Brinda Charry’s latest novel The East Indian is a fictional narrative that explores indentured servitude in colonial America dating back to the 17th century. The semi-historical novel, a bildungsroman, revolves around a Tamil boy who is sent to London and subsequently shipped to America as a slave. It is a story that explores the links between trade and colonialism, dislocation and exploitation, immigration and identity, inequality and racism.
Her earlier novels, The Hottest Day of the Year (2001), and Naked in the Wind (2006) were followed by First Love and Other Stories (2009). Between 2009 and 2023, Charry focused on academic writing. Charry, who did her schooling in Bengaluru, currently teaches at Keene State College, New Hampshire, USA. Excerpts from an interview
What was the inspiration behind The East Indian?
I read about the presence of South Asians in colonial America and also, about South Asians in Elizabethan and Jacobean London and was intrigued. When I made the decision to return to fiction writing after a long hiatus, I decided this would be my first project. While mine is certainly the immigrant experience, I was not particularly interested in simply writing the modern immigrant story. I wanted to write something that would also tell a larger story of early globalisation and colonialism. The English settlement of Virginia, as well as the East India Company’s presence in India, is an integral part of this story. I wanted to paint on a big canvas, not in terms of length but in terms of scope and magnitude.
You made a real-life figure the hero of the novel...
A couple of historians have noted that the earliest ‘East Indian’ on record in North America appears in 1635. I tracked down Virginia land records (to make sure of this) and there he was: Tony East Indian! The rest of his story I largely made up — but everything that happens to him is within the realm of possibility. In fact, another East Indian boy in America is described as an apothecary’s assistant — hence my decision to make my protagonist a ‘medicine man’.
Do you, as an immigrant, feel more American than Indian? How have you coped with straddling two cultures?
I left India when I was already into adulthood and have lived in the USA for a long time now. So, it would be strange if I didn’t feel a bit of both. It is disorienting at times certainly, but I have learned (or resolved) to make the most of it. So, I consider myself as being fortunate to have access to two worlds, two ways of being. Besides, both “American’ and “Indian” are such broad identity categories. There are all kinds of variations on what it means to be “American”!
The novel is Dickensian, at times bleak, with the mingling of the tragic and the comic. Was Dickens an inspiration? Who are your influences?
As a child, I was taken regularly to the British Library by my father. I pretty much worked my way through the fiction section there. So those works, including the great Victorian novelists such as Dickens, were major influences. I think we Indians are fortunate in the variety and richness of our literary and cultural influences in general — I read widely and indiscriminately. Hillary Mantel’s handling of historical material was a huge inspiration for this project. So, it is a mishmash of influences and all of them have left traces of their voices in my head.
What’s next? Do you plan to juggle academics and writing?
I owe my American publisher a second novel, so I am madly writing! It is about a magician (as in, a performer of stage magic) who actually performed in Boston in the early 1800s. The world of early US popular entertainment is quite wild and wonderful! I plan to continue juggling academics with fiction writing. Both have enriched me in their own distinct ways, so there’s nothing to complain.