An early happy childhood in a quiet town in Western Massachusetts, a hectic transition to the Big Apple, a singing rock star in London, and a debut novel in a coming of age story. This is the assorted package of synergies that tells the tale of Tanuja Desai Hidier, the author of the novel ‘Born Confused’. This talented singing and writing sensation is breaking new grounds in a realm of creativity that is fast gaining popularity. Her book ‘Born Confused’ is a melting pot that is as much Indian as well as American as well as Chinese or Dominican for that matter. In other words, it is a cross cultural blockbuster that is looking to forging an identity in a new generation

Born Confused was recently featured on CNN's program Your World Today, the radio show Voice of America, as well as in December 2002's Flying Starts issue of Publisher's Weekly. She has also written a Partition-era short story, "The Border", which was awarded first prize in the fiction category in the London Writers/Waterstones Competition in October 2001. She is also the 1995 recipient of the James Jones First Novel Fellowship Award.

Tanuja's short film, The Test(which she wrote and -directed)and done a voice over deals with the same cultural assimilation themes. She now lives in London, where she is lead vocalist/lyricist in a rock band San Transisto

Tanuja Desai Hidier is lovely and her eyes are her most striking feature, which have a touch of moss green and a nimbus of blue and brown that startle you. This is complemented with an easy going and friendly manner that is totally infectious. I caught up with her at a recent collaborative project with another local singer Manisha at Boston and corresponded with her later by email

Tell us something on your current visit to the United States?

Tanuja: It’s been amazing, because since the New Year, I’ve been in the States and Canada more than I’ve been in London (where I moved two years ago)! For the most part I have been touring, doing lectures and readings at different universities and bookstores and events—this last trip included speaking engagements at Saint Joseph College, Amherst College, Emerson; the one before, Dartmouth, UConn, Yale, the University of Toronto, and so on. One of the most enjoyable events was the across-the-pond collaboration at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Cambridge on April 5 with Manisha Music; music plays such an important role in my life, and in BORN CONFUSED, and I’ve been wanting to incorporate it into readings. It was great to meet Manisha and find we could meet on this vision. I’m hoping to do more of this when the book launches in the UK this June, as my band is all London-based.

Can you share some of your childhood memories here in New England ?

Tanuja:You can put the girl in England but you can’t take New England out of the girl! Frock, I love it here—now that I’ve lived away for some time, the natural beauty of the area strikes me as clearly as when I was a child spending hours wandering through the woods, swimming in the ponds, pilfering from the apple orchard, making snow angels (and from the looks of it, you’ve all had more than enough material to work with for the latter this year). From the time I was two to eighteen, I lived in the same small town in western Massachusetts—in fact, I was born in Brookline, but we moved back to India for a little while initially. When I graduated from high school, I was with some of the same friends I’d been with since kindergarten. When you’ve known each other so long, and in such a small town, you don’t really think about people in terms of race, at least not on any conscious level, and I certainly didn’t think of myself in these terms in any conscious way--not till I went to Brown and was suddenly surrounded by such diversity as I had never seen before, and then, even more so, during my years in New York City.

What has been the inspiration to write ‘Born Confused’?

Tanuja:Of course in part the book is to pay homage to desi culture, and to all the ABDs of the world. But BORN CONFUSED is equally for all the Gwyns of the world. ABD culture has not developed in a vacuum, after all—it’s all about the dynamic and the context. It’s been exciting getting feedback from people from many different types of backgrounds and age groups—Mexican-American, Japanese-American, as well as readers whose families have had a presence for several generations in their various homelands—and to see they are able to connect to Dimple and her journey. After all, questions of identity, fitting in, shaping your place in the world, finding home--these issues are ones you deal with no matter what your age, gender, or cultural background.

Have teenagers responded to this book and said, “ I feel so much like Dimple Lala”? How about adults?

Tanuja:Yes, yes, yes, and that is so thrilling! Actually the main demographic that I’ve been getting feedback from on the site has been university age through 20s/early 30s as well as teens, so it’s been nice seeing that crossover. I’ve also gotten loads of emails from mothers who’ve read the book and said it’s helped them understand their daughters better. A real motivating force for me in writing this story was just to get that Desi Girl tale out there. Because that's a book I would have liked to have when I was growing up and even later on—a book with a heroine who looked a little like me, lived in a similar house, knew the same spices and songs. Someone I could really relate to on more than one level. There just weren't any books out there with characters of that background.

In the book, you have touched upon issues like same sex relationships. Was it a deliberate attempt on your part to beat the stereotypical image of Indian values?

Tanuja:It was an attempt to be true to the characters and to the story I’d chosen to tell. Yes, I did want a running theme in the book to be about undoing stereotypes—undoing that ABCD alphabet over the course of the telling, turning the C for Confusion to Clarity through creativity—and not just the stereotypes directed at the community from the outside, but those directed from the community out, as well as even towards different groups within itself. But the main thing I was thinking about during the writing was just telling the story. Getting to know the characters. And letting them lead the way. And this is the world we live in; this is certainly the New York I lived in, and is part of the amazing vitality of the desi ‘scene’ I was describing. There are many ways of leading a life, so many ways in which to be true to yourself, to discover and take your path, and what is so wonderful about the New York I knew and know (well, *one* of the many wonderful things about NY!), is that this space when used to its best capacity can really undo the conception of what is ‘normal’ altogether, what is ‘stereotypical’, from the sheer fact of numbers, the sheer openness and even deliberate vocal-ness of communities that may have been marginalized in other contexts. Issues of sexuality, race, gender—all have a place where they can be discussed, a vocabulary designed just for them, a parade to float upon, a way to be celebrated.

On the other hand, some critics have said that in your book you have stuck to norms of the two cultures, Karsh turns out to be the good guy with plenty of respect and tradition. Where as Gwyn belongs to a broken home and is eager to belong? Comment?

Tanuja: It would be great if people view some aspects of the world described in BORN CONFUSED as sticking to the ‘norms’! Same sex love affairs, connecting with drag queens, interracial friendships, discoing with your parents in public, experimentation—because, of course, all this and more exists in the world, it’s just not always talked about. Re Karsh: Exactly. I wanted to make the ‘suitable boy’ eventually suitable to Dimple because of his sheer unsuitability (at least vis a vis what she thinks her folks would feel if they knew the full truth about him). I wanted to develop a character who could survive the breakup of an Indian family (because dysfunction exists in this as in any culture, whether people admit it or not) get along with his mother, feel deeply connected to his culture and some of its traditions, and still be a hip happening New York City DJ. Because you can be both traditional and modern—you can wear a sari and be a radical feminist. You can dress in tiny tees and body glitter and still dream of a traditional path, life, family one day. You can respect your roots and still rebel against them. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. And Gwyn manages to construct another world from the bits and pieces of her broken home, manages to reincarnate herself into new territory—with varying degrees of success--through her own willingness to be open, and to try. She doesn’t always go about it gracefully, but her heart is in the right place. She’s just trying to figure out her place in the world, as is Dimple—as are all of the characters on some level—and I felt it important to tell her story as well, because that question and quest knows no color. It knows every color.

On the day of the book reading event, someone brought up the question of what you identify yourself with, an Indian or an American. Many teenagers like Dimple Lala growing up will be faced with this question? In your mind is identity a big part of what shapes you in your attitude to life?

Tanuja: Actually, I think it’s the other way around: my attitude towards life shapes my identity. A person is so much more than the sum of their parts—so much more than the car they drive, the school they go to, the job they have, the political party they belong to. And that goes for multicultural backgrounds as well—you don’t have to choose; there is a place where the two or more meet, and there is the space between them, and their overlap and even contradiction that is a place in its own right, a viable identity. A human being is too rich and diverse a creature to fit so tidily into one little box—get out of the box, and take up as much space as you need! I believe a person is far more defined by what they love, what they care about—what can make them laugh, move them to tears, make them angry, make them ache—than any easy label. When I consider my own identity, though I am of course Indian, and I am of course American, I tend to think of verbs and nouns that make me feel the most at home—not physically, but emotionally and psychologically. Writing does that. Music does that. More than anything, my family and friends do that—no matter where they are or what their background.

What has been the reaction of your family in terms of the career path that you set yourself for?

Tanuja:Speaking of which…! They have been my greatest support in following my dreams, and have had even more faith in me than I had in myself for many years. In fact, my family is my primary source of strength, and faith, and comic relief. One of the reasons for writing BORN CONFUSED was to honor them by writing a story about an immensely loving family, one where the bonds only grow stronger over time, where the connections deepen in spite of differences. I am so lucky and so grateful to them for being such amazing role models, for teaching me that dreams can come true, and for always believing in me. And for making me laugh every day.

Can you share a moment or experience with us while you were writing this that is special?

Tanuja: There were so many that were special: I think after so much time spent avoiding what I really wanted to do since I was a child (write), the sheer relief of finally getting around to doing it--the epiphany that it is in fact far less exhausting to just do the work, that procrastination takes an incredible amount of good energy out of you—led to a constant underlying sense of giddiness, exuberance. Euphoria even. This is not to say that there was not an overlying sense of over-caffeination, sleep deprivation, and surprisingly sore knees from my supposedly ergonomically correct typing chair! But the experience of living and breathing and eating and dancing through Dimple and the other characters for those nine months was really exciting. I knew the characters pretty well when I set off on the journey, but they surprised me quite a bit along the way.

One revelation I had that was really thrilling was when I decided—well into the process—to name Dimple’s camera Chica Tikka. I hadn’t named it up until that point and then it occurred to me: people always name what they love, and even when it comes to other people, they often re-name them with affectionate appellations. It made no sense that the camera could be so much a part of Dimple’s heart and soul and even body and that she wouldn’t address it by a name, even if only in her head.

Tell us about your rock band in the UK?

Tanuja: We’re a five piece, two women and three men: guitars, bass, drums/bongos, keyboards. I’m lead singer and a songwriter in the group. The name of the band is San Transisto and the other four members are all from the UK. We’ve gigged around London quite a bit, but are now in the middle of writing a soundtrack of original music to BORN CONFUSED—in fact, “Visionary”, which I performed with Manisha at the Zeitgeist, is one of these songs-it's about Dimple and Chica Tikka, her camera, and about ways of seeing/perceiving-- SanTran provided much-needed musical medicine during the writing of the novel: After a day of sitting in one position at the computer with only the occasional hello to the Starbucks guy coaxing sound out of my mouth, a couple hours plugged in and amped up and collaborating in such a physical, spontaneous way with four other people lent fabulous, sweaty balance to the whole artistic process!

What are your future plans ?

Tanuja: Cannot give details as of yet, but it's safe to say my next project for the immediate future will be adapting the book for film.

Finally, tell us something of your own Jeevan Saathi ?

Tanuja: My husband: He is indeed the love of my lives! He's from France, and we met in New York City at a Pakistani friend's raging and renowned Christmas tree lighting party--there was something there immediately though we had an ironically old-fashioned courtship with the help of very modern technology: daily emails that soon became love letters. Funnily enough we found out over time that we lived literally next door to each other seven years before we met when we both lived in Paris! He is my jeevansaathi--and is the proof that soul mates come in all colors, shapes, sizes, browsers and emails. Without exaggeration Bernard is the greatest day-to-day factor that made BORN CONFUSED possible, through his support and faith and inexhaustible sense of humor.

http://www.ThisIsTanuja.com

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