What does one write about, this morning?

The auspicious Chhath sun has just risen. It’s sneaking into my drawing room, making itself comfortable on the sofa, touching the console’s marble and tapping its fingertips on the dried flower arrangement sitting in the corner. The birds have woken up too, to the sound of firecrackers going off in a nearby park, where a make-shift pool has been built for the blessed dip. Through the light mist that is typical of early winters in Delhi, I can hear chirpy school children crossing my window to go from the Press Colony to the main road bus stand; kicking pebbles, playing spit, pulling out leaves or swinging their oiled plaits. Some, of course, are dragging their feet and lagging behind. Sleep-lagged, perhaps, or with nothing new to look forward to in the day except for broken desks, torn books, dirty dark blue uniforms and truant teachers. They don’t even want to take their hands out of the pockets to wipe their noses … 

Another celebratory firecracker goes off in a distance, making the thin layer of holiday dust at Buddha's feet quiver with ecstasy. The Sun is being blessed with our prayers today. Or is it the other way around? It does seem a different shade of orange but that could be my imagination!

I have folded my legs on to the dining chair, tucking in the toes which are the first to feel the nip, and am looking around at a very still house. It seems to be resting, taking a breather and breathing in leftover lingering fragrances of cologne and baby talc, Bournvita and toasted bread, and half a tin of Cherry Blossom on each Bata shoe. Breathing in like me. The two hours of madness that every working morning means have melted into a quiet which usually spreads gracefully into every known and unknown corner of my house. And mind. Usually. 

Except, the bachelor neighbor is cooking his lunch and hitting the steel ladle on the thick kadhai with gusto. I’ve heard he’s taken to cycling early mornings. Separated by two backyards, can’t really sniff to tell what’s cooking out there. An infant is incessantly crying in the flat above his. This curly-haired boy has a very nasal daadi and I will hear her voice any second now, asking him Chhonu, kya hua, Chhonu? His parents must have left for work by now. But her house is not empty. 

My mind is empty but for one nagging wife - What does one write about, when there is nothing to write about?

I should probably finish the last two slices of apple on the black-and-white Melamine plate before me. That might help as I wait for answers. Or something, anything. They get brown with time, those slices, thanks to the iron. I will eat them soon, after forking the triangular banana corners which he’s lovingly left for me and certainly before the box of Khasta Rewri trying to seduce me with its gur glamour right next to the healthy plate. My uncle said they are from the best shop in Doon. One bite and I knew he wasn’t lying. I am so sure my dining chair can feel the weighty difference post Diwali. My belt most definitely can. Is it making a creaking, stretching, leathery sound? One can’t tell when the silence within the home is so loud. 

The firecrackers have stopped, though, and the birds are finally singing louder.  The fridge is going drrrrr-grrrr. The keyboard click-click. The brooming bhaiya is at it in the back lane, making piles of leaves where he should be, ideally, picking them. They still use wheelbarrows which must be extinct in many countries! Suddenly one day smoke will drift into my kitchen window. Yes, that’s when I know he has stealthily set fire to the small piles. I’ll have to switch on the noisy exhaust fan then. Oh, you missed hearing the doorbell ring when the newspaper guy came to collect his 250 a moment ago. Or the conversation which was all about safeguarding our respective ten-ners. It remains the same, you know, month after month, and I am not the one who gives in, mostly. I like change in my wallet. It’s good, nay great, for times when you are short of time…  

It’s funny to feel so free that you can hear the clock tick, when there is much work waiting to be done. Is this a kind of freedom? To just remain in one place, gently erasing from the mind’s eye all deadlines marked in red? Must be plain laziness, really, or shirking of duties, or mithai-induced lethargy. Blame it on the sugar, though I shrug to say I don’t know. One knows so little, sometimes.

What does one write about, when there is nothing to write about? Hm. I guess one just writes, you know, no matter how pointless the piece. 

Consciously Created Pointlessness... is quite freeing. I’ll have a khasta rewri now. And probably put my feet back on the ground, to get up and get set and get going. 

Probably.

Why I do not review books for free

Recently, an author with a book warm and fresh from the press mailed me. He wanted me to review it. Came down straight to the point in a two-lined mail 1 itself – ‘Where should I send you a copy?’ No, he did not ask me what the procedure is, he did not want to know what I charge as a fee and he certainly seemed to assume it’s going to be a ‘yes’ from my end, as if Richard Gere were asking for my hand in marriage! 

Is this because he thought he was sending a copy of his book, free, so which sane woman in her write mind would refuse an offer such as this?

When I mentioned that I do commissioned reviews only, he sent a shorter mail saying ‘Sorry, I’m not comfortable with paying for a review.’ If he had explained more, I wouldn’t have said a loud Punjabi ‘Hain?’ to denote anything from ‘Why in Jupiter’s name?’ to ‘What the Pluto does he mean?’ Since he did not, I felt free to call him stingy, secretly, and then sit and simmer over it. 

Simmer. Simmer over the fact that some writers, who themselves must have ranted against doing free assignments all their lives, are not ready to pay for your date with their book – reading it, reviewing it and then expectantly so, sharing it in their social media networks. They are, ahem, ‘uncomfortable’. 

Their view, I assume? If we pay you you will write a biased review. And we want an honest review. (Another assumption that the soul is sold if they pay in cash for our glass of lassi!)

Okay. But then – 

- A free book may be reward enough for someone to sing your praises?

- The possibility of a contact for a fancy literary fest could be incentive enough to call your book            a best-seller? 

- That overuse of ‘dear’ and ‘I love your writing’ and ‘lovingly yours’ may make someone fall in            love with your book as much as your nature, enough to make the love flow cover-to-cover?

- They may admire your nose and ears combination and may translate that 5 star attraction into a            10/10 review?

My story. 

When I began reviewing on my blog, I did a handful of reviews without charging a fee. I was a new name, no one had read my reviews before and I had an old-school idea of ‘let them get a sense of how I review and then I’ll charge a fee’. In short, I wanted to earn my right to ask for and earn my buck. I was testing the waters in the blogging world while giving a taste of my wine to prospective authors.

I was putting in everything I could to review in my own way. To be different, successfully or not. And to be independent of popular schools of review methodology, very successfully. But ‘different’ is not an idea which gets accepted too fast. While writing the reviews was enjoyable, hearing ‘your reviews go over my head’ or ‘who are you reviewing for?’ or ‘give a star rating, please’ from readers was so discouraging I would feel conscious simply thinking about charging a fee. 

Till some friends (and one husband) took me by the shoulders, shook me awake and told me to not do any book reviews for free, or any writing either no matter how much you enjoy it, you idiot! Not in the name of friendship or family friends; not in the name of their God or your dog. This is your work. This is what you do! So, there were 3 and a half people who pushed me off the sagacious cliff of ‘let me earn (read justify) my buck’ to the waters of ‘you have earned your buck, crazy!’ And that was that!

Looking back, I thank them for that plunge, even though the first time I mailed my fee to a commissioning author I didn’t breathe for a while. I am glad for the push because subconsciously I was becoming what so many authors and publishers want book reviewers to be – Professional but unpaid means of publicity, which they politely call ‘feedback’. 

They convince you they trust you, implore they value your feedback, they assure you they cannot do without it before their next book and then they knot their brows in incomprehension, clear their throats and shuffle off if you say ‘Okay, I charge 1 million dollars per review.’ Or so the numbers seem to them. ‘We’ll find someone else. There are plenty around’ or worse ‘I thought she was my friend. Sob sob’. 

A friend who should not dare to contribute to her family income, or collect funds towards her next hair cut? Hm. 

Why I do not review books for free?

1. Time – Just like you, I don’t have a big slice of this cheesecake just to myself. Of course, I have no office to go to, but there is a reason I work from home, right? A book review typically means reading the book 8 am – 11 am (apart from bathing, minding house, managing maid, getting ready for school to pick up my kid) and then 3 pm – 5 pm (fighting bone-tiredness, sleep, heat, lethargy, season’s vagaries, empty stomach sometimes since after feeding kid who wants to cook for oneself?). I have tried to read post-dinner, but I have a family. And I never can extricate myself from the bed-TV madness that we like to indulge in. It's valuable "personal time" to me. One book may take three days to read and another three to write review. Weekends included! That is a lot of time, considering I could have written a few articles for my column, done some posts for the blog or simply trimmed my nails, shaved my head or joined a meditation camp and laughed my lungs out. I did not. I had a book to review. And I spent a good amount of time at it. 

2. Effort – c.f. Point 1. Add a few thousand units of Horse Power to it.

3. Respecting another’s worth – And this is the most important thing we are missing in our lives. Even if we recognize another’s work’s worth, we don’t want to respect it. Yes, I am linking respect to money because a fee acknowledges your talent and encourages it too. Some authors who mail sing my praises, but zip it up when I say ‘all reviews are commissioned’. They go away, feeling ‘uncomfortable.’ There are many who do not even respond to the mail mentioning the fee. Why do we want services for free, when we ourselves wouldn’t sit on a television panel like a famous authorial voice on human liberty without asking ‘Do you pay an honorarium?’ Is the idea of availing cheap/free labour so built into our systems that we cannot acknowledge worthiness over nothing? Or is it, rather disturbingly, that we have created invisible pyramids of socio-professional hierarchies in the writing world too where the author is just below the publisher but far, far above a puny book reviewer. And grass can’t be a tigress, how dare she roar and decide to be a chooser!

[I look at that poor sarkari driver my neighbour feels comfortable to call, even on Sundays, assuming he has nothing to do with his own family, but take the officer's out for a picnic in the Lodhi Gardens. All day. Assuming he doesn't need personal time. And then, what compensation can suffice for taking a husband or a dad away from his chutti at home, or a man away from his bed? I look at him, and I empathize. He's not expected to ask for that compensation. It rings a bell.]

Authors are putting in sacks of money to promote their books. They forgo royalty, pay literary agents to polish and pitch their books, hire digital media experts to promote it and sell a few family heirlooms (or wear them) to stand behind their books like a mother would behind her chick running the first race in KG. I can understand that pride, and wish someday my pen gives me the opportunity to feel it too, but I cannot fathom the ‘discomfort’ in paying for another’s time, effort and worthy work to do with something so dear to them.

Am I trying to convert those book reviewers who, like me once, are too afraid to ask for a sum? No. But do I wish them to get converted to this side of the fence, where remuneration for writing and reviewing should reflect the effort, time and even talent that they put in? Yes! 

The season’s or its end’s sales are in the malls. Your souls won’t read ‘sold’ just because you asked for a fee. Let there be no ‘discomfort’! 

On either side of the fence. 

365 Days in Vegas

Once upon a time, a stranger called Jairam Mohan sent me a hello on FB messenger. True to his habit, or fearing I may throw my jutti at him, he came straight to the point. He asked me if I wanted to do the Wordpress Daily Prompt; 365 Writing Prompts with him, for the year 2014. ‘Arrey? Na jaan na pehchaan. And he thinks I’ll shake hands with him and just agree to a year’s writing commitment and company? Banda hai kaun yeh?’ I didn’t say that, though I instantly scrounged his FB profile for naked ladies in orgies and worse, bad grammar. While I found neither, I politely told him the task seemed too daunting to me and Wordpress was to a Blogger what an air plane is to a cyclist. I suggested we rope in more people to keep the prompts/month real. He suggested Sid Balachandran, the cutie pie daddy on a parenting site. I had Rekha Dhyani in mind – sane, sober and sensible.   

Within hours a group chat formally called Project 365 was buzzing and beeping with to-dos, just a few days before 2013 flipped over to 2014. Various social media accounts had to be set, logos designed, invites for guest authors sent and there was no room for even a susu break in sub-zero temperatures. After the namkaran, we four were now a Core Team, and even though we continued to wear our chaddis under our pants, we knew there was a superhero inside each one of us to have signed up for this. A mad, mad superhero!

Mad, because we were four complete strangers agreeing to be faithful to a shared ‘cause’.

Mad, because between families and friends we now had a bunch of prompts to write on every month for 12 months!

Mad, because who has seen tomorrow let alone a whole year for such a massive commitment made public? Oh, the ignominy if one was to quit. And, the extra prompts!

What led me on, despite my husband’s sweetly strict ‘If you join, you should see this to the finish’? That all four of us had the same aim in mind – to write more and to be read even more than before. It is this that made me feel one with Jai, Rekha and Sid and lay to rest my fears that this was indeed not a plan by South India to take over North India but one of pure and secular brotherhood!

And that’s how it remained …

Our tiny chat box was not just for discussing Guest Author posts, our own late lateef ones, asking Jai to write for unloved Open Prompts or Sid to design the world for Project 365. Between good morning and good night, the tiny window became a place we sought, each one of us, to share personal joys or sorrows, troubles or terrific news, or even gossip piping hot in the vine and consumed like hot potatoes. The ‘seen by everyone’ would excite us suddenly, because it meant we were all four there, despite such different day plans and jobs. Oh, I would go to hell if I revealed what all of who all we chatted about but I will say we rightly named our group chat – Vegas (and the new thread Vegas 2.0, since the first one was creaking under its weight). Vegas - because much was supposed to remain in there, as it does. Superhero swear! 

How did the writing go? 

Moods oscillated between ‘Oh! I love this prompt’ and ‘Gah! Someone murder Wordpress, please!’ Somewhere in between were moments of ‘Guys, emergency in family/travel plans/writer’s block. Someone exchange my next prompt, please?’ Every month each one hoped it was their turn to pick the prompts first but there was much order-order in all the chatty disorder, and a discipline sincerely followed. The presence of a couple of Guest Authors each month kept us feeling smug about the trust over 20 co-writers reposed in our Project. So, somewhere between gentle-manners and wildness, workaholic-ism and parenthood, vanity and bossiness, we managed the writing quite smoothly.  And not a day out of the 365 was missed! The pride was enough to make us feel glad that we did what we did. We began with adulation for co-writers and ended up with realizing our own niches and sharpening our own skills. 

Often, friends seemed surprised at my insistence to write for prompts, or even to continue with a Project that, in their eyes, held little value. There was a belief that this was forced writing, and that creative secretions flow best when there isn’t a topic and an impending deadline. But at the end of the day, we all spent much more time writing than talking about it. Somewhere, those 4-5 prompts a month helped – as an exercise in discipline and one in making us make time for what we claimed to be our passion. Only those who have gone through it will realize its value, but then, just how many can for a whole year? A whole year!

Chaddi out or in, it does feel like a superhero feat. To the Core!

I almost forgot … this is my last prompt post for Project 365. It says ‘You’re a Winner!’ which I am in so many ways. It also tells me that I won $1 billion dollars in the local lottery, asking me how I will spend the money.

Honestly? I’d spend all some of it to fly my Core Team to Vegas, the real one. For who else can I thank for leaving me so much richer by so much writing and such good friends? After all, it's not about who became friends first. It's also about who lasted as buddies right till the end.

I will miss Project 365.

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - You’re a Winner - You’ve just won $1 billion dollars in the local lottery. You do not have to pay tax on your winnings. How will you spend the money?]

Masters in my Room

With a loud ‘Oh God!’ I begin this post, as serious as it may be,

An invocation you may call it, or frustration, to put it simply.

I stood before my book shelf watching spines just newly born,

Thinking what my favourites think,  the ones now dead and gone.

From one genre to the next I went, (did I pronounce that right?),

To talk to the masters about book trends, and what was on their minds.

To see how books and writers have evolved into something new,

To see if we have grown new wings or bid them a quick adieu.

I noticed in a corner Chaucer stood with a knowing smile,

Could he have read the latest Humour best-seller on the vine?

He shook his head from side-to-side, confused me, then he said,

‘Winne whoso may, (my child) for al is for to selle.’

Amused I stood musing, when Dryden to Pope did say,

‘An immortal War with Wit’ wages the King of Satire today.

‘All Arguments, all arguments, but most his Plays perswade,

That for anointed dullness (nothing more), he was really made.’

Just then lovelorn Donne glided in, and a hand by his heart did lie,

Was this about the Love story readers swooned over, now swore by?

‘While I just managed to write an Elegie, to my Mistress Going to Bed,

Such love the writers must now know, to bring lovers back from the dead!’

The talk of Love disturbed his reverie, by the gurgling stream,

In walked Wordsworth, took a seat, ho-hummed to then proceed-

‘What Love you speak about, I just know not what you mean,

No trees, no sun, no Abbeys divine, of Nature books are clean.’

So many Thrillers abound today, who has space for a cherry tree?

Shakespeare looked as if he knew, adding mystery to the scene.

‘Oh mercy, droppeth from the Heavens now, and fall upon her head,

I saw that book’s end coming right after line 1, page 1 was read!’

Kundera’s political eyebrow shot-up in brave support,

Kafka in complete profundity said reading's ‘a trial’, no more.

Amitav Ghosh and Anathamurthy in a whisper together said,

Heads bent, shoulders down, a frown and then ‘Is literary nearly dead?’

While Lawrence winked and asked ‘So, they think they know all about sex?’

Premchand, Manto and Chugtai moaned their own legacy’s death.

Virginia Woolf woke-up from her dreams, only to think anew,

‘Why have writers closed all windows in what was once a room with a view?’

In flowing robes Homer sat till now - quiet, blind, unseen.

Till he roared ‘How epic! How epic! This glorious sea of mediocrity!’

Yeats wanted the gyres to turn, a ‘Second Coming’, a beast we need,

But Eliot, out of patience, shouted ‘Shantih Shantih Shantih’.

From me alone with my book shelf we had grown to quite a few,

Confirmed it was that Classic once may never again come true.

Alas! They vanished, one-by-one, those masters from my room,

‘Oh God!’ I sighed with loss once more, before I picked up the broom.

What you see below was a wise young owl, creative and with craft,

But in such pressing hurry to print, this smile he called his art.

What happened next is sad, so, so sad oh tragedy abound!

Just a wide-eyed face was left of what was once a wise young owl.

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - It builds character - Tell us about a favorite character from film, theater, or literature, with whom you’d like to have a heart-to-heart. What would you talk about?]

On Meeting a Manuscript

If reviewing a book is like taking the wrapper and ribbon off from a mystery gift, reviewing a manuscript is nothing short of being given a hidden treasure chest, with the key to open it. What lies within is virginal, for no other eyes except the author’s have seen it yet. You are told that. Sometimes made to sign and swear that you will keep secret whatever you find inside – jewels, maps or pebbles.

So, there is exclusivity to make you feel special. Curiosity too, and how it kills! There is a taste of power, for you have a license to deconstruct, sift-sort-suggest, to your head’s content. There is also a message in the bottle on your work desk, blinking neon – I trust you. Tell me what you think. Honestly. Thus, more than anything else, reading manuscripts makes you feel very responsible; more than being a caretaker of your own treasure chest can. 

Let me get serious now.

A few months back I became what we call a Beta Reader of manuscripts. As much as the term reminds me of a tool in the Physics lab, it actually makes me feel like a moon-dust robot, a nuke scientist and John Nash rolled into one whenever I say it aloud. Just the term, that is. The work of helping an author with feedback about their stories so they can polish them and make them publisher-ready (to put it very humbly) is much more difficult than the zaniest profession you can think of. 

Let me tell you why it is difficult and why you should call us Alpha Readers and not the second-in-command, Beta.

When an author has spent the better part of his past few years ‘working on’ a manuscript, he knows he is mailing you on an average 320 KB and 70,000 words of perfection. Pure perfection. He presses ‘send’ and your inbox reads 1 New Mail and somewhere in the few seconds in between he becomes a best-selling author – in his head. And you? You sweat, reading the introduction to the attached manuscript which is ‘close to my heart’ and a list straight from some Blue Book reading thus - ‘check this’, ‘notice that’, ‘keep a tab’, ‘what do you think’ and of course, ‘be honest’ – the last almost like a threat with an invisible ‘or else’ attached. After all, you are not the commissioning editor who will be dear-ed. Instantly, your finger nails feel your teeth and your fee seems like salt-free peanuts. 

So, you make a list of your own, next to the one the Boss sent, called ‘Expectations’. Suddenly, you are married to someone’s work and the father of the bride carries a pen (mightier than the sword), while the bride herself seems high-maintenance. Your side of the page, the real Beta list, is but a shadow in comparison. In short, there’s work to be done. The manuscript has to be read with a concentration even your inner eyelids have never seen. Comments and suggestions have to be added in track change mode and in polite language, even if you are asking them to go easy on the expletives. All impulses to kiss-bin-bin-bin-kiss-just-bin the virtual copy in admiration or deliverance have to be resisted. Finally, a chunky document called Overall Feedback has to be readied, which becomes a blueprint for the author to mull over slowly. In all this, do not forget, you have to be honest yet balanced, academic yet not-too-heavy, suggestive yet not over-smart, loud and clear yet not drown his voice and finally, helpful. Phew!

Yes, Alpha Reader would be good. Thank you! 

And then one day, when a book you helped shaped in whatever little (I mean big, actually!) ways sees the light of the published day you cut a cake, pat yourself publicly in the MCD park next door and order Chinese from Yo! China to celebrate “your” success. All jesting apart, it feels very, very good. Right from the point when the message in the bottle from the start is mouthed at the end of the assignment too as ‘I trust you’. That is when, as suggestions you made are incorporated, discussed and worked upon, you realize where the real value of this work lies – in the regard for what you call your impressions and feedback but which mean much more to those receiving them.

Ritu Lalit’s ‘Wrong, for the Right Reasons’ is the first among the manuscripts I beta-read to be a published book. I remember her call when with a semi-certain yet hopeful voice she shared this book’s idea with me, asking me straight away ‘Do you think this will work?’ It was 3 pm on a lazy day, it was 45 degrees, there was no electricity and I had a ripped toe-nail hopping around with me. But nothing clouded the conviction with which I felt for the book. Not just because it was woman-centric; not just because it was about surviving the everyday and not the fantastical but also because I assumed she was going to pour a huge part of her own life’s experiences into this survival account of a young divorced mother-of-two. The result of her hard work is for anyone to read now. 

‘Wrong, for the Right Reasons’ is one of the most real books you will read this season. It is Shyamoli’s story – as a young divorced woman, a single mother of two, a daughter struggling to break-free from an abusive mother and a person looking to walk on her own terms in a society which defines ‘respect’ in the most constricted of ways and hangs norms like nooses around the necks of single women. What is special about this book is what is seen as amiss in others – there are no sudden twists and turns, no army of characters and not even a flourish of a closure. It tells you a story keeping the sensational and the spectacular away, yet retaining the extraordinary within it, in the form of portrayal of relationships, streams of consciousness and the growth of the characters over the years that span the novel. One of my first doubts was about Shyamoli being too real to be made into a ‘heroine’ but by the end of the manuscript I had revised my idea. She is that exactly because she is life-like. And readers will be able to find a Shyamoli in their lives too. Isn’t that a wonderful thing in a book?

I met one manuscript for coffee first. Then I met some more, and then a few more and I don’t need to stop any more. Each speaks in its own voice to me, in its own style, not just to the reviewer that I am but to the dreamer that I want to be, of holding my own piece of art in my hands one day. Perhaps, that is what makes me love my work, for the possibility it keeps alive in my mind and for the various lessons it tucks within its folds for forwarding that on the right path.  

In the meantime, do you now see why we should be called Alpha Readers and not Beta, the second in command?

A Writing Workshop and Me

The last workshop I attended was a Mine and Movement Workshop organized in college. Those who know me know how many donkey years ago it was. There is a reason why the word ‘workshop’ makes me run in the opposite direction. My mind, with the concentration span of a drunk dragonfly, is not cut-out for prolonged hours of patience, obedience and learning. Biologically too, my body craves movement post-breakfast and a slowing down post-lunch. A workshop, typically, forces you to reverse that pattern. All activities that need joules and ergs and calories happen the moment food forces sweet slumber into our eyes.

So, when Kanchana Bannerjee and Kiran Chaturvedi of Write and Beyond asked me to participate in a day-long writing workshop, truth be told both my mind and my body protested. I will have to sit in one place pre-lunch and keep the energy from anda bhurji bottled up while after a sumptuous meal and generous doses of wine I will be asked to write, read, share and get critiqued. To top it all, it’s a Sunday – a day God deemed holy enough to not ‘work’, but only ‘shop’! 

However, I went, because two dear friends were inviting me – Kanchana and Writing. 

A round of hellos was done and we were at the brink of beginning when these handles right behind the speakers took it upon themselves to distract me. A magical deer party in the cupboard gone out of hand or a gaming party’s loot being put to use? Too much to begin with so I panned to the bottles of wine. I tell you, one of them did wave and say ‘Pick me now!’ I did not then, because a sweet voice had begun to welcome us. Once she was finished I no longer found time to play silly with my own thoughts. There was much else that was planned! 

Kiran Chaturvedi, versed in the psychology of writing, took us through an exercise to relax our minds. A sort of letting go of all thoughts which may have followed us there, say of babies and daddies, pending deadlines and bosses, cupboards and their handles too. Whereas so many of us write when we are brimming with stories, never before did I realize how important an empty mind is for clarity of thought in writing. To be in touch with ourselves is to be in touch with the stories waiting to be told through our pens. We opened our eyes to find a box full of objects which smelled unique. ‘Pick any one, smell it and write for 5 minutes about what it evoked in your head’, Kiran announced to the tune of lovely music. Tempted as I was to pocket the Body Shop shampoo and the Khadi soap, all such banal thoughts lay forgotten when everyone starting reading out their handwritten words, as I did mine with immense self-consciousness. 

13 different strokes by 13 different people! 

A kind of shared-writing exercise with people you have never met before but who are ready to put down their most private of thoughts on the table before you in the form of a few paragraphs - for catharsis, feedback or both. The spontaneity was both challenging and revealing about us as writers. Similar time-bound exercises around common prompts with feedback from more experienced people helped me calm my misgivings about my writing while brought to the fore strengths which I never thought existed. Needless to say, my mind no longer found any reasons to wander, except when we broke for tea and I couldn’t stop admiring the biscuit which looked like a chess-board. Delicious it was! 

Kanchana’s session was what can be called ‘experience speaking’. With a publisher-ready manuscript polished and proudly adorning her desk, Kanchana is fresh from the oven! Touching on important aspects of fiction writing like Characterisation, Time and Narration and Tension (which I had no clue about!), she put before us some simple rules of writing which are oft-forgotten. For vainglorious writers like me who fall in love with their own words enough to ramble on, her tips were manna from Heaven, and great accompaniments to the red wine in the glass before me. 

By now we were in a room-full of back-slapping camaraderie and I wished I was in my jeans. The formality of chanderi suddenly seemed so unnecessary!

What is indispensably necessary for those of us who dream of our name on book covers is interaction with those who have reached their milestone. Devapriya Roy, with two published books to her credit, began her session with simple introductions. While we spoke about ourselves she drew out the silk to note it down on the white board – our reasons for writing, with a book recommendation ready on her lips. ‘Show up, show up, show up at your desk, and the muse will show up too’ and ‘Write, but please read, read and read. A lot!’ are additions to the post-its I love sticking on the fridge. In touch with classics as much as with her contemporaries, Devapriya’s session helped me realize why ‘literary’ is not a bad word just because it doesn’t read ‘popular’ and why ‘form’ is an important aspect for maturity of writing. I felt delighted to know that blogging would no longer make me turn my back to the genre of my liking. This time, I had a huge sip of the wine. After all, I got saved from turning an infidel!

Satyarth Nayak, published recently, came to tell us about those we cannot do with, or without. No, I don’t mean husbands. I mean Agents and Publishers. I use them as proper nouns here for their might and say I was made to understand through Satyarth’s own publishing journey. If patience paid then a manuscript submitted to the publisher would make you a millionaire even before your book is out. Satyarth’s session, though not of immediate relevance to me, made me understand the historic war between “market-driven” and “artistic freedom” that so many manuscripts have to face. He had to chop his to 1/3rd its original size. Thankfully, he did not omit the enigmatically done fight scene he read from his book ‘The Emperor’s Riddles’. Except, I can never look at an eye ball the same way!

The workshop ended with a long writing session on randomly given prompts. The best thing? Everyone wrote. The authors, the mentors and us participants because somewhere those lines had been erased and it had become one big group of writers forever learning. Each write-up was patiently critiqued by the published authors and we were helped in arriving at our niches. To have someone erudite enough paying so much attention to my scribblings is something that is not easy to come by, and neither is such good writing company. 

I cannot thank 'Write and Beyond' enough for a Sunday spent so wonderfully! 

Everyone

Kiran and Kanchana

PS - On the way out I did remember to check. The handles on the cupboard were not real antlers at all. They were crafted from wood. Just thought maybe you too, like me, were holding on to that imagery. We should why not! For who knows what best-selling stories can begin with exactly that thought? All we need to do is ‘show up’!

Hit me baby one more time!

The Gods must be crazy, and the goblins running the rumour mill crazier. For the latest on the grape vine, which hangs heavy with sour bunches, is that if you are good looking by some standard you get more readers on your blog. That it is not about writing any more, like it was once (for after all, Shakespeare did manage plenty of hits). That it is all about features which match the ideal assets the fantasies in your reader-head enjoy. Insulting, sad and unbelievable, all at the same time. But who is surprised?

Picture this. 

A stranger who considered himself a brilliant-but-wronged writer asked me to write a post for him and him for me. An experiment that would involve us to publish each other’s works in our own names and exchange the hits number at the end of the day. He wanted to prove that content is not king, but pretty faces are queens, and that under my hat his ink will find kisses while mine will fade in comparison. I politely refused, finding the totally resistible offer slightly offensive for implying my writing unworthy of sustaining a readership and also realizing soon enough that some heads which hate to take no for an answer even fail to spot nonsense planted in their own. His parting words threw ‘you vane woman’ at me. But before I could tell him to make that ‘vain’, he had vanished into thin air. Probably hiding in another’s inbox which acted abettor in his research crime to make me publish, in my name, something written by a dude whose commas and punctuation were like drunk ants doing striptease atop an express train. With full stops flying everywhere, off course, of course! 

To think that someone's else's balderdash flowing from upturned toilet bins can make you think … 

Reminded me of a man asking his wife to pick a gynaecologist who was the least good looking of the lot, for that meant she spent more time studying medicine properly rather than in front of a mirror. Hence, a better doctor! So strange that his wife would believe him; all ten manicured nails and highlighted hair of hers included, to pop her kid out! So strange again that we have reached Mars but our minds sit cosy inside a caveman’s animal skin toga, quivering with inferiority or envy on spotting in others physical features matching brain quotient in their sharpness.
   

And you don’t even need to be blonde any more to take the sh** cake! I talk of only one segment, where Blogging meets Bollywood and apparently proves that if you have the right face you need have nothing more, for then a good number of readers and publishers will follow as night follows day. And good writing, well, who needs that anyway.  Isn’t the dude who sent me the message for a life-changing research sitting without a woman’s bullet lodged in his chest?  

First things first; thank you for the compliment. It is super to know one belongs to a good looking genepool. For such fortunate planetary disposition I thank God first, then my parents, Galileo, some of my favourite teachers, Mendel, my dog Timmy, Darwin and the latest ladybug stuffed toy we got and named Gaston (after Gaston in Ben and Holly, that is).

And now for some serious talk. 

Pray, what is wrong with making oneself look good? Of showing aligned teeth in profile pictures or legs-above-the-knee in party ones? Of knowing the waist-to-shoulder proportion is perfect or that the face turned leftish looks best? Does colour on my lips make me any more fake than the free-flowing compliment on yours? That kohl in my eyes is as much a part of my outdoors as is my phone, and it is me who decides if the blush is pink or not there at all. About berries, I love to eat them and wear them too, sun shine or star light I decide. Only me!

Such misplaced are the times that a pretty picture in ‘About me’ on your site can make not just men but women too to attribute to you feats the very devil on your shoulders would shudder to perform. Of course, the devil may make you pout those lips, all the way from your timelines to theirs. But then you wonder, why bother, why kiss and make up with a dinosaur or use terms like sexist or feminist for brains which think no bigger than a pea.  

And more importantly, how, just how does a blogger's face conforming to conventional ideas of beauty make a reader spend 2 minutes and 30 seconds (average, Alexa says) reading a post about a book review or a short story, leaving behind feedback which proves they were paying attention and not fantasizing sipping coffee with her mascaraed eyes? It is not as if I'm picking my peasant skirt just over my knee to hitch a ride. Even if I were, why did you stop the car? If you expected to see me in my Sunday best lingerie in a post about exactly that, then, delusional reader, it tells everything about you and zilch about me, apart from saying nothing about the others who enjoy reading me. And who, gasp and fume and beat your chest as you may, keep those ‘hits’ coming in! Quite steadily!

I don’t hang around your breed to know enough about it, but I can still advise. How about you experiment on your own the next time around, without trying to rope in a pretty face allegedly unfairly enjoying it all or posting anonymous comments on Blogger Confession pages with the courage of a rat in the deep end of a pool? You don’t even need to doll yourself up. Just make sure the grammar is in place, creativity bribed in and something, anything, unique enough about it to make your readers want to ‘hit’ you again. You need the support of imagination and language, not a wonder bra for sustained readership. You see, you need to turn that gaze in the right direction to get inspired, and that direction is not another’s body. In the mean time, don’t forget to remain polite and pleasant. Sweetness is fashionably under rated, and last I checked it helps you look good too!

PS – You saw the picture on the top, didn't you? How silly and stupid I looked. But you still read me to the end? Hm! That would be another 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Thank you for ‘hitting’ me, baby, one more time! 

[WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Opposite Day - If you normally write non-fiction, post a photo. If you normally post images, write fiction. If you normally write fiction, write a poem. If you normally write poetry, draw a picture - As you can see, I did post a picture, but then I had to write too. I just had to!]

Why I blog, you ask?

How daring of you to ask why I blog! Who do you think you are, Modi’s kurta-pajama maker? Don’t you know my deadly IndiRank? Or my bust-line and views punch-line and page-views? Or even that I am on speed dial with BlogAdda’s dadda whom I send a carton of alphonso to every Diwali? Badey aaye!

But now that you have asked that question, dumb as a nose hair it may be, I will answer. Even if you are blogging bloke-ing sitting on the 11th planet, for you have to be far removed from blog-o-sphere to ask anyone like me why I blog, I shall answer. What goes of my Swarovski studded pen? 

Once upon a time on a cold winter night, when my umbilical chord was cut came a divine voice which announced – ‘The Writer has been born’. Swear! Such power in that voice and such truth there was, the doctor fainted, then quit doctory and is now a best-selling author himself (He writes self-help, for himself, but I digress). Now, that lovely voice was heard by all, including my newly-opened ears. Which meant, I had to write for I was born to write. 

The divine itch to write something would strike me by surprise and in amazing places. Really! I was 5 when I wrote my first word in my convent-created school diary. It was F … whatever. But it felt so good. To have written something meaningful. Something worthwhile and something I could pass down generations as my own F… anyway! My itch to pen had to be taken care of at every stage in life. When it loomed large, it was larger than the one which rears its head the moment you step into a bus, all sweat and grime and slime and no B-tex. Passionately I scribbled ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, what features you have, what jaw-line too’ sonnets for good looking pahari waiters on restaurant serviettes and etched biological haikus behind monuments. I wrote here and I wrote there and I wrote everywhere when my talented hands yearned to write the gloriously wonderful things that came to mind.

And then one day, bhagwan ka shukra hai, I discovered blogging. Tailor-made for hands such as mine, like a glove. My blog was born, a cross between a c-sec and a natural birth, and I felt reborn somewhere ‘Between Write and Wrong’. And simultaneously was born a desire to take it to the next level, all my writing power and prowess. To practice, for it makes a 10/10 woman even more perfect, and to experiment. After my first post, a tribute to all the <3s and the ‘F’s and the smileys I had been writing, I lay back on bed, imagining myself waking up to a butler asking me to sign copies of my books for the crowd downstairs. Or sitting on a news panel to blah-blah about topics from women to politics to mitochondria to leather soles to diaper rash to lycra to anything. In short, to be a celebrity writer like Honey Singh Freida Pinto. Toh you see, to reach that one fine butler morning in life, I blog and blog and blog.

However, ab jhooth kya bolna. I also relish the attention. Here in the world of blogging, age is no bar at all, to anything, and neither is writing skill. ‘Kudos’ and ‘brilliant’ flow as free as pee after two bottles of Budweiser. Such doses of generosity, over-wired support and sense of oneness that no one will leave without saying ‘well written and poignant’, even if the post was a happy photograph no more and even if photograph was spelt Photograff. There is ample gas to make you fly like a hot air balloon and start planning your Booker book after post no. 16, ‘brilliant’ no. 160. Such love and encouragement that you don’t even need to open the dictionary to learn how to spell ‘encourazement’. Fark hee nee painda! As long as you are nearing what they call a ‘pro-’ vitamin B5, teens hosiery, relief balm Blogger status.  

And no better exercise than to blog away and share with all 7 continents the bhadaas that networking sites or neighbourhood networking pants up inside you. Typing all the frustration down in one breath and sans susu-breaks, extra !!!! marks and what the hale, you have a healing post ready. I have experienced it often. I wrote and wrote and wrote, forgot to blink, sweat came and fingers cried, but I wrote and wrote and that witch and what does she think and have you seen his hair and who you calling rude, dur fittey muh and I was going yes, oh yes, ohhh yessss and a … release. It ended. What catharsis what freeing. What a ‘powerful’ … rant post ready! More power to me!

I’m hungry, which reminds me. Some of life’s biggest pleasures come in the form of big mounds of biryani served to you in star-rated crockery, for free. Just like all hostellers are poor, well, so are we. Hence the blogger meets look like mini-Kumbhs except no one is a sadhu here, or naked (Sigh!). I blog so that I remain forever eligible to walk into a gathering of fun-loving people who love free food, free drinks, free face-to-face networking, free birds and freebies too. Being contest-crazy needs hard work, sometimes 4 times over. And while hard word breeds satisfaction, at no point does it match the sated burp of three kinds of cheese cakes settling in your stomach's wall. For free. Free!

Ab bolo, got your reasons why I blog ya you need more? Or did you also just get the reasons why you blog? That or this, time to press ‘Publish’. 

And go dream of that one fine butler morning. It will happen, you see!

Jai Mata Di!


[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts aimed at posting at least once a day, based on the prompts provided. The prompt for today was - Million-dollar Question – Why do you blog?]