Poured Over: Vaishnavi Patel on Kaikeyi
“I grew up hearing The Ramayana over lunch. My grandma would tell me little bits and pieces to me and my younger sister, she would tell us little bits and pieces every day. And we would ask to hear the same stories over and over again.”
If you’re a fan of imaginative retellings like Circe, Ariadne and The Witch’s Heart, you don’t want to miss Vaishnavi Patel’s Kaikeyi. Vaishnavi joins us on the show to talk about the origins of her debut novel, her love of retellings and epic fantasy, what writing her first novel taught her about herself, balancing law school with writing fiction, Season 2 of Bridgerton and much more with Poured Over’s host, Miwa Messer. And we end this episode with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Margie and Marc.
Featured books:
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn
Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional bonus episodes on Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.
Full transcript for this episode of Poured Over:
Barnes & Noble: I’m Miwa Messer, I’m the producer and host of Poured Over and I’m so excited to introduce you to a debut writer Vaishnavi Patel is the author of a really interesting, smart novel that if you’re a fan of Circe or books like The Witch’s Heart, retellings of classic folklore and mythology, then you definitely definitely want to know Kaikeyi. So, Vaishnavi, would you do me a favor and just introduce yourself to listeners before we really get into things?
Vaishnavi Patel: Yeah, my name is Vaishnavi Patel. I’m the author of Kaikeyi. I’m currently a law student originally from the Midwest. I got my start writing a few short stories before transitioning into writing Kaikeyi, and I’m just thrilled to be here.
B&N: Let’s start with the Ramayana, which maybe not everyone knows. It is part of India’s creation mythology. It’s 24,000 verses about a god named Rama. And this is where we first meet Kaikeyi. But can you just give us the sort of short SparkNotes version of the Ramayana?
VP: Yeah, so the Ramayana is one of the two great Indian epics. It’s 1000s of years old, and it tells the story of Ram who’s a god but he’s reincarnated on Earth as the prince of this important kingdom. Just as he’s about to take the throne from his father, his stepmother, Kaikeyi, intervenes and demands that his father put his essentially stepbrother on the throne, and that his father exile Ram. So Ram ends up going into the forest for 14 years with his wife, Sita and his brother, Lakshmana. They live in the forest for several years quite peacefully living out their exile until they attract the attention of this demon king named Ravan who is the King of Lanka. And Ravan decides that he has to have Sita for himself. So he kidnaps Sita, takes her to Lanka. And most of the Ramayanan actually is rom traveling to Lanka to save her. So he meets all of these allies, including the Monkey God, Hanuman, who’s a very popular character, and she eventually reaches Lanka, does battle with Ravan and then bring Sita back to his kingdom.
B&N: The Ramayana was not written yesterday, how old is the story?
VP: It’s hard to really date it. It’s existed for probably at least four or 5000 years in oral tradition, and the written version is probably about 3000 years old.
B&N: Okay, so Kaikeyi is essentially the wicked stepmother.
VP: Yes.
B&N: Okay. So you have stepped in, and you have decided to tell her story before Ram is exiled to the forest. So here you are growing up in and around Chicago? How did you decide that it was Kaikeyi’s story that you needed to tell that this was going to be your first novel?
VP: Kaikeyi’s story, it was actually one that I just could never get out of my head. I grew up hearing the Ramayan over lunch, my grandma would tell me little bits and pieces me my younger sister, she would tell us little bits and pieces every day. And we would ask to hear the same stories over and over again. So at one point during the story of the exile, my mom and my grandma sort of got into this conversation about whether Kaikeyi was really evil or not, because without Kaikeyi, Ram would never have gone on this epic journey, he would never have defeated Ravan, he would never have sort of brought this great peace to the continent. So how evil was Kaikeyi? And Kaikeyi is already a complicated figure. Because in the source myth itself, she saves her husband in battle. She’s supposed to be a very just and beloved queen. And then suddenly, she seems to snap. I was just always really curious about this tension with her character. And I would keep finding myself researching her over the years, I learned a lot more about her story, little tidbits that have ended up in the book. And eventually, I just decided it was time for me to sit down and write the story that I was really hoping to read.
B&N: Okay, so did you start with an image? Or did you start with her?
VP: I started with her as a character. And there’s actually the very first scene I ever wrote is the scene where she is in battle with her husband, because it was specifically that moment of complete bravery and devotion to her family and her kingdom that was so at odds to me growing up with what she ultimately does. So that was actually the first scene I ever wrote. And it remains largely unchanged in the final version, actually, because that was just so powerful to me.
B&N: You’re starting with this 4000 year old story, probably one of the original, let’s call it a coming of age story, if you will. I mean, granted it’s a god finding his place in the world, but it’s still a coming of age story. You found this character Kaikeyi that you really want to know more about because as you said, Is she really evil, she’s looking for freedom. She’s looking out for her son. But why turn to a 4000 year old epic now?
VP: It doesn’t feel like 4000 years old. It’s such a popular cultural story that it’s kind of ubiquitous in a lot of Indian culture, we grow up hearing it, I read comics about it, I watched animated TV shows about Hanuman growing up, it’s everywhere. It’s even in more like serious ways, a part of Indian politics today. So this story, while it is 1000s of years old, doesn’t feel old. It feels like one of the sort of root fabric cultural elements of my childhood. And so that’s why I think I kept feeling this pull to it. There’s no separating the Ramayana from Hinduism and Indian culture in many ways.
B&N: Yeah, before we get back to the book, can I ask you about something you just said, where you mentioned that it’s part of Indian political culture right now? Can you just explain that a little bit?
VP: Indian politics is very complicated. But there are a number of references to Ram or even conflicts about Ram that have arisen in modern politics today, for example, the question of roms birthplace and whether a mosque was built there, and what should happen to that mosque actually led to the mosque being torn down during riots, and then ultimately an Indian Supreme Court case about who owned that land. And that was all because of the significance of Ram. Indian politicians also often referred to Ram Rajo, which is the rule of Ram is this particularly aspirational place that they want to return India to? And I mean, that raises a lot of questions about religion, and who is India for? And what does the Ram really mean, but it’s just a very present question. And they call females politicians that they dislike Kaikeyi, for example, which is something I discovered when I was researching Kaikeyi as a character that been taught name was actually is continued to be used as a descriptor for evil or poisonous women today.
B&N: A lot of what you’re talking about in Kaikeyi is her journey, as a woman and a wife and a mother and a leader and her coming of age, essentially. But there are a couple of moments to just what you were saying about the politics today. Ram has a couple of moments when he’s a child where he says things that are so kind of old school old man, I mean, at one point, his mother is running this Women’s Council. And he’s like, Well, that’s just not appropriate. I’m sorry, where are you learning this from? I am not teaching you this. And it turns out it is one of his tutors, who has very definite ideas about where we should be and leading a Women’s Council and helping run the country is certainly not one of those places. But here’s this tiny little man who’s very sure of his opinions, even as a child, because I think, doesn’t he know he’s a god, essentially, he knows from jump that he’s a god?
VP: Yeah, he knows that there’s something different about him and that she’s a God, and that he’s also a undercurrent of Kaikeyi is Ram trying to figure out what is his place, and who should he trust and listen to, because he’s also so different from those around him, and so set apart, and it’s hard for him to figure out who he should trust and listen to. Some of those early moments were inspired by, I have a younger brother, and I have a lot of friends who have, you know, younger brothers. And you see sometimes that they come to you with these questions. And you’re like, where did you learn this? And they go, Oh, my friend told me this, or I saw it on the internet. And you’re like, Well, that was a horrifying thing you just said or asked me about. People get ideas from a variety of places. And when you’re young, you can’t really sort through what’s good and what’s bad, you don’t really have your own compass yet. And so I really wanted to include that to show that it’s not coming from some place inside of him. People aren’t born with these ideas. It’s sort of the external climate that’s giving him these views.
B&N: Frankly, if Kaikeyi weren’t a woman, she would probably have less issues working her way through the world that she’s part of.
VP: Absolutely. I was talking to somebody about this the other day, because I really disliked monarchies, as I’m sure many people do. And we’re talking about how Kaikeyi never questions that you know, she’s a queen, like she has all of this power to affect this change. But why does she have all this power? Why not somebody else but she’s perfectly content not to question all the power that she has been given, but to of course, notice the discrepancies between her and the power that men are given not to say that she doesn’t experience any injustice, but compared to 95% of women in her world, she’s extremely privileged and so I think that that’s really interesting about writing Kaikeyi as a character is that she really likes power. She really wants it and even though she might do good things with it are things that we view as good she’s not I totally selfless person.
B&N: No. And she also I mean her role too as the third wife of three at the same time. She’s got to navigate the to other wives, and they all have children as well. So when navigating multiple children, multiple wives, the Raja, too, is the king of all he surveys, and that includes his wives, and that includes his children. Now, granted, he does see in Kaikeyi leadership that he doesn’t necessarily see in the other wives. And certainly, she’s the only one who’s ever accompanied him to the battlefield. And he gives her two boons, which are more than promises, because she’s so heroic on the battlefield, ultimately saves his life. But he makes her these two promises and ultimately has to honor them. Obviously, one of them is Ram being exiled, and the other is Kaikeyi’s son being put on the throne. And yet, here’s this guy who clearly loves all of His wives and all of his children. And he really doesn’t want to do this. He does not want to be challenged by a girl.
VP: Yes. And that’s definitely a theme with a lot of the characters, especially the male characters and bakey, not just Raja, but you’d have to Kaikeyi’s brother as much as he loves Kaikeyi, he never wants to sort of be questioned by her. And when I was writing it, I sometimes struggled to get into this world, like, what was it like 3000 years ago? And obviously, they, you know, talk in modern English, which is not accurate. There’s plenty of inaccuracies that way, but the sort of social structures that we might question today, were just absolutely not even something you would think to question in many ways back then. And so as much as he’s a good man who’s trying to do the best for his family, he also just unquestioningly believes that he’s the one who gets to decide. And I don’t think it ever crosses his mind that he would have to give her something that he didn’t want to give her when he’s giving her these boons. I just thought that was a really fun conflict to write and kind of writing those parallels between him and her brother, who also sort of forces her to go through with certain promises that she doesn’t want to go through with. But he was also one of my favorite characters.
B&N: Well, and he’s her twin, and he’s younger, and yet he still gets everything because he’s the boy, yes, she’s not thrilled with this, basically, her baby brother comes along and says, it’s mine. Now, please step ot of the way.
VP: Absolutely. And that’s something that happens to her robot, no matter how much power control she thinks she has, it’s ultimately many times not up to her.
B&N: And she’s angry about it. Oh, man, she’s angry about it. And she has a little bit of magic, though. And I want to talk about the magic for a second. Because I mean, obviously, this is a fun little invention of yours. Let’s talk about this additional piece that you layered into a very classic story, because I will say she shows a lot of restraint with her magic that you might not necessarily expect. Because man, when I say she gets mad about stuff, I’m really not kidding. She gets mad.
VP: She’s a very angry person. But she’s also very afraid of loss, she loses her mother at a young age, she has to leave her kingdom and most of her family behind at what we would today consider to be still a pretty young age, she has this magic that she has access to, but the price of going too far is losing people, they might be right in front of you, but they’ll hate you, it’ll be almost impossible to ever repair that relationship. And so there’s sort of this push and pull because she’s really angry about the injustices, she’s suffering, she’s really passionate about change. And she’s also still, in some ways, that kid who lost her mom, and is really afraid of losing anybody else around her. And so that sort of push and pull means that she will show a lot more restraint. There are also still moments where she pushes herself to her limit. And then of course, in those moments, there are consequences. When I was making this magic system, I had sort of always had this idea of relationships as magic, because I said Kaikeyi because in a way, it’s kind of like court politics, but you have an actual visual for them. And maybe you’re enhancing it. But there’s always sort of the question of could you have done this yourself without the ever being able to see it? Like she’s strengthening relationships, she’s building alliances, she’s convincing people of her position. And then there’s also the question of is it manipulation? Like, what is the line here? And when Kaikeyi uses the power, she doesn’t really question like, is this right? Or is this wrong? Do I have a right to be influencing people in this way, but when another character seems to be using similar magic and powers, all of a sudden, she has a huge problem with that. I felt that tension was really fun.
B&N: It is really fun to read, because also I mean, she’s married when she’s 16. She’s a teenager and suddenly she’s married to a man with quite a lot of power. And she’s sort of disconnected from her entire family and you know, marriage in this world is a matter of political alliances, she meets him once and two weeks later, it’s like, here we go, this is done. And she’s trying to figure out and she has moments where she doesn’t come off particularly well, especially when she first meets the other wives, because she’s scared and doesn’t want to admit that she’s scared. And they’re thinking she’s a snob, and she just really does not want to show that she’s vulnerable, does not want to show that she doesn’t know something. And that’s something that really follows her around.
VP: She really has a need to always appear to have the answer and always appear to be strong, and it gets her into trouble. I’d say that, in a way, it’s what leads to the final conflict of the book is that she can’t admit that there might be something she doesn’t know, or that there might be power that she can’t fight or can’t go along with. And early in the book, we see her as the oldest sister to several brothers. And as much as you know, her brother’s got more attention. And they’re given ostensibly more power, she has a lot of power over them. She gets a lot of say in what happens in their day to day lives. And so she feels like she has some amount of control. But as soon as she leaves, suddenly, she is so paranoid about how she appears and admitting that there’s things that she doesn’t know that she comes off extremely standoffish.
B&N: What does your grandmother think of your telling of Kaikeyi.
VP: So I was actually pretty nervous about having her read the book, as much as I know that she, you know, has a lot of progressive attitudes. And obviously, she told us these stories, and she had these discussions with us, when we were children. It was still a little nerve racking. I haven’t seen her in a few years. She came to the US about a month ago. And she immediately was like, I want a copy of Kaikeyi. So I gave it to her. And she just finished it. And she loved it. She had one criticism, which is that there was an acronym that she says would never have happened 3000 years ago. But other than that, she really, really enjoyed it. And she said that she really admired this version of Kaikeyi, and that she thought that the changes that were made were like a really interesting way of thinking about the story. I was honestly very honored and also very relieved.
B&N: Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, you’re taking some serious source material and putting a spin on it. And I can imagine waiting for grandma to weigh in is not a small thing. But let’s talk about your creative process for a second, because this also is not a tiny book. This is almost 500 pages. While it does cover a little bit of time. I mean, it covers Kaikeyi’s life from birth until she’s in her early 30s. It sounds like if I’m doing my math correct, late 20s, early 30s.
VP: I think mid 30s by the very end, but yes.
B&N: And she’s gone from being a motherless daughter, essentially, to the mother of sons. And now she’s got this huge profile in her community and everything else. And you know, what your source material is, obviously, you know, you want to add a little bit of magic, you know, you need to speak to today in your characters without taking away their agency and their needs for the story. But what are the mechanics of creating this world and putting it on paper? And are you a linear writer? You said the first scene you’d written that was the battle scene, which is definitely not how the book opens. So maybe we start there.
VP: Yeah, so I did actually write this book linearly. But starting with the battle scene and going to the end of the story. And then almost immediately after that, I’ve realized I need to start much earlier because by the time you have Kaikeyi in this battle, there’s already so much going on so much backstory to why she is who she is that I needed to go further. And in fact, I had discovered in the source material, which I used a translation of von McKees, Rama and I had discovered this little tidbit that Nikes bride price essentially, is that her son will be heir to the throne. And that is, I’ve never heard of that before. I literally called my mom in shock, because it puts such a different spin on what she does. It’s a, this is the promise that her husband made her that got her hand in marriage, it’s so important. And her final actions of this exile, while potentially still petty, still jealous, even when viewed from the traditional Ramayana, are just enforcing this promise that she was given. And so I wanted to lead up to that moment as sort of the first sort of big moment in her life and the promise that sort of follows her throughout the rest of the story. And so I realized that needs to start much younger and the exile of her mother that sort of kicks off the book is also in the source material. She had a mother who had this conflict with her father and was sent away and that’s why Manthara, her maid, becomes such an important role in her life and the traditional around my own Manthara influenced this Kaikeyi to exile Ram. So there’s sort of all of these layers yours as to why she does what she does that I found in little snippets in the original. And so I decided to backfill, but my first draft was much shorter than this final version. And while a lot of the critical scenes were there, I think a lot of the relationship moments had yet to come. And that’s sort of something that I did through the revision process with my editor was to just build in a lot more of Kaikeyi’s relationships, especially with Yuddhajit, her brother, and with the other wives. And I think that really just allowed me to give a better picture of who Kaikeyi was as a person, because obviously, through people’s actions, you can see a lot but you also see a lot of who they are in these quiet down moments. And as I realized that this was going to be mostly about Kaikeyi’s internal struggles and who she wants to be even at the end, when she’s an adult, it’s still a question of who she wants to be that I needed all of these other sort of quiet or character moments. I am like a linear writer, ostensibly, I did do a lot of writing of scenes out of order.
B&N: Were those two details you just mentioned about the mother being exiled and Kaikeyi’s request of her husband? Were those the biggest surprises that you found while you were writing? Or was there something else?
VP: I think the biggest surprise, these were like plots or prizes, but I just didn’t realize how much of the Ramayan isn’t told, I guess, as you mentioned, you’re 24,000 verses. So the mainstream version of the ramen can’t say everything that’s in those 24,000 verses, but there’s just so many moments in the original Ramayan. And these various versions that have spread throughout South and Southeast Asia that I had never heard about, for example, in a lot of Southeast Asian retellings of the Ramayan, Ravan is Sita’s father and he’s portrayed as much more of this tragic antihero than this just horrible kidnapper who plans to sort of force Sita to be his wife. And there were just all sorts of other small things and these different retellings and I was just surprised to learn the breadth of how many little details or alternate versions actually exist.
B&N: Okay, so we’re getting a pretty good idea of who you are as a writer, but who are you as a reader? What are you reaching for first, who are the writers that you go back to again, and again, I mean, you’ve been doing this for a little bit. Now you have a few stories out in the world. And now certainly your first novel.
VP: I read pretty much anything. I do love retellings. I’ve read a lot of Western retellings, especially in the past few years. I love epic fantasy, just fantasy series. I’ve been saying that my favorite book I read all last year was Jade Legacy, which is the final book in the Greenbone saga. So I like reading a lot of fantasy. And I think that this has in some ways informed my writing because I like to read a lot of nonfiction both because I’m I like to keep abreast of what’s happening in the legal world. So I’ve read a lot of nonfiction that way, also, just like historical nonfiction, and the Ramayan is a fictionalized tale, certainly. But in the Hindu faith, it’s also a historical tale. And there is archaeological evidence that some of the things that are discussed in the online really did happen. And I personally believe that a lot of these characters did have real world counterparts. So it’s not just a fantasy, or completely fictional story, as you mentioned at the beginning, it’s the origin myth of a country or religion in many ways. And so I think that sort of reading a lot of history helped me with how I wanted to handle some of the like historical elements.
B&N: A lot of Kaikeyi’s quest for power, which is much more interesting to her than her freedom is there are points in the story. And I’m not going to lay them all out here because I want readers to not be spoiled by this interview. She has moments where it’s clear, she’s looking for justice, and that the way the society is structured in this book, she is not necessarily going to get the result that she wants, I think is probably the best way to put it. And there are multiple points where this happens. And you’re in law school, you’re studying constitutional law and civil rights. And I want to step away from the fictional world for a second, I want to ask you what justice looks like to you.
VP: That is very hard question that law school has not prepared me for. You know, I’m not sure that I have the definition of justice. I think sometimes it is much easier to define in the negatives that, you know, justice is the absence of injustice and injustice is very easy for me to recognize, identify and want to fight. But yeah, what is justice? Something I have to think about? And interestingly, not something that we talk about a lot in law school, we’re so concerned with how the meat is made. This is going to keep me up at night.
B&N: Luckily, I have other questions too. So I do think that is one of the most powerful themes in this book, though, is this idea that power and justice are not necessarily, I don’t want to say synonymous? Because I don’t think anyone genuinely, justice and power are synonymous. But the idea that there’s this young woman who wants to make a world that does not exist, and she’s going to carve her space out. And again, if she were a young man, I don’t think anyone in her world would give her guff about anything that she does. I also don’t think she’d need to exile her kid. But that’s a whole different story. Have we made any progress? I mean, have we made any genuine progress since this woman, I mean, we’re talking about a story that takes place centuries before now. And yes, you’ve given it a modern spin. And yes, of course, you bring to it who you are as a writer. But have we really made any progress?
VP: It’s a question that haunts me, after writing the story, because so much of what she and the other women in her world go through, while historically accurate sounds the same notes today. And I think that, you know, I can talk about the particularities of the women’s rights movement, and how there’s so many more things that women can do that they couldn’t do before and all of these freedoms, and I’m very grateful for them, you know, my parents often telling me that if I had been born 50 years ago, I would have not been able to hack it. And that’s absolutely true. It’s also when a woman gets angry today, they’re still cast in this bad light. When a woman is ambitious, they’re still portrayed as sort of like power, hungry, and untrustworthy in a way that men are not. And I’ve experienced this firsthand as a person who would consider myself ambitious. And so I think that a lot of these themes about what a woman is meant to do versus what a man is meant to do, are still very resonant today. And it just reminds me that we can make all these changes in the law, or we can make all of these changes, in fact, to the status of any group, not just women, but there’s not really racial or religious minorities in Kaikeyi’s world because it’s a very homogenous 3000 years ago, fictional universe. But we can make all of this on paper progress, but it still doesn’t matter if in the eyes of society, we perceive these differences. And I think that what you’re struggling with is not the legal status of women, it’s not the fact that, you know, she, as a woman is not allowed to do X, more than that. It’s society believes that she as a woman should not do X. And that is something that we are still struggling with, in many, many places. And in many, many ways today. So it’s a little depressing.
B&N: It’s a little wild, to me to the this idea of the evil stepmother is still a thing. And it’s a great literary image. And certainly we’ve all gotten a lot of great stories out of it. But at the same time, I’m kinda like, Oh, we’re still here, woman steps out of line, and we see consequences that, you know, no one is completely prepared for including her sometimes. And I think that does happen with Kaikeyi, what did you learn writing this novel? What did you learn about yourself? What did you learn about how you like to read and write, be creative?
VP: This is my first novel. So I learned a lot about myself as a writer, and just like how I write and how I approached thinking about and telling stories, but I also just surfaced a lot of feelings I didn’t know I had about my religion and my relationship to it. And the process ultimately really strengthened my relationship to Hinduism, which is not something I expected. But I was raised Hindu, I knew all the myths and prayers, etc, growing up, and then I had sort of felt this distance over time, in part because I felt like it was very patriarchal, and I felt a bit stifled by it. And I was also, you know, watching Indian politics and the rise of the Hindu nationalist movement and the sort of harms that they’ve done to minorities. And I was sort of like, I don’t want to associate myself with this, you know, it’s just painful. But in the process of writing Kaikeyi and reassociating myself with these source knits and the source materials and retellings, I was just reminded, or perhaps I learned a new how diverse Hinduism is, it’s been around for four or 5000 years, and we’re not really sure how long it’s incorporated the beliefs of billions of people and you know, millions of different cultures and communities and there’s space in the religion. In fact, you know, I think there’s a lot of space for a more equal and just version of the stories that we tell ourselves and the practices that we follow. And in the Mahabharata, which is the other great Indian epic, in the middle of that one of the main characters sort of has a crisis about how can I kill my family members, there’s sort of two cousins or sets of cousins are fighting and like, what do I do and Krishna, who was the incarnation of Vishnu after Ram, gives him this whole speech about duty and karma and justice and injustice and it reminded me that, to me Hinduism is about karma and duty and our duty to try to make a more just world even if it’s hard or difficult or contravenes what we think of as the societal expectation and reacquainting myself with that has been a really powerful experience.
B&N: What do you want listeners to know about Kaikeyi, the character, your book, whichever both?
VP: This message is perhaps for a specific subset of listeners, but I know that there are people out there who grew up with these maps. And you know, they’re a bit maybe apprehensive about the angle that this book is going to take. And I just want to say that if I had seen this book on a shelf, and I had not written it, I would also be a little bit apprehensive about picking it up. But it really comes from a place of you know, love and joy and celebrating these myths and wanting to see our culture become better, but also just telling the story about the families that are at the heart of our epic stories, because really, that’s what keeps us I think, coming back, it’s not just the great epic battles, but the fact that there are these brothers who love each other, or this man who’s trying to save his wife, or any number of these connections, and that’s what Kaikeyi, to me, is about, it’s about relationships more than this great struggle between good and evil and how telling yourself that something is about this great struggle, and neglecting these relationships can ultimately lead to heartbreak. So what’s next for you? So I’m currently working on another project that is not as closely a myth retelling as Kaikeyi was but it operates in the mythical world of the Mahabharata. And it’s actually following the story of a sort of minor God who influences the Mahabharata. So instead of taking that perspective of a human and attempting to write from the perspective of a God, which has been an interesting experience, but I’m really enjoying it. I think part of my research process for Kaikeyi taught me that there’s so much about these nets and my religion that I don’t know. And I very eager to learn. And as a result of sort of exploring these, I have a million ideas about things I want to write that are related in some way to myth, even though they might not be retellings necessarily.
B&N: Okay, so you’re in law school, you’re working on a second novel, you may or may not be writing more short stories, I can’t tell if you’re totally into the idea of going back to stories. So where are we with short stories?
VP: So I actually still write short stories, I find that they really helped me practice certain elements of my craft, even when I first started writing short stories that was less because I was like, Oh, I really want to get these published, although I did submit them because I wanted feedback, or I thought they were good for a particular outlet and more because I think that short stories, because they’re so small, let you experiment and really think very intentionally about every single word you’re putting on the page, which is just such a helpful exercise and becoming a better writer. So in short stories, I experiment a lot more with form, a lot more with perspective, I wrote Kaikeyi in first person, but for my next novel, I’m hoping to write parts of it in third person, which is not something I consider myself particularly good at. So writing short stories gives me a chance to try to tell a complete story from that perspective, and sort of revise and hone that voice. So I still write short stories. I haven’t submitted any for publication recently. But there’s a bunch sitting on my computer because they make me a much better writer.
B&N: Is that the advice you’d give to someone who’s just starting out, play with short stories first, and find your voice and see what you’re most comfortable with? What would you say to someone who’s thinking, I think I want to do this?
VP: Yeah, I definitely think that short stories can be really useful. But I think it depends on the person, you know, I really needed to sort of get my bearings, I needed to practice certain elements that I knew I couldn’t write, or I knew I was going to struggle with. I’ve met some people after starting this writing journey that have like full plot ideas, fully formed and ready to go and 30 pages of ideas that are going to form a novel and that’s not me. So I sort of needed this other way to practice and write and just get in the habit of writing, which is hard. And I’m not the kind of like write everyday person, I really can’t be with law school, but just getting the practice of telling stories. And so I think it can be really useful for people who are just starting out because it’s also kind of lower commitment. In a way if you don’t like an idea, you don’t you’re not married to it for 100,000 words, you’re married to it for four or 5000 words, which is much more manageable, and I think allowed me at least to feel like oh, I can try this out and I’m not really making a commitment. I’m just playing.
B&N: Okay, I know I keep coming back to this but Law School second novel now you’re writing short stories, but also I saw on your Twitter feed that you perhaps binge watched Bridgerton season two.
VP: I’m only two episodes and I’m a huge fan. I have read Viscount Who Loved Me, this are my favorite couple actually, probably after this interview, I will be watching episode three. And it’s an Indian lead, which has already just been incredible to watch. And I’m so excited for more but yeah, I like watching TV. It keeps me sane.
B&N: Well, I’m also really impressed that you didn’t binge the entire thing right away.
VP: You know, I have actually tried to attempt to be disciplined. I don’t know if you can say that when I’ll definitely have finished this by tomorrow or Sunday morning at the latest but it’s the last day of my spring break and I’m trying to finish a paper so we’re trying to balance.
B&N: Just trying to balance telling stories, listening to stories and well whatever else comes next. Vaishnavi Patel, thank you so much for joining us on Poured Over. Kaikeyi is your debut and it is out now.