Anukriti Mishra is an Indian-Canadian writer whose work has appeared in literary publications around the world. She was nominated for the 2020 CBC non-fiction prize. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Kingston University UK. She lives in Toronto. Her essay “Garam Masala” appears in the Winter 2023 issue of Carve.
What struck me about this piece is the poetic nature of your prose. A certain experimental energy connects the piece together. What inspired this essay’s imaginative style, and what is the importance to you of bending genre conventions?
I get inspired by the courage of artists every day. The way a songwriter might talk about their grief or the way an artist might reveal a hidden character in the shadow of a painting. I’m intrigued by how a story is told and where it may lead us. I grew up in India where ancient Sufi verses often blended with folk music and stories were often shared as oral poetry. The way I personally think and write has come from all those years of growing beside art that was mystical and without defined borders, that merged and meshed with individual story and style, and was an intrinsic part of everyday life. It gave me permission to use language in surprising and unpredictable ways, and to never underestimate its depth and scope. As a second language writer I think of bending genre conventions as leading the reader into unchartered territory, being a bridge to the unknown. For me it is one of the most exciting aspects of storytelling.
Your essay deals beautifully with the topic of emigration. How do themes of relocation, movement, and immigration impact your style and writing?
Rumi said, “All language is a longing for home.” I often think about that as so much of what I wish to write has to do with making sense of time and distance, belonging and moving. As an outsider and as a writer I think the subject of home has always been elusive to me. I find myself chasing this elusive place and discovering and rediscovering its varied meanings. The way I write or use language to tell my stories ultimately is my way of showing and expressing how I long to connect with the vast and diverse world while still longing for home.
Towards the end of the piece, you begin to discuss how your mother’s sadness relates to your own. This moment is very powerful. Can you speak more to the power of emotional self-exploration in writing?
I think writing has always been a way for writers to look at the root of who they are and how they see things. A way to answer those deep nagging questions, to face our fears. It’s such a peculiar activity where we go into an unknown place with a hazy map in our heads and then trusting it enough to get us there. Sometimes on our way to these strange places we begin to make sense of where we hurt and why, or how we may feel about things that happened a very long time ago. I have encountered some unexpected moments in writing where I’ve found missing pieces of long forgotten puzzles. Those rare moments of clarity or discovery don’t come very often but definitely entice you to keep exploring, to keep writing.
What artists or writers have had a strong impact on you—especially as you wrote this piece?
There are so many writers and poets who’ve had an impact on me and have informed my writing over the years: Jhumpa Lahiri, Zadie Smith, Rainer Maria Rilke, Patti Smith, Deborah Levy, Orhan Pamuk, and Rumi to name a few.
Around the time I was working on this piece I remember reading Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, a novel so devastating and lyrical it compelled me to write my own story that was tied to my mother within a vignette of this piece. Vuong writes about freedom, trauma, and survival with such bittersweet acceptance, I was edified by it.