On the 5th December 2016, there was a launch of Veena Rao's newest novel, Charlotte's End. The book is based on Susan Hill's sequel Mrs de Winter but unlike the latter it has a happy ending.
"A writer can make a happy ending of any human struggle or romance. So why not?" said the writer when producing the book. The novel reflects the dual tradition of Indian and British cultures and speaks to the writer herself. Here is the story of Veena Rao, a writer with an exceptional mind.
Background
Veena was born on January 26, 1949, in Dalhouisie, which is now Himachal Pradesh in India. Her father was Brigadier Sri Ram commissioned in the British Indian Army in 1942. Her mother was a housewife. Both of them came from Muzzafarabad, now in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
As Veena's father was in the army, the family moved from place to place wherever he was posted. During this time Veena's family visited beautiful Himalayan towns Mussoorie. These places were safe and had top schools run by European sisters.
In the fifties, army life was influenced by British tradition. Education followed this example too as it was run by European missionaries in English convent schools. As a child, Reena grasped a lot of British tradition: "I must say that British culture had a deep influence in my growing up years, socially, educationally, and culturally. This was complementary, in the most enriching way, to our intrinsic Indian culture, which governed our day-to-day lives."
As a writer, Veena Rao followed the example of other Indian writers and tried to connect the two cultures in a literary context. She remembers: "Indian writers of my age and background have normally been influenced by the world of British literary fiction with which we grew up and the real world of India in which we lived."
Challenges
Veena does not give a lot of attention to the notion of difficulties and quickly manages to overcome them. She believes that with enough effort everyone has a chance to succeed: "It is up to us to find ways to handle the obstacles courageously, and act to find solutions, rather than passively allowing them to overpower us. My experience in life confirms that strength of thought and action in adversity can overcome any challenge we face in life."
Veena's working day
The writer gets up each morning at eight and does a 30 minutes workout at home that she never misses. In the morning she plans the menu for the day and does shopping. Leaving home at 10.30 -11 am, she often gets into the massive Bangalore traffic on her way to the office. She does a lot of emailing and telephoning in the car. Sometimes Veena even writes there.
Rao is currently working with the Government of Karnataka and the World Bank in implementing a pilot project addressing malnutrition using tan intergenerational; inter-sectoral strategy crafted by her. A lot of her work is devoted to reports, documentation and data analysis. Veena finishes her work at around 6 pm and then goes back home. She then spends time with her family having dinner and continues with her writing after 10 pm until she goes to sleep, which is usually at 1 – 2 am.
Veena's future career plans include a play written in Shakespearean form on the British royal family, which will hopefully be staged in India by next year. The writer already has two half done novels, one political and another historical one about South India.
Rao admits that although she has a hectic timetable, she still manages to get everything done on time. The key to success here is to find space for a particular task in the daily routine. She says: "My writing schedule is most erratic, juggling around with whatever I consider demands the highest priority for the day, whether it is family, professional or social. But I do believe that if a writer is inspired and committed to her/his work, the discipline happens because the product of thought and imagination has to be put down."
Charlotte's End also values the strength of the author's creative mind: "As for going solitary, I believe the mind of a writer, which is the real author, is intrinsically a solitary creature and doesn't need any specific motivation to become so. It can remain solitary, thinking up ideas and sentences, even in the midst of the most boisterous social or official occasions."
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"I do believe that if a writer is inspired and committed to her/his work, the discipline happens because the product of thought and imagination has to be put down."
