‘History is as much Women’s as Anyone Else’s’: Indian-American Writer Reenita Hora

“Young Punjabi girls, even today, are not allowed just to go out and roam the city freely. So, they certainly could not in even think in 1919. But my character could get away with a little more than conventional because she is an Anglo Indian,” says Reenita Malhotra Hora about the female protagonist, Aruna, from her recent fiction, ‘Vermilion Harvest’, set on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Ms. Hora sits in a saree as we speak on the sidelines of the Crossword Book-A-Bookathon in Mumbai, which concluded last week. She calls wearing a saree her “brand image” that she adorns, not only in Indian panels or events but also in California, where she lives. It is, by her choice and comfort, that she prefers a saree – a clothing tradition associated with India - over other clothing, yet defying the meaning of conventions through her writing, a trait on display in her recent book.

The women's and minorities’ perspectives 

However, she says that it is difficult to put females’ perspectives in fiction, especially set in a historical background, because history has been both written and portrayed from a male perspective. “I knew how my male protagonist was likely to react in the historical scenes, but it is challenging to write for the female.” 

But the challenge is what makes the book stand apart from what has already been created on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre – both fiction and non-fiction. Ms. Hora explains, “I knew that I wanted to do an epic love story (she cites the examples of Titanic and The Fault in Our Stars), and I also wanted to write something set against the Jallianwala Bagh disaster from a different take, from a different angle. It took me years for these two pieces to come together.”

While a lot of feature films have been created on the massacre, another, an Akshay Kumar starrer, ‘Kesari Chapter 2: The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh’, is in the theatres as we speak. In the recent past, even fiction like ‘Phillauri’ has been created on the themes of fantasy-comedy has been created in the Hindi cinema, all of which highlights the number of times the incident has been a backdrop of the stories. 

Hora’s book offers a varied perspective. “Other than women, the story of the minorities has been brought to the audience. Back in time, jobs in schools, in the post office, railways, those were reserved for Anglo Indians. They were too good for the Indians. Such stories have never been told,” she says.

Working as a journalist in Public Radio, back in time, Ms. Hora had met an Anglo-Indian musician. While interviewing him, his backstory stayed with her about the difficulties that they face in India, which also inspired her to take up the Anglo-Indian character to set the fiction. Throughout history, women and minorities have always been there. I felt that it was important to craft and frame my story from that point of view,” she says, adding, “Our (women’s) history is as much there as it is anybody else's.”

What, in such books and writings, cannot be prevented is the paradox when the story of love and violence has to be told together. The challenge lies in narrating the story without reducing love or sentimentalising the pain. But Hora captures the fine balance with both fiction and facts put together and done well. 

It is only a matter of fine transition that Ms. Hora has been able to clinch titles in genres like fiction after working for a long time as a journalist in her early life, where life depended on “facts”. She, who wrote some of her books while working as a journalist, says, “Journalism is the first, first documentation of history. It must be fact-checked. And fiction is drawn from non-fiction from our everyday lives. So, I always say that fiction is twisted reality. Whether it was storytelling as a journalist, or as a writer, or screenwriter, the transition might be slow, but fiction is my happy place,” she says, adding that the advantage of being a journalist paves way for zero chances of factual errors even for the fiction that is based on true history.

Tropes – the bold choices and the characters

Be it the recent Vermillion Harvest or Reenita’s other books like ‘Operation Mom’, Operation Mom', also an Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize winner, Ms. Hora has built her characters strong, independent, and fierce. Talking about Vermilion Harvest’s protagonist, Ms. Hora says she is a character who knows “she's going to be judged regardless. 

“The idea of tropes may come from distinct sources, but I like to take those tropes and flip them on their head, turn them over, and explore something different. But they resonate with contemporary,” Ms. Hora says when asked how she gives power to the female characters in her books and portrays them as independent on various fronts.

But how can a historical fiction like Vermillion Harvest be “contemporary” in any sense? Reenita Hora says, “I think, back in 1919, in the era of the, if the land could speak to the people, it would say, ‘Where is our basic freedom?’ And, even today, if the land could speak to the people, it would ask, ‘What has happened to our basic freedom?’.”