Prashanth Srivatsa on using indigenous words in The Spice Gate

The Spice Gate is a gripping political fantasy set on the Silk Road. Following Amir, a Spice Carrier, who has the ability to travel between 8 kingdoms, Prashanth Srivatsa’s debut novel features a rich world and great exploration of the caste system. We are honoured to have Prashanth here on our site to chat about The Spice Gate: 

How did you pick the 8 spices in the book? Are they the most common ones?

In India, turmeric, black pepper, ginger, cumin, cloves and cardamom are extremely common in day to day food preparations. Saffron is used sparingly, given how expensive it is. Cinnamon is popular in Sri Lanka, where it’s grown widely. Nutmeg is used in certain foods, especially biryani, which features prominently in The Spice Gate.

For each spice, please pick your favourite dish that the spice is essential to. 

Ginger – goes best with tea.

Saffron – also tea, but green tea. The Kashmiri Kahwa.

Turmeric – Dal Tadka, which goes great with cumin (jeera) rice.

Black Pepper – Pongal. It’s a rice and lentil porridge of sorts, which also has split mung dal, lots of ghee, and curry leaves.

Mace and nutmeg – the most underrated elements of a well-made biryani.

Cloves & Cardamom – Paneer Butter Masala

Cinnamon – Caramel Cinnamon Barfi

There are a lot of descriptions about scents within The Spice Gate, which we thoroughly enjoy. Why do you think novels tend to lack descriptions of smell?

I honestly don’t know. I do think novels explore smell, but from my experience, they largely veer towards perfumes and body smells. Smells are the most beguiling of our senses. They trigger memories, of people & places, and I’d love for more novels to explore what it means for a character to encounter a smell that takes them elsewhere.

Absolutely love the fact that each chapter has an excerpt from an encyclopaedia entry, or a quote. How did you come up with these? 

The quotes are part of a richer world lore, which do not necessarily have a role in the story, but still give some information about the world these characters inhabit. During the old spice trade across the Silk Road, spices were used in countless ways, by so many people, that food was only one small part of it. I tried to study their other uses, as indicators of class, in funeral rites, as well as in medicine (I wouldn’t recommend this now).

The world in The Spice Gate is so complex. Did you plan the world building before you plotted the story or?

I had always wanted to write a story set on the Silk Road. Journeys across the Silk Road would be long and arduous, through treacherous terrains. I wanted to see how society would function if that distance was eliminated. How could religion and trade intertwine? I realized there would always be a people struggling to make ends meet, going to great lengths to survive. That’s when the key conflict of the Carriers being exploited to serve the spice trade emerged. There, I found Amir.

There are words that readers might not be familiar with, along with so many places and names that readers need to learn. Were you worried that it might be too much to handle? There is a handy pronunciation guide but no definition guide. Why did you decide upon that? 

I wanted readers to discover new foods and words wherever possible. I am not one who believes that a wanton use of indigenous words in books is necessarily a representation of that culture. It might create a set dressing of authenticity, but that alone is never sufficient. In the case of The Spice Gate, however, those words mean more than merely creating that impression. Even specific cuss words have casteist undertones. Certain foods are rather untranslatable and evoke strong memories when spoken in the original language. I wanted those readers to find pleasure when they encountered those words, at the expense of few other readers, who might have to admittedly google them to know the meaning, though I am hoping they end up all the richer for it.

There are heavy themes about the caste system and injustice in The Spice Gate. Why do you think it’s so important for fantasy series to tackle political issues as well? 

It’s almost a cliché now to say that all art is political. Fantasy especially, traditionally, has been a medium or genre where overcoming oppression has been a recurrent theme. But more so, Fantasy is meant to both hold a mirror to our reality as well as stretch our imaginations to envision societies different from ours. Concepts like immigration, war, caste, gender and sexuality, and religion, are explored through unique lenses in fantasy that make us rethink how we approach them in our real lives. They are important because they give agency to characters who have historically been denied it. Equally importantly, they also open us up to the idea of cultures different from the ones we grew up in.

And let’s not kid ourselves, we love some dragons to go with all of it.

And finally, what should we look forward to in the next book? 

I’m currently working on two independent epic fantasy duologies, one of them filled with pirates and poems, and the other with floating cities and a rebellious princess. I hope either or both of them win your hearts if (dare I say when?) they see the light of day. Thank you so much for this!

The Spice Gate by Prashanth Srivatsa is published by Harper Voyager UK. (July 18)