Naked is a novel written by Michaela Talwar and Aditi Mediratta. Set in the heart of bustling Bombay, a city of contradictions, lies this enigmatic crime novel. Against the backdrop of its chaotic streets and hidden alleyways, the narrative unfurls around a perplexing murder that sends shockwaves through the lives of its diverse characters, a small town girl trying to make it big in Bollywood, a gay man unable to understand himself, and a starved ex-husband. With each revelation, the true nature of the characters’ desires unravels, exposing the city's underbelly of power, and vulnerability.
We’re in conversation with Michaela and Aditi, who dive deeper into the creation of the novel.
How did the vibrant and diverse cultural backdrop of Bombay influence your storytelling and the development of your characters in the novel?Without Mumbai this story would not exist. For one, if it wasn't for both of us migrating to Mumbai we would have never met. The story is not just set in Mumbai, it is the pull of this city that shapes the characters and their personalities and heavily influences their choices. Had Iti stayed in Agra her life would have been very different. A whole side of her personality would have remained hidden even from her. The woman she became would not have happened if she had not been driven to explore her own resilience and and explore her own leaning towards and fascination for the esoteric. Mumbai and its culture is unique and once you have lived here long enough you are a Mumbaikar. You may not notice it, but every time you go home it will be pointed out to you that even your language has changed.
What about the literary genre of mystery excites you?
The puzzle. The intrigue . It is an easy genre to like and my generation at least had some really iconic detectives we have grown up reading- Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple… even younger we had The Famous Five, The Five Find Outers, Secret Seven. So maybe it was the early introduction to this genre, much before romance and drama, that it is still a heavily nostalgic part of reading. Writing it though can be done in several ways. It can be all about solving the puzzle or the way it was for us, by making it less about the who done it and more about the WHO ARE they who might have done it. Hercule Poirot often says what was it about this person that caused them to be murdered? In a way were were also exploring, what was it about Chinky that shE died in this manner?
What’s the story behind the name of the novel?
Initially we kept the name as a working title (all other titles we had come up with were really, really long). It described parts of the main character’s allure, but as we moved along in writing, we discovered that the story transcended the literal meaning of “naked”. Rather, reading the book wants to evoke a question in us all: are we ready to “be naked”? The main character, Chinky, gives these naked workshops (which are a real thing by the way!) where people learn to just be comfortable in their nakedness. She - and the book - asks: Are we comfortable with being exposed? What happens to us when we shed all layers of ourselves? What if we’d have a friend who encourages us to look ourselves straight into the eyes, naked, just accepting who we are and also acknowledging who we are.
And of course it’s a smashing title! Paired with the cover, it catches the eye!
And since the entire storyline questions reality - we play with perception, what’s real, what’s behind the meet-the-eye - we loved to take it up to another level and start straightway with the title and cover. Like, what do you expect to find on the inside pages of a book called “naked” with a woman’s naked legs on it? Do you look closer and discover that she’s immersed in water? And maybe even closer and see that there’s a skyline of Mumbai in the background of it all?
So at first glance it’s “Naked” but once you start reading it, you discover that it’s also “unravelled”, “exposed”, “vulnerable”, “scantily dressed” and all the synonyms you can conjure for that catchy word.
What are some of your favorite murder mysteries? Are there any that you drew inspiration from?
Aditi: Growing up Aditi was heavily influenced by ‘The Five Find Outers’ by Enid Blyton. It’s not as famous as the ‘Famous Five, but I loved this series and really really wanted to be a detective right up until I thought writing murder mysteries might be easier than solving them. It’s not. After Enid Blyton of course it was Agatha Christie and one of her first books that I read was -Endless Night. And not to give any spoilers for those who haven't read it, but reading it felt less like reading a mystery and more like a story with rather complex characters and a rather surprising (for the time) . I think I was barely 14 when I read it, but that book has stayed with me. Not the reveal, but the way it was written. It’s possible that this was a subconscious influence when writing Naked.
MIchaela: Before conspiracy theories became a thing, that is before the internet was as omnipresent as it is right now, i loved to read Dan Brown. It was fiction but sounded so real and logical! That really drew me in. Now I find it a bit scary that people actually think these, albeit well researched and intelligently connected random infos are real. So that’s put me off. But what stayed with me and has definitely influenced me was that fiction was presented as facts which left me feeling like this really happened, it stayed with me like a well-written News piece. I hope that people will perceive NAKED also as real, that it’s almost indistinguishable from fiction. But of course ours is much less of a nail-biting tempo.
Queer love is quite centric to the novel; give us some insight into what it was like to narrativize queer experiences.
It just happened. We were going along with the narrative as it unfolded itself and as Abhishek emerged with his hopeless romanticism and simultaneous middle-class stuckup-ness we discovered that his object of desire was a man. The genre of our book can be described as “magic realism” and as such - apart from all the actual, or perceived, magic in the book - we like to imagine a reality which is maybe slightly “better” than what it really is. Like just a tad bit different from the actual Bombay of these days - where it is completely irrelevant whether someone is in love with a person from the same gender. So we really just want to normalize love. What’s important is how we love. Are we diving headlong into it? Are we scared of too much of it? Are we in love with the idea of love without ever having known love? And what struck us was that Abhishek is stuck in this conundrum of being extremely conforming and yet he is gay. Maybe that could be interpreted as a comment on how difficult some people find it to integrate queerness into their orderly lives. And it’s also a comment on the fact that there can also be ordinary queer people, it sounds like an oxymoron but not everyone who belongs to the LGBTQ+ community looks or acts “queer”. Of course there are also some flamboyant characters in the book - because that’s what life in this city is: a mix of people. All characters, including Jhansi who was born a man but identifies as a woman, are a condensed version of people we know. And we would love for people to discover themselves or people they know in those characters. Maybe the Abhishek they know is straight but battles with other aspects of his personality which are not considered “mainstream”.
However, we both are mainly straight so it was very important for us not to emulate the experience queer people would have. Hence, we don’t dwell on that but rather on the queer characters’ experience with love. We hope that by only briefly acknowledging the fact that these are same-sex couples and then mainly focusing on their narrative journey together, we help to normalize queer love.
Words Neeraja Srinivasan
Date 16.08.2023