A Request

I feel that I am becoming more discerning, that I am growing up.
At least in my reading.

There was a time (not too long ago) when anything esoteric appealed to me. Anything clever dazzled. Now I want writing to get to the point. Tell me what you want to. Don’t weave stories to show off. Don’t lead me through winding roads and present me with dead-ends expecting me to retract my steps. Just because you can.

Describe but only because you genuinely feel the need to. I am not interested in your vocabulary or your innovative use of language or your great eye for detail.

I have a choice and I am beginning to exercise it. I will just stop reading and cast you aside. Reputations don’t matter. I am mature enough to decide.

Give me simplicity and I will be indebted to you.

Another short story - Part 1

Deepa looks accusingly at her silver MotoRazr lying near the microwave.

She is cutting translucent skinned potatoes into small, symmetric pieces. Unevenness makes her uncomfortable. For her, cutting vegetables into right-sized pieces is the essential of good cooking. So, she does it herself before Rohit comes home.

She has experienced Rohit’s well intentioned help. He comes in unexpectedly, swinging his racket, his tennis whites spotless. It is these periods of activity that she is wary of. He won’t listen pretending that her irritation is invisible. He makes her sit on the sofa in front of the television and forbid her from helping him. He does it with a mock-serious expression, as if all this is an elaborate joke he has thought up while playing the last set with Mr. Marshall. And he proceeds to mangle the vegetables, leaving her with a loss of appetite.

Deepa had enjoyed these displays initially, when she had joined him in his condominium, a ‘jog-distance’ (as he put it) away from the tennis club he worked at – ‘The Marshall’s school of Tennis’ with ‘Special care for beginners’. She had found out that he was a tennis coach after marrying and coming to America.

Everything leading to their marriage had happened in a blurred rush. Rohit had come to her house with his parents. He was wearing a green Polo T-shirt, khaki trousers and brown Reebok sneakers. The neatly trimmed, side parted hairstyle and his frank, approvingly long look towards her had made up her mind. Not that her opposition would have made much difference against that heavy, gold-covered word which had been floating in the house for the past week in anticipation of this visit.
‘America’.
He had talked to her in English and she had noticed how he strained to hear her replies – contemplating, chewing and finally digesting her accent. She stayed at home for 7 more days before she got married and boarded her first flight.

Home truths

I went to see J.A Konrath yesterday.
And he pushed a knife through my dream.
J.A Konrath writes mystery novels. He writes them with a tequila flavor and just a twist of lime.
His novels: Whiskey sour, Bloody mary, rusty nail
His Hero(ine) : Jack Daniels (short for jacqueline Daniels)

He talked about his career.
He talked about his struggle.
He talked about the 400 odd rejections that he got.
He talked about the fact that his tenth novel was the first to be published.
He talked about the 6 digit advance that he got for his first contract.
Romantic.
My dream relived.

Then he talked about how he learnt from his mistakes.
He talked about not just caring about what he likes (knife removed from its sheath)
He talked about understanding what sells (It gleams a brilliant steel)
He talked about 'understanding' what the market wants. (It starts cutting at my dream - slicing at the photo on the jacket cover of my published book)
He talked about giving people what they want (The first shreds are on the carpet)
He talked about the 614 book store visits that he made last summer to pitch for himself, for his book (The first shreds are thin - they float)
He talked about the spiel that you need to have ready to promote yourself and your book (The shreds start to bleed)
He talked about the need to earn back your advance through your efforts - otherwise there might never be another book because the industry is cruel and watches (the blood spurts...the dream still breathes..only just)
He talked about the need to appeal to the widest possible audience especially women. So Joe Konrath is J.A Konrath. Suitably ambiguous. (RIP)

He talked about prostitution.
I slash some more. Just to make sure.

An ode to a kindred spirit

I haven't been following other blogs for some time now. So thought I will start with Jiby's blog. Found something extremely heartening there. He has set himself a challenge of writing a novel in 30 days. You will find the declaration of his intent here and the process of culmination here. I have always admired his blog for his seemingly effortless reminiscences of his school life and totally enjoyed reading the escapades of his band-of-brothers in sporadic posts. Writing under a deadline (externally imposed or self imposed) is frightening. Its a tremendous challenge associated with a high probability of failure. But he has taken it up and it is gratifying. I won't fault him if he fails. But I hope that he does not. I know he has taken up a subject that he can do full justice to. My good wishes are with him. I sincerely wish he makes it. For him and for me.

A Reason to Write

1997 was Arundhati Roy and ‘The God of small things’. For an Engineering college student trying to make sure that my writing output equaled at least a daily diary entry, the world suddenly expanded. Writing seemed to have a purpose – gift wrapped in fame and millions. Arundhati Roy was felicitated, reviled, torn down and splashed on all the newspapers. It wasn’t always about the merit of the book. But it was most certainly always about the million dollar advance.

That night I had a diary entry. The title – GRN.

That stood for the ‘Great Rajesh Novel’ – the one I would write one day and which would take me to the writers’ throne. I put it as ‘GRN’, with no explanations, because diaries have a dangerous habit of falling in the wrong hands. In a house filled with cousins, newer avenues for entertainment were greedily sought after. As the youngest, I had had my fair share of attention. I had no intention of offering myself as a ready target. I knew the explosive potential of a diary. So, I locked and relocked entries with code words and pseudonyms. I knew and would always know what GRN meant. That was enough.

Years have passed and I am no nearer to completing that ultimate novel. GRN seems to be an extremely corny expression to me now. I realize how difficult it is to write.

An article, a short story, a novel.

Writing is hard work. Period. But not everybody agrees. There is a virtual glut of aspiring authors among people I know. Having read the stories of Phantom, Mandrake and Rip Kirby in the Indrajal comics of their childhood, they consider themselves qualified and ready - to be the next Vikram Chandra.

To each his own.

I gave up on that path after a very enlightening conversation. Somebody told me that giving a form to something that is crying to come out of you is creativity. If it is content inside you, it is better left there.

So, I read – and I admire. And I keep a lookout for all those aspiring writers trying to break out. I hope there is a Harper Lee, waiting to spring on me with a mockingbird story. I give space to the next Jhumpa Lahiri with a cure to the maladies of the world.

And I refuse to give up on the GRN. I wait for inspiration.

The Frankfurt Transit Lounge

I reached the US via Frankfurt. We had to sit in the Frankfurt airport transit lounge for about an hour. It was boring. I had nothing better to do. So I wrote this about the transit lounge.

The Frankfurt Airport Transit Lounge
It’s a wedge-shaped hall with a clock hanging from the centre of the ceiling. The clock is disproportionately small compared to the hall dimensions. It has a meshed metal ceiling interspersed with futuristic looking metal circles with holes (air vents?). The seats are wide but unpretentious; comfortable but not luxurious. Large glass panes run throughout the length of one side of the hall. It affords a view of the tarmac, of the aircrafts taxiing in, flying out, landing. The maximum rush is at the toilets, on the side directly opposite the glass-paned one. 8 hours of sitting in a flight from Mumbai to Frankfurt does that. The time available at the transit lounge is awkward. Its about an hour which is too short for planning a siesta and too long to have to sit and fidget.

A newly wed couple fights, a fight which has crossed continents in 8 hours. The wife is unhappy with her mother-in-law. The husband defends vigorously. The wife quietens down; waiting for a gap, the next opportunity to strike.

A child of 2 or 3 wears a large cap over his head. His eyes are widely spaced, his head is abnormally large. Thankfully, he walks around, points to his mother where he wants to be taken, listens to what she says and calls her 'mama'. Another woman walks past. She smiles contentedly, smugly. She has a child sleeping on her shoulder. He is healthy.


The noise level in the hall is less when compared to the number of people packed in. The awkwardness of the time available prevents conversations from taking off. Small children exploring a new space contribute most to the noise.
Announcements over the PA system are made both in English and German. The English spoken by the ground staff has a quaint, lilting German accent. The German spoken is unintelligible but pleasing to the ear. The people in the hall look uncertain, suspicious.

Excerpt 2

Here is another excerpt from the book I will hopefully complete writing one day. Do put in your comments about it

Excerpt 2 (Refer Excerpt 1 from a previous post)

The foursome walked along the mudroad leading from the river to the paved road which led towards home. The paddy fields, on both sides of the road, a lively green in colour swayed in time to the wind tune. The omnipresent coconut trees all around gave a spectacular scenic beauty to the setting that was totally lost on the children. They never noticed the God-like beauty spread around them. They had never seen anything yet to compare their surroundings with. It was everyday life; it was home.

Satyan, his thick-glassed spectacles constantly in danger of falling from the perch on his nose walked with confidence. He stopped whenever something caught his fancy; a dragonfly, a squirrel. He never asked the others to stop or wait for him but they invariably did. The other children had never ever seen him ask permission to do something he wanted to do. His brain hadn’t been programmed to think that there might even be a need for something like that.. Satyan was not good-looking. He was dark, thin and wore ghastly, thick glasses but the confidence that pervaded every part of Satyan’s personality was inborn. At home and in school he had a following that was unexplainable. His classmates in school followed him blindly. He had an aura about him, a fearlessness, a halo that made him a leader without comparison.

True reasons

Talking to like-minded people widens horizons. The key word being 'Like minded'. I am hopelessly impractical but am still not comfortable being so. My ideal talk companion is comfortable being impractical, thinks about life on more than a day-to-day plane, thinks about the good movies he/she has seen and reads. I can spend hours listening to such a person.

Yesterday, I listened to Elango. I talked but mostly listened. I am good at that. He has interesting ideas and the conversation was to my liking. If he writes down his ideas, I intend to post it on this blog. Yesterday's conversation made me think of my motives about doing stuff. The real motives I mean. Not the ones that can be freely shared (and is made entirely of cliches) but the innermost ones. As I have said before, I am writing something. I have frequently thought what is making me do it. I realise that its the hope that what I write will be popular. That people will know me. That I will be famous. And that I will get a big, fat advance and royalties for life which I believe will make me happy.

I have a cousin who is a budding cartoonist and 'like-minded'. I have never told him the reasons why I am writing. But he seemed to know exactly. He told me once that the best creations(books, musics, paintings, movies) are the ones the creator passionately believes in. The reason for their being is because the creator could not keep it within him any longer. He had to share it, otherwise he would burst. I agree with him. That must be the reason why the first movies, the first albums and the first books of most people are usually their best works. And that must be the reason why Harper Lee wrote only 'To kill a mocking bird' and nothing else all her life. Because thats enough. I can re-read that book till all the words in it are memorised and still not feel bored. Because the book has a story, a setting, real characters and a glow to it that can never be duplicated artificially. I believe she never wrote another book all her life because she was spent after this one. I think she must have started writing other books but would have realised that the same passion did not exist. That she would be cheating her readers by trying to write something that she genuinely wasnt passionate about.

I will have to rejig my priorities about my own writing. There is no end to the lure of money and fame. Aspiring for it is to deviate from my true self.

An excerpt from what I am trying to write

Had written about buying my guitar from Kolkata yesterday. Thought I will put in an excerpt of the novel I am trying to write as it deals with Kolkata.

Excerpt 1
Manu had come back from Kolkata and as usual had brought Kolkata back with him. Aditya felt that Kolkata rejuvenated Manu and made him more Manuish. Manu would never tire of describing the city that he loved more than any other. His stories and descriptions brought alive the city Aditya had never seen but dearly wanted to.

Manu took leave from from his classes, his students , from Revathy and from his responsibilities for two weks every year and went to Kolkata. He always went alone. He said he could savour the city only if he was alone. He went in the second half of November when there would be a delicious chill in the air. According to Manu, that was the best season in the world. Not hot, not too cold, just right. He would spend most of his time walking through the streets eating golgappas and rolls. He refused to eat anything but street food when he was there.

He would describe to Aditya how he loved the happiness that engulfed the city. He would describe tram journeys at nightwhere people would be chatting incessantly, animatedly. Badly paid government employees, chana chor garam sellers, chaatwallahs, young men in T-shirts, all smiling and talking when they had everything to crib about. And all in that lilting, melodious Bangla language. Manu couldn't understand Bangla but he always heard Salil Chaudhari' s melodies in the conversations.

Manu would spend a couple of mornings at the Salt Lake watching the tiny fishing boats making their way across the water. He would watch the birds diving into the water for the fish which made circular patterns everytime they breathed. He would leave only after all the bird formations in the sky above the lake had gone home to roost. He would sit in parks watching old men discussing football, the Indian cricket team's fortunes and the difference between the communism of their day and the communism of today. He would come back satiated, content and full of life.

Manu would bring back a tin of rosagollas, 2 kurtas and a couple of gramaphone records of Manna Dey - everytime. He said it was the only place where he wanted to buy everything. It was also the place he couldn't wait to go back to again.