The Literary Mirror

The Second Monsoon Wedding could easily have been a much harder satire. Why keep it gentle?

Because I like Sudha too much to be cruel to her, and I think readers can tell when a writer secretly disapproves of a character they're supposed to be laughing with. I wanted the laughs to come from the paperwork, not from her situation.

Remarriage in middle age is rarely central to Indian fiction. Did that gap surprise you?

It did, and it still does. There's a whole industry — marriage bureaus specifically for widows and widowers, spreadsheets, matching services — that almost nobody writes about, comic or otherwise. I felt like I had the field mostly to myself, which was freeing and a little lonely.

Any pressure to write a sequel?

Some, from readers more than from my publisher. I don't think Sudha needs a second book. I think she'd tell me to leave her alone at this point, and I'm inclined to listen to her.