Veena Rao Interview - Purple Lotus ~ JeanBookNerd

Photo Content from Veena Rao

Veena Rao was born and raised in India but calls Atlanta home. A journalist by profession, she is the founding editor and publisher of NRI Pulse, a popular Indian-American newspaper. Although her day job involves news reports, interviews, and meeting press deadlines, she devotes her spare time to creative writing and long walks in the woods. Purple Lotus, her debut novel, is the winner of the She Writes Press and SparkPress Toward Equality in Publishing (STEP) contest.

Tell us your latest news.
I am trying to balance my day job as a newspaper editor with the challenges of marketing my debut novel during a pandemic.

Who or what has influenced your writing, and in what way?
Reading Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns was such a richly emotional and transportive experience that it made me want to write a novel of my own. There was only one problem. Not only had I not done any creative writing since college, I had also stopped reading fiction regularly. I took to reading women authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and others to develop my writing skills. These master writers helped me develop a style of my own.

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.
Seeing my labor of love out in the world is a reward in itself. The rest, I leave to the universe.

What do you hope for readers to be thinking when they read your novel?
The messages are universal: There’s hope even if you feel inadequate, powerless, fearful. It’s never too late to take control of your life. Let nobody else decide what’s right for you. Choose to live, not just exist.

Your debut novel is PURPLE LOTUS, can you tell my Book Nerd community a little about it?
Tara moves to the American South three years after her arranged marriage to tech executive Sanjay. Ignored and lonely, Tara finds herself regressing back to childhood memories that have scarred her for life. When she was eight, her parents had left her behind with her aging grandparents and a schizophrenic uncle in Mangalore, while taking her baby brother with them to make a new life for the family in Dubai.

Tara’s memories of abandonment and isolation mirror her present life of loneliness and escalating abuse. When she accepts the help of kind-hearted American strangers to fight Sanjay, Tara is pressured by her patriarchal family to make peace with her circumstances.

In a moment of truth, Tara discovers the importance of self-worth. It gives her the courage to break free, to gently rebuild her life, to risk being shunned by her community when she marries her childhood love, Cyrus Saldanha.

Life with Cyrus is beautiful, until old fears come knocking. Ultimately, Tara must face these fears to save her relationship with Cyrus and to confront a victim-shaming society.

What was the single worst distraction that kept you from writing this book?
My day job and social media.

If you could introduce one of your characters to any character from another book, who would it be and why?
I’d introduce my Tara to Mariam and Laila of A Thousand Splendid Suns. These two resilient women protagonists are the reason Tara was born.

What part of Tara and Cyrus did you enjoy writing the most?
The scenes where thirteen-year-old Tara comes out of her isolation when she meets sixteen-year-old Cyrus at the Saldanha Villa were the most fun to write. There’s an old-world sweetness and innocence to their interactions. They remain my most favorite part of Purple Lotus.

What was the most surprising thing you learned in creating your characters?
I learned that every character has a mind of her/his own! As an author, all I could do was give words to the personalities they were fleshing out for themselves.

TEN QUOTES FROM PURPLE LOTUS

“Did you put your ear to her plastic chest? If you had, you would have known. Dolls have no heart; they cannot love you back. Only living things can.”
“Are you from the bush country? From some tiny, godforsaken hamlet?” she mimicked Sanjay, and then in her regular voice said, “Yes, yes, I am from the same godforsaken hamlet that you come from, you fake American.”
“Your mummy eats mutton every day, wears new saris, and has lots and lots of new gold. What do you have? Nothing.”
“Don’t joke, Tara. People can be cruel; you have no idea. They are like wolves looking for a lamb to tear apart.”
“They worry more when I am around, because I bring them shame.”
“In the end, what matters is how you feel about you.”
“Like the purple lotus, rarest of the rare, she will rise from muddy water.”
“The whole of the universe is inside you. To rule yourself is to rule the world.”
“Not all monsters are egregious. Some stay hidden in plain sight.”
“The names they have for me are not the names I give myself.”

What’s the most ridiculous fact you know?
Our breath is an indicator of our mood and vice versa. We can change our mood simply by changing how we breathe.

What according to you is your most treasured possession?
Family heirlooms that I received as gifts from my friends—a set of Theodore Haviland china that once belonged to Frances West’s mother and fine decorative crystal that once adorned Nancy Haden’s family home. They make me feel like I’m a part of their family history and American history.

Best date you've ever had?
The time former President Obama took me out to dinner at an Indian restaurant in Atlanta. It went like a ‘dream’, of course 😊

Which would you choose, true love with a guarantee of a heart break or have never loved before?
‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. It’s better to risk living a full life than not to live at all.

What is your most memorable travel experience?
My last visit to my hometown, Mangalore, where a part of Purple Lotus is set. I was seventeen when my family moved from this beautiful coastal Indian town to a larger city hundreds of miles away. Since then, I’ve only visited Mangalore during summer breaks or for family weddings. My last visit in 2019 gave me the chance to spend time with my mother (who moved back to Mangalore in the early 2000s), while reconnecting with my schoolmates and revisiting all the places that I mention from memory in the book. Everything has changed. And yet, for the first time in my life, I felt like I was back home.

What event in your life would make a good movie?
I included my driving story in Purple Lotus because it’s a good metaphor for a new immigrant’s life of starting afresh, struggling and overcoming odds to succeed. I failed the driving test six times. I was terrified of driving, and the first five years in this country, I had relied on others to take me around. When I finally got my driver’s license on my seventh attempt, a friend helped me find a beat-up car for $650 at a pawn shop. My two-door Mitsubishi Lancer helped me hone my driving skills in the backroads of Atlanta. I got on the busy interstate for the first time to get to the printing press in South Georgia to load up my car with crisp copies of the first issue of the newspaper I had recently founded.

Which incident in your life that totally changed the way you think today?
Back in the mid-90s, my sister, Reena, who had just returned from a mediation session, gave me a copy of a wonderful book called The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. Long before The Secret became popular, an American psychologist called Dr. Joseph Murphy had written about channeling the power of the mind to manifest dreams. I was at a hopeless place in life and riddled with anxiety. After reading the book, I realized that the power to change my life lay within me. It was an enlightening and empowering thought. I have never felt helpless since that day.

What is one unique thing are you afraid of?
Lizards, ever since one fell on my head when I was 17, and I was told it was a bad omen and I would die within a few hours. I am still alive, but the irrational fear has remained.

What was the best memory you ever had as a writer?
Casually scrolling through my emails after work one evening and seeing a notification from my publishers, She Writes Press. “Congratulations! You are one of our STEP contest winners!” the email said. The STEP contest is an annual manuscript contest that is open to women of color and includes a book and publicity deal. My dream of finding a home for Purple Lotus was finally coming true! It was one of the most joyful moments of my life!

Tara moves to the American South three years after her arranged marriage to tech executive Sanjay. Ignored and lonely, Tara finds herself regressing back to childhood memories that have scarred her for life. When she was eight, her parents had left her behind with her aging grandparents and a schizophrenic uncle in Mangalore, while taking her baby brother with them to make a new life for the family in Dubai.

Tara’s memories of abandonment and isolation mirror her present life of loneliness and escalating abuse at the hands of her husband. She accepts the help of kind-hearted American strangers to fight Sanjay, only to be pressured by her patriarchal family to make peace with her circumstances. Then, in a moment of truth, she discovers the importance of self-worth—a revelation that gives her the courage to break free, gently rebuild her life, and even risk being shunned by her community when she marries her childhood love, Cyrus Saldanha.

Life with Cyrus is beautiful, until old fears come knocking. Ultimately, Tara must face these fears to save her relationship with Cyrus—and to confront the victim-shaming society she was raised within.

Intimate and deeply moving, Purple Lotus is the story of one woman’s ascension from the dark depths of desolation toward the light of freedom.

Praise for PURPLE LOTUS

Travel + Leisure Magazine's 20 Most-anticipated Books for Fall

"A moving and polished novel that highlights Rao’s literary promise." —Kirkus Reviews

"Rao’s resonant novel is an ode to the value of personal dignity and the importance of being true to oneself that carries on long after the final chapter." —Newsweek magazine

"This thoughtful, moving novel will appeal to readers who enjoy stories that explore the inner lives of women who are pushing against societal expectations." —Library Journal

"Rao’s prowess as a writer dazzles across the pages." —Khabar Magazine

"Rao’s strength in writing is her ability to maintain the mellow milieu even as she powerfully propagates empowerment..." —India Currents

“A polished narrative of survival and empowerment!” —Jaggery Lit.

"A vivid and resplendent novel for our time." —Elaine Neil Orr, critically acclaimed author of Swimming Between Worlds

You can purchase Purple Lotus at the following Retailers: