Author Interview with Enakshi Sengupta

 The Silk Route Spy 

1. Reading The Silk Route Spy, one senses it’s more than a historical retelling — it feels like a conversation between generations. What moment or emotion first convinced you that this family story deserved to be shared with the world?

Ans: It was a lazy, nothing much to do afternoon. I was leafing through our family album and suddenly I felt that Nandlal Kapur was staring back at me, with my one-year-old chubby father-in-law on his lap, a photograph taken in 1932 in Japan. My sister had been asking me to write something and not waste my time twiddling my thumbs. It suddenly dawned on me, why not the story of Nandlal Kapur’s life?  The journey had been so exciting. Some I knew, and some I had to rely on research and put the pieces together.

2. The title The Silk Route Spy beautifully fuses trade, travel, and espionage. At what stage of writing did the title come to you — was it early inspiration or a later realization?

Ans: Actually, I had given the title ‘The Spy from Ferozepur’. It is my literary agent, Mr. Suhail Mathur of The Books Bakers Literary Agency, who changed the name, making it more meaningful. The entire credit of the title goes to him. 

3. The way you weave archival fragments with imagination feels seamless. How did you decide which parts of Nandlal’s life to reconstruct creatively and which to leave grounded strictly in fact?

Ans. I wanted to highlight the main events of his life. His travels, the destinations, the landmark events like his marriage, and his return. I didn’t plan anything; it just started flowing, one after the other. Would you believe me if I told you that at times I felt Nandlal Kapur was narrating it to me? Sounds surreal, but that’s what I felt. 

4. You describe places like Kobe, Shanghai, and Calcutta so vividly that they almost become characters themselves. Did you visit any of these places, or did the research alone give you that sensory understanding?

Ans. Unfortunately, no. I have never visited any of these places. However, Calcutta or Kolkata is where I belong. Research, archival videos gave me a feel of these places and maybe the sensory part too, the sound and taste. I could almost smell the lanes and by-lanes and feel the nip in the air or the staleness inside the lower deck of a ship.

5. I noticed how the book never sensationalizes espionage — it keeps the tone human, almost introspective. Was that a deliberate choice to avoid turning Nandlal’s story into a typical “spy thriller”?

Ans. To me, Nandlal Kapur was not just a spy. He was more than his profession, which perhaps he took up under compulsion. You may remember that in a conversation with his friend, he said he would have sailed abroad to study, had his father been rich. He was an adventurer, a person with eyes full of dreams to see the world and stay in foreign lands. He was someone like the younger generation of today seeking opportunities abroad. 

I wanted to highlight the man himself. Yes, if you see his picture, he was one with a felt hat and a three-piece suit, but I didn’t want to portray him as 007 or someone similar. He was a farmer, the apple of his mother’s eyes, a responsible friend, a lover, a patriot, a husband, a father, and then he became a loving grandfather. He was beyond just being a spy.

6. The book constantly questions what patriotism really means. There are moments where Nandlal’s loyalties appear blurred — was it difficult for you, personally, to sit with that ambiguity while writing?

Ans. It was difficult. We often tend to label and judge people, completely ignoring their different shades. We are not just ‘one thing’, we are like rainbows in the cloud. It is for us to find out which one is the dominant color in the rainbow. Traitor, patriot, everything arises from the perception that we have. Nobody can be completely one thing. We need to love and respect the myriad shades that people display.

7. There’s a quiet loneliness in Nandlal’s journey — especially in the passages where he’s torn between identities and nations. How did you tap into that emotional solitude while narrating his story?

Ans. This is a very good question. I have been a traveler myself. I have stayed and worked in five different countries. There were moments when sitting in a land far away from India, I felt this ‘nothingness’ or rather an ‘emptiness’, as if I was missing something. Often I thought about how the sunset might be in Kolkata’s sky, is it orange enough? I translated some of my personal thoughts into his. Isn’t it all of us who leave our ‘Watan’ think similarly? 

8. You manage to blend the personal and the political so gracefully. Was it important to you to show how the large events of the freedom struggle trickled into individual lives and homes?

Ans. India’s struggle for independence was entwined with the lives of people. Nandlal Kapur was in the thick of it. Hence, it is understood that his life course was chartered and influenced by these events. There could have been no Nandlal Kapur without the struggle for freedom. 

9. Your prose feels both restrained and lyrical — almost as if you didn’t want to intrude too much on history. How did you find the balance between emotional involvement and narrative distance?

Ans. Thank you, that is one of the best compliments I have received. I want to talk and relate to my readers. I don’t want them to get lost in the maze of flowery description, nor do I want them to be soaked in emotions. When I write, I don’t want people to be overwhelmed. I think, if I were the reader, would I like such a narrative or would I stow the book away with weariness?  I guess balance comes from empathy, from being grounded, from not labeling myself above and beyond the readers. I am there and I write because of my readers. I want my writing to reckon with them, touch a chord, and not go flying past their ears. 

10. I loved how you framed the story through memory rather than strict chronology. Was that structure always your plan, or did it evolve as you wrote?

Ans. Firstly, I am not very much for chronology. We are not a calendar hanging on a bare wall that needs to be turned diligently. We go back and forth in our lives. I didn’t plan anything. I am not a very structured-oriented person. I have heard writers have a drawing board, a sketch book, and a small notepad of some kind. I have none. I write what comes to my mind; however it comes to my mind. Once written, it is poured out; I don’t even wipe the crumbs spilled on the sides. 

11. The closing chapters feel almost meditative — as if the narrative is exhaling after a long journey. How did you know when the story was truly “finished”?

Ans. The closure comes from a weary Nandlal Kapur trying to re-live his past by narrating to a not-so-attentive grandson. I used to think about whether it was a deliberate act that he wanted to whisper the last bit, like some old forgotten family mantra to him? Strangely, the grandson remembered everything that was told to him. A hero’s journey ends with himself, and that is what I wanted to portray.

12. Many readers might come away seeing the Indian freedom struggle from a completely new angle — one rooted in trade, travel, and disguise. What kind of reflection or dialogue do you hope this book sparks?

Ans. I wanted to portray the lesser-known people in India’s freedom struggle. Some of them were silent workers who did their part and then faded into obscurity. They were never lauded, seen, or heard. Their contributions were no less than those we read about in our history books. They were householders tied to their everyday responsibilities of family and job, but a corner of their mind never forgot that they, too, were proud sons of Mother India. 

13. If Nandlal could somehow read The Silk Route Spy, what do you think his reaction would be?

Ans. I often think of it. I hope somewhere he is happy to have someone tell his story. As for me, I think I owe it to my in-laws for giving me such a wonderful gift of a husband. As I am proud of my kind and loving husband, I am equally proud to be the granddaughter-in-law of Nandlal Kapur.

14. Tell us about your writing journey.

Ans. My journey is that of an ordinary human being. I studied, got five degrees, and a terminal one, a PhD in higher education. I worked, I traveled, I earned, and I loved and lived. Now I would like to gather the sheaf of memories that I have, like colorful autumn leaves, and paste them into novels. I think my veins have more ink than blood. I would like to continue writing as long as I can. 

Thank you for asking these questions. I enjoyed my conversation with you!