealousy and a lie that changes their lives forever. We caught up with Shinie in a chat about the makings of her book…
Source: Vijay Times, BVT LifeStyle - 4.
Copyright © 2005 Puja Goyal.
Shinie speaks about her book, and the idea that gave "Kardamom Kisses", its form.
There are two social aspects to my book, there is a lot of misunderstanding of the word modernism, we wear shorter skirts, we also find people of my age, like forty plus who want to be well groomed and fit and media throws it all over the place as a very important factor of life. But is modernism really equal to westernization? I just feel that the whole concept is being misunderstood and we do not even think whether it goes for or against our own cultural genes… The second thing is this concept of joint and nuclear families, which is the offshoot of the first crisis. We have been rushing from joint to nuclear and then to single parenthood.
Underlining theme of the book…
I would be very rude in saying this, but there are a whole lot of books written on incest off late. I just wanted to show that it is not always like that between brothers and sisters… that’s why I have written a book called "Kardamom Kisses", where the kisses of the uncle are misinterpreted as something else… and this is an almost anti- incest theme. There are so many cross cultural aspects in the book about how the whole joint family is destroyed. So there were a lot of things going on in my head when I was writing the book.
Trying to find answers…
I had this whole North and South thing in my head and I wanted to set that right. I wanted to come to some kind of a conversion. I was in Chennai yesterday, and I used to think that Tamil is so much like Malayalam… While I was in the flight I heard everyone talking Tamil… I felt like an outcast… I didn’t meet anyone's eye and I didn’t talk to anyone, I just realise Tamil is so different and then felt that no I'm not a Tamilian I'm a Malayali… Imagine what a difference it would be between North and South… we are all cynical about each other.
What I want to achieve through "Kardamom Kisses"…
I want to start a debate about Progress VS Modernism. I want people to think about the fact that when we go out of our country and complain about cultural barriers; that we have the same barriers existent amongst ourselves.
Source: Vijay Times, BVT LifeStyle - 4.
Copyright © 2005 Puja Goyal.
Shinie speaks about her book, and the idea that gave "Kardamom Kisses", its form.
There are two social aspects to my book, there is a lot of misunderstanding of the word modernism, we wear shorter skirts, we also find people of my age, like forty plus who want to be well groomed and fit and media throws it all over the place as a very important factor of life. But is modernism really equal to westernization? I just feel that the whole concept is being misunderstood and we do not even think whether it goes for or against our own cultural genes… The second thing is this concept of joint and nuclear families, which is the offshoot of the first crisis. We have been rushing from joint to nuclear and then to single parenthood.
Underlining theme of the book…
I would be very rude in saying this, but there are a whole lot of books written on incest off late. I just wanted to show that it is not always like that between brothers and sisters… that’s why I have written a book called "Kardamom Kisses", where the kisses of the uncle are misinterpreted as something else… and this is an almost anti- incest theme. There are so many cross cultural aspects in the book about how the whole joint family is destroyed. So there were a lot of things going on in my head when I was writing the book.
Trying to find answers…
I had this whole North and South thing in my head and I wanted to set that right. I wanted to come to some kind of a conversion. I was in Chennai yesterday, and I used to think that Tamil is so much like Malayalam… While I was in the flight I heard everyone talking Tamil… I felt like an outcast… I didn’t meet anyone's eye and I didn’t talk to anyone, I just realise Tamil is so different and then felt that no I'm not a Tamilian I'm a Malayali… Imagine what a difference it would be between North and South… we are all cynical about each other.
What I want to achieve through "Kardamom Kisses"…
I want to start a debate about Progress VS Modernism. I want people to think about the fact that when we go out of our country and complain about cultural barriers; that we have the same barriers existent amongst ourselves.
Comments