Sujatha Rao’s debut book ‘In the Company of Stories’ — a collection of 52 true and imaginary short stories steeped in positivity, was published in 2022. Two of her short stories were placed third in the Times of India’s national level Write India Contest and made into their subsequent anthologies.
Akhila: “I wish and I will” comes across as a striking creation from your pen. Did you have plans to write this from the beginning, or was it an idea that struck you later?
Sujatha Rao: Thanks. I have always pondered over the human tendency of ‘wishful thinking,’ and the despondency that is likely to wash over us when our wishes fail to come true. The seed of a thought to address this in a positive light grew into this book.
Akhila: Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind your book, “I wish and I will”?
Sujatha Rao: In my own life, certain wishes came true, while a few others didn’t. While yet other wishes came true in alternate forms. All these experiences became building blocks for the stories in the book.
Akhila: How did you go about creating the characters and their development throughout the book? Since they all are distinct, what inspired the characters in “I wish and I will”?
Sujatha Rao: Some of the stories were inspired by certain true incidents I stumbled across in life, though they ended up being dramatized versions of the same. Taking advantage of the short story format, I focused on bringing-in diverse characters into the book.
Akhila: Can you talk about the themes and messages you wanted to convey through your book? Did “I wish and I will” give you plenty of space to express all your ideas?
Sujatha Rao: I wanted the readers to experience the transformative power of stories.
I wanted the stories to come across as uplifting and positive with some kind of didactic message for the readers to arrive at in their own way.
I wished to convey that a journey pursuing excellence can be very rewarding, irrespective of the traveler’s ability to reach the destination or not.
Lastly, I hope the readers get to the place of “I Will” through determined action from the single-track mindsets of “I Wish”.
Yes. I think the book and its format gave me wide enough space to put across all these ideas.
Akhila: “I wish and I will” extends its base to a universal form, since it relates to current events or larger societal issues. Do you agree with this?
Sujatha Rao: I think it does so by touching upon the societal issues of disparities, disabilities, failures, coming of age vulnerabilities, all too familiar familial strife etc., and tries to handle them through the power of stories without coming across as preachy.
It also tries to convey the message that family is larger than the sum of its parts.
Akhila: Can you discuss your writing process and how you approached structuring “I wish and I will”? Did it require frequent revisions?
Sujatha Rao: I knew the stories had to have one single theme cutting across them.
I wanted to bring-in stories from various genres to hold the interest of the reader.
I tried to have the titles of the stories with the ending phrase of the previous chapter to make it somewhat unique, adding a refreshing element of connection.
I wanted the readers to experience various aspects of ‘wishes coming true,’ along with the acceptance of ‘death’ as a natural process, because of which quite a few stories deal with the topic of death.
I did struggle a bit with some stories, as they took some time to fall in place, requiring multiple revisions.
Akhila: How do you see “I wish and I will” impacting readers, and what do you hope they take away from it? Did you have any specific objectives while writing it?
Sujatha Rao: Though this book is meant for all age groups, I think it connects better with the adolescents. In support of my claim, I would like to highlight the following responses received by me recently:
Lekkhya, the teenage daughter of my dear friend Shobana, wrote a very touching personal message to me about how the book impacted her. She felt the book’s teenage character Kalpana made her introspect and realize the importance of being sensitive to others’ feelings. When she borrowed the book’s phrase to highlight her realization – ‘it’s not always about me,’ it really moved me.
Two adolescent girls from my extended family – Shubha and Gauri, understood and related well to the underlying strong bonds amongst the family members in the central story and the other stories in the book, despite the generational gaps separating them.
I hope the book succeeds in turning the attention of the modern day teenagers away from the negative effects of social media, towards reading inspirational books and building stronger bonds with their families.
I also hope it encourages the parents, grandparents, teachers and others to nudge the children towards inculcating the habit of reading right from a very young age.
Akhila: Are there any specific literary or artistic influences that can be seen in “I wish and I will”? How did you manage to maintain distinctness even when writing in a popular form of literary writing?
Sujatha Rao: The most important influence the book derives from is the wisdom and the innovative structure of the stories from Arabian Nights. However, it is set in the contemporary period and is made relevant to the times we live in.
Akhila: How do you see “I wish and I will” fitting into the larger literary canon or genre?
Sujatha Rao: I think the book, in spite of having 12 short stories within, is not a mere anthology of short stories. It adapts a layered approach with a single theme weaving together the multi-genre stories, in order to serve the larger purpose of transforming a person. To that extent, I feel it is somewhat unique.
Akhila: Can you talk about any challenges or obstacles you faced while writing “I wish and I will?
Sujatha Rao: The most challenging part was in creating the layering effect of stories within a story. I was slightly apprehensive about the negative impact of dealing with the morbid topic of ‘death’ fairly early on in the book, at the risk of putting off certain set of readers. But I felt it was necessary to underscore the transitory nature of our lives where, as the famous ‘Hamilton’ song highlights, we are not sure ‘who lives, who dies and who tells’ the story. The topic of ‘death’, handled well, can spur us to do what needs to be done, before our time on this earth is up.
Akhila: Just out of curiosity, can you share in brief about your plans about writing after “I wish and I will”?
Sujatha Rao: I am contemplating to try my hand at the ‘non-fiction’ genre next.
Akhila: It is interesting to note how you managed to remain objective about each character even when speaking for them through them in “I wish and I will.” How did you maintain this objectivity?
Sujatha Rao: Thanks. I have been grateful to be surrounded by people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and depths. Drawing from how I view them and the rest of the world helps me value my characters objectively.
Akhila: I hope that this collection breaks records in royalty collection. Wishing you luck!
Sujatha Rao: Thanks for your best wishes. I hope and wish it does. However, the journey of writing this book itself has been quite rewarding. In a way, it has made me live the experience, the book is trying to advocate.
Thanks a lot Akhila for taking out time to interview me.
