Madhushree Ghosh
Author Interview - Madhushree Ghosh
Author of Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory and Family
Khabaar is a food memoir and personal narrative that braids the global journeys of South Asian food through immigration, migration, and indenture. Focusing on chefs, home cooks, and food stall owners, the book questions what it means to belong and what does belonging in a new place look like in the foods carried over from the old country? These questions are integral to the author’s own immigrant journey to America as a daughter of Indian refugees (from what’s now Bangladesh to India during the 1947 Partition of India); as a woman of color in science; as a woman who left an abusive marriage; and as a woman who keeps her parents’ memory alive through her Bengali food.
Author Interview - Madhushree Ghosh
Author I draw inspiration from: Arundhati Roy. The story is that Arundhati wrote The God of Small Things to test out her new laptop. I don't know if it's true or not, but it's such a good story! She's the passionate activist who uses art, words and action to speak for those who haven't been given the platform--that I so admire. Her nonfiction is spectacular, her essays make you think, her outspokenness gets her in trouble with the Indian Hindu-nationalist government regularly but it doesn't deter her. Her writing isn't for the sake of writing. It is to make us choose, make us speak up and yet, it also lets us marvel in her mastery of how to move words to create a world spectacular. If anything, I will always look up to her work, vision and activism as something to emulate.
Author Interview - Madhushree Ghosh | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book: In bed, of course! ;-) That being said, and given that my day job in cancer diagnostics means I used to travel, pre-pandemic, over 75% of the time, I (used to) read voraciously in planes. And even though e-books would have worked best, I've always carried hardback books with me, balancing that with my laptop --managing work and reading simultaneously. And now, in the pandemic, my bed is strewn with multiple books at many stages of completion. I usually have at least four books I'm reading and the bed is the best place for it. No matter what others say, books make very good bedfellows. They are full of new worlds, they are exciting, and don't snore or talk back.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Ashima Ganguli from The Namesake (by Jhumpa Lahiri): It would be interesting to hear her perspective of moving to Cambridge, MA as a young bride, adjusting to a life outside Kolkata in cold Massachusetts and building a Bengali life in a white community, while pining for what used to be home. In The Namesake, Ashima was brought to America by her husband, Ashoke, but couldn't leave her Bengali ways or her homesickness behind. As a graduate student who came to America myself, three decades ago, I have often wondered what must it have been like so many decades ago to be brought to such a quiet, cold country leaving behind everything you know, all for a man you barely know. It would be fascinating to hear about homesickness as she felt it, while falling in love with her husband in The Namesake from Ashima herself.
Author Interview - Madhushree Ghosh | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: When my first poem was published in the local newspaper as a nine-year old--it was a cheesy short poem about books and why I like reading. Holding the paper, seeing my name, watching my mother's eyes light up with pride, it was a done deal!
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: Hardback or paperback--the smell of a new book...
The last book I read: Crying in H Mart (Michelle Zauner), of how the Korean American author took care of her mother during her cancer diagnosis and treatment, and subsequent death and how she kept the memory of her mother alive through Korean food she cooked. Amazing writing, a spectacularly visual memoir taking us through Korea, America and back and how the author navigates grief of losing her parent while trying to live life one day at a time. Such an astonishing memoir.
Author Interview - Madhushree Ghosh | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer: Laptop always. I know, I know, pen to paper connects your brain through the fingers to your words, I get it. But so do the fingers on your keyboard and I will stand by that forever!
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: Not really a character, but Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential blew my mind away with what we can talk about when we talk about food. Just his attitude toward what's different, why, and how to have conversations by listening, which started with Kitchen Confidential makes me wish we met and wish we could be best friends, warts and all.
Author Interview - Madhushree Ghosh | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a: I am an oncology diagnostics science person already.
Favorite decade in fashion history: 1970s India. The bell bottoms, the big hair, the 'modern' girls wearing small tops, large hoops and mini skirts, that was liberation in India. 1973 super hit movie Bobby was about two teenagers a la Romeo and Juliet, only Indian, in love. Dimple Kapadia, then only 16, I think, in miniskirts, short crop tops was the dream. Every girl wanted to be her. I was a baby then, but the Bobby hair pins, hair bands, crop tops, mini skirts lasted me till my tweens. India and Indian fashion is extremely Bollywood-influenced. 1970s Bollywood gave us the opportunity for girls and women to not be demure (always), be funny, liberated and three-dimensional.
Place I’d most like to travel: Positano, Italy. In 2014, I filed for divorce from my abusive marriage and booked a ticket to Positano on a whim to go to a writing workshop. That place, that conference changed my life. Positano is literally nestled on a rockface facing the ocean. Every time I've been there, once I enter the room, I do not shut the water facing door. The waves tell me this is home, even though it isn't. The people are kind, and almost desi--they know you, and care about why you are there, from the hotel staff to the restaurant down the hill. Even though I don't speak a lick of Italian, I feel at home every time the winding road from Naples airport leads me to Positano. As Steinbeck said, "Positano bites deep." I agree.
My signature drink: Empress 1908 gin with Bundaberg ginger beer and a couple of blueberries. (Try it, I guarantee you it's amazing)
Favorite artist: Georgia O'Keeffe
Number one on my bucket list: To cook with Padma Lakshmi
Anything else you'd like to add: Life is too short to be miserable. So be kind, be joyful, and see the humor in everything.
Find more from the author:
@writemadhushree (Twitter/IG)
@booksparksstudio
@uiowapress
Author Bio: Madhushree Ghosh's work has been published in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Rumpus, Catapult, Guernica, Longreads, Brevity, Hippocampus, Atlas Obscura, Serious Eats, The Kitchn, DAME, and others. As a woman in science, an immigrant, and a daughter of refugees, her work reflects her roots and her activism. Her food narrative debut memoir, Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory and Family is forthcoming, April 2022 from University of Iowa Press. She can be reached at @writemadhushree
