KOLKATA: "The inheritance of loss is universal. Young people are losing their sense of inheritance, that of belonging, their culture; detached from their very backgrounds, as they go their different ways," Man Booker Prize-winning author Kiran Desai's aunt Dr. Indira Bhattacharya says.

"I feel sad," she told the The Hindu from her home in Kalimpong - the setting of Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss - while at the same time expressing a "joy that knows no bounds" at her niece's recent literary achievement, one that she shared with her writer-sister Anita Desai on the day of the announcement of the Booker award.

Seeds of writing

Perhaps, it was during those evenings "when the family used to sit down and chat" in Dr. Bhattacharya's house in the hill town that the seeds of writing a novel based partly on her experiences there started germinating in Kiran's mind.

"She never questioned but was a good listener to what we used to talk about then, retaining things," which later would find their way into the pages of her book, Dr. Bhattacharya, a child specialist living in Kalimpong for the past 20 years, recalls. No, she had no inkling of what was brewing in Kiran's mind then till years later when her niece asked her whether she could find her a place to stay in Kalimpong "on her own, for a longer time. It was about three to four years ago and she was then writing the book," which later was to make her the youngest woman recipient of the Booker Prize.

A good listener

"I arranged a house that belonged to a friend for her to stay in but she would join us in the evenings where I would tell her stories of what was happening around us which she would quietly absorb, never giving away her story [the one she was working on]. She wanted her own time and space and this was understandable," says Dr. Bhattacharya.

"I knew she was working on a book even though she never really told me so... at least not in so many words. Ours is a family which is very careful with each other's privacy. During her stay, Kiran used to particularly enjoy the company of the domestic helps and has even given an acknowledgement in her book to Doma, the cook. She used to walk down the streets to the bazaar and soon everyone started knowing her... she looks so much like me."

Her inspiration

What inspired Kiran to set her book in the Kalimpong hills? Her aunt does not claim to have all the answers. "Yes, Kiran loves the place, the mountains... and then she used to be here as a school child during her holidays at a time when the bandhs on the [Nepali] language issue started, even before the Gorkhaland agitation, [and was a] witness to individuals being displaced at a time culture is no longer handed down [the generations] as it used to be."

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