This article by Judith Starkston appeared in the August 2015 issue of Historical Novels Review.
“Irrespective of money or caste, the plight of all Hindu widows was the same. They had no voice; it was almost as if they did not exist.”
Flame Tree Road (MIRA, 2015) is an unconventional novel. Its structure arises from the pattern of one’s man life, Biren Roy. Author Shona Patel says of him,“Biren belongs to the period of great Indian thinkers, Gandhi, Tagore, Raja Ram Mohan Roy – foreign educated Indians trying to create this new idealistic identity for the country.” The novel’s meaning arises from the spark that drives Biren to work for women’s educational equality in India. That spark does not catch fire from a single event. Biren grows up in a small waterfront village in Bengal. His family is happy and blessed with love. On his walks with his father, he regularly meets a widow who must live in the hollow of a Banyan tree alone, cast off. His father encourages Biren’s friendship with this wise lady, but he also tells Biren to conceal their unacceptable bond. This is one of many embers that lights Biren’s mission. A potent combination launches Biren: the love he feels from his mother and father, his father’s ability to feel compassion outside the rules of their society, and this kind widow who undermines the prejudices against her in the young man’s mind.
Biren Roy appeared as a key character, the grandfather, in Patel’s first novel, Teatime for the Firefly. When Patel decided in Flame Tree Road to focus on the grandfather’s life, a sort of prequel, she said she had to “sleuth in reverse.” In Teatime she had created “a man with a vision, who is so into female education. What would have made him like that? That some woman he loved was deprived of that education — his mother. The theme of the Hindu widow organically happened.” This theme is articulated in Biren’s own thoughts: “Biren grew quiet as he thought about his mother. Society had found a way to keep her trapped as a widow. Irrespective of money or caste, the plight of all Hindu widows was the same. They had no voice; it was almost as if they did not exist.” Nonetheless, the widow Charulata who must live in the Banyan tree plays a significant role in Biren’s story. Although their friendship occurs early in the novel, that character was added much later in the writing process. Patel says of her method, “Once I get my claws into a theme, I expand on it. I do not work in a straight line, but take a ball of putty and shape it in all directions.”
Patel has skillfully built up the network of influences that become the adult Biren. The concept of sacrifice is present for Biren from the beginning — his father gave up his education in order to care for his extended family. A pivotal change occurs when Biren’s father dies and his joyous mother becomes a widow, isolated from all. The embers are turning into a powerful bed of coals. Later in the novel these twin ideas — love and unjust treatment of women — will continue to stoke Biren’s fiery idealism and toss him into the depths. We’ll follow his life and his gradual ability to take small but effective action within the insurmountable inaction of India’s traditional culture.
One of the other great strengths of Flame Tree Road is the vivid world it creates. Patel says, “I’m a visual artist. I see an environment so clearly in my mind, the really small brushstrokes. These are things I’ve personally observed. I’ve seen the rivers of Assam, the loneliness that rises from them, the fishing villages. These are all a part of me. My goal is to transfer that image into the mind of my reader.” She calls this a “cultural stickiness,” as in it will stick with the reader. Absolutely! Patel pairs rich detail with lyrical language.
Patel draws the reader into this setting, which heightens the emotional power when Biren discovers himself an outsider in this familiar world because he has traveled and adopted outside ideas. But the spark that lights that journey began at home, and eventually Biren finds his inner peace at home also — on Flame Tree Road. The novel renders tangible the twin themes of love and justice.
Judith Starkston writes historical fiction and mysteries. Her debut, Hand of Fire, set within the Trojan War, combines history and myth in the untold story of Achilles’ captive Briseis.
Visit Shona Patel on her website, Facebook or Twitter
Shona Patel’s Teatime for the Firebird is amazing as well.
Trish Dolasinski
Teatime for the Firefly is wonderful. It was fascinating as I spoke with Shona to hear how she planned Flame Tree which occurs before Teatime. When she wrote Teatime for the Firefly she didn’t envision Flame Tree Road and there was a lot of creative processing to work in the story before. These are imagined people in a historical setting so she had plenty of room to create except that she’d made choices in Teatime that she had to work seamlessly with. Fascinating.
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