Lakshmi Puri's Novel Reimagines India's Freedom Struggle Through Love, Loss, And Grit

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Lakshmi Puri's debut novel brings India's independence era alive through two sisters' journeys, echoing the quiet power of everyday lives shaped by extraordinary times.
You know how they say everyone carries a novel within them? I wouldn't have guessed that when I met Lakshmi Puri in Budapest, where she was serving as India's ambassador to Hungary. That was nearly 25 years ago. I was there for one of those 'reporter stories", the kind that takes unexpected turns—but that's a tale for another time.
Back then, I couldn't have imagined that the story Puri now tells in her debut novel had already begun to stir inside her. At the international launch of Swallowing the Sun at the stately National Liberal Club in London last week, she revealed that she resumed work on the book after a gap of 22 years. That means she may have been writing—or at least playing at writing—even then, all while navigating an extraordinary career that would later include top roles in the Indian Foreign Service, as Assistant Secretary-General at the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women.
Through it all, this novel—set around India's independence—seems to have quietly taken root and refused to let go. Somewhere in the background, it was writing itself long before it got written.
The result is a remarkable work of fiction anchored in a period deeply familiar to every Indian. The Indian freedom struggle continues to fascinate us—meeting or even hearing about someone who lived through that time is always compelling. Swallowing the Sun captures the pulse of that era not through sweeping historical dramatics, but through ordinary lives rendered in extraordinary ways.
Inspired by the real-life story of her parents—her father, who contributed to drafting the Indian Constitution, and her mother, a rare woman graduate of the time—Puri transforms their lived experiences into characters negotiating the emotional, social, and political upheaval of the era. The novel is not just felt—it is feeling, distilled.
At its heart are two sisters, Malati and Kamala, who grow up in a village in Maharashtra and later attend Elphinstone College in Bombay. Malati, spirited and strong-willed, challenges patriarchal, caste, and religious boundaries. She falls in love with Guru, a lawyer she later marries. Their romance is inspired by real letters exchanged by the author's parents, lending the narrative both intimacy and authenticity.
These are not stories of simplistic heroism. They are layered with compromise, disillusionment, resilience, and quiet courage—the kind that unfolds in everyday life. Malati's strength is rendered not through grand gestures but in the granular details of experience. This is not the mythologised valour of Jhansi ki Rani, though that too deserves respect. Instead, it is the story of daring to dream, to live, and to persist in the face of contradictions.
The novel also includes characters from the British milieu—professors at Elphinstone College, including a fictional younger brother of PG Wodehouse, and a cameo by Annie Besant. These additions expand the texture of the world without turning every encounter into a clash between binaries. Conflicts emerge, but not all are confrontational or ideological. Some are simply, and more compellingly, human.
'I wanted to enrich the global garden of English with exotic plants from India's past and be part of 'the Empire Writes Back' of the Salman Rushdie movement," Puri told me. Indeed, while Midnight's Children is an iconic work, I've never quite warmed to Rushdie's cerebral force or his ornate style. For a felt story, grounded in lived experience, I'd pick Swallowing the Sun any day.
First Published:
July 01, 2025, 08:49 IST