1. Your book Bombay Balchão is set in Cavel, a neighbourhood in South Bombay. You didn’t actually grow up there. So, in some sense, the book is not based on direct memory or nostalgia, but built on research, oral histories, and conversations. What did it take to write a place from the inside when you came to it as something of an outsider?
 

For some reason, when we live somewhere, be it cities, small towns or neighbourhoods, we feel this concomitant need to locate ourselves. Are we insiders or outsiders? Do we live on the fringes, in a far-flung suburb, or are we proud downtowners? Is it a plush locality or a working-class area?

Having this sense of location not only helps create an imagined solidarity with a place, but also an assumed sense of identity, knowing and belonging. Which is all very good, but when writing fiction, I feel such an attachment to location can sometimes be restrictive.
 
A storyteller’s greatest duty is towards the creation of people, places, feelings and memories that are sometimes obscure and far removed from one’s own reality.
 
So, for me, writing about a place from the inside, when I came to it as an outsider, felt like a coveted position to be in. It took away the burden of mirroring the Christian neighbourhood of Cavel authentically on paper.
 
I was raised in Muscat, where I spent 15 years, before returning to Mumbai in May 2003 to pursue my higher studies. We moved into a home in Cavel, which we had bought from a relative. Most of the residents here had families that went back three or four generations, so we really stuck out.

In the beginning, at least, I craved some connection. That’s until I started writing. From where I stood, I could see Cavel more impartially, even enjoyably, and perhaps objectively. It allowed me the room to build characters that had no bearing on truth. I was emotionally detached, but creatively attached to the neighbourhood I was writing about. And that made it deeply pleasurable.
 

2. You began writing the book when you moved to Muscat. Is distance necessary, or does it help, to write about a place honestly? 
 

Distance, if anything, gave me perspective. And who doesn’t love perspective. I remember moving back to Muscat at a time when I was tired of being in the city. Bombay/Mumbai can have that effect on you—the pace, the crowd, the sounds can feel overwhelming sometimes. I had been multitasking far too long here; first co-writing a non-fiction book with a full-time job, and later, pursuing a full-fledged Master’s degree in Literature while still working. By the end of it, I was drained and experiencing burnout. In the hope of some respite, I left the city. Honestly, I was trying to find myself. I got lucky. While there, I came to the realisation that Bombay was home, and the only way I was able to forge a connection again was by remembering fragments of Cavel, and writing these inter-connected set of short stories. A few years later, I developed it into a novella.   

3. Cavel has a fascinating history (mayors, missionaries, generations of Goan Catholics). Tell our readers about Cavel and its people. Was the book also motivated by the fear that this world could simply be forgotten if nobody wrote it down?
 

No, I was never motivated by the fear of people forgetting Cavel. I was instead concerned about how we would remember it.
 
Cavel’s story goes back thousands of years. It has a history that dates back to the Rashtrakuta dynasty. But by the 17th century, with the influx of the Portuguese, whose primary mission was conversion, it transformed into a thriving Christian neighbourhood comprising native Catholics. According to historians, it was a thriving and affluent neighbourhood made up of landed men who owned vast stretches of farmland.

Some of the streets in the vicinity are still named after the erstwhile orchards here, namely Chikoowadi and Phanaswadi, where, I presume, chikoos and jackfruits grew.

In the 1800s, with the British taking over and reclaiming the islands, transforming Bombay into an important port destination, migrants started moving to the city in large numbers. Neighbourhoods like Cavel, which already had a strong Christian identity, attracted Goan and other Konkan-speaking Catholics. It became so populated that, over the course of the next century or so, three more churches were built within shouting distance of each other. With Goa being liberated from Portuguese rule in 1961, the subsequent Gulf boom, which saw men immigrate to Arab countries for work, and the sweeping exodus to the West, these neighbourhoods started emptying out. By the turn of the century, as real estate became unaffordable, the remaining residents began to shift to the suburbs. Today, none of these churches have enough parishioners to even have daily Mass.

I was, of course, curious about how gentrification, development, politics, and the changing nature of our economy affected community spaces. That curiosity is what led me to write about Cavel.

We cannot control or stop what’s happening, but we need to find ways to remember what we had, before we lost. How we remember our past helps us make sense of the present, and also shapes how we move into the future. Every neighbourhood that has been lost or forgotten deserves the dignity of being remembered.
 

4. The novel feels deeply tied to sound and speech. Konkani phrases, Cavel slang, the rhythms of everyday conversation. How important was it to get the language right while narrating these stories?
 

Language is everything. Listening to your characters speak allows you to understand how they see and feel the world they inhabit, and how they use words to articulate it. If stories transport you to a place you have never visited, language makes you hear it.
 

5. In the book, there are three groups in Cavel — the East Indians, the Mangaloreans (referred to as the Mangis), and the Goans. To an outsider, they may appear to form a single Christian community, but the novel reveals significant differences, rivalries, and forms of goading among them. Can you elaborate on these dynamics?
 

If I was going to write fiction centred around these three communities, I couldn’t ignore their complicated dynamic.
 
Their history is long and winding and it would take pages if I begin to write about it, but to put it simply, they were all converted by the Portuguese. The Goans and Mangaloreans, in particular, share a similar history, heritage and language (though different dialects). When they moved to Bombay, home to the native Christians who called themselves East Indians (affiliating themselves with the British, and naming themselves after the East India Company), there was obvious tension. The East Indians, “sons and daughters of the soil”, considered them to be a natural threat. For the longest time, marriages were discouraged between these communities, and this rivalry also played out in church and within the community.
 
In real life, it was quite ugly. But personally, I have always been amused by this, and maybe because of that, I treated it lightly. These divisions, like most divisions, never did any good to anybody. I hope everyone is capable of seeing it this way.
 

6. Cavel is a real neighbourhood and you’ve drawn a very intimate portrait of it. Are there any characters that are too close to real people? Did anyone from the neighbourhood walk up to you and say, “that’s me” or “I know who this is”? Was there a moment while writing where you thought, I am going to be in so much trouble when this comes out?
 

Most of my characters stem from observation, not just of people in Cavel, but also of others from the community.

As far as I know, nobody has been directly inspired by any resident, living or dead. Truth be told, even if I knew enough about anybody’s life to write them into a story, it would be a breach of privacy. Of course, there have been events and incidents that some residents spoke about, which I have referenced, because I was ultimately trying to reimagine “a Cavel.”

But it’s a Cavel that lives in my head, not the one I live in. So, I never feared or worried too much about people saying a character reminded them of someone. If it did, maybe I was doing a half-decent job of representation.
 

7. In a rapidly changing city like Mumbai, neighbourhoods disappear physically and then slowly disappear from memory too. What can fiction do here that journalism cannot? Before you set out to write fiction, did you ever consider doing a well-researched series of articles? How did you arrive at the form?
 

A little before Bombay Balchão came out, my very dear friend and former colleague at Sunday Mid-Day, Meher Marfatia, had already done a brilliant article titled, A Tale of Three Villages, which documented the lesser-known stories of people from Cavel, Sonapur and Dabul. It was a spectacular piece, and I was glad she was able to document and shine light on these spaces through her work.
 
Journalism is such a rewarding experience. Nothing can compensate for research and rigour, and its ability to mirror the truth of our existence. It’s a form I still enjoy, and continue to remain partial to. And I continue to admire journalists. It is hard labour. But I also understand the limitations of longform and narrative journalism, and everything it is bound by, including structure, tone, word limit, scope, peg, objectivity etc...
 
Fiction is more democratic, liberating, and fluid. It gives me the freedom to fly, travel to places the real world denies me, create characters I want to feel for, and allow me to experience shock, wonder and grief in equal measure. And all this, through my craft. How magical is that.
 

8. Lindsay Pereira's Gods and Ends is set in a Catholic neighbourhood in Malad. Did you read it? Does it feel like Bombay Balchão has a cousin now?
 

I love Lindsay’s writing. I missed reading Gods and Ends, but I have read his other novels, and I am glad, if anything, that my book has a cousin. In fact, the more the merrier. I would love for my book to have siblings, aunts, nieces, parents. I like the idea of a literary family.
 

9. Who are some of your favourite fiction writers who have written about cities? And is there anything you've consciously taken from them in terms of style, prose, tone, the way they handle research?
 

My favourite city writers—and I will speak about Bombay specifically—are Saadat Hasan Manto, Kiran Nagarkar, Shanta Gokhale, Jeet Thayil, Jerry Pinto, Jayant Kaikini, and Rohinton and Cyrus Mistry. They have a remarkable body of work that puts Bombay and its people at the forefront. I also feel that Amrita Mahale, Lindsay Pereira, and Anjali Joseph have given us some of the best Bombay books.

To answer the second part of your question, I believe that art doesn’t and cannot thrive on imitation. So as much as I revere all these writers, their style, tone and prose are not mine to take (or borrow). If anything, their literature teaches me that devotion and commitment towards a city doesn’t mean you ignore how brutal, unpleasant and painful a place can be towards its people. They show me how a relationship with a city can never be built on love alone.
 

10. The book has been out for a few years now. Do residents see their own street differently? And do you have curious readers making a trip there?
 

I cannot speak for the residents, but I do have readers who visit Cavel, and who sneakily take pictures, and later share them with me on social media. On a couple of occasions, I have also had visitors. It amuses me, but also makes me realise the value readers attach to literature. When I spoke about remembering, this is what I meant: Everyone has their way of remembering Cavel. For residents who live here, it is memory. For readers, it’s the book. Fortunately, for them, the existence of a real Cavel, makes their imagination feel more tangible.
   

11. You also co-authored Mafia Queens of Mumbai, which explores women's lives within the city's underworld, spaces that are almost always narrated through male figures. What did that project reveal to you about the city? And what was the most exciting (and perhaps even stressful) part of researching it?
 

Through the course of my research and writing of Mafia Queens of Mumbai, I realised that feminism was important everywhere. The men dominated every kind of narrative there was to control. Even crime. Just to be clear, I don’t advocate crime, nor do I support anything the subjects of my book did. They were not heroines. But I’d say that these women made for dangerous criminals—their chicanery, guts and cunning were unparalleled. And yet, the men got all the attention, because they wielded weapons, and committed crime that was believed to be gorier and bloodier. These women remained invisible, as they were never considered criminal enough. It made research challenging, too. Some of these women and their stories lay buried under mounds of police files. Mainstream media never thought their stories merited print space. The struggle was in piecing together their life story.
 

12. Mafia Queens of Mumbai (non-fiction-crime) and Bombay Balchão (fiction-neighbourhood and community) look like completely different books. But are they really just two different ways of telling the story of the same city?
 

Yes, different books, but doing the same work, which is showing you ways in which men and women choose to live in this city, and how their choices have determined the way the city has responded to them. It’s a relationship story, which is complex, layered, unromantic, unapologetic, and sometimes gritty and evil.
 

13. You are also deeply involved with the Soboicar archives which captures the lives and memories of Catholics who migrated from the Konkan to South Mumbai. Did working on oral histories change the way you think about storytelling? And which do you trust more to keep a place alive fiction or the archive?
 

Leading the Soboicar archive project has only expanded the scope of my work, and helped me find newer ways of telling stories. I trust both fiction and history to do their job in keeping the city and its people alive.