Ask any author and they will tell you that it is difficult to draw a clear line between fiction and real life. It is hard to remove the autobiographical elements in your story, even when it a mystery thriller. Sometimes, those are the portions that add beauty to the story because no one can describe a lived experience better than the person who experienced it.
Sleeping Dogs is personal. There are so many moments in that story that I’ve written from memory. Devika’s first train journey from Chennai to Mumbai is a lived experience. All those snacks that Yugan bought for her were things my hubby bought for me. Believe me: The way to a woman’s heart is also through her stomach.
That’s where the similarities end. The Yugan that you meet in the rest of the story is far removed from my husband. I am hesitant to share more information about the story in the fear of revealing spoilers. Instead, I’ll focus on the theme and the characters behind this thriller.
Like Devika, I was twenty-two when I got married and twenty-three when I became a mother. It was an impressionable age where the world treats you as an adult, but you still feel like a kid.
My son is a sweetheart, but he can be quite a handful. As a toddler, he was always running away in public, climbing high places, putting stuff in his mouth, and doing all those crazy dangerous things that can make a mother panic and clutch her hair in desperation.
Once, when he was about ten months old, my husband brought along a friend for lunch. As I was scurrying between the kitchen and the dining table, the doorbell rang. I went to answer it. It was the newspaper vendor on his monthly visit to collect his dues. I ran inside to bring him the money without realising that my baby had followed me to the door.
My son could walk around at ten months though he wasn’t steady and had to clutch on to things for support. Unbeknown to me, he had held on to that little gap between the door and the wall where the door hinges are placed. As I stood in the bedroom, taking out the money from the cupboard, I heard the door bang shut in the wind.
The next second, his scream ripped through the house and my heart stopped. The next few hours were so traumatic. He had to be rushed to hospital. His severed finger hung loosely, and it had to be stitched up. Thankfully, his bones hadn’t grown completely, and he did not suffer any fractures.
The next day, a well-meaning lady, a close relative, called up my mother to tell her that I am inattentive and oblivious when I am reading a book and instructed my mother to ask me to be more careful around the child. It stung. I wasn’t reading a book. I wasn’t watching television or playing a video game. I wasn’t even on Facebook then. I wasn’t chatting with my friend, unlike my husband. It was so unfair to pin the blame on me. It was patriarchy at its best.
The bigger problem, that I realise now, is that I agreed with her. I blamed myself. I cursed myself. I beat myself up. Many nights, I would jerk awake in my sleep as that loud bang of the door played out in my head again and again.
Devika’s anguish was personal. Her mental torture and self-flagellation are autobiographical. Her desire to make a difference in someone’s life, to find meaning in her existence is something that most women can relate to. If the boundaries of your growth, the limits to which you can fly, has been decided for you, then you are Devika and she is you.
After that incident, I guarded him with my life. I wouldn’t let him out of my sight for even a single minute. I had no life. I never went out with any friends. I never rested even if I was running a high fever. I never trusted my husband, any relative, baby-sitter or helper to care for him.
Five years later, I had another kid and that was the first time, my son had spent a few days away from me. It was the first time, he slept with my husband alone. It was the first time someone else bathed him or fed him. Years rolled by and the kids grew up.
Caring for my sons and taking the absolute responsibility for them and the house became second nature to me. I was no martyr. I loved my kids and my hubby, but it was frustrating at times.
I was a bloody Chartered Accountant. I was a consistent topper in school and college. I had won many awards and medals for public speaking and creative writing in those years. Along with managing the kids, I had tutored many college and CA students in accountancy and mathematics. I was writing and publishing articles and short stories in newspapers and magazines. My hands were itching to write a novel but there was no space in my head or in my calendar.
My husband urged me to take up a job. He told me that I might regret it later if I didn’t. You were right, hubby. I am regretting it now.
I wrote my first novel, Birds of Prey, after sending both kids to full-time school. A decade of my life rolled by with nothing to show except a clean house and two happy sons. I am not complaining. If I had another chance, I would do it again in the same way, but I would get help. I wouldn’t do it all.
I wouldn’t shatter each time they grazed their knee. I wouldn’t hold myself responsible for their every cold, cough, stomach flu, and emergency room visit. I wouldn’t blame my parenting skills for their bad behaviour, teacher complaints and tantrums. I would leave them with a babysitter, lock the door and write for two hours every day.
Carl Jung said that the greatest burden a child can bear is the unlived life of a parent. I don’t want to do that to my two darling boys. They aren’t responsible for what I did to myself. The blame lies on this society. How easy it is to make a girl believe that the responsibilities of all those around her rest on her shoulders! How easy it is to make her give up her life! How difficult it is to break out of these beliefs that are embedded in her head!
That’s how patriarchy works: slowly and subtly.
Sleeping Dogs, a mystery thriller, was written to give voice to the silent screams of the millions of educated mothers, loved and cherished at home, who are still trampled by patriarchy. In my opinion, the story is the king. It was written as a thriller in the hopes of gluing you to the page while forcing you to think.
Patriarchy can strike from anywhere—from people you love, from family and friends, from politicians and godmen, well-meaning relatives, from bosses and clients, from parents and children, from women and girls and from within yourself. As soon as it strikes, you will feel a mild discomfort in your heart and a slight quickening of your pulse. That is when you must strike and crush it beneath your feet. If you ignore it, it will stalk you, clutch you, take root in you and cage you for life.
That is Sleeping Dogs! You should never let them lie.
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