‘I’m interested in the underdog more than I’m in the hero’: Indian-Canadian writer Deepa Rajagopalan

Deepa Rajagopalan’s first book, Peacocks of Instagram, a short story collection, is making waves in Canada. CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Books has identified Rajagopalan as one of the 30 new writers to watch in 2024. Her book was shortlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize, Canada’s most prestigious literary award.

“An utterly absorbing, often hilarious story collection, Deepa Rajagopalan’s Peacocks of Instagram reimagines the literature of the Indian diaspora in the age of globe-trotting IT workers, climate change, and social media influencers. […] Written in mature, perfectly rounded prose embroidered with telling detail and pithy dialogue, the loosely linked stories of this arresting debut collection follow an array of appealing characters who not only withstand heartbreak and misunderstanding but occasionally triumph over it by dint of their wit and cunning. In their discovery of themselves and their capabilities, Rajagopalan’s stories continually surprise,” said the Giller Prize jury about her book.

Born in Saudi Arabia, she studied in Kerala before moving to North America. Rajagopalan considers herself a citizen of the world.

The book, the recognition as one of the 30 new voices in Canadian literature to watch for, now being shortlisted for the Giller Prize – seems like a lot happened in a short period of time. How are you feeling?
A lot has happened since my book came out in May, and it has been delightful mostly. Of course, I was hoping for all the recognition, but I don’t think you can really expect anything, because these things are so subjective. I don’t think I am overwhelmed. I am a bit tired, but thoroughly enjoying this time. I also have a full-time job, so I have been strapped for time. I try to prioritise things that are important to me. Getting recognition for my book, especially the Giller nomination, helps bring more eyes to the book, which I am grateful for. It is an incredible amount of work to write and publish a book, and it helps when more people know about it.

Was there one incident, book, or person that may have inspired the writer in you?
I think it’s a series of things that make you want to write. I had an incredible English teacher – Ms Fauzia – while growing up in Saudi Arabia. She helped me see the beauty of literature. I think there is a switch somewhere, when you are young, when you realise someone wrote the beautiful sentences you so admire, and you think perhaps you could try to create something from scratch.

You did your certificate in Creative writing and MFA in Canada, but you are an engineer, an IT professional. Was it a hard decision to pursue writing and take the step to get educated for it?
It wasn’t a hard decision at all. After I got my job in tech, I wasn’t writing much. I was always reading, but I almost stopped writing. I enjoyed my work but was quite stressed most of the time. The lack of a creative outlet took a toll on me, eventually. During my maternity leave, I decided I wanted to start writing again. And when I started, I realised that my writing wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. I began to take writing seriously and started studying creative writing through a series of courses that were part of a Creative Writing certificate program at the University of Toronto. I eventually did an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph, which helped me immensely to improve my craft and surround myself with a community of writers and mentors. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.

There is a pattern of silent revenge in many stories (“Cake”, “A Thing With Many Legs”, “The Many Homes of Kanmani”), the vulnerable beating the giant in discreet ways. How did you imagine this for the world’s unfairness?
I love how you worded this question. I suppose I do imagine silent revenge for the world’s unfairness. I am interested in the underdog more than I am in the hero. And often, the underdog has to resort to silent revenge because that’s the agency they’ve got.

I noticed a little girl fighting the trauma of abandonment and struggling to find a sense of belonging in the background of this collection. Is that the theme of “Gulf generation” as we refer to in Kerala?
You’re the first person who asked me this question in such a specific manner. It is true I’ve moved around a lot, and the theme of abandonment does show up organically in my stories. The thing is, when we are kids, we don’t see it as abandonment because we don’t want to believe that. But as an adult, as I write, I can look at everything again slowly, which is somewhat therapeutic.

Have you been writing stories all your life?
At age eight, it occurred to me that books had authors and I could write one. I started writing a novel that was heavily plagiarised from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I think it had a female protagonist, though. That novel didn’t go anywhere, but I was always writing something. I wrote for school magazines, sent stuff out to newspapers, got my first piece published in The Hindu at age 13 or 14. I loved writing letters. Again, I was the weird kid who wrote letters to her teachers during summer break to improve my writing. Some of the teachers actually wrote back to me, which was delightful.

Can you tell us a little bit about the novel you are writing?
The novel follows the lives of three characters, a home daycare teacher, a tailor, and a young girl, whose lives are intertwined because of a tragedy that happens during the Gulf War, which has little to do with the war itself. The novel takes place over a span of three decades, and moves from Saudi Arabia, to India, to the US, and starts at a point in history when the world was becoming a unipolar world. I get asked if it’s my story, and I want to clarify that it isn’t. But I do write what I know, so it is set in places familiar to me.

As a writer, what excites you the most?
The opportunity to look at everything again, slowly. Even though my writing is fictional, feelings are universal, and writing allows me to untangle complex ones.

What is your writing process?
I am an early bird, always have been. I wake up between 4 and 5 am on most weekdays and write for an hour or two before I make breakfast for my daughter. On weekends, I spend more time writing. If I have a deadline, I might stay up late to finish a project.

I usually get an idea either in the form of a character or an opening sentence. And that might come anytime, so I try to write it down as a note in my Notes app on my phone so I don’t forget it later. Usually, I let the idea marinate for some time. I almost always have a project I am working on, so I add the new idea to the queue. If it stays long enough, I eventually get to it. I try not to abandon projects I’ve already started.

Writing the first draft of a story is the most painful for me. The uncertainty of the idea, the rawness of the sentences, it all makes me uncomfortable. But once I have the first draft down, I absolutely love the revising and editing process. That’s really when the story finds its way.

Brought up in Saudi Arabia, moved to Kerala as a teenager, now living in Canada – do you identify yourself as a Malayali?
I have had a fluid relationship with belonging. I feel like I belong nowhere, and also that I belong everywhere. When I first moved to Kerala as a teen, I felt quite othered. Kids made fun of my Malayalam accent, not maliciously, I suppose, but I was young and vulnerable, so I mostly spoke in English. I didn’t get a lot of local references because I didn’t grow up there. And then later, when I moved to North America, again, it took me a while to understand a lot of pop culture references. But all of this helped me become a keen observer. I am infinitely curious about things, and I enjoy being a beginner, learning things from scratch. I identify as a Malayali, an Indian, a Canadian, a brown person, a South Asian, so many things, but I’m also not preoccupied with belonging. I feel at home wherever I am, truly.

In this book, Peacocks of Instagram, characters move in and out of many stories, they are interlinked but stories are not connected. It gave me the feeling of reading a novel. Would you consider writing a novel using characters from these stories?
Perhaps, after I finish my current novel.

Tell us something about your personal life.
I was born in Saudi Arabia and lived there with my parents for most of the time until I turned 12. I have a younger sister, six years younger than me. I was very creative as a child, always making things with my hands. I started reading quite young and read anything I could get my hands on. Those days, no one kept track of what was appropriate for children, so I read above my age. I read everything. I was the weird kid who read Wren and Martin’s English Grammar and Composition for fun.

At 12, I moved to a boarding school (Saraswati Vidyalaya) in Trivandrum. My parents chose that school mostly because my aunt used to teach there. Boarding school was hard for me, and I coped by putting all my energy into school. Academics, extracurriculars, everything. I took on every opportunity for public speaking.

My mother came back to India when I started grade eleven and we stayed in our then-new home in Peroorkada. After grade twelve, I did my Engineering at the College of Engineering, Trivandrum. I loved Math and was very good at it, so I thought Engineering was a good option for me. At the time, I didn’t think I could make money out of the Creative Arts and did not consider going down that path professionally. I got my first job at Deloitte through campus recruitment and moved to Hyderabad. A year and a half later, I moved to the US for work.

When was the last time you visited Kerala? What do you think about it?
I recently visited Kerala after a long gap of seven years. My grandmother turned 90, and I wanted to celebrate with her. I used to be – hope still am! – my grandmother’s favourite grandchild. Her words, not mine. I had lived in Kerala for about six years, mostly during my teen years. I’ve always been an observer, and my experience in different places, including Trivandrum usually takes on that quality. The quality of looking in from the outside.

This time when I visited, it was a short but nostalgic trip. It reminded me of who I was during those formative years when I lived there – so fragile, and unsure of the course my life was going to take, and yet having the strange sense of comfort that my entire life was ahead of me.

What strikes me the most about Kerala is how funny the people are. I try to include this humour in my stories. It is a very specific brand of dry, sarcastic humour that I enjoy greatly and that not everyone gets.