Lubaina Bandukwala on The Chowpatty Cooking Club, and setting a children's book during Independence movement

Lubaina Bandukwala is a journalist-turned-author who loves spinning stories for children. Apart from writing children’s books on subjects as varied as cats and coral reefs, she is also the founder of the Peek-A-Book Literature Festival for children.   Her latest book is a novel called The Chowpatty Cooking Club. It revolves around a secret radio station run by Indians to defy censorship by their British colonizers, and spread the message of revolutionary activity far and wide along with reports of police brutality meant to crush the freedom struggle. Bandukwala’s book has been published by Duckbill Books. We bring you an interview with the author. Edited excerpts below: I wish someone had written a book like The Chowpatty Cooking Club in my childhood. How did you cook up this wild, suspenseful story out of a historical period often taught in the most boring manner? What kind of responses have you got? The response has been lovely. One mom told me that her kid is so hooked that she brings the book to the dining table. Another one said, “I feel like I’m in the book!” Several grown-ups have written notes to tell me how they enjoyed the recreation of an era, how history is woven into the narrative. Some have resonated with the sketch of the city, some with the sentiments. Though your book is a work of fiction, it draws inspiration from the real-life adventures of the secret Congress radio run by Usha Mehta, Vithaldas Khakar, Vithaldas Jhaveri, Chandrakant Jhaveri, and Nanak Motwante. How did you come across their work? My brother, Abeezar, was a ham radio enthusiast. Ham radio enthusiasts are hobbyists who listen and connect with each other on radio. The old-school ham radio enthusiasts enjoyed building their own sets. Abeezar was always building radios and talking to people around the world. As a school boy, he helped set up radio networks in cyclone-hit areas of Andhra Pradesh, among other things.   I was always intrigued by ham radio, and used to read up anything in connection with it. I stumbled upon the story of the secret Congress Radio through a blog about ham radio, not about the freedom movement. I read about Usha Mehta and the team that played such a brave role in the underground resistance during the Quit India Movement. I also listened to an audio recording by her on a Cambridge University oral history website. The story sat in my head to be written about someday. What were some of the new and fascinating things that you learnt about setting up a radio station? Do you plan to start one? Growing up, my house was littered with strange objects like transistors, capacitors, coils, coaxial cables, and what not. We all used to be quite thrilled to listen to the faint voices coming from somewhere in the world when my brother would put up his antennas.   I felt – and I still do – that the science of these things is like magic! However, I only went as far as learning morse code. Beyond that, it was far too ‘techie’ for me. But of course, knowing a bit about these things and getting specific inputs on how a 1940s radio would work was integral to my story.   Would it be accurate to say that Bela and Parul in your book are based on Usha Mehta? They are among the strongest and most inspiring characters that you have created. Parulben, yes. She is more inspired by, than based, on Usha Mehta. I did not want to be constrained by reality while writing fiction. I read a lot, and used many dramatic moments from her real story, but didn’t attempt to recreate her in every accurate detail. In the book, this character embodies the determination and commitment of thousands of underground satyagrahis, while acknowledging her unique contribution in the use of current technology. She was incredibly forward-thinking in investing her resources into radio that helped mass mobilisation like no other in that era. [caption id=“attachment_10424091” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  The Chowpatty Cooking Club[/caption] Authors of historical novels tend to immerse themselves in a substantial amount of research. Which books and articles did you read? Whom did you meet?  For specifics, I referred to a marvelous blog by Maddy on the Congress Radio and Gautam Chatterjee’s book Untold Story of Broadcast during the Quit India Movement that had actual transcripts of the broadcasts. However, the research I found more valuable were the conversations with my Dad and Ma-in-law, both of whom passed in the last two years, and my Mom. I asked them about Bombay landmarks, their lives as students, the games they played, the books they read, the films they watched. I asked them if they remembered the day India became independent. Sakina’s house in Chowpatty is inspired by my mom’s childhood home, where I spent summers visiting from Hyderabad as a child. The thing I realised is that people are a piece of history in themselves. When they go, they also take with them an eyewitness experience of a particular era. So for me, these conversations also became an opportunity to document an oral history. I spoke with social worker GG Parikh, who was a student at the time of the Quit India movement. He worked with Yusuf Meherally, who coined the slogan ‘Quit India,’ and even went to jail. I read interviews from The Citizens Archive of India. Most valuable of all was a box full of paper clippings from the ‘30s and ’40s I inherited from an uncle – Dr Saleh Hussain.   What memories did your elders have of their childhood, when India became independent in 1947? Are the children in your book – Sakina, Mehul, and Zenobia – a tribute to their childhood? These children’s ardent desire to be freedom fighters is touching. The elders remembered Independence Day as a time of great celebration. Buildings were lit up, and sweets were distributed in schools. I found in that generation a quiet kind of loyalty. They had a natural sense of being confident and proud Indians without shouting it out from the rooftops. They continued to be inspired by Gandhi and Nehru, and believe in a righteous way of life. I think this was the effect of seeing the freedom struggle, although none of them had actually participated in it.  

As for my three characters, I just tried to capture an innocent desire to be larger than life, which eventually grows into a more evolved understanding of what freedom means, and the enormous cost that thousands were willing to pay for it.

Seen through the eyes of these kids, I hoped our kids in contemporary India would question, explore, and understand what a democracy is and protect it, given what it took to become the modern nation that we are. Sakina is asked, “Your people will go off to Pakistan, na?” She tells herself, “If people didn’t know we were Muslim, we could stay in our home, and not have to go away.” This is the saddest part of the book. What was going through your mind while writing this? The question that Sakina is asked is one that some Muslim children in India are asked even today. It was an issue then, and it is an issue now thanks to the damage the actual implementation of Partition did to us as a society. For me, it is relevant in a larger context. Across the world, there is rise in global migration. Children across the world are being faced with the issues of ethnic/religious/cultural identity and a national identity. How do they negotiate and resolve that? Who defines where is your home? All these are questions that children will face no matter where they live as the world grows smaller and paradoxically often more inflexible. The cooking club set up by Ateka, Freny, and Dina in your book made me wonder about the ingenious ways in which women must have contributed to India’s freedom struggle. Did you consider adding recipes?  I wanted to use food in some way in the book. Food is so representative of who are. It connects us with each other. I thought the cooking club would be a good way to cement a friendship and play a role in the plot. I thought about adding recipes, but to me, the narrative was the central point. The recipes would break it up, and cause a diversion. If I had to put them in the end, the collection of recipes would almost equal the novel.     Across the world, in the 1940s, with most men gone to the battlefront, more opportunities opened up for women to take up leadership roles. Something similar happened during the Quit India Movement. Most of the male leadership was imprisoned, and the women, like Aruna Asif Ali, Kanaklata Barua, Sucheta Kriplani, Matangini Hazare and more, took centrestage and kept the movement alive.   [caption id=“attachment_10424151” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Lubaina Bandukwala[/caption] What did the process of working on this novel teach you about Mumbai’s history? Mani Bhavan, Kennedy Bridge, Blavatsky Lodge, and Imperial Studios are some of the places that you have referred to. Did you walk around the city to travel back in time, and imagine how it used to be during the Quit India movement?  Mumbai has been my home only since 2000. But it was my summer home throughout my childhood since both sets of grandparents lived here. I also went to college here so the city is second nature to me now. My mom’s home was Chowpatty, so as kids we knew the area well – mostly about where were could get the best sev puri and lassi. It was only later when I began to explore Mumbai as a college student that I put all of the landmarks I saw as a child into context. There is a timelessness to some parts of Mumbai. If you look at old pictures of people – the streets have changed – you feel like this could be today – the street vendors, the hath gadis, the cycles, the dabbawalas. It was very easy for me to visualise the past in what I see today. Why did you choose to narrate the story using letters, diary entries, and scrapbooks? Different voices led themselves to different kinds of expression. The juxtaposition of various elements helped to build an exciting narrative, create multiple perspectives, and generally create a more immersive world. I put the scrapbook to give my readers a visual taste of life in that era, as reflected in the newspapers. Could you talk about the thought process that went into designing the cover? Sayoni Basu, my editor, defined the broader idea of the cover and its design that would be used across the Songs of Freedom series. My book is part of that series. I added the key elements that I think reflected the story. For the borders, I sent photos of koran or odhani borders that Bohra women wore at that time. These were usually made of Kari Zari (real gold Zari); as well as Gara embroidery that Parsi women’s saris sported. So it really reflects the story and the setting of the book. My favourite moment is where the children are trying to discover the whereabouts of Rustom Uncle – who helps build the transmitter for the radio station. Sakina says, “I mean, how were we to know how to be spies? In school, they only teach us boring stuff like how to make sentences, or what’s inside your bodies. In these times, of what use is such information?” How do you come up with such hilarious ideas? What can I say, those characters of mine, they just took over, and were funny and earnest, clever yet confused, and altogether so lovable! They just wrote themselves, humour and all.   Chintan Girish Modi is a writer, journalist, commentator and book reviewer. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.