There is a world of difference. The writing of Cracking India was an intuitive process, where one paragraph led into the next, and the plot, as it unfolded, had to be nursed. It took me approximately four years to create the novel. It came from within me, because it was based on my imagination and experiences. In the case of writing the Water novel, the plot and characters were already there, but I had to bring the skeletal script and cinematic images to life with words. Besides, there was a severe time constraint; the novel had to be written in three months: I took four. This pressure changed my writing process, and to an extent, my style. I have never worked so hard, but it was for me a new and exhilarating experience.

Water focuses on a very young girl widowed at age 8 from an arranged marriage (under which she had never lived with her husband). What as a novelist attracted you to this story and how is the story told differently in the novel?

Besides being a gripping story, the plot deals with a subject close to my heart - that of the oppressive hold tradition has on women, in this case, religious tradition. It tells of oppression and the constraints that govern even a girl-child's life in a patriarchal society. I have always been active in women's issues.

Cracking India is also told from the viewpoint of a very young girl. How does a character that age affect the telling of the story?

A child's voice can be very tedious. In both novels, I was careful to avoid this. Lenny, the child in Cracking India, is a complex creation. The reader is made aware of the sophisticated adult consciousness that informs her telling. I had to resort to all kind of ruses to have Lenny be present on all occasions. Although the child is central to the Water novel, the story is not narrated from her point of view and I could use the authorial voice at will. Some of the other adult characters are equally important. I used the omniscient voice, which allowed me to develop and give depth to the other adult characters as well.

How do you view the different women characters in Water – there is quite a range. What does this range say to the reader?

The major female characters in Water are Hindu widows. They come from varying backgrounds but their widowhood nullifies their class distinctions and brings them all to the same level of degradation and deprivation. The strength of character or weakness each possesses contributes to the outcome of their various roles and drives the narrative. Kalyani, for example, is one of those hapless creatures who has very little control over her life - things happen to her and her gentle nature and rigid traditional background make her accepting of what befalls her. On the other hand Madhumati, the head honcho of the ashram, is a manipulative, strong-willed person who can impose her authority on the other widows and rule the ashram with their compliance. The widow Shakuntala, who has no children of her own, gradually finds her dormant nurturing instincts come alive. She finds the strength to question the traditions that govern the lives of widows and to defy them in order to protect the child and to eventually change the direction of her life. Like Lenny in Cracking India, Chuyia is a feisty, intelligent child with a will of her own.

A true story similar to Water seems unimaginable in the US. But, where do you see resonances with American culture, if at all?

The oppression of women in the poorer classes all over the world is the same; the means and instruments of oppression vary. Divorce often leaves American women destitute. Violence against women is almost endemic even in America, although there is more awareness of it and better laws and institutions to protect women. Whereas the right to have an abortion is available in India, it is becoming less of an option now in the U.S, depriving women of control over their bodies. Such infringements on American women's rights are dictated by the patriarchy under the guise of religious tradition. The First Amendment is often sighted to protect those who exploit women in films and pornographic photographs verging on the sadistic.

Were you in India during the filming of Water, which was shut down in 2000? Have you encountered readers who have wanted to ban your novels?

I was not there for the filming, but Deepa kept me informed about the incidents. When a case of plagiarism was brought against Deepa's script after her sets were destroyed, I wrote in the Indian papers defending her position. The charge was absurd. A film – script is like a notebook in which a the script-writer jots down ideas and no one needs read it, let alone comment on it, prior to the filming.

With my novel The Crow Eaters, I was the first woman from the Indian Subcontinent to indulge in funny, bawdy and irreverent literature. I am also the first to portray the awakening of sexual feelings in young girls. This is present in all my novels, and based on my own feelings and experiences while growing up. This has made me vulnerable to attacks from people who want to believe that little girls should be totally asexual. They would rather turn a blind eye to the reality of what a girl-child feels and experiences. A mom in Florida recently tried to ban my novel Cracking India. She thought a scene in which the girl rebuffs a fumbling sexual advance from her 9-year old cousin was pornographic and not fit reading for her daughter who is in the laureate program in her high school. Although the Library Journal reported positively on the incident, stating that the committee appointed to judge the book overwhelmingly supported its teaching, it might prevent some teachers from assigning the book.

Did you begin working on the novel, Water, after the movie had finished shooting?

Yes. I began work on the novel after Deepa Mehta sent me a rough edit of the film.

In Water, Hindu tradition says that widows are not to remarry and are bad luck for others and should be kept apart. You have worked for women's rights throughout your life. How do you see women especially struggling with tradition?

It is true; Hindu widows almost never remarry. In rare instances, however, they are permitted to remarry their dead husbands' brothers. The influence of Hindu tradition has permeated most Indian cultures, including my Zoroastrian community, and widows are considered ill-fated harbingers of bad-luck all over South Asia. With education, and the exposure to the global community, many families reject these notions but patterns of thought are entrenched and difficult to shrug off. Women in India are battling the dowry system, which causes the family of the bride to incur crippling debts. Most instances of alleged bride-burning occur either because the expectations of the groom's family are not met, or because remarriage will bring the widowed groom another of dowry goodies. In the larger cities women activists stake out the house where they believe this crime has occurred and insist that the culprits face murder charges.

The struggle for women is different in each country and varies according to religious dictates and cultural norms. Women are oppressed wherever there is more poverty. In many poor families women are forced to hand over the money they earn to their husband.

Although Islam allows women to inherit property and run businesses, the patriarchal dominance is so deeply entrenched that most women in Pakistan are not actually permitted to enjoy economic freedoms. This is largely true in all land-holding, agricultural sections of Indian society, where women own land "on paper," but are seldom allowed to control it. In the case of Hindu widows, who are sent to ashrams or otherwise kept apart, the patriarchy has brought these conditions about so that a woman gets disinherited and the family property stays among the males.

Women in Pakistan are also fighting to have the draconic Hadood Laws, introduced by General Zia in the 1980's, repealed. This law requires the victim of rape to produce four eye-witnesses and if she cannot do so she is charged with committing Zinna (having sex outside of marriage) and punished. It is difficult to recount all the fronts women are fighting on. I started out being an activist by writing in the news papers about many of these issues, and was a founding member of the Women's Action Forum. As the president of the International Women's Club I got deeply involved in the Destitute Women's and Children's Home and orphanages. Some of what I learnt there is reflected in my novels.

Water is set in the 1930s. How much of the life of widows is the same today? Are women still shut away and prostituted? Do you see any connections between this and the international traffic in women as sex slaves?

There are ashrams along the major Indian rivers where Hindu widows live in much the same oppressive circumstances that are portrayed in the novel and young widows are prostituted to maintain the ashrams. Many land-lords in the rural areas situated near the ashrams keep widows for sexual purposes.

Yes of course, when women are degraded and their position in society is so weak, it is easy to profit from exploiting their sexuality. Poorer families literally sell their girls to pimps under the cloak of fictitious marriages.

How has writing Water been different from writing your other books? Did you make changes from the film?

My writing process is subjective, born of my experiences, thoughts, fantasies and imagination and they have combined to give me a distinctive writing style and voice. Water, my novel based on Deepa Mehta's film of the same name, is essentially the creation of another person's imagination.

When I started to work on the Water novel, after repeatedly watching the film, I had trouble getting to grips with writing the story. It was not until I created the prologue, which deals with the defining events in Chuyia's life before the film narrative begins, that I was able to write. In creating a new beginning I was able to make the story mine, and I could more or less maintain the voice that holds the novel together.

There is a lot going on beneath the surface of the film which I was able to bring out by creating the background narratives of the lives of the characters, their internal dialogues and motivations. I have described the religious laws which dictate the circumstances of the characters that cannot be dealt with in the film format.

The film deals with images, and as they say: 'An image is worth a thousand words.' This is difficult to contend with, but the characters can be given added depth and richness through words. There is the opportunity to analyze the characters' motivations, add more dialogue and go into their minds. The mediums are so different that each is enriched by a different means. The straight-jacket of time that confined the film can be disposed of in a novel; it can meander a bit more and cover a larger canvas.