Chetna Keer’s ‘Geisha In The Gota Patti’ is a poignant tale of love, loss, hope & healing
On the craft behind the creativity, Chetna Keer says, “The Gulmohar trilogy is a literary lasagna for me. Since most chronicles and characters dotting diplomatic circles in ‘Geisha In The Gota Patti’are culled from real life, reams and reams of research has gone into it. But there is a method in the madness.”
Chandigarh-bred novelist and satirist Chetna Keer has returned with her latest saga, ‘Geisha In The Gota Patti’ — a gripping global tale of tea as a healer in the times of world strife and wars — which serves as the final instalment of her ‘Gulmohar’ trilogy.
“Geisha In The Gota Patti is a sweeping story of intrigue and international conspiracies, mapped across diplomatic backdrops, and daintily threaded into a tapestry of tea traditions,” Keer says.
“The tale is inspired by a long-buried, less-known diplomatic chronicle, which has been tweaked with totally fictionalised twists and turns,” she adds.
“Leitmotifs of war and peace, scars and shadows thread through the third tale. It is a pulsating and poignant portrait of hope and healing, penned through the prism of cross-cultural lore, love and loss,” Keer explains.
On the craft behind the creativity, the author, who spent almost two years penning the book, says, “The Gulmohar trilogy is a literary lasagna for me. Since most chronicles and characters dotting diplomatic circles in this book are culled from real life, reams and reams of research has gone into it. But there is a method in the madness.”
The other sagas in the ‘Gulmohar’ trilogy are ‘Garnets Under My Gulmohar’ and ‘Giddha On My Gulmohar’.
“The common thread tying together the trilogy is the Gulmohar tree that stands as a discerning spectator to the twists and turns, a character with its own narrative voice, nestling in an ancestral kothi, presided over by a Grande Matriarch.”
The saga brings back the protagonists — book blogger and sareeholic sleuth-on-the-side Lollita, along with spunky and seasoned ‘bade beeji’ — in a new adventure. The destination drama sweeps the multilayered narrative back and forth between the ‘Puraani Dilli’ milieu, a posh Delhi club, and the picturesque tea terrain of Himachal’s Kangra.
“Mystique and mystery curl around the plot like the mists meandering majestic Himalayan tea gardens,” Keer concludes.