Mamta Nainy

Tell us something interesting about yourself:
I have a weakness for collecting beautiful notebooks... that I’m too scared to write in.

Current job title:
Writer, editor, translator.

Tell us your favourite medium for reading:
Physical books, because nothing beats the smell of paper, the drama of a slammed-shut ending, or the workout you get lugging three hardcovers around “just in case.”

Tell us your favourite location for reading:
My big, delightfully messy dining table doubles as my writing desk. But I believe a creative space is something we build inside ourselves – so I can read anywhere: on buses, on the metro, in noisy cafés, even while waiting in line at the grocery store.

How would you describe your identity?
Born in New Delhi, India, I’m of South Asian Sindhi descent. Both sets of my grandparents arrived by ship to Bombay from Karachi in late 1947, soon after the Partition of India and Pakistan. One set of my grandparents settled in Delhi, while the other in Kutch, Gujarat.

I was raised in a single-mother home, having lost my father at the age of four. I believe I contain multitudes and, in many ways, I find myself a hyphenated human. I am multilingual and polycultural. But I also feel these labels are restrictive, while my identity is not. It’s ever-evolving and yet continuing to be. I think a significant part of my sense of self comes from my writing, where, in telling other people’s stories, I somehow tell mine.

Book title:
Rainbow Hands (2022); My Momo-la is a Museum (2024)

What inspired your creative process in writing or illustrating your book?
I believe one of the best ways to introduce children to individuality, non-conformity, and diversity is through stories. The strictly binary notion of gender, of what it means to be male or female, has a significant bearing on how our lives turn out to be. It restricts us into predefined moulds. And with the social norms and popular culture reinforcing these highly codified notions, it’s quite easy for children to grow up internalising outmoded gender stereotypes and get a muddled view about their own identities.

Unnecessary gendering is a societal issue, and the performative aspect of gender is framed and taught fairly early on in life. The simple act of putting a colour on one’s nails, for instance, is considered so gendered that I felt there was a compelling need to liberate the thought process of children and give them a more balanced view of gender, which is what the book attempts to do.

Favourite character or moment from the book – and why?
I think one of my most favourite moments in the story is the one where the child’s grandfather offers him the warmth of acceptance, and that makes the child want to paint his nails in the colour of the softest cotton candy, a sweetest pink. More often than not, adults burden children’s imagination and creativity with their own ideas of gender, like, for instance, the father does in the story. But the grandfather in the story encourages the child to be himself without judgement. It is also an invitation to adult readers to reflect on their own positionalities and to support children to blossom into who they really are.

What themes or messages does your book raise?

1. The importance of letting young children have the freedom to find their individual expressions and their place on the gender spectrum. There are many possibilities of gender and how one chooses to express it.

2. Nail polish, or any make-up/fashion for that matter, is a way of self-expression. It has nothing to do with gender. The story is about an everyday boy doing everyday things – painting nails included – and tries to establish the idea of a boy wearing nail polish as normative.

3. Although the story is largely about self-expression and identity, it also addresses the wonderment of childhood and the joy children feel when they are able to exercise their imagination.

How would you describe your artistic or writing style in three words?
Lyrical, warm, wonder-filled.