So Where are the Marigolds?

At first, I thought my novel would be a thinly veiled autobiography. After all, wasn’t I Simon, the green architect who lands up in India? I dragged all the journals I had written during my years there and more or less envisioned the novel as a 350-page string of journal entries. But five years later, I hadn’t cracked open even one journal.

Instead, I dreamt up the plot on a two-week summer vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. It was born purely out of my imagination. (No, that isn’t me in the sex scenes!) But as much as I’d like to think I conjured up a real page-turner, Simon’s Ark is first and foremost a work of literary fiction. Like an Indian garland, the plot is just the string that holds together the marigolds together.

So what are the marigolds, the golden flowers that give the novel its color? That distinguish it from even a good thriller? To me, it is the small moments, the day-to-day images that seemed to have sprouted in the soil of my mind from seeds planted long ago. The way Simon leans forward in the bicycle rickshaw to unglue himself from the plastic seat, since his sweaty shirt stuck to the plastic seat cover as he rode through Old Delhi in the scorching Indian summer; the way Upadhyaya, the Sompur priest, looked like he’d bitten into a bitter lemon as he recited a Sanskrit love poem; the way a fly had drowned in a little pool of sweat formed in the crevice of Kesh’s collarbone as he dug for a buried treasure under the baking sun of May.

During the last five years, it was my secret pleasure to retreat to my cabin, pick these marigold moments, and work them into my characters. Every day was like being back in Varanasi, where I spent my junior-year in college; or Pune, where I sat at the feet of my Sanskrit pundit; or New Delhi, where I helped U.S. clean energy technology companies form new business partnerships. Some days were especially bright, as if I were back celebrating Holi, the Hindu holiday where people splash each other with bucketfuls of brilliant colors.

And so I urge you to read the excerpt posted on the website. Enjoy the plot, but don’t forget it’s the marigolds that make the garland.