Walking through Walls
Not many of the contributors to Eat theSky, Drink the Ocean had the chance to meet in person and most of the collaborations were via email, phone and skype. One exception was the creators of the magical graphically illustrated story, Anarkali.
In 2013, Indian writer Annie Zaidi attended the Melbourne Writers Festival and between sessions, met up with graphic novelist Mandy Ord at the Moat Cafe.
Moat is in the basement beneath the Wheeler Centre for Books and Ideas. Its thick stone walls shield patrons from the noise of the city so it’s a good place to think your own thoughts – or in this case – share ideas. I dropped by to see how Annie & Mandy were getting along, feeling a little like an anxious matchmaker as I sat down to listen to their conversation.
Both Mandy and Annie generally create contemporary realist work. Annie is one of those multi-talented writers who has tackled every form – she’s a poet, playwright, journalist, filmmaker, short-story writer and a novelist. She’s not conventionally considered a YA author but she had co-authored The Bad Boys’s Guide to the Good Indian Girl, a collection of stories about Indian teenagers navigating the tricky transition into adulthood, and all the editors wanted to see her work in the anthology.
Mandy Ord is a prolific cartoonist and comic book artist whose book Sensitive Creatures was selected for the prestigious White Raven list at the 2012 Bologna Book Fair. Mandy’s dark, urban landscapes and strangely melancholy characters are very Melbourne in their flavour but universal in their emotional depth.
When I joined Annie and Mandy at their table in Moat Cafe, they were talking about what sort of rules they might break to transform a story from realism to speculative fiction. Annie paused for a moment and rested her hand on the thick wall of the basement cafe. Then she began to tell Mandy the story of Anarkali, of how the great Mughal Emperor Akbar had entombed a beautiful young dancer in the walls of his palace for the crime of loving his son, Prince Salim.
I saw the excitement in both Annie and Mandy’s faces as they started talking about how a retelling of this story might work, of how they might change Anarkali’s fate. When the drafts of the story tipped into my dropbox and I opened the files my heart began to race.. Annie’s pared back words read like poetry and Mandy’s stark, vivid illustrations gave a boldness to the tale that encapsulated everything I’d hoped for the stories in the anthology.
Mandy Ord & Annie Zaidi discussing their retelling of the story of Anarkali in the Durbar Hall of the Hotel Diggi Palace, ZEE Jaipur Literary Festival, January 2015.
Before working with Annie, Mandy had never been to India and knew few Indian stories. In January 2015, Mandy and Annie were both guests of the ZEE Jaipur Literary Festival, the largest literary festival in the world that is staged each year in Rajasthan. Before an audience of hundreds of Indian readers, they discussed the genesis of their re-telling of Anarkali in the gorgeous and lavish Durbar Hall of the Hotel Diggi Palace. The Diggi Palace was converted from the home of the royal family of Jaipur to a heritage hotel in 1991. In some ways, the ornate setting is a world away from the Moat Cafe but thanks to the power of the story of Anarkali, the the stones and the stories of the two venues are mysteriously connected. You only have to use your imagination and you can start walking through walls.