The Courtesans of Karim Street – by Debotri Dhar

The Courtesans of Karim Street – by Debotri Dhar

Debotri Dhar is a cultural theorist, traveller, storyteller. She has lived multiple lives in India, the USA, the UK, and other named and unnamed countries in-between. She is passionate about higher education and interdisciplinary research and enjoys giving public talks and teaching in the university. Her new book The Courtesans of Karim Street is a love story set in India and the United States, that straddles the historical past and contemporary present. Here, Varsha Verma finds more about this book.

Debotri Dhar

I believe the best stories are those that draw creatively from our own worlds, the spaces we inherit and inhabit. I have attempted to do that, in order to create authentic characters and a fastpaced, audacious (but hopefully still believable!) plot, with mystery, history, romance, ideas, interpretations.... The geographical settings in the two countries, from Princeton and Newark on the US east coast, to Delhi (New Delhi as well as the old city), are those I am personally very familiar with. Travel in all its complex dimensions has been a recurring thread in my life, so I was able to draw from that. The university classroom scenes are inspired by my own experiences as an academic in America, just as the references to music draw from my training in Hindustani classical music. The research had mostly to do with the courtesan culture of our yesteryears, the stories of the courtesans’ lives, loves and longings against a shifting political, cultural and material landscape. I wanted to take these themes, transforming them to weave a very contemporary love story, tells Debotri

Response so far…

“Well, the book has just been released in India. I flew down from the US for the launch… The response has been quite heartwarming. Several readers from across the country have written to me to say they have enjoyed the lyricism of the prose, the conversations between cultures, the friendships, the love. We have had launches in two cities in India so far, Delhi and Kolkata, where the audience was so lively and engaging. I also did a book reading and talk at JNU, at an event organised by the English department and the Forum for Mutual Learning at JNU. It was a joy interacting with the students, especially the Ph D students. A wonderful review in the Sunday Guardian described my novel as having succeeded in addressing the historical silencing of courtesans in public discourse and presenting an alternative reading of the present and future through an array of Indian and American characters. I am really looking forward to more readers reading the novel, bringing to it their own interpretations, and deciding for themselves if I’ve told a good story,” she shares.

Journey as an author…

“I ’m an ear ly career academic, so academic research and teaching take up a lot of time. When the day job ends, the night job of writing fiction begins. When I wrote my first novel, I was an undergraduate preparing for final exams! In the years that followed, I was only able to write short stories as I completed a Masters degree from Oxford University and a Ph D from Rutgers University. Some of them were published in literary journals in the US, UK and elsewhere. One, I remember, won a literary award…I was so thrilled! These were later published as a collection. It was only when I was close to completing my Ph D in 2013 and had a lectureship that I wrote this novel on the courtesans. A friend owned a beautiful home on the outskirts of Princeton, and I wrote some portions of it there, the parts that are based in Pennington, US. It’s been a very interesting journey for me as an author, an academic and an individual.

Future plans include academic books, non-fiction as well as fiction. I’ve currently joined the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, so may be that setting will inspire a new novel. I just want to keep writing…,” she shares. So, as a writer, what does she aim to achieve? “To tell a good story and connect with my audience. Academic writing and fiction are two different forms of writing, different audiences. Since I already write for a specialised audience as far as academics is concerned, I want to make that my fiction is more fast-paced and readable, with romance, humor, adventure, eccentric characters and attractive, entertaining storylines,” replies Debotri.

Most difficult part of being an author…

“I would say the hardest part of writing a novel is definitely the marketing aspect! Perhaps it seems harder to me, in comparison to those writers who are gifted with a keener sense of selling. Earlier writers could afford to be reclusive, but these days the writer is a commodity to be consumed in the market. I am an idealist, I live in a world of ideas, even while recognising the role and importance of the market. One has to learn new skills everyday…,” she shares.

What reading means to her?

“There is such cacophony in the world sometimes… relaxing with a book will always remain a great option. Besides, what other form of entertainment allows us to retreat into beautiful worlds of ideas and expressions? Yesterday, a young reader confessed that she had hesitated to pick up The Courtesans of Karim Street. Turns out she was worried a novel written by an academic would be boring! But then she found it such an engrossing read that she stayed up the entire night and finished it in one go!” shares Debotri.

What next?

“I’m doing a non-fiction book on gender. As far as fiction is concerned, a work of social satire is already underway. It’s a humorous story of a young woman, set against a backdrop of contemporary local and global politics,” concluded Debotri.