Six Questions interview #225 : Veena Gokhale

Veena Gokhale, an immigrant shape shifter, has worked as a journalist, teacher, literary curator, and in the non-profit sector. She has also given Indian cooking classes in French and English. She has published three works of fiction — Bombay Wali and Other Stories, Land for Fatimah, a novel (both with Guernica Editions), and Annapurna’s Bounty, Indian Food Legends Retold (Dundurn Press). Having lived in ten cities across three countries, she now calls Tiohtià:ke-Montréal home. Visit her at: www.veenago.com

Q: How long were you in Ottawa, and what first brought you here? What took you away?

A: I lived in Ottawa from late 1999 to early 2005. My partner, Marc-Antoine, and I, moved there from Vancouver. We wanted to move back East, I to Toronto, where I had already lived, and he to his hometown, Montreal. Ottawa was a compromise destination! Nevertheless, it worked out very well for us. From Ottawa we moved to Dar-es-Salaam because my work contract in Ottawa ended, and I found work with an international development organization in Tanzania.  

Q: How did you first get involved in writing, and subsequently, the writing community here?

A: I started writing stories when I was around nine years old. One got published in my primary school magazine. I have been writing fiction since then. In my 20s, I worked as a print journalist in Bombay. I immigrated to Canada in my early 30s. Here, I lived in Toronto, then Vancouver. I started publishing in literary magazines and anthologies and read from my work in public by the time I moved to Ottawa. I was really swamped with work in Ottawa and was much less involved with fiction during my time there.

I did, however, get to know the acclaimed Ottawa author, Mark Frutkin, here. We belonged to the same Buddhist community. After Tanzania, we settled in Montreal. I was living there when my first book, Bombay Wali and other stories got published, in 2013. I still live here. When it was time to look for an author endorsement of that book, I thought about Mark. He was the only published author I could claim to know rather well! Mark being the great sport he is, wrote a nice blurb for the book, which graced its back cover.

Q: How did being in such a community of writers shift your thinking about writing, if at all? Have there been subsequent shifts due to where you have lived since?

A: I really found my writerly community in Montreal. It’s very important to have a community like that. I am so thankful for this. Writing is solitary, and an artistic life can be unpredictable and anxiety-evoking, though not all the time! It so happened that I also got to know a couple of writers who live in Ottawa from here. Both have active links with Montreal and are variously involved with literature. And lately, I met Wayne Ng, another Ottawa-based author, at the annual Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival in Montreal. And I keep in touch with Mark, of course.

I’d like to say here that I feel a deep connection with Anglo-Canada and Ontario because of the very meaningful time I spent in Ottawa and Toronto. In fact, many of my closest friends live in one of these cities. It’s always a great pleasure to visit them.

Q: Have any of your projects responded directly to your engagements here?

Yes, what I learnt at work in Ottawa is reflected in my novel, Land for Fatimah, my second published work of fiction. The main characters are Anjali, an Indo-Canadian, who relocates from the Toronto office of HELP, an international development organization, to an imaginary African county called Kamorga, to work in the field office there. Here, she encounters Fatimah, a farmer who’s been ousted from her fertile farming land, along with her community, and the monetary compensation promised, has not come through. The two women get together to secure new land for the scattered community, so that they can farm again.

While the programs I managed for the Ottawa-based nonprofit where I worked did not encompass the issues I describe above, I still got a very good idea about the internal workings of the international development field.

Q: What are you working on now?

Right now I’m really busy promoting my 3^rd work of fiction, which was released on June 3^rd. It’s called Annapurna’s Bounty, Indian Food Legends Retold (Dundurn Press). Mingling sweet, sour, and spicy notes, it’s an inspiring retelling of diverse food legends from India, each one paired with a delicious recipe.

The Ottawa launch is on Thursday, July 10^th. Here’s a link to the event:  https://www.veenago.com/events/ottawa-launch-annapurnas-bounty-indian-food-legends-retold/

As well, I will be doing a book signing event at Perfect Books on Elgin, on Sunday, July 13^th from 1-3 pm. I’d love to see the readers of this blog, who live in or around Ottawa, at either of these events.