You cannot sustain a career over five decades based on controversies, says Shobhaa De

No. A writer should never be preoccupied with it or think about it. It's a non-issue. You become self-conscious the minute you start focusing on whether you're being relevant or getting to the right people. That's not your concern. Your concern is to write your book and be true to yourself. Whichever platform you are using, just go ahead and tell your stories, express your opinion, and do not waste any time or effort to dissect who the readership could be.

See, the ones who are not relevant have already dropped off the scene. So if I’ve been here for over five decades, I would assume I’m being relevant. I still have a lot of space in media. So it must be because I’m doing something right.

But a lot of times, it’s an active, conscious choice. In my case, it’s more about having almost an insatiable curiosity about every tiny aspect of contemporary living. I don’t live in the past. I don’t even live in the future. It’s now. If you can reflect that in your writing, not through design, but because it’s really what you want to say, then the question of relevance is automatically solved.

Of course. What was important 50 years ago is certainly something I wouldn’t go back to. I have dealt with all that, right? I’ve moved on from that. So what’s the point in revisiting it? Today’s issues are so much more exciting, challenging, and troubling.

It has always been women. They have also always been the protagonists of all my novels. But not by design. I tend to gravitate towards subjects that involve women. They are the centerpiece of all I think, do, and dream. I would say it’s been a long-term affair. My mind space is filled with what has happened, is happening, and is going to happen to us. So it’s a strong sense of identification, but not with any ideology, or in that feminist kind of a militant way, or at the level of policy change or legislation necessarily.

It’s through observing the small stuff in life that is actually not small stuff. It is big stuff if you care to look beneath the surface. It’s all the unsaid stuff that impacts women much, much more than the overt acts of aggression or abuse or violence, which are there and can be dealt with. The other stuff can’t because it’s not even talked about. It’s not recognized. It’s just experienced.

Honestly, it has never bothered me. I have always taken it on the chin because I know what I want to write. Female sexuality threatens society. Not just in India, but across the world. People are obsessed with what women think about sex. They’d like to convert us all into sexless beings who are passive receptacles with a higher purpose which is to keep the species alive and going. Sexuality, when seen in the context of reproduction, is acceptable. But when seen in the context of pleasure, it’s taboo. I have always found that so hypocritical. Why would I want to play into it? I have always wanted to say it like it is.

Then it’s called erotic. But when a woman writer does it, you label her a porn writer. Initially, it used to sting a bit. This constant porn writer thing, it carries on even today. But really, you should know yourself. You should know why you are writing what you are writing. It’s not like I write with any evangelical interest in transforming or reforming society or what women feel about sex or how men look at women. No. It’s wanting to share something in a deep, simple, sincere, and straightforward way. That’s it. This is how I feel. The reader can feel differently. They are entitled to that.

Initially, yes. It used to irritate me. It was like a mosquito bite. But not any longer. I feel the same level of irreverence when I know that there are over 100 PhDs and dissertations written on my work and I am taught at universities across the world. I have the same distance from that too. So it doesn’t matter. You have to write your truth, whatever it is. It will be accepted or rejected but that’s a part of being a writer. You have to have confidence. After all, you’re not holding a gun to someone’s head or shoving it down anyone’s throat. If you don’t want to, don’t watch me, read me, look at my pictures, read my interviews, or pay the slightest attention to me.

That’s not an option for me. It’s just how I am. I am wired like this. Especially if someone tries to intimidate me. I’ll never say I’m done. No woman should. Because the minute you say it, it means you’ve given up and you’ve played into all the negativity. That’s exactly what those who want to silence you hope for. I’ll go down fighting. I’ll not surrender.

The worst criticism comes from your peers, your contemporaries. They can’t bear to see you break a few rules and go beyond them. They like to pigeonhole you in a certain way and in my case, more so because I came from a glamourous world. Even at 74, people always refer either to my looks or call me model turned writer. Always. The physicality of my presence seems to be a preoccupation to a ridiculous extent. It’s crazy. But it doesn’t really matter after a point because this is who I am. This is the essential me. There’s no artifice and I’m not going to spend my life apologizing for it.

You cannot construct that. No one courts controversy unless you’re immature, foolish, and are looking for attention. Everything that you write which is in the public domain whether it’s your book or columns carries some weight. If the fallout of what you’ve said generates controversy, that’s outside your control. Also, how far can it take you? You cannot sustain a career over five decades based on controversies.