The son of the richest person in Asia, Anant Ambani, got married over the weekend.
The three-day ceremony was a culmination of seven months of pre-wedding festivities, including musical performances by the likes of Rihanna, a three-day cruise from Italy to France, and charity events including a wedding for 50 couples who otherwise couldn’t afford their own ceremony, charity feasts for the underprivileged, and some events that were designated just for the house staff. Add celebrities like Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian to the mix and you can imagine the spectacle over half a year of celebrations.
Some have estimated that the extravagance of the events cost over $100 million. As unconscionable as that figure seems, that’s not what caught my attention.
I was more intrigued by the insight into Indian culture. The fashion, the food, the traditions that were put on display. All of it felt like a story, and it made me think about how cool it would be to write a novel in that setting.
Or would it?
Would it be okay for me to write a novel set in India? Or more specifically, a story set in wealthy India - the side the Ambani wedding showed me?
I’ve never set foot in the country. I have Indian friends but would not consider myself knowledgeable about India’s cultural history or present. Are my curiosity and my friendships enough of a prerequisite for me to tell an entire story based in India?
I’m currently reading Babel by R.F. Kuang and chuckle at her author’s note at the beginning of the novel. Kuang dedicates two pages to explaining and apologizing for any historical errors in her story. The funny part to me is that her story is set in 19th century London, over 200 years ago, yet she still felt the need to clarify why she made decisions to serve her plot rather than sticking to the precise facts.
Sticking with R.F. Kuang, she is also the author of Yellowface. Yellowface is a novel about a successful Asian author who dies because of a freak accident. Her friend happens to be at her home when this happens and before the police get there, this friend steals one of the Asian author’s unpublished manuscripts.
The manuscript is steeped in Chinese history but this friend is an American White woman. I’m sure you can imagine how this story goes. But what’s interesting to me is that in the novel, the friend dives into Chinese history to the point that she’s nearly an expert. In her mind, that dedication gives her the right to publish a book which is based on characters outside of her culture.
In real life, I met an older, Southern White woman who wrote a fictional series about a young Black boy. That seems like two separate experiences, but if we are only talking about culture and not race, the similarities become much more apparent.
Does that cultural proximity give this woman permission?
Back to the Ambani wedding.
If I wrote a novel that emulated something similar to that spectacle, set in India with Indian characters, am I exploiting the culture? India is rising in popularity around the world right now. I could capture that attention and turn it into a bestseller. Would I be wrong for doing that?
Would I be considered a culture vulture?
How much responsibility do I need to show when writing outside of my culture? If I wrote a story about the Ambani wedding, it would only showcase the 27 story tall Ambani estate and the rented private jets for guests. But would I also need to mention the underprivileged who survive on rice and turmeric? Or that 40% of India’s wealth that sits in the hands of the vaunted 1%?
That expectation wouldn’t exist if my story was set in Canada or anywhere in North America, for that matter. But what if my story was set in Africa with Black Characters? But Black characters outside of any cultural experience I’ve ever been a part of?
I’ve never set foot in Africa just like I’ve never set foot in India. But do I have more right to the former because we share race?
These are questions with no good answers, or maybe you have the answer.
My latest novel is written from the perspective of a teenage girl. Even with a daughter who was a teenager at the time of my writing that story, is that outside of some unspoken, unwritten rule that I broke?
I’d love to hear your opinions on this.
What are your thoughts on writing outside of your culture?
If you choose to put fences around your creativity that is your decision. I can't think of any great writer in history that I could imagine getting permission from themselves to write their stories. This seems dangerous to me in many ways - we need to release our creativity - not imprison it!
i think you should write when you think you have a good story irrespective of whether its inside or outside of your culture, after all you are a global citizen first and the world has never been more global than now. Of course some people will complain, just as Indians have often complained in the past, about westerners writing Indian poverty porn. Any form of criticism for cultural appropriation will come with the territory and it is totally the writers prerogative whether to wade in or not.
Indians were all agog about the Ambani wedding(and also very critical, cos Indians have had a socialist period that is still well entrenched in the mindset despite social climbers and the celebrity rise).To my mind the wedding was PR stunt for the Reliance brand which is inviting a lot of luxury brands into the country, and if that's good for the economy (if India is to be the second or third superpower this century) its also good for Brand India. The movie Barbie for instance was more about reinventing Matel rather than feminism. To some generations of Indians who smarted under colonial complexes, the Ambanis extravagance would be like the return of the age of the Maharajahs when India was the richest country in the world. But the fact is that there are still a lot of people who are poorly off worldly over despite government schemes and trade unionism. (I am Indian BTW). And India aside, European and American politics is also dominated by the discourse about those who got a smaller share of the pie. Why else has Labour come back to power in the UK. If the writer has to write the writer must write.