The Gruesome Joys of the Who Dunnit

Ruby Gupta & Gita Sahgal in conversation
my uttarakhand news Bureau
Dehradun, 15 Feb: In a packed auditorium on 14 February at Antara, a senior living facility in Dehradun, novelist Ruby Gupta read from her latest collection of short stories, Love and Crime and discussed three of her novels, A Degree in Death, No Illusions in Xanadu and The Liefeng Pagoda with feminist, human-rights advocate, Gita Sahgal.
Professor Ruby Gupta, who is Head of Department of Humanities at the Indian Military Academy and has written ten books on diverse subjects, discussed the constraints as well as the pleasures of her work.  Reading a passage about a growing attraction between an older woman and a younger man, she acknowledged that women writers often self-censor in order not to shock ‘society’. But she enjoyed exploring the darker side of love, and the psychology of complex, modern relationships.
Professor Gupta said that she was influenced by classic detective fiction with a locked room and limited cast of characters and detectives such as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. Her first detective novel, A Degree in Death, where she introduced the brilliant scientist Prof Shantanu Bose as her detective, was set in Dehradun in an engineering college. The second No Illusions in Xanadu, was not published for five years because of fears that its fictional setting of a very prominent Bollywood family might attract litigation. Eventually, Bloomsbury published it without any alteration and it went on to win her International Writer in Residence at the International Agatha Christie Festival in Devon, UK.
The Liefeng Pagoda is a spy novel where the hero travels to China in search of answers to the mysterious death of his closest friend. He uncovers a series of unsolved deaths of Indian scientists, particularly those working on defence and nuclear issues; and concludes that this amounts to a gigantic conspiracy against the development of advances in Indian science. Professor Gupta revealed that all the deaths mentioned in the book were real cases, which she had researched using open-source materials.
As the daughter of an army officer, this was extremely shocking as was the realisation that Indians of Chinese descent were rounded up and detained during the 1962 war and for many years afterwards. Many left India as a result, even though they had known no other home.
Gita Sahgal questioned whether the necessity to find suitable villains could lead to stereotyping of very marginal groups, who didn’t have the protections that vocal upper caste groups enjoyed such as the ones who had recently received protection from the Supreme Court against offending Pandits.  Valentine’s Day, acknowledged in the meeting as growing in popularity in India, is also subject to attack by groups who want to create division. Audience members asked what could be done to prevent stereotyping and attacks on people seen as different such as students from the North East. Prof Gupta said she had developed a holistic curriculum.
Terrorists have historically not come from the most marginalised groups but from much more powerful forces. In Dehradun, the recent attacks and murder of Angel Chakma had not attracted much solidarity from the general population.