INTERVIEW
A Different Perspective
Roohi Choudhry on Reconciling through Writing
In a world where identity and belonging is politicized, what does it mean to be an outside woman? Roohi Choudhry’s debut novel, Outside Women, delves into this question through narratives that are centuries apart but which resonate on social, political, and deeply personal levels. In my conversation with Roohi, she talks about her experience of growing up in post-apartheid South Africa, reconciling with her identity as an ‘outside woman’, working on a story that accompanied her for years, and publishing her debut novel.
SANIYAH SALMAN: Have you ever felt like an outside woman?
ROOHI CHOUDHRY: I think that a big part of the writing of this book in a way was about coming to terms with what that means to be an outside woman for myself. So I think I have a better sense of it, but in my experience and in my thinking about it, it’s a really expansive and broad concept and it’s maybe a lifelong thing to come to terms with. But, in terms of my personal experiences, a big part of it is about reconciling both the freedom and the danger of being someone who is on the outside, of what is considered mainstream, or what is considered powerful, what is considered normal, you know? So, in my own life when I’ve taken steps to be outside of that or when it was thrust upon me by life experiences, it has felt dangerous and risky at the very least. For example, living in New York by myself, which I did for a long time, when that was not something that was really accepted by my family. That was kind of scary, but at the same time, I felt that this true sense of being myself came from those kinds of experiences. Reconciling that is what a big part of the book is about. I mean, there are so many experiences of outsiderness in my own life, such as growing up in Southern Africa or even going to live in South Africa very soon after apartheid, like I mentioned to you. But I also feel that it’s not just those kinds of macro experiences of being an outsider, it’s also the everyday, you know? Like I could just be walking outside as myself, a woman. And for the feminine body, no matter what age and no matter where in the world – whether in Pakistan or South Africa – there is a certain way that I don’t feel like the public space is available to them, to me, you know. Or that I am protected in it or safe in it. That is the sense of being an outsider. That’s the every day. So, that was a big part of what I was also exploring with the book.
SS: Is your own thought process something that is present within your characters?
RC: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So just to mention, the specific life experiences that my characters have are quite different from mine. And you know, it’s a bit of a composite of different things, but in terms of how they are approaching those specific experiences, that is very much something that I draw from my own emotional thinking of life.
SS: The book is laced with the themes of feminism, anti-colonialism, migration, connection to the soil, and in general about women across continents and centuries. What did it mean to write this novel for you and how did the idea of writing it come to you?
RC: It’s been with me a long time. I mean, I worked on it for a very long time, but in some ways I was already working on it before I knew I was working on it. So as I mentioned, my family went to live in Southern Africa when I was a child and we moved to Durban when I was thirteen where a lot of the book is set. And at the time, technically, apartheid was kind of over, but not really because free and fair elections had not yet been held. And so it was this space in between. And in that space, I had to still attend what was in South Africa called an Indians only school. So it was a really new experience for me because until that point I had attended international schools and had been with people from all over the world and suddenly it was a school where everybody looked like me and yet they were so different, you know? There were many interesting discoveries like that. And it was just a really fertile time for my curiosity.
…for the feminine body, no matter what age and no matter where in the world – whether in Pakistan or South Africa – there is a certain way that I don’t feel like the public space is available to them, to me…
And then I then got really interested in the history of the Indian community in South Africa and of indentured labor, which is the primary way that the community got to be there, of which you learned about a little in the book. And for a while I thought that I would maybe study it academically, but later decided against it. But I had this continued obsession throughout my life. And at some point, I started writing about it as fiction and this character, Sita, is the one who first came to me. And that was a long time before I was even writing a book, but she just kind of wouldn’t let me go, you know? I had a sense of what her life might have been like from the research I’d already done. But I felt really strongly that I wanted to tell her story alongside the story of someone contemporary.
And I think over time I started to realize that the reason I was so interested was this idea of being an outside woman in this way, which is not something I had language for at the time, but it was a language that I kind of developed for myself to understand that obsession of leaving home, going across the ocean, but especially doing it on your own. And it’s very complicated whether that’s by choice or not, those are all things that we still struggle with now, related to migration. But this idea of what it means to do something outside of what you’re expected and outside of what your community allows was what was really intriguing to me about that story. And then I knew that I wanted to sort of pair it with a contemporary story, but I wasn’t really sure why or what that was. And then eventually I understood that I wanted to highlight the ways that the past and present are interconnected and that our struggles are intertwined across time and space.
I really wanted this contemporary character to be someone who grew up in Pakistan. And I really wanted that little bit of a parallel there for them to have that.
SS: I want to talk a little about the descriptive and sensory details in the book. There are some parts that had me pretty blown away at the precision and detail in the writing. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would love to know more about your writing process. What did that look like?
RC: Thank you so much. I mean, it’s always such a gift when someone’s so deeply engaged with the writing, so I appreciate that a lot. In terms of the writing process, that is where the research comes in. I was really lost in the research. Part of that, I think, is because research was my job for a while. It was a different kind of research, more about stats. But, maybe because of that, it felt like a little bit of a comfort zone, to do research and to learn about this kind of story through it and then try to channel that into the writing. But then it felt like it was stagnating the writing in a certain way because I was relying too much on it. I’d just written a few chapters and I showed them to a professor when I was in my MFA program and she said that I have to stop doing research because it was holding me back from being creative somehow. And she was very helpful in terms of giving me ways of thinking through that and encouraging me and empowering me to rely on my abilities as a creative writer. And when I think about that, I see that was a turning point, really, because until then it almost felt as if Sita is this puppet made up of academic details, and I’m moving her around, you know? And then at that point, I was like: Okay, let me step back and trust that I know a lot about this. And later I’d come back to confirm the details that I need.
SS: Why write this story now?
RC: It’s interesting to think about it because it was with me for so long through different phases of my life and through our political and cultural lives. I remember something that someone said to me once – and unfortunately I don’t remember who – that “your novel is finished when you become the person you need to be to finish it.” So sometimes when I would worry about it taking so long – because it was definitely taking longer than I wanted it to take – I would try to remember that. For example, these two stories and their connectedness, that was really opaque to me for a long time and then started to become clearer the more I lived into it.
And there are certain books that I read along the way that helped me to feel freer about that. One of them was A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, which was a really influential book for me. Also, I think there are a lot more books now that aren’t fully realist. There was a lot more of that divide in the past, where you’re either writing fantasy or literary fiction. And it was freeing to be able to draw from other kinds of knowledge, whether it was dreams or intuition.
And when I think about that, I see that was a turning point, really, because until then it almost felt as if Sita is this puppet made up of academic details, and I’m moving her around, you know?
SS: The novel places women and the experience of women at its center. Was that a conscious choice?
RC: Yeah, definitely. That’s what I want to write about. There are some men in the book, but you’re right, they’re not at the center. Aren’t there enough books with men and white people at the center? I don’t need to add to that, I’m not interested in that. The people I write about are the ones that I feel excited about. That’s what interests me. Writing a book takes a long time and a lot of effort. And there are many reasons that we do it. One of them is to be part of a conversation. I feel like I want my book to be a conversation about women.
SS: Certainly, and I think you’ve done it with a lot of nuance. Or what’s called “intersectionality” in academic research. The way you take the reader through the journey of your female characters in the midst of poly-crisis from a reader’s perspective, was a very enjoyable experience for me.
Hajra is the contemporary character who raises a lot of questions about her society, religion, and family. Can you talk a bit about how Hajra’s character became an embodied character for you while writing the book?
RC: When imagining her life and some of the texture in Peshawar or New York, it felt very easy because I’ve seen those places or lived in them and it was exciting to translate in that way, and to pull that into the story. Then there were other aspects of that narrative that felt more difficult. For instance, not having done activist work in Pakistan, which is like another big part of Hajra’s life there. I grappled with giving myself permission to write about it. It was difficult because in the very early drafts, her brother Ali was much more of a cardboard character, and, and some of that just reflected my own anger about family and community in general in Pakistan, where I was seeing so much of this approach to religion that felt like it was directly excluding me and others like me, the “othered people”. And I felt really angry about that. But sometimes anger isn’t the best thing for fiction because it makes the world very black and white. So I was really worried. It was a tricky thing to get right and I felt a sense of responsibility. I had to figure out, in the process of writing, how to make her character a real person and not just a mouthpiece for things that I have been angry about.
SS: If there was an alternate ending, what would you change?
RC: That’s an interesting question because I struggled with a lot of different endings, for example adding a little more closure or taking back the closure. But this current ending felt really hard-fought . So I don’t have a different one that I think could be better. I also know there are many people who want that sense of closure. I felt very close to the characters, so I’ve made up an ending for myself. But I think that a sense of uncertainty feels more truthful.
SS: What are you working on now? Can we expect another book from you?
RC: Yeah, I’m working on a few different things because I think I got a bit tired of working on the same thing for so long. So switching between projects has been more enjoyable. I think I’m leaning a little bit more into the speculative kind of things. There are touches of that in this book, but I want to just fully go there. The other project is nonfiction. I also make ceramics and I got really interested in the power of clay and how it feels to work with my hands. So I’m writing about that experience, and about clay.
Saniyah Salman lives in Karachi, Pakistan where she works in the development sector. She has interests in Urdu literature, history, religion and culture. She shares her writings and thoughts on her Instagram account, @deedawer.