Anita Rau Badami on the roots of a prickly character

I described Asha's circumstances a little bit, but maybe you could speak a little bit more and, and give, give us a sense of who she is and how, how she came to occupy, uh, how she came to occupy you in this book.

So Asha is a driven, ambitious, tough woman who, uh, had a childhood that was undernourished-

Mm

...

if I might put it that way.

Whether it was, uh, her financial condition or, uh, she did, she did not lack for affection, but she always had this feeling that she was missing out.

She was the unwanted guest-

Mm

... uh, the dependent in her uncle's home, where she and her mother ended up after her father died.

And, uh, you know, she grows up into this woman who wants to get her own way in life.

She is determined to find some way to get everything she wants.

She meets a man named Suresh and-

Mm

... ends up in, uh, Montreal, and that's the story of the book, how she [laughs] you know, how she gets there and what happens to her while she's there.

I, I, I just...

I was attracted to this woman because, um, I have always had this, I have always had strong-willed women in my family.

Mm-hmm.

And so most of the characters that I write are pretty strong-willed.

And this woman in particular, I wanted to explore how she navigates the huge changes that occur in her life and the massive tragedies that, uh, hit her.

And so basically, that's how this book started.

Yeah.

Much of it, much of this book is concerned with Asha's past.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but we begin, uh, at the beginning of the book, with a dying tree being cut down in, in her garden-

Mm-hmm