Megha Majumdar: "A Guardian and a Thief" | Oprah's Book Club

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0:32It's Mecca Majanga! You were one of my best phone calls ever because forever you didn't believe me, right? I didn't. No. I thought it was somebody from the publisher who was pranking me. I could tell. And then you said something that was so moving to me. In the middle of the conversation, you just go, what a wild thing to happen in a day. It was just an arrival from outside the context of my life.

1:05Hi there, everybody. I am so thrilled to be together with all of you. Listeners, watchers, and readers here at a Starbucks cafe in New York City. Thank you for Oprah's book club presented by Starbucks. And as always, Starbucks pairs each one of my new book club selections with a special handcrafted drink. This month, it's an iced banana cream protein matcha. It is new and it's delicious. Everybody says it is made with the Starbucks cold foam that you know and love. And now with a high protein boost. So Starbucks is the place to come together with good coffee, with good company and a good book.

1:49And my new book club selection is A Guardian and a Thief by Mekha Majumdar. Now, it is the 119th book club I've selected. And it's an ex... I'm telling you, this woman can write. It is... Isn't it? Yes. Yes. It is exquisitely written. And it packs an epic and very, very timely story in just 224 pages. Gail was very happy about that. because it goes over 300 pages. Gail's like, what? People have lives. What are you thinking? So it's about two families on a collision course, both facing impossible odds to save themselves and find a new home. But that doesn't even begin to describe what happens when you open the first page.

2:38I was taken in at the very first page. And then on the last page? Yes. Huh. My jaw was on the floor. So we asked our audience of readers to give us a one-word book report. And some of you said the story was haunting. Some other people said gut-riching. I would agree with that. And unyielding. And I agree with all of those. And I wanted to ask Aline here in the audience, what did you think? I was, honest to goodness, shook. Like to every fiber of my being. Shooketh. Yes, shooketh. Shooketh. Yeah. I couldn't put the book down. I finished it late at night and no one in my house was up. And I felt it physically, the ending, physically.

3:26I know, I know. Thank you. Aline, thank you. Christina, where are you? Over here. Okay. And? Yeah, so for me, you painted such a vivid picture in the book. Like I could literally see the characters. I really loved the interconnectedness between the stories. And the vivid imagery for me showed me the humanity. really behind why people take such desperate measures. So I really felt a ton of compassion for every character in the book. Thank you so much for that. Yeah. And my daughter girl, Tondo DeLoma, is one of my, I call her daughter girl because she graduated from my school in South Africa and she reads every one of my book club picks.

4:08And Tondo and I read together many times and I love hearing Tondo's takes and I hear a lot of you will love hearing Tondo's takes. So Tondo called me and goes, Mama, we have to talk about this book. And I said, no, we don't. I will talk to you when we get to Starbucks. So what did you think, Tondo? No, the fact that you wanted us to wait until we got to Starbucks was tearing me to shreds. I couldn't. I tried everything to avoid my feelings. I went to the gym. I come back. I'm still thinking about the ending. I come back to the kitchen. I'm like, let me take a walk. Let me walk it off. I go out again, go back for a walk.

4:46It's still on my mind. And so I called it. I was like, no, we have to. Because when we get to the airport and it's all just come to... Do not give away the ending. I won't give it away, but all I'm saying is my hopes torn to shreds and pieces. I know what it feels like when you're about to leave for America. I was born in South Africa. I know the countdown to a month, three weeks to five days. You're five days away from the dream, the American dream, the big thing. Yeah. And then I won't say nothing else. And then it happens. It happens. It happens. The time comes. The time comes. Or does it? All right.

5:31Thank you, Miss Tondo. We won't give away major plot points because I hope all the book lovers get a chance to read it. And I hope those of you who have read it will pass along the story to other people. and the story takes place in the near future, in the city of Kolkata, India. Is that how you pronounce it? Correct. And that area is enduring years of heat and flooding and famine, and so people are desperate. And there are two central characters that we'll be talking about today, Ma and Boomba. Ma, along with her two-year-old daughter, Mishti, and her aging father, Dadu, are just a few days away, as Tanda was saying, from their flight to come to America.

6:13where Ma's husband is waiting for them in Michigan. So we also meet a 20-year-old, as I said, named Boomba. He's from a small village outside the city and will do anything to find a safe home for his parents and little brother, Robbie. So welcome to Starbucks, Meka. Thank you so much, Ofra. How did you come up with this story? Well, it started with the place. Kolkata is my hometown. I grew up there. I lived there until I was 19. And recently, we've started learning that Kolkata is going to be one of the cities in the world which is most profoundly affected by climate change. It has grown hotter.

7:00It is predicted to endure more storms. So I was reading about climate change in Kolkata and thinking about, well, what are hope and love going to look like in this time of crisis? What will we do when we understand how the ethical self we want to be, the moral self we want to be, clashes with who we are as mothers and parents and guardians and caregivers? What will we do to confront that clash? And that's what took me into the story. And one very interesting thing I will say, which might resonate with all the parents in the room, I struggled with the story until I had my older son in 2021. And the story completely changed.

7:55It became so much more about the mother and the other guardian. And I started thinking about what will the ferocity of this kind of love make you do? Yeah, I think that's a very interesting question. Did you all think about that while reading? What would you do? Because we all have what we think is our moral center. But if you were starving when your children were starving, what would you be willing to do to provide for your family? I think it's fascinating for our current times also that you chose to write a story about morals and... Y 'all think that's funny, but okay. And how what is right and what is wrong can shift when you're just trying to keep your family alive.

8:46What intrigued you about that challenge? I am completely fascinated by the conflict between what is good for us and our loved ones, our family, and what is good for the collective, our neighbors, our society. And I think that the world that we live in, the systems and networks of power that we live in, force us to look at that gap? Because what is good for me is not necessarily good for my neighbor. How do we live when we understand that our love, our hope can have a manifestation which is vicious and fierce for somebody else? Why did you want to write about the experience of famine and hunger?

9:43I think it's interesting. We hear all the time about countries where people are starving. We hear about what's happening in Gaza, what's happening in the Sudan, what's happening in places around the world. It's just a word. But you were able to bring famine and hunger alive for all of us. I started from the complete opposite place of thinking about how my family bonds with food. We love cooking. We love eating. And think about the emotional charge of having a meal with people you love, that connective tissue. It's so elemental. And when I was thinking about climate change, I thought about, well, what happens when in that kind of crisis, our familiar foods go away?

10:36What if you sit down to dinner and instead of the food that nourishes you, that you love, its insect protein and algae. How is that going to change how you feel about that togetherness with the people that you treasure? And what it means to steal an orange from a child. Yes, yes. Here's how you describe how the media captures images of people who are enduring starvation. This is from page four. You say, those black and white newspaper photos in which people appeared as sunken eyes and twig-thin limbs facing a photographer who could do nothing for them. Their fullness, their love, their humor, their annoyance, their preference, paired by the lens to reveal what remained, which was hunger.

11:32We all know those photos. We've all seen those photos. But it's not often that we even think about what's behind that photo. What inspired you to write that? I think a lot about how one of the things that fiction can do is help us approach the truth of another person in their fullness, right? Yeah. So even when we see a photo of somebody who is flattened in a moment of crisis, who is reduced to their crisis, fiction can restore who they are. Fiction can give them back their jokes, their humor, their love, their irritations, the things that annoy them. Everything that makes them who they are. I think that is a beautiful task that fiction can take on.

12:27And so how long have you been writing? I've been writing since I was a child, but I was writing seriously. I started writing seriously in college. Yes. And did you always know that this is what you were going to do, that you had a gift for language? No. When did you know? When did you know? I think I knew when... So writing is not just about writing, right? It's about living in a mode of inquiry. It's about living with attention. I think that is just absolutely on cue, that it's about living with attention. Because what I notice is that writers pay attention to everything and you will find something maybe interesting one day and not use it in the story until five, 10 years later.

13:23Has that happened to you? Exactly. Yes. Yes. Very much so. news stories that I read when I was in middle school, showed up in my first book, things that I noticed when I'm out on a walk. You know, if you think about your own neighborhood, if you think about the doors and houses and people and gardens that you pass by, and you think about, well, how would I put this in words? Where's the language for this? And the other thing that happens when you think of yourself as a writer is you understand that you have to be okay with failing. This was new to me too, because writing is so often about having a vision for the story that you want to tell, and you sit down to write it and you understand that you can't do it.

14:13It's difficult. You fail a lot, and sitting with yourself... You fail because what? They're not words? You fail because... You can't find the words. You can't find the right words. You can't find the right words. You can't find the words that are true. You start up here and you have to excavate the language until you get to the truest layer. Oh, I love that. Ooh, girl, snap, snap. We need to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Uncovered windows can make your home feel up to 20 degrees hotter. Stay cool and save up to 50 % off custom window treatments during the 4th of July mega sale at blinds.com.

14:54From outdoor shades to room darkening blinds, finding the perfect fit is easy. Get free samples, expert design help, and professional measure and install services. Or DIY with confidence and support every step of the way. Shop up to 50 % off site-wide plus huge savings on doorbusters right now during the 4th of July mega sale at blinds.com. Welcome back to Oprah's Book Club, presented by Starbucks. I'm here with the very talented author of my September book club pick, A Guardian and a Thief. Okay, so here is a passage that I think is the truest language, as is every word in this book. You write on page 24, In better years in this kitchen, Ma had hummed as she cleaned chickens to roast, flesh like her flesh, washed potatoes sprouting white eyeballs.

15:47It's the first time I thought of those little buds as little eyeballs. White eyeballs and mushrooms with mud in their caps, measured and rinsed cups of rice, pouring the residue like an overcast sky in the bowl, down the drain, not minding if a few grains slipped into the sink. And I'm like, I have washed rice many times and I never thought of the water that rinses off as an overcast sky. How do you come up with that? I think anybody can do it. You just look. You just look with attention and you think, well, what am I really seeing here and what are the connections that are forming for me in my mind?

16:37I love this because I feel like everybody here can be a fiction writer. If you're a reader, you can write. And if you look and you allow yourself to stay in that moment, even though it feels like an ordinary or banal moment, if you allow yourself to look for what is extraordinary and beautiful and worthwhile in it, you can see it too. You can see it. Yes. So I think it's so interesting the way everybody sees America, Ma sees America as this place of refuge and freedom. And you came here, as I understand it, when you were 19. And what did America hold for you? I moved here at 19 to go to college.

17:23I received financial aid and I was very lucky. It was a gift from out of the blue. And it represented freedom to think for myself. The reason I started applying to schools in America from India was the schooling system that I was in felt very rigid to me. I was taught to learn with the aim of succeeding at exams. And I knew that that's not the mode in which I wanted to do college. And I wanted to come to this country to go to classes where I would be encouraged to form an opinion, to argue, to question what I read and to think for myself. Wow. And that obviously happened, sister. Okay, this audience has a lot of questions for you.

18:16Where's Rochica? Rochica, hi. Hi, question for Megha. Both my parents were actually born and raised in Kolkata as well. So it was really special to read the story and see it take place in that city. My dad came to the States to go to college as well. And my mom joined a few years later after they got married. For them, America was a land of opportunity, potential. What do you think America represented for Ma, Mishti, and Dadu? That's a great question. And I'm so happy that we are in the same room now. I think for the characters Ma, Mishti, and Dadu, America represented certainly a better future, a more secure future, but it had different textures for Ma, who's the mother, and Dadu, who's the grandfather.

19:11The different texture was that for Ma, she was purely excited. She wanted that escape. She wanted that feeling of freedom and safety for her daughter. And she knew that she was escaping to a place that was far away from her hometown, which she loved and adored and would miss. But it was also a city where she had been harassed as a girl. And she knew what it was like to be in the streets of that city as a girl. So there were injuries that she could finally escape from. And for Dadu, the elderly man who always paid more attention to the street side jokes and conversations and the poetry and the laughter of the city, he felt that he would be diminished.

20:05There would be a version of himself which he would leave behind in his hometown. It would not go along with him. So there was immigration. There's pride in it, but there's also a wound. There's also a wound which never heals. The wound of having to leave your country that you love. Exactly. I remember when I called you, and you were still so shocked, telling you that I was confused as to why Ma was lying to her husband, even though, were you all confused too? Why was she lying even though they faced disaster after disaster and so many obstacles? And you told me. That. OK, who here in this room currently lives far away from home, from where you grew up?

21:04Yes. OK, so I think I think that you will understand that feeling when you live far away from your parents, that when you speak to them on the phone, you have to protect them. You cannot let them worry about you. That is your gift of love to them. I am okay. Everything is okay. And I wanted to talk about that kind of loving lie through Ma and her relationship with her husband. He's so far away. he's in Michigan, she's in Kolkata. There's nothing he can do. But what she can do for him is she can protect him. You're not convinced? Not one bit. You know what I think? I think it must be a cultural thing.

21:57I think it must be a part of your culture that that's what you do is to protect your parents. Because my culture says, help. Help me now. What can you do to get me out of this? That's the culture I'm coming from. I love it. Anybody else come from that culture? But I hear what you're saying. But I don't get it. I mean, even at the end, which I'm not going to, even the end, the last time she had an opportunity, she didn't and she is she trying to protect him then or does she is she gonna wait till she gets home to tell him what i mean was she still trying to protect him or is i thought well is she is she still trying to protect him or is she just now so accustomed to not telling him the truth that right she is she is too deep in the story that she has fabricated that things are okay and in that moment, which I won't give away, she decides that she has to continue doing that for him.

23:05That is the form in which she gives him love from so far away. Yeah. I think you did such a masterful job, really, of allowing us to see the characters as both guardians and thieves. I saw both of them as guardian and thieves. Did you all too? At first I thought there was going to be a guardian and then there's a thief. And then I thought both are guardians in their own way and both are thieves. Is this how you see human nature? Because at first I wanted Boomba, I was like sick of him. Very sick of Boomba. And then I think over time we changed, right Tonda? Yeah, I was so sick of him. Oh my gosh, I was sick of him.

23:53Then I was like, oh, wait, he's just a little boy. He's a guardian. He's looking up at these people. He's a guardian too. And so you did this on purpose, obviously. Yes. That's such a beautiful question and a beautiful reading. Yes, I was interested in how there are no villains and there are no saints. You know? Within each of us, there is the impulse to protect and love. And there is that capacity to harm others if we need to for the people that we love, I think. That's one of the questions that I started out with is, would I do this? Would you do this? You know, where would the borders of your moral self be?

24:43And what would you do if you felt like your love was pushing you up against those borders? Yeah, because that moment in the book where we get to understand why the thief does what he does. Yes. Here's what you say about Boomba on page 87. But pity was not a relationship. It was the rejection of a relationship. Boomba vowed he would not make a living through pity. Like his mother, planting saplings until a million were in the soil, he would find freedom in his work. What does Boomba represent to you? I wanted to explore the reality of two kinds of guardians. One who has resources, is pretty assured of safety to come, and one who is really struggling.

25:30So Bumba is a villager. He's a young man. He is struggling to find a foothold in the city, and he wants to protect his younger brother. He adores this little kid. Which makes him a guardian. Exactly, exactly. And he will do anything for this little kid. And he wants to come to this city and... But he also wants to impress his parents, too. He also wants to be the man and wants to be able to say, which I think is also cultural, very cultural. Yeah, he has made a mistake, which I will not get into, but he feels that being in the city alone is his chance to address that mistake, to fix what he did.

26:15A big thank you for joining Oprah's Book Club, presented by Starbucks. Our conversation continues when we come back. This summer, Prime Video takes you back before Legally Blonde, before law school, and into the world of Elle Woods in high school. Set in 1995, this Gemini vegetarian knows exactly who she is. Until her family moves from Bel Air to Seattle. Packed with iconic fashion, 90s nostalgia, and a throwback soundtrack, Elle proves one thing. Law school was hard. High school was harder. From the world of Legally Blonde, watch Elle, a new original series only on Prime Video. Watch now. We're back in New York City at a cozy Starbucks cafe with Megha Majumdar and a live audience of readers.

26:59Her new book, A Guardian and a Thief, sparks such a thoughtful conversation. Where's Florin? You're Florin. Okay. Hi. I have to tell you that the passage on page 147 really, really connected with me, where you say, no, Boomba was no monster. All Boomba was was a man whose moral compass went and toured north of his own family. Wasn't that the most ordinary thing in the world? And so I guess my question to you is, What did you hope that this story would reveal about human nature under pressure?

27:36I love that question. Thank you. I think that the project of all fiction is to reveal something about human nature under pressure. Wow. and in this book I wanted to focus on a moment at the edge where something is about to change you don't quite know in what direction that change will occur and that moment of enormous pressure on these characters is going to show us I think how we will operate when we are in situations of crisis, when we are in unstable times and unstable situations, who will we become? Are we our truest selves now in this moment of peace and comfort and abundance? Or is there a truer self hiding within us, which will be revealed in a moment of scarcity and crisis?

28:38That's a good thought. Will you be able to hold on to the center of what you call your moral compass or your values and your standards in the time of great crisis or famine or disaster or, you know, will you be challenged? Yeah. Yeah. Where's Shannon? Shannon, where are you? Yeah. Hi. So, Megha, I smiled every time Dadu showed up on my page. He really resonated with me in the sense that he seemed to expect the best of his neighbors and the community. And it really, really resonated with me because it reminded me of my own mother. My mom grew up not in Kolkata, but in Georgiana, Alabama in the 50s.

29:20And she talks a lot about how community was everything and how society was ordered in institutions of community churches and unions and the family. And nowadays, you know, we think about the self and the individual. We take selfies. And I was curious from you, you know, with the generational shift between Ma and Dadu, did you mean to have a commentary about modern society in the way we think about ourself and the collective, as you beautifully put it? That's a beautiful question. Yes, you know, I wanted the reader to be invited into the city and to see how it is not only a place of problems, but through the secondary characters, there's a barber on the street, there's a rickshaw driver, there's a person playing the flute, there's a painter.

30:12Through all of these secondary characters, I wanted to show how vibrant this community is. This is a place of real networks and connections where people rely on each other, make claims on each other, depend on each other. And at the same time, in modern society, we also live under systems which do not serve us. So if you think about the characters, how they go somewhere for help initially, and they find that they are on their own. Right. I wanted to think about both sides of that, the love and the moments in which you realize, oh, this system is not made for me. It's such a huge theme and it's a backdrop of the whole book.

31:06The wealth and benevolence in that dinner without setting or giving away too much was such a moment of wild contrast and the choices. So what were you getting at? Your intentions throughout the book were so clear. The benevolent billionaire lady. That's a great question. That is a great question. I think a lot about class. I grew up in Kolkata, which is very stratified. I went to school and from the school bus, I would see little kids who were not going to school. They were by the roadside washing dishes or sleeping at a bus stop. And I was aware of class very early. So in this book, I really wanted to think about, well, in climate crisis, how are the different classes going to respond to this?

32:06What are we going to do with different levels of resources? what is generosity going to look like? What is gratitude going to look like? When people have an opportunity to seize more, how will they take that moment? I don't know that I have the answers, but you brought up the question, and that's the question I had as well. And so this woman who's very wealthy, her way of doing it is to bring all the children and to feed the children. When Boomba goes, this is a question I had, when Boomba goes... Why did he drag poor Misty along with him? Why did he drag Misty? Did he know he had to have Misty?