By Jeanne Fredriksen

Q. In BOMBAY TIME, you introduced us to an entire Parsi community of friends, each of whom was as important as the next. In THE SPACE BETWEEN US, you've concentrated on two women and the people immediately affected by and cared for by them. How different was it to have gone from one focus to the other in terms of writing and character development?

I suppose each book takes shape based on what the writer is trying to get across. In Bombay Time, I was interested in exploring the bonds of community across time. My focus was this broad canvas where each member of this community is a single strand of thread that makes up this canvas. The focus of Space is different. It is a story more about what divides people than brings them together. It is not so much about connection and community-in that community generally requires a parity or equality between its members-as it is about isolation and private space. In that respect, it made sense to focus more minutely on the lives of these two women, who like each other but who, in a fundamental sense, are strangers to each other.

Q. While it was made clear that Bhima's touching Sera or any of her family was forbidden, I never felt that there was much physical demonstration of affection within Sera's family. Was that a conscious decision, or did the characters as the developed demand that?

I think Feroz's shadow hovers strongly over the Dubash family, even after his death. He is such a strange man-so stunted and stilted in his emotional responses-that he has somehow robbed his wife and daughter of their spontaneous warmth, also. Dinaz is playful with her husband Viraf but even here, their relationship seems based more on physical teasing and verbal banter than on quiet intimacy. I can't claim that this was a conscious decision-I think the characters just wrote themselves into being in this manner.

Q. So much of Sera's and Bhima's lives parallel each other, yet Bhima, the character who has very little, is the stronger of the two. Is this a comment on the class system and the people it produces?

Yes, I think so. Bhima's life has been unmerciful but she has survived every major blow a human being can be asked to suffer-the death of one child, the loss of the other child and her husband. There is something timeless, stoic and heroic about Bhima. It is one of life's paradoxes, I think. Just as the poor are much more generous with their meager possessions than people who have a lot more, I think suffering produces (at least in some people) a kind of compassionate strength.

Q. There is a strong duality of emotions and viewpoints running through the characters. Only Dinaz seems to have a non-conflicting sense of relationships and the world around her, rendering her the peacemaker in a modern world. How strongly do you see these conflicts as being a natural, driving force in everyday life in general?

I think the fact that any two human beings on earth can communicate with each other and be heard and understood, is a miracle. The fact that this miracle occurs daily, doesn't make it any less potent. I mean, when you think of how complex human beings are-how our brains are wired, how much of the past lives within us, how much of our childhoods we carry into adulthood, it's a miracle any of us can overcome the prison of our own skins and display empathy and understanding of another. So yes, I think conflict is the natural course of human interactions but so is the human capacity to transcend conflict.

But when you add something like class differences (or gender or race differences) to an already complicated situation, then you can see how the potential for misunderstandings, miscommunication and incomprehension-the sheer inability to enter another's world-can grow exponentially.

Q. Do you feel that the more two people grow together and depend upon each other (as with Sera and Bhima) those conflicts of feelings come easier, faster, and deeper? Or is class separation the major factor that fuels this?

I think all human interactions have the potential for misunderstandings and lack of awareness. But when you add complications like class differences, the situation can get even messier. It is not impossible to suppose that Bhima and Sera may have been good friends and would've realized that they had a lot in common if they came from the same class background. But the rigid class roles that each is forced to play, compounded by Bhima's illiteracy and ignorance about the world, make this impossible.

Q. The entire story illustrates not only the separation of women by caste/class and religion but the closeness those opposites share. It is evident that Sera had been much more personally attached to Bhima than others to their domestic help. Was that the case in your own personal experience, this employer/employee relationship that was in many ways "sister-like" without all of the benefits?

This story is totally made-up in terms of the plot. But Bhima's character is based on a woman who worked in our middle-class home when I was a teenager in India. I was extremely close to this woman, adored her, really, felt like I could see her essential goodness and decency. TO me, she was worth more than most of the neighbors and other middle-class people around me. She had a dignity and quiet pride that I thought was admirable. I'd like to believe that she loved me, also.

To know more about my relationship with her, you may want to check out this website: Click Here

Q. Of the various generations represented in the book, only Dinaz and Maya express an honest need for liberation from the class/caste separations. Dinaz is vocal in Bhima's defense on a humanitarian level. Maya, on the other hand, chastises Bhima for thinking first of Sera and her family rather than of herself and her family. Was it your intention to have this point up selflessness vs selfishness or educated vs non-educated, or is it merely two arguments for the same cause?

I think it's the latter-two arguments for the same cause, looked at it from two view points. Dinaz's viewpoint, for all her sincerity and well-meaningness, is still ultimately an elitist position-it's a gesture of benevolence and fairness. For Maya, though, this issue is emotionally charged and not theoretical at all. She speaks from the view point of someone who has been cheated or robbed of something, of someone whom this twisted class system has victimized.

Q. Viraf, the charming golden boy, makes a flip comment about the eventual extinction of Parsis (p 174). There also are more than one reference to Parsis deliberately "being targeted". This thread appeared in BOMBAY TIME as well. Are these beliefs and concerns that are commonly expressed within the Parsi community, or are these just character traits?

No, I think this sense of persecution is real. And I think it has to do with the ever-prevalent knowledge that this is a miniscule ethnic minority that is about to go extinct-that their numbers are fast thinning. Of course, at the same time there is a general feeling that India has been good to Parsis, that they have not been oppressed or persecuted as so many minorities are in so many places. In fact, quite the opposite. But there is this sense that their time has come and gone.

Q. What is the one thing that you would like your readers to come away with after reading this book? Is there anything that you would like to comment on regarding THE SPACE BETWEEN US? Anything that you would like to point out or express?

I would like my American readers to not read this novel as something that depicts an exotic class structure or a tradition that they simply cannot relate to. I realize that the concept of having domestic servants etc. is an alien one to most middle-class Americans. But this is really a story about the rich and the poor and the imbalance between them. And that's a theme that I think any perceptive, socially aware person can relate to. We have our own caste systems in America. And if I had a wild hope, it would be that this novel would make readers examine their own areas of prejudice and discomfort with the Other.