Interview with Ruchir Joshi, Editor-Electric Feather:The Tranquebar Book of Erotic Stories

Some could argue that Ruchir Joshi had an enviable job there for a while, editing a book of erotic stories. Enviable maybe, but certainly not easy. To start with there isn’t much Indian work in the past to go by and set the bar to. Ye Olde Kamasutra would hardly qualify as erotica and there isn’t much ( or none?) in the way of a collection of modern Indian erotic stories. Ruchir Joshi faced  a “Wall of Rejections”, he got turned down, tuned out and “smiled” at. He stayed put to ask “How do you know what will emerge if you put your mind, memory and imagination to thinking about desire and sex?” The answer is a collection of stories by some well known writers of the subcontinent.

Here’s a Q&A with Ruchir Joshi, Editor, Electric Feather:The Tranquebar Book of Erotic Stories

FoB: Erotica, Porn…what’s the difference and what criteria did you use for selection?

Ruchir Joshi: Porn is a `one-time use’ thing, erotica you get new meanings new pleasures each time you read, just like any other serious literature.

FoB: What were some of the best and worst responses you got when you sent out your request to authors.

Ruchir Joshi: Worst: `I’m not writing smut for you, pal!’ Best: `Oh, me too! Can I please write for you?’

FoB: What was the most challenging part of editing the collection?

Ruchir Joshi: Waiting to get all the stories.

FoB: Did you reject any stories. What were the reasons?

Ruchir Joshi: A few. They didn’t work as fiction or literature or erotica.

FoB: Clearly publishers are willing to take more “risks” now than ever before? And yet the social political climate of our times is tinged with regressive, almost victorian overtones. What gives?

Ruchir Joshi: I think there will be a growing split between people who yearn for sexual freedom and people who are threatened by that yearning. Hopefully, the overwhelming majority will be wanting freedom from prudishness and repressive religiosities and the Victorian-Stalinist-Jihadi-Chaddis will slowly but surely have to give up the battle.

FoB: How has the response been and is there going to be a volume 2?

Ruchir Joshi: The response has been great. No plans yet, for a volume two.

How to ace the ABC’s of Parenting this Children’s Day.

The last thing a busy parent (are there a non-busy parents out there?) needs is a tome on parenting that requires copious note taking and quick runs to the dictionary (and/or Wikipedia). Gouri Dange’s new book ABC’s of Parenting makes for an easy read. It goes from A to Z with succinct and engaging notes. You may decide to start from A and go on or you may open it to whichever page you can with one hand, while you juggle the milk bottle, school bag and fancy dress costume with the other. The language is simple and the advice practical. Gouri Dange is a writer, editor and counsellor based in Pune, India.

FriendsOfBooks talked to Gouri Dange to get some more info on her book and some nuggets on parenting.

FoB : Another book on parenting? How is this one different?

Gouri Dange: Like everyone thinks their kid is unique, I too think that my book is unique! No…just kidding. Actually I don’t think there are enough books on parenting! Not Indian parenting, at least. There’s a lot of psycho-babble out there, and there’s plenty of stuff on baby care, but my book looks at many of the demands of parenting in the contemporary Indian milieu. It is also free of jargon, and is written in a reflective and empathetic tone that has appealed to readers. I didn’t actually set out to write this book; I put it together by picking up recurring themes from the questions raised by people in my Parenting columns and in counselling sessions.

FoB: How is parenting different for young parents today as opposed to say, their parent’s generation?

Gouri Dange: Heaps different. On the good side, perhaps people are today more aware and thinking parents, alive to all the wonderful things as well as dangers in the world out there. But the flip side of this is that many parents today are grossly over-focussed on their children. There is such a desperation to ‘get it all right’ and ‘not screw up’ as parents that a lot of us have stopped trusting our instincts and this makes us anxious and over watchful parents…which of course gets transferred to our kids.

FoB: What about joint families where the young parent’s ideas of parenting may be different from that of the kid’s grandparents. How does one find a balance while living under the same roof with the other two generations?

Gouri Dange: Ah, you bring me to my favourite theme of co-operation rather than competition. If egos, know-it-allness and inter-generational brinkmanship would be given a backseat, then this combination of parents and grandparents can bring a whole lot of wonderful things into a child’s life. It’s easier said than done, I know, but when more than just the 2 parents are involved with a child, it’s best that each person be allowed to bring their own perspective and parenting skills to the table. It’s the best way, not only to avoid conflict, but also to have a child benefit from all the collective wisdom that there is in the family, in whatever different forms. It’s crucial that families don’t play out power games through kids – that is much more damaging to a child than any conflicting ideas about parenting.

FoB: Is there some such thing as “too much parenting” ?

Gouri Dange: Oh yes there is. I see it all around me. The first sign is when a parent has absolutely no interest in any other child outside its own – any other child is seen and screened only for its potential as a friend to this child! The other sign is the constant supervision and overfocussing on a child’s every move, thought, word, interaction. It’s claustrophobic, and I wish parents would not do it – it’s control, really, rather than parenting.

FoB: What is the one thing that you find the most common cause of concern, yet least addressed.

Gouri Dange: I find, particularly in India, it is the blind, unbridled pursuit of the SELF and its perceived NEEDS that is a cause for concern. The need for instant gratification, the constant yearning for more, bigger, better – we see this in the adult world, and it is now here in full force in the child world. Everywhere, people seem to be teaching their kids (under the guise of that old bugbear ‘competition, competition’) to think only for themselves, without any larger community to think of. I find that very distressing, and it is what leads kids ultimately to be unhappy, unaccommodating, unwilling to work in harmony, and bad at most relationships.

FoB: Finally, how does one deal with people who don’t see (while others can) that they are raising an impossible brat ( maybe there’s another book for you!)

Gouri Dange: Hmm…I would at first try to be direct – not blunt and nasty, but just direct. Especially if I am close to the parents, I would ask them to trust me on this, and to listen to what I have to say about how their kid is turning out. If they stonewall me, or argue, and simply don’t take my feedback or suggestions on board, then I would go ahead and respond to the child in a way that I feel fit. So at least the child has one close person who does not accommodate brattish behaviour. I may not of course be very popular with that child, but in the long-run, I may find that the child doesn’t do a lot of the unbearable things when with me, that he can usually pull off with his/her parents. It’s hard work, trying to un-brat a brat. It’s so much easier-lazier parenting to let a kid go down the brat lane.

Visit Gouri Dange’s blog here.

AWOL or what?

No, we haven’t gone AWOL. The last few months at the FriendsOfBooks office have been terrifically busy. First we had technical housekeeping  that was on TOP priority and then there was some literal housekeeping chores that needed attention as we made space for even more books (Yay!). In the mean, the off -office hours have been well spent with all the new books that’ve hit the markets.

First there was Mr. Dan Brown’s latest offering.

I have a theory: When you see too much of something around you, even if you wouldn’t care to notice it to start with…it will, in due course of time have an unexpected effect on you, whereby you will actually start to take an interest in it. That  is was happened with The Lost Symbol. With due apologies to Mr. Brown, it did not figure on the top of my bookshelf. Yet, I saw copies come in and out of the office by the dozens and at some point I said ” What the heck!”. To cut a long and dragging (and repetitive) story short- I should’ve stuck to my bookshelf!

The book that I had actually been waiting for since we started pre-booking it, was William Dalrymple’s Nine Lives. Now, that book did not disappoint me. Dalrymple did what he does best- takes you on a journey that is part travelogue, part history and part biography.

What am I reading now? I have bowed down once more to the “If I see it, I want it” (only in books!) gene. Chetan Bhagat’s Two States is everywhere I look, so I have been reading it off and on. Will post a review so you know what I think….soon!

Author Interview : Sunil Robert

Sunil Robert’s book I Will Survive is the story of the author’s own life- the tumultuous years of growing up in small town India, his struggles to make sense of the world around him and his learning the skills to negotiate the dark realities and emerge as a successful corporate executive.

FriendsOfBooks chatted with the author about his first book:

FoB:  Why did you feel compelled to write this book?
SR: The core desire stemmed from a series of incidents that unfolded since 2006 when i won the Stevie award for Best Corporate communicator. Stevie awards are really among the top notch awards that select people across the world for various categories. I was one of the first Indians to win in an individual category. As a result a lot of avenues opened in India and mostly in Hyderabad where i was called upon to share, counsel and impart lessons to young people. Unfortunately while i had the intent, time was a precious commodity and i could’nt handle the speaking opportunities that came way during the vacation months each year. That triggered the desire to capture my story in a form that can be made available even if i was not physically present in India. I believed that i had a compelling story to share not just because of the rags to riches element but also because of the wide range of experiences i had as an individual. Young people across our country resonated with the story, in retrospect it was worth the effort.

FoB: Who is the book aimed at or who is your “target audience”?
SR: I had two distinct groups, Young people who are on the threshold of adulthood and young executives in the corporate world. A large chunk of my experiences as well as the lessons i offer i think are aimed at these two groups as i distill 20 years of work experience into simple capsules of wisdom.  As readers started sharing their feedback with me, i discovered that anyone who grew up in the eighties and nineties would relate a lot more to the ethos i have painted in the book.

FoB:  You are very candid in the way you talk about your family especially your relationship to your father. What was the reaction of your family to the book?
SR: I think in Indian culture we look upon both our fortunes and misfortunes as a result of either good karma or bad karma. So there is a fatalistic acceptance of whatever comes our way. Our family went through a lot of pain, and I am sure that is not unusual in a country like ours where poverty seems all-pervasive. But the unique aspect of this book is the protagonist lays it out in the open, with ruthless honesty. The reaction of the family was ” Well, if the book can inspire many folks not to give up, in the face of adversity, then it is worth baring the soul.” In many ways it reinforced my own strength of conviction in God, and in the glory of human friendships. In Indian culture again, our parents are venerated because of “pithru devobhava – where we worship our father as equivalent to God. But once you remove the veneer of culture you will gain a perspective that even those we put on a pedestal have feet of clay.  The singular feedback was around the way i resolved the conflict with my father. Fortunately it has a happy ending, so the narrative has an uplifting purpose.

FoB:From a “Bible thumper” to  a rampuri wielding college student to a corporate executive, you’ve had a variety of life’s experiences, but it seems like there was always someone to cheer for you. The book is also at some level a lot of thank yous to people who have made significant contribution to your life. How much of that was good luck and how much your own networking and survival instinct?
SR: Someone defined Luck as labouring under correct knowledge. My favourite character in the world of comics is Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. In one of the comics, he walks around saying he is a child of destiny and then suddenly he is jolted by his mother to complete his essay. I sometimes get transported into a world of imagination and think to myself that I too am a child of destiny.  I certainly dont believe in luck. We, Indians are a religious lot. In telugu, my native tongue there is a proverb that says “Without the permission of Lord Shiva, even an ant wont bite” I believe I was specifically chosen by God to redeem our family from poverty. Perhaps i was God’s instrument to spread this gospel of hope as a result of this huge battle with adversity.  Today, when I hear someone share about how they hit a rock bottom, i know what they mean because I’ve been there too.  Survival instincts get the better of us all the time, but it takes a lot more than survival instincts for an 18 year old who was on the threshold of self-destruction or crime. It requires an awful amount of patience to grind one’s self and gradually lift a family out of deep valley of poverty. In the book, the myth of sisyphus, Albert Camus talks about the drudgery of existence. It is akin to Sisyphus rolling a stone up the mountain and watch the boulder roll down and do it every day. The existential angst and the turbulence of a teenage mind is a potent concoction that could have had a searing effect. But for the grace of God, here i am, a survivor to tell a story.

FoB: What next?
SR: I am still pursuing my corporate dreams as much as i am revelling in the journey of a writer. In the book i encourage a lot of people to go beyond the comfort zone. If you turn that advice onto myself, perhaps I should toy with some form of writing, this time maybe fiction, or some stuff aimed at children. Ocassionally i feel guilty that i neglected writing in Telugu which i did when i was a teenager,so may be return to my native lingo and experiment by teaming up with someone. The positive reception of “I will survive” is creating a momentum that will certainly help reach many young  people. My vision was to serve Indian young people and inspire them. We are now exploring US publishers to consider making the book available to India diaspora or other Western Indophiles. On the personal front, it was  a great joy to introduce my 8 year old son to the joys of writing. He started on a book called” The problems in my life”  I am already dreading how he would paint me in his book. I feel a sense of deja vu already.

More info about Sunil Robert’s can be found here. You can read Sunil’s book  here.

A year?Already?

It was a quiet birthday…especially for a one year old.

We launched FriendsOfBooks a year ago, with a quiet email to friends and well wishers. The email went out late at night. We had been working on the website for a long time but as the launch date approached the days and nights had become seamless. We were buying books, cataloging them, getting the bookshelves up and painted,bargained with vendors to bring down costs, signed contracts and juggled a hundred assorted errands that one learns nothing about at graduate schools or corporate jobs. The website went up, the email was sent and we collapsed on the bed.

Next day, like a kid on Christmas morn, we checked the email to see if anyone had registered. It was 10 in the morning….and we already had deliveries to make!!!

That was then and this is now…and what a year it has been!

Along the way, we’ve added thousands more books, extended services to all over India and made friends with complete strangers over emails for, about and of books.

Our “birthday” came and went a few days ago. In the mad dash to get the FriendsOfBooks Online Bookstore up and running before the Delhi Book Fair opens, we forgot to order cake and buy funny hats. The whistles too will have to wait as we step forward with our new gift to book lovers. Happy to report things were more sane and we have “matured”…though not in a
un-fun way…into a year old start-up.

Thanks book lovers and members of FriendsOfBooks for making this year fly by! and thanks as always for all the support and kind words you send our way.

Interview: Manreet Sodhi Someshwar, author of “The Long Walk Home”

Khushwant Singh calls Manreet Someshwar “a gifted writer of great promise”. Urvashi Butalia hails “The Long Walk Home” as  “A father’s remarkable journey towards a memory that eludes him” and goes onto say “It’s rare to come across a novel that is quiet and unassuming.”. India Today calls the book “A must-read for those of us who have been waiting for a promising book to come along.”

Manreet Sodhi Someshwar’s bestseller book indeed establishes her as a promising new writer with a lot to offer to the literary world in the coming years.

You can find the synopsis of The Long Walk Home here.

FriendsOfBooks caught up with the writer to find out more about her work:

FoB :One of the most striking things about the book is its structure. Did you always imagine it as a book that would straddle generations and times or was it something that came about as you worked on your initial drafts?

MSS: I started by wanting to write a novel around Sikh militancy. However, as I started, I realized I needed to understand its genesis, which in turn led me to researching that period. That research took me further back into history until I came to the realization that to tell the story effectively, I need to take the narrative arc from pre-partition all the way to the present.
When I realized that I would be telling the tumultuous 20th-century history of Punjab, I decided to refract it through the life of one individual. Hence, the device of layering the intimate with the epic to make history accessible.

FoB: The book is not just Baksh’s journey into his past but also the telling of the tumultuous history of the state of Punjab. What compelled you to tell the story of Punjab?

MSS: Though I am an avid reader, I read Khushwant Singh’s ‘Train to Pakistan ‘ a little late in life, in my twenties. The book taught me more about the partition of Punjab than my accumulated history lessons. I grew up in the border town of Ferozepur where a picnic was an outing to the banks of Sutlej – across the river was Pakistan, and entertaining guests meant a drive to the border to witness ‘Beating the Retreat’ ceremony at twilight. Weaned on an unintentioned diet of Pakistan TV (whose reception was better than that of DD Amritsar) and stories from undivided Punjab , I lived through the era of ‘Sikh militancy’. When I first started to write, in early 2001, India was on an economic ascendancy, the country’s mood was buoyant, and the era of Punjab ’s engagement with religious fundamentalism had been buried. The subject had not even been dealt with in fiction. Perhaps because I had grown up during that particular phase, it was still very vivid to me and I decided to write a novel that could deal with the ‘Sikh militancy’ much in the manner that Khushwant Singh’s ‘Train to Pakistan ‘ did with Partition.
I started with the courage of a novitiate for the task was ambitious, to say the least, especially for a first-time writer! However, as I researched the era I realized that my quest was taking me back in time to better understand the genesis of Sikh militancy and the Khalistan movement. And I realized that for me to be able to tell the story well, the narrative arc would need to start from pre-partition to present and in that ~ 100 year span, as I traced Punjab’s tumultous 20th-century history, through Partition, the linguistic division of Punjab, Green revolution, rise of fundamentalism, Operation Bluestar, I would be able to chart the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of Sikh militancy. In my novel, The Long Walk Home, I have attempted to illuminate this history by refracting it through the life of one ordinary Punjabi.

FoB: What are your earliest memories of growing up in Punjab during the
peak of militancy? As a young girl were you witness to political debates and shifting allegiances amongst people you knew? How much of the book was researching the history through books and how much was going back to oral histories from family, relatives and your own childhood in Punjab?

MSS: Strapping burly Sardars wrapped in lois (wool blankets), waiting for my father outside his office on misty winter mornings. As my father, a criminal lawyer would explain to us, the son would have been taken away in the night by police for interrogation, and would not have returned home. A lot of ‘encounter’ killings of ‘dreaded militants’ in Punjab occurred in this fashion. Since I grew up in the midst of the Khalistan movement, I became aware of a subtle shift in the mannerism and behaviour of family friends, neighbours who had until that point in time not been identified by their religion in my mind. The book sprang from both oral history and a ton of research. It is not possible to grow up in a border town and not be imbued with the stories circulating through it: of partition, its aftermath, the Indo-Pak wars, etc.

FoB: A Long Walk Home has a fairly large caste of characters. As you delineated each, whose was the hardest to write and why?

MSS: Baksh, of course. He is the character who is caught in the middle: as a secularist in the midst of an increasingly fundamentalist atmosphere; as a liberal father in a conservative Punjabi milieu; between his children and his wife; struggles to balance his professional aspiration against the demands of several relatives of an extended Punjabi clan.

FoB: As an author one has to be kind on oneself in order to create but a reviewer’s faculties are tuned into objectively critiquing. You also review books for South China Morning Post. Did writing about books professionally help as you worked on your own in avoiding possible pitfalls or identifying your own strengths?

MSS: As a writer, I try to be fearless. Once the first draft is written, I keep it aside for a while. Then I return to it as an editor, and that is where a reviewer’s faculties come in handy! So, in the first phase is all TLC (Tender Loving Care) and in the second, I start to ‘kill my darlings’ as I try to make it sharper, pacier, more lucid.

FoB:.…and how does being an IIM grad, an ex-corporate executive and a mom figure in all this?

MSS: I am of the firm belief that no experience is wasted. My first book, Earning the Laundry Stripes, leverages off my experience as the first woman in HLL Sales.

FoB: Being an IIM grad with corporate experience helps me bring a certain work ethic and discipline to my writing. After all, it commands the same (more, when you consider the lack of a monthly pay cheque, and absence of boss) rigour and motivation as any corporate work.

MSS: I regard myself as a full-time writer and a full-tile mother. In both cases, you learn on the job, the learning is constant, and just as you do not raise a child to be a great parent, you do not write to be a great writer – in both cases, the joy is in the act.

FoB:  What is your next book about?

MSS: My third book is a literary thriller which is complete and for which I shall be seeking publication soon.

FoB: What’s your creative process or your writing routine?

MSS: I have to steal time from my daughter to write. So, weekdays, four hours in the morning when she is at school.

Risen from the bed!

Hello and yeah, yeah, yeah…its been almost two months since the last post and there is no excuse- None whatsoever!
So since it rained where we are (Delhi) yesterday, and new buds shot out of our parched plants and tiny new sprouts of fresh ideas pop, pop, popped out of our heads, you’ll see many new changes on FriendsOfBooks….but that’s for later.
Last few evenings have been completely dedicated to the TV set. No sireee, we’re not into watching Rakhi Sawant doing Sach ka Saamna (though that’d be quiet a show!).We’ve been following the curves and contours of the Tour De France. Now that Contador has conquered, we’re back to thinking TV is …mehhh….borrring.
While we resolve our now on/ now off relationship with the TV in our office, here’s a poem from the man who says it straight and says it best when it comes to TV and the little people…and oh, all the CAPS are his,not ours. Enjoy!

Television

The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set –
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone’s place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they’re hypnotised by it,
Until they’re absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don’t climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink –
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK — HE ONLY SEES!
‘All right!’ you’ll cry. ‘All right!’ you’ll say,
‘But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!’
We’ll answer this by asking you,
‘What used the darling ones to do?
‘How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?’
Have you forgotten? Don’t you know?
We’ll say it very loud and slow:
THEY … USED … TO … READ! They’d READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching ’round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it’s Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There’s Mr. Rate and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They’ll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start — oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They’ll grow so keen
They’ll wonder what they’d ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

(Courtesy:www.poemhunter.com)

Serious Popular Fiction

by Anuradha Marwah

For years in the West people made a distinction between high and low art: serious literary fiction and popular novels. Serious used to be worthy or ‘great’ literature, usually realistic and message driven, prescribed to the impressionable for the elevation of their souls; whereas the popular was allied with the forbidden pleasure say of a romance that allowed escape into fantasy. It is argued that in India with her oral culture, at least traditionally, there was no such water-tight compartmentalization of the arts. The performance of Ramleela, for instance, would be instructive and entertaining; widely popular while based on a canonical text.

In the twentieth century things changed rather radically in the West with the development of culture studies as a discipline and, to cut a long and complex history short, serious-popular is no longer an oxymoron in the realm of arts and literature. However, to my mind, in contemporary Indian fiction in English the outdated dichotomy is being re-affirmed in the sudden burst of novels of a particular kind. It seems to be the consensus that popular novels should only entertain and to that end steer clear of political or intellectual pretensions. So, publishers in India seem to be exercising judgement in distinguishing between high-minded literary fiction that few would savour and ‘light’ books that target a new and increasingly younger and multitudinous readership. Popular Indian writing that is flooding the home market is thus mainly about young women looking for steady boyfriends or young men in elite institutions and jobs – and is slotted in genres like chick lit or campus novels.

I am not sure whether that is all there is to popular fiction or that it adequately meets the demands of the emerging market. I, for instance, passionately consume novels and am ready to go to outrageous lengths to get my hands on a thumping good read. But I also expect novels to change my world. I think the world in general can do with a makeover. And who else but writers who practice the exhilarating art of novel writing would be audacious enough, fool enough to try their hands at it! I find many gems in international lists – as I suspect do a large number of other Indian readers – but the distinction between ‘serious’ and ‘popular’ literature has become so ingrained at home that the minute a readable novel starts to get serious by way of theme the critics and reviewers scream murder. An interesting example is The White Tiger, the controversial Booker winner. Reviewer after reviewer commented on its lack of literary merit as though that is to be exclusively found in turn of phrase or lush imagery and the sheer readability of a work is of no account. It was unfairly contrasted with The Sea of Poppies, a very different kind of novel that depends on historical veracity and nuanced information that it provides to the reader for its effect and certainly not on sustaining creative tension through its immense mass. But Amitav Ghosh with his evident erudition is the epitome of a serious writer and Adiga, the youthful journalist, powered by the Booker, was allegedly blundering into the hallowed territory of social criticism.

So, it was Adiga’s novel that seethed with unexpected anger at feudal India and got a large number of unfavourable reviews at home that set me thinking about the need to make market space for what might be called ‘serious popular fiction’. Of course, ideally there should be no distinctions and no labels but the long history of publishing, reviewing and reading has proved that the slotting of a novel cannot be avoided altogether. Readers need pointers as do the reviewers regarding what to expect from a book. It isn’t as though The White Tiger is the first or only example of the kind of writing that strains against usual expectations from a successful Indian novel. There was Rupa Bajwa’s The Sari Shop that was shortlisted for the Orange and won the Sahitya Akademi. It was a slim and riveting novel bringing to light grave class injustice in a small town. There is also Vikas Swarup’s Q and A, the brilliant idea of which spawned the much reviled yet legendary Slumdog Millionaire. The irony is at least two of the aforementioned were criticised a great deal in the mother country as poverty-porn. I wonder whether the charge would have been levelled had they been more ‘literary’ or sociological and less ‘plot-driven’.

The Indian art establishment seems to favour abstractions and endless descriptions even though the locale is teeming with those facts that are stranger than fiction and are grist to the mill of the popular. I’m not only thinking of the slums or the underworld but also of small towns and the minutiae of lower middle class life, so different from each other depending on where they are located, the daily and comic collisions between tradition and modernity or the mysteries of the still isolated wilds. Years ago I read Arun Joshi’s The Strange Case of Billy Biswas that enchanted me with the magic it could invoke due to its theme but perhaps to date it remains the only novel that told a great story using tribal India. I can’t understand why both the novel and its author are buried in oblivion today.

I believe there are a lot of other lesser-known and unpublished novels that eschew ornamentation and explanation but tell fast paced stories that have a deep resonance. More readers could find them if the publishers and reviewers loosen up a little and stop being prescriptive about what a novel or literature in general should or shouldn’t do. Also, all our serious fiction need not be about representing India to the world; at least some of it could be just for Indians in India to read, enjoy and benefit from.

Anuradha Marwah is a writer, lecturer, and social activist. Her latest novel Dirty Picture has just been added to the FriendsOfBooks catalogue.

What’s gender got to do with it?

If there was a penny for every time we had to tell a journalist “No, people read all sorts of stuff, not just crime fiction”, we’d be rich…in dollars.
There are some stereotypes that come with the territory. People assume that the large part of our readership would be bored housewives ( we know this because we’ve been asked this by both journalists and other curious Georges!). It isn’t true any more than any of the other stuff they say about desperate housewives. Our reader base and its reading choices continue to confound us. Though it is generally true that women read more than men ( both in number of books per month and number of female readers vs. male readers), it is also a fact that men read more non-fiction than women do. Women however read a wider variety of fiction (both in terms of genres and writing from around the world).
The CEO of one of the top publishing houses (no, I won’t name him) and I were discussing reading tastes and he said , quite astutely, that “Indian blokes only want to read management books”. Now, I wish I could have countered him on that , but alas his observation about his market is just as true in our neck of the woods. Reading it seems is very intrinsically linked then with performing better at work, being more successful or rich and less as leisure. It’s by no means a conclusive study, merely an observation – Men and women read very differently in India.
And just when one is ready to put these observations down on paper and commit them to the long memory span that blogs are, out comes an article such as this one. Every bit your average male reader admitting (bravely?) that he like his Twilight series just as much as the next err…teenage gal. So while cynics amongst us try to put readers into nice and tidy demographic brackets, will the real readers stand up and tell us what exactly they read and why?

I think I’ve got a book in me…How can I be sure that I’m good enough to be an author?

I’ve had extensive opportunities to interact with book lovers and potential authors across India during my ongoing “The eMedha Paradigm” book tour. During these in-person as well as electronic (mails, chats, website-comments, etc) interactions, quite a few questions have kept on popping back almost rhetorically. One such question that I’ve been asked quite frequently is: “I think I’ve got a book in me…How can I be sure that I’m good enough to be an author?” I always respond to one-on-one queries in expected individual manner as I did with one elderly gentleman from my housing society who asked me something similar today. He had come to know that I’m an author as well (besides my corporate life) this morning through one of his morning-walk-mates. He had been toying with an idea to become an author (of a management book) for quite sometime (decades, as he later clarified); I hope I now have a happy opposite-block-neighbour, counting on the detailed response that I gave to him!

Considering that this question has a generic appeal among all wanna-be authors, I’m summarizing my on-the-spot thoughts in next few paragraphs, hoping that I’ll be able to use it as a meaningful pointer if someone asked me the same question in future. As soon as you get this feeling of “having a book inside”, you become part of an ungrouped-group across the globe that is literate enough to indulge in this fantasy. Yes, in its nascent stage, this is nothing but a fantasy that usually gets kicked-off by a Booker announcement or the frontpage news of a seven figure advance deal or seeing a next-door teenager becoming a Page-3 celebrity as his/her writings in blogosphere got spotted by some editorial genius and is now adorning every bookstore’s bestseller space. Just sleep through this “first time” feeling over next few days before checking if that urge to become an author is still lurking around. No? Consider it a God’s blessing (Don’t ask me why; just believe me on this one!) and go back to your normal life, you lucky soul!

On the other hand, if you still feel that you ‘ve something important enough to share with others through written words, it’s time to move on to the next step. Trying putting your end-to-end thoughts on the concerned subject (fiction/non-fiction/whatever) in few lines, at the least, or in couple of pages, at the maximum. Ensure that whatever is there on the paper (or a soft copy, on computer) is logical enough so that your core message/story can be understood by everyone, including yourself. While it may seem like a simple enough step, believe me, it is one of the hardest. Reason? While our mind entertains itself with perpetual gibberish every waking (and most of the sleeping) moment, the task of putting an idea in words has to face-off with a logical gatekeeper that blocks out most of the incoherent thoughts. If you’re able to put some lines or pages through in first place, make sure it is as explicit as a blurb on the book cover that hooks up a book with a potential reader. If you’re still hanging around with a written outline about your subject and it makes sense to you at least, you certainly have a potential to become a writer. But whether it’s a short story that is bothering your soul or if it’s a full-fledged novel that needs to come out, it can be decided only after the next and final step.

Grill your written storyline (few lines or pages, whatever) against some realistic situations as well as questions. Does your story haves a conflict/situation that is real yet interesting enough to be expanded in couple of hundred of pages? While writing the beginning and middle parts of a book is comparatively easier, putting in an interesting yet logical enough ending wears out even most of seasoned authors. So, do you have an ending that looks like a natural conclusion to your story, if it would have taken place in our day-to-day life? What about your characters? Are they real? Is there a purpose for their existence in the storyline? Do they interact with each other? Does their interaction takes the story in a logical direction? If your story comes out with positive responses to majority of these questions, as per your understanding, consider yourself as much of a potential author as that of any published author.

What next? It depends on you. Some writers structure out everything in fine detail (outline, structure, characterization, tone, tense, voice, etc) before writing even the first word of the concerned book. A loose parallel is like Hollywood movies where everything is planned out to the last dot before allowing the first shot. On other hand, some authors prefer the old Bollywood style with spontaneity being the working style. Then there are some who keep a sense of structure until they have a good hold on storyline and characters and then take  creative steps to complete the book. There is nothing to suggest which style works best – my personal preference is the last one where I keep myself disciplined enough until I’ve a workable cast and storyline to expand on, and then , I write individual chapters or expand existing chapters etc as it comes along.

The agenda for this blog was to put in some quick, off-the-head pointers which a potential author can use to decide his/her level of interest, passion and urgency before delving deep into writng a full-length book. If any subsequent questions arise out of this and you’d like me to try answering those, feel free to contact me at emedha@rakeshmisra.com.

Rakesh Misra is author of “The eMedha Paradigm” which was launched last year (Aug’2008) as “India’s First Business Novel” and is now available in its bestseller edition. In his other life, Rakesh is an IT professional  currently working with a global IT conglomerate in Noida. Further details about his book is available at his website www.rakeshmisra.com .