When Jane Austen described Anne Elliot, the heroine of her novel Persuasion as having ‘been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older – the natural sequence of an unnatural beginning,’ she could very well have been talking about Shaheen, the protagonist of Gauri Dange’s debut novel, 3, Zakia Mansion.??From her tyrant of a father to a mother who indulges in an extramarital affair and throws the whole family into emotional turmoil, a grandmother who dies when she needs her the most, a vile mother-in-law and an equally nasty husband who never quite managed to cut his mother’s apron strings, Shaheen’s life is anything but content. But Dange manages to create a character who is at once poised yet vulnerable and who is determined to find that formula for happiness that keeps eluding her at every step of the way. However it is only when she meets Manas, a man several years younger than her – when she is estranged from her husband and daughter – that her life starts to make sense again. And even here, she is forced to battle with his mother’s and her own reservations about giving the relationship a chance. Dange’s portrayal of Shaheen’s struggle to let go of her past and find her rightful place in the world is both sensitive and endearing. In the end, like the few people in her life that do support Shaheen, her cousin Ehsaan and ‘Khurshid Aunty’, you find yourself rooting for this braveheart – hoping she manages to find her ‘happily-ever-after’.

How did you select this theme?
I’ve always been fascinated by the human struggle to get things right. I’m equally fascinated by how people change with circumstances. For those who take stock of their lives and adapt, life is in a way more painful, and yet forward-moving, and ultimately rewarding - like it is for Shaheen in 3, Zakia Mansion. For those who refuse to change, the lessons are ultimately much harder.

Who is the protagonist, Shaheen, inspired by?
Shaheen is a composite being – not based on any one person. She is really inspired by my belief that in every family, there is one person who learns, through circumstances, what their priorities are – what to mend, what to tend, and what to end. And they manage to do it without turning bitter or cynical or all martyred, either!

How has India managed to influence your writing?
In many ways! I use many Indianisms in the book – not just the funny and odd ones used by some of the characters, but even the cadences – the way we Indians speak English. And it’s great to have the freedom to write like that. I don’t write Hinglish, but I’m definitely not fettered and straight-jacketed by the Queen’s English. Moreover, in 3, Zakia Mansion, I write about urban India, bits and pieces of rural India when it intersects with our urban world, and I wrote it with the belief that this India, of families, love, loss, recuperation, rejuvenation, has an universal appeal too.