Why Research Matters: The Journey Behind My Stories

A story may begin with an idea, a face, a conversation, or a question that refuses to go away. But for me, it rarely ends there.

When I write about people, communities and the realities that surround them, I feel a responsibility to understand before I attempt to interpret. Research is not separate from my writing; it is part of the writing itself.

I need to know my characters

Before I write a character, I know them.

I speak with the people whose lives and experiences have shaped the characters in my books. I listen to their stories, understand their circumstances and try to see the world from where they stand. Even while working on my upcoming book Raktatirtha, I have spent a good amount of time meeting and speaking with people connected to the realities I am writing about.

There are, of course, characters who are imaginary—created to bring different threads of a story together. But when a character is rooted in a real person or a real social experience, I feel I must know that world intimately.

For me, research is a way of building that understanding.

Two years behind a book

The research for my books is not something I finish in a few weeks before beginning to write. I have spent nearly two years researching each of these works.

That time allows a story to reveal itself slowly.

I read. I observe. I travel. I speak with people. I listen to memories and experiences. I look at historical and social contexts. And sometimes, most importantly, I simply sit with what I have heard.

The more I learn, the more I realise how much there is that cannot be captured in a single book.

When one story becomes another

Prajacourt taught me this in a particularly meaningful way.

During the research and conversations surrounding the book, I encountered stories and experiences that I could not fit into Prajacourt. They belonged to the same larger world, but they had their own voices and their own truths.

I did not want them to disappear simply because they could not find a place in one narrative.

Some of those stories found their way into Dummati.

In that sense, my books are sometimes connected by more than theme. One book can leave behind stories that become the beginning of another.

And the research continues. Raktatirtha, my forthcoming work, has taken me deeper into another history and another set of lived experiences. Once again, the people I meet and the stories I encounter become essential to understanding the world I am trying to write about.

Research is more than facts

When writing about tribal communities in Odisha, history, displacement, injustice or social change, facts are important—but they are only the beginning.

A report can tell us that something happened. A conversation can sometimes help us understand what it meant to the person who lived through it.

That is why I believe a writer must listen as carefully as she reads.

Research should not simply confirm what we already believe. It should challenge us, complicate our understanding and sometimes make us change the story we thought we were going to write.

Knowing, before imagining

There is a certain freedom in knowing your characters well.

When I understand their circumstances, their fears, their hopes and the world they inhabit, I can allow the story to take shape around them. I know which parts are rooted in reality and which characters or situations I have created to weave the narrative together.

Research gives imagination its roots.

For me, it is ultimately an act of responsibility—to the people whose experiences enter my writing, to the history I engage with, and to the reader who trusts me with the story.

A book may take years to write.

But sometimes, the real writing begins long before the first sentence is put on paper.