BENGALURU: Tishani Doshi is an award-winning poet, essayist and novelist, who has published seven works of fiction and poetry. She is the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award for Poetry, winner of the All-India Poetry Competition, and her debut book, Countries of the Body, won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2006. Her book, Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods, was also shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award 2018. Doshi’s latest, Small Days and Nights, focuses on Grace, who returns to Puducherry to cremate her mother, only to find out that she has a sister she never knew about. Excerpts from an interview:

What was your trigger for writing the book  Small Days and Nights?
Perhaps moving to a small coastal village in Tamil Nadu…. perhaps one beach dog adopting me, then another, then another… perhaps the question of what it means to negotiate space as a woman alone in India… perhaps the question of care-giving… perhaps an ongoing inquiry into the idea of hybridity and alternative family structures.

Have any of your books been inspired by books in regional languages?
AK Ramanujan’s translations of bhakti poetry – Hymns for the Drowning and Speaking of Siva have been important books for me. I was introduced to them by my friend and teacher, Chandralekha, and 
have carried them around for some time. They inspire not just my poems but also my work in dance – lyrical, erasing divisions between spirituality and sensuality. 

Do you go back to your old writings? How does it feel to re-read what you had written sometime back?
I don’t make strenuous efforts to either read or avoid reading old work. My feeling when I come across older work is a bit like encountering a younger self. Sometimes I’m impressed, sometimes I flinch, mostly I feel a great amount of tenderness. 

Have you always seen yourself as a writer?  What has been your inspiration as a writer?    
I decided to become a poet at the age of 20 and that was a decisive moment for me. Up until then I was on the path to a degree in business administration. There was one other side moment when I thought I’d become a scuba diving instructor (this was a failure), but for most of my adult life, writing has been the thing. Everything is inspiration, especially the news. 

What is the process you undergo while writing?   
When I’m writing I work in the mornings and stop at lunch. When I’m not writing I complain about not writing. When I have writer’s block I go for a long walk or complain about having writer’s block. 

How difficult or easy is it to get published? Have you had to modify or change the content of your books for it to get published?
I published my first book in 2006 when I was 31. I’d been trying to get published for six or seven years. Things are different now, in that there seems to be an understanding and accessibility to publishing houses and how they work, but I’d say that it still requires someone to open the door for you. Someone needs to believe in you to give you your first break. As for editing, I’ve not had to 
change manuscripts too drastically, but I work closely with editors and enjoy the process. 

Who’s your first reader? And who are your biggest critics?
I have a few people I show work to – a couple of writer friends, my husband, my agent. By and large I 
keep things to myself until it’s published. As for critics, I’ve always loved Shirley Jackson’s letter to a snippy reader: “Dear Mrs White, if you don’t like my peaches, don’t shake my tree.” 

Do you think marketing plays an integral role in the success of books?
It’s hard to measure these things. I’ve always thought the greatest success was to be able to convert a 
non-poetry person to poetry over the course of a reading. 

With the digitisation of books, have you moved to reading books on 
screen or do you prefer the old-fashioned books? 
For poetry I still prefer paper books – there’s a circularity that poetry demands which is hard to do on the screen. But with essays and novels, I’ve grown increasingly accustomed to reading on a screen and enjoy having a library that can travel with me.