Acting may be her first love but for Koel Purie Rinchet, writing is her ‘ikigai’. The actor, producer and television presenter who has been living in Paris for the past six years has made her debut as an author with her first book Clearly Invisible in Paris. The novel brings together four women who have nothing in common except for the fact that they are immigrants in Paris and share the same building address. Set against the pandemic-induced confinement, the story celebrates their unlikely friendship which defies all odds.
Excerpts from the interview:
When did the love affair with writing begin?
I don’t know about writing in particular but the love of storytelling has been there as long as I can remember. I am a middle child, therefore an attention seeker and so, even the simplest thing would take on a more dramatic mode. I’ve been a storyteller forever and the next expression of that was writing. I wrote quite a bit of non-fiction early on for lifestyle magazines and travel journals. After I graduated, I did a television show called Aaj ki Naari where I was creating content with writers. Having said that, the writing of a book is a different discipline. I think that has only come with age and with a certain sense of isolation in Paris.
How did the idea of the book take shape?
I was constantly hearing similar stories from various women and men, who are super successful and ambitious, but would feel like outsiders in Paris. It was always tongue-in-cheek and light-hearted but with an underlying current of feeling alienated. I don’t think one has a eureka moment when it comes to stories. They kind of fester and take shape in your head before you put pen to paper. For me, maybe after a couple of years of living in Paris, this idea about friendships and friendships of outsiders started taking shape in my head. A little before the pandemic, Paris was going to have a book fair and India was to be a guest country. My good friend, Priti Paul, of Oxford Bookstore was going to have a bookstall there and she asked me if I would like to write a few chapters and we could announce an upcoming book from me. I wrote around three chapters and we were going to do a performance piece around it. While I was writing it, I kept thinking that all my favourite novels are set against some dramatic world event. It’s a horrible thing but I kept thinking that I wish I had lived during such dramatic event or some kind of serious event in Paris, which could become a backdrop to my story. And, lo and behold, literally a week later, we went into a lockdown with the pandemic. I had the biggest backdrop I could think of but I just couldn’t write after that. It was only nine months to a year when we were finally coming out of the worst of it that I started writing.
The four women in your story belong to different nationalities, status and economic backgrounds. What brings them together and what makes them stick with each other through thick and thin?
We all have friendships that defy logic. At times it is a question of chemistry and sometimes a question of need. In the case of these women — and I wrote them like that — these friendships are odd and defy logic, and which wouldn’t have happened if they were not stuck together physically. Also, because of the times they are caught in, there is also a real forgiveness towards each other’s flaws.
How much is the book’s title derived from your own life? Also, Paris is described as the city of love in most of pop culture, whereas your book delves into the harsher realities of living in the city.
My Paris is the real picture. It is like that with most places — they are different when you are only visiting and different when you are living in them. I have lived in Tokyo which is one of the most fabulous cities to visit but to live in, it requires a certain kind of person. As far as Paris is concerned, most people would not think of immigrants as people like me, nor would I.
I am privileged, married to a French man, educated and semi-famous. An immigrant is someone who is trying to belong to a place that they live in but they cannot call home and in a city like Paris, that definition comes to you from all sides. Yes, I do have a lot of advantages that others wouldn’t have but at the same time, I am an immigrant and a foreigner and I am made to feel like that. So, yes, it does have very much of me in the story. It is fiction but there are bits and pieces from my experience and emotions that are peppered all across the book.
You also recently wrote, produced and acted in a play called Mummy’s Dead, Long Live Mummy. Where did that story come from?
When you are a parent, you realise that these things write themselves! (laughs) This is the raw relentless journey of motherhood. Everyone’s experience of motherhood is unique and it is hard. When people say it takes a village to raise a child, it really does. That’s where the story came from. I started writing Clearly Invisible in Paris in the latter half of 2020 and finished the first draft within seven months. The literary process is a slow process, and it’s a necessary one but I don’t function well when I am idle. I started writing this play as a self-help book of motherhood but every piece of writing has its own medium. I realised while writing it that this is a play. There are four mothers in it and each one has a full non-stop monologue which is like a rant. It was staged in Paris at the English Theatre where we did three sold-out shows. We are bringing it to India at the end of September for around 10 days.
