Zucchero burned (North), the passionate tale of the controversial bond mother daughter between Tara undermined by Alzheimer’s and Antara who gives her she never felt loved, has finally arrived in Italy after having conquered readers from India to the United States. It is the overwhelming literary debut of Avni Doshi, 40, American writer of Indian descent, who wrote it over seven long years. Here he talks about it.
Burnt sugar by Avni Doshi, North Publishing, 383 pp, € 19
Skeletons in the closet
Burnt sugar why this title?
“Actually in India the book came out in 2019 as The girl with the white cotton. But when it came to publishing in the UK, we chose a title that held together the lights and shadows of the troubled relationship between mother and daughter, Tara and Antara, and that she had an immediate link with food and therefore with the home environment at the heart of the novel. The title conceals the reference to an iConfessable skeleton in the closet of the heart of his daughter Antara ». (And he’s not the only one either, ed).
A certain idea of India
Antara’s India
Smells, colors, food play a big part in the book.
“For me smells perfumes and food are very importantthey are evocative, they can unearth memories, they emphasize the contrast between memory and oblivion which is a key theme of the novel. They catalyze the memories, the disagreement of Tara and Antara about it. But there is a way to speak of the scents and colors of India very stereotyped, and that’s why I wanted dry colors, lower the tones and I gave so much importance to white, almost a non-color. I wanted to give a lot of space to cotton, the white dress that runs throughout the novel, as well as to the smells, those of the spices of the food to which I added that of excrement, of fhuman luids, repulsive and more realistic flavors and perceptions “.
A blank page
“THEwhite is a spiritual color in the Ashram it is the sign that the individual renounces a material life e you vote for a life dedicated to the teacher or to the service of others. And then the white is related to memory, Tara is a blank page: at the moment she is forgetting everything and what is really left of her? But can the memory remain as a blank page or what remains of her? “
Avni Doshi writes about the mother and daughter bond. © Sharonharidas
Pune city-character
Is the story fiction or is it inspired by your biography?
“It’s fiction but of course there are elements of reality that inspire the story. The first is the city of Pune 120 km from Mumbai, famous because in 1974 Bhagwan Shree Rajneeshlater known as Oshofounded his own there Ashram. For me Pune the city of my mother and my mother’s familythe city where history takes place, it’s like a character in itself. Many people in my mother’s family in Pune belonged to the Osho Ashram and during my formative years I have always heard these stories about the Ashram ”.
Silences and lies
When I lived in the United States and in the summer I went to visit my mother in Pune the women talked about everything and I listened to them but there were things they never talked about in front of me. Sudden silences, glances that adults exchanged with each other in my presence … And if I asked these questions, no one gave an answer. These are the questions that have always haunted me and they grew up with me and the book also grew on these questions ».
Memories erased
Alzheimer’s disease is a central element of the novel
«The starting point in this case came from the fact that the Alzheimer’s disease had been diagnosed by my grandmother when still in the family nobody knew anything about it. I started to study and read as much as possibleand once again to ask me questions ».
Secrets in danger
Tara has always been a rebel, she never took care of her daughter, she abandoned her at home as a newborn while wandering around the city risking starvation, in the Ashram she took no interest in her for years. What does Antara fear most: that the erasing of her memory saves her mother from feeling guilty about her or that the few memories of her past lift the veil on the secrets that her daughter hides from her?
“I think he fears both. When there is a power conflict as strong as the one that binds this mother and daughter couple, every extreme action is threatening. On the one hand, the memories that Tara is recovering from the confusion they always end up mortifying their daughterbut on the other hand the erasing of Tara’s memories is the cancellation of Antara and its history. Who are you if your mother doesn’t recognize you? Yet Tara has never been by Antare’s side, that her own identity has always had to build it on her own since she was a child. terrified of the idea of losing her mother for goodif she had not behaved well, Antara undergoes tremendous suffering always aimed at pleasing her, not irritating her, as the story of her stay demonstrates in the college of nuns. She has always had to compress her needs as a child by acting like an adult she has never been able to act as a child to try the adults. He put those whims into action later ».
The fate of women
But if Antara hates her mother so much, why does she care when the disease cancels her?
“In India it is not expected that sick people or in need of assistance receive it outside the family. Everything that happens to your parents, your family, your children is your responsibility. I don’t really know no one in India living in a retirement home. It is a question of duty, and a question of love. On the one hand Antara hates her mother but on the other hand the extreme hatred he feels is also extreme desire, a desperate longing for her. His mother is also his only family. And so even if her mother has always neglected her she is the only key she has to understand who she is, who she was. To understand one’s own history ».
Burnt sugar, no happy ending?
“I’d be lying if I said I’ve never enjoyed my mother’s unhappiness.” It is the first sentence of the book, a declaration of war against the mother. Can you imagine that sooner or later Tara and Antara will make peace?
“Something changes at the end of the book but I don’t think there is a reconciliation. I think events eventually force Antara to come to terms with herself. All her life Antara tried to keep away from Tara’s madness, from her existential disorder, and the end of the book, the events following the birth of her daughter, force her to overlook those same feelings. Yup she must ask questions about herself.
“At first we look for the answers to our questions outside of ourselves but then a leap occurs: when the answers begin to look for them within ourselves. Things happen but everyone has to take responsibility for myself. No.I don’t know what will happen to my characters after the conclusion of the book, because for me the characters have their own life that I observe and do not determine by writing. I can therefore say that I do not know but I feel that after the end of the libror Antara will be ready to look within sAnd rather than looking for answers outside of oneself ».
A new mother daughter bond
For Antara, having children is a shocking experience. As for the mother Tara. This also creates a bond between mother and daughter. Do you have children? How did you experience motherhood?
“I had no children when I wrote the novel (now she has two a boy of 4 and a girl of 2, ed) and having a child is like being born again, one does not remain the same as before. I No.I wasn’t ready for this and I don’t think Antara was ready either to the fact that giving birth is dramatically changing one’s life from one day to the next. Who it helps us to psychologically process this transformation ? At school they give us instructions for everything, why never they tell us nothing about this aspect of life? Antara gives birth to her daughter but somehow she gets torn apart. The mother and daughter bond it is once again lights and shadows ».
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