How did ‘Ladders against the Sky’ happen? Could you describe the journey?

The journey began with my travels. As a student, I joined the excursions arranged by our college. In addition, I traveled on my own to different parts of India.Later, when I worked for an export company in Taiwan, my work involved travel to various parts of the world. These stories are a gift of my travels.

What according to you is different about your book?

Two things. One, half the stories are about Sindhis. I wanted to show the human aspect behind the stereotypes that the popular mind carries about Sindhis, both in India and overseas. Two, the other stories are about how the contradictory strands of science and superstition, tradition and modernity are intertwined in the lives of Indians and how this paradox impacts life in India.

What kind of research was put into the writing of this book, especially with so many varied stories?

My observations during my travels were my research. The writer in me noted the displacement Indians overseas had to work through and the cultural adjustments they had to make. In India, I saw, with pain, the conundrums that the various layers of traditions imposed on its modernity – oriented inhabitants.

How would you relate the lives of your characters to the lives, today? Any similarities?

Since my stories have grown out of my observations of people and places, they are realistic. For example, two stories deal with human sacrifice in India. Who would imagine that such a thing would happen in the 21^st century, yet is exists.

What was the most challenging part about writing ‘Ladders against the Sky’?

Since there are 23 stories in the collection, each story presented its own challenge. In one, the question was how to structure the story. In another, how to weave in the atmosphere without losing the emphasis on character. In a third, at what point should the story open: towards the middle to grab the reader’s attention and then go into the back story, or begin at the beginning? In a fourth, should dialogue or narration carry the story forward or how to balance dialogues and narration. In brief, technique was the biggest challenge.

Could you tell the readers about your experiences and how they were related to what you have written?

What I observed, felt, thought, reacted too – whether it was regarding the people I met or the locales I traveled through or the way of living I shared during that period – became the warp and woof of the stories.

What is the most fulfilling part of writing this book?

The book itself. It is a record of my experiences and how I interpreted them. Since we live as much with our memories as we do in the present, the stories will help me to time-travel and re-live my experiences whenever I’m so inclined.

Who was it that told you that you could become the author that you are today?

One of my English Literature teachers, Rev Brother Michael D. Curran. When I asked him why everything I wrote was so prolix, he said as I move from teen age to the next phase of my life my writing would become muscular. ‘Writing matures with the person’. I doubted his advice at that time. Time has proved him right.

When will your next book be out?

I hope to write about the experience of Indians who visit their adult children working in America. They come to the States every year, anywhere from 1 month to 6 (the maximum time their visa allows them). They are the reverse of the “snow birds” from Canada who fly to warm Florida in winter. The problem is that the children and the children’s spouses of the Indian seniors have full time jobs. The result is that the parents have their company only for a few hours in the evening. What they do to pass the time during the rest of the day will be the subject of the book. I don’t know when I’ll start working on the book.

Who are your favorite authors and why?

An odd assortment: Somerset Maugham, Mulk Raj Anand, H.E.Bates, Padma Hejmadi, Frederick Forsyth, Philip Roth, Anita Desai, and Salman Rushdie.  Why? Because they entertain – in the best sense of the word.

Which books are you currently reading?

Three books concurrently. Crazy? Of course. ‘The Feast Days’ by Ian MacKenzie (dealing with the experience of  the ‘trailing spouses’ of expatriates), ‘The Ninth Hour’ by Alice McDermott and ‘The Underground Railway’ by Colson Whitehead.

What else do you do on a daily basis?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Sudarshan Kriya (more or less daily), workout in the gym, read, and drink – my favourite Assam tea!

links to the interview:

http://srutis.blogspot.com/2018/06/author-interview-murli-melwani-author.html and https://srutis.blogspot.com/2018/06/author-interview-murli-melwani-author_6.html

Mitra Phukan’s Two New Books Promise to Usher in a Fresh Narrative from North East India

Two new books by author MITRA PHUKAN have been released, a fortnight apart from each other! The first is a collection of her short stories, “A Full Night’s Thievery.” The other is her translation of Jyanpeeth Awardee Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya’s book, “Kobor Aru Phool,” which she has named “Blossoms in the Graveyard.” Mitra Phukan talks to the Managing Editor of “The Thumb Print – A Magazine from the East,”  Teresa Rehman, on her two books that look set for the literary long haul.

1. Two of your books have been released, two weeks apart from each other, back to back! Congratulations. Can you tell us more?

Thank you, Teresa, I am so excited! It wasn’t planned that they would come out at the same time. But I have been toiling over both the books this past year, with mails flying between the publishers, editors, and me. I am so delighted that they have come out now, from two highly regarded publishers. At times, a mail meant for one would go to the other from me! And both sets of publishers and editors have really been so very professional and helpful too. As you can see, both covers are eye catching …their work, their sensitivity to the content, and their understanding of my vision has impressed me greatly.

2. ‘A Full Night’s thievery’ sounds like an exciting collection of stories. Can you tell us what to expect in this book?

This is a collection of thirteen of my short stories. I have written them over the years, as and when inspiration struck. Several have appeared in highly regarded journals in India and abroad, as well as in e journals. A couple of them have won awards. Several have been translated into many languages, Indian and European. I am very happy that one has been translated into my mother tongue, Assamese, also. The others are new. However, I have re worked even the older stories intensively, layering them, and adding the insights that come to any writer, any person, with the passage of time. In that sense, all the stories in this collection are new.

The themes of the stories are varied. I am quoting the blurb here. ”In this collection, Mitra Phukan sounds the rhythms of contemporary Assamese society, deftly weaving universal themes of love, loss, and ageing with some of the issues facing the region: militancy, witchcraft, and traditional ways of life. Her stories acutely depict people’s struggles to relate to each other across vast social gulfs and within the intricacies of family and love. Intimate, allusive and wryly observed, “A Full Night’s Thievery” is a finely drawn portrait of humanity.”

I love creating characters, and setting them within the context of the themes I have in mind. I totally enjoyed writing these stories, spread out over many years. For me, the characters who populate this book are as real as those I meet in the street. But of course they have all come from my imagination.

I have tried to keep the language and style as simple as possible. The title comes from one of the stories, which is about Modon Sur, the village thief of Rupohi, in Western Assam in the late forties of the last century! I loved writing this, as indeed I loved working on all of them. The moods vary, from the humorous to the poignant.

   3. The translation of Jyanpeeth Awardee Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya’s book, “Kobor Aru Phool”, which has been named “Blossoms in the Graveyard” is another monumental work. Please tell us about your experience as a translator?

Translation is my way of “paying my dues” to my mother tongue. In this case, when the Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya Trust approached me to translate this slim book, I readily agreed. I have always been a huge admirer of this author, both as a writer and a person. His humanism imbues his work, as it imbued his life.

I am a very slow translator. It took me more than a year to complete this manuscript, of course with pauses during which I worked on my original writings and columns, too. It is such a moving story, I often found myself weeping as I translated it. I don’t know whether I have done justice to the work. As a translator, I have always tried to subjugate my own style of writing to the author’s. I have tried, as best as I was able, to do that in this book, too.

4. “Blossoms in the Graveyard” is set in the backdrop of recent history. It’s set in Bangladesh during the war of liberation. Do you think it will help in better understanding of ties between the two countries?

I do hope so, Teresa. There is a deep humanism that suffuses the work, and I hope this spirit will work to bring about an understanding that might go towards resolving long standing problems and issues.

5.  The heroine of “Blossoms in the graveyard” is a Muslim girl called Mehr. Please tell us how did you go about understanding the nuances of a Muslim women’s life while translating this book?

Mehr is such a beautifully drawn character, delicate yet with the strength that comes from being of the soil. Her character develops during the course of the story, as she goes through all kinds of horrific experiences, but also some beautiful ones. Mehr is also a metaphor for the struggle of Bangladesh itself towards freedom.

Religion plays a huge part in this book. It is a very nuanced vision. Time and again, the author emphasises the fact that Pakistani Muslims were raping and killing Bangladeshi Muslims. It was Bangla nationalism, not religion, that was at the core of the struggle. And there are several Hindu characters, too, who are finely drawn, who serve to show the secular character of the struggle. This should surely resonate with us today.

Because of the many references to Islam, I consulted several knowledgeable, practicing, devout Muslims. Dr Swabera Islam was my go-to person for the references. Mosfica Islam also helped me considerably in this. There were many references and quotations from the Holy Quran that I needed help with.

Actually, this is a book written in several languages! Assamese, Bangla, with smatterings of Urdu and English! There are some beautiful Bangla songs that were challenging to translate. Rabindra Sangeets, Baul Geets, Folk songs …and many others!

6. Do you think these two books will help in changing the usual narrative from this region? 

I certainly hope so, Teresa! The short stories are definitely of the kinds that have never been written before, in English or Assamese.  The theme of music recurs often in them, and I don’t think too many in this region are working on this theme at this point of time.

As for the translation, when the author herself is none other than such a literary stalwart, it is highly likely that the usual narrative from this region will definitely be modified.

Link to the interview: http://www.thethumbprintmag.com/mitra-phukans-two-new-books-promise-to-usher-in-a-fresh-narrative-from-the-region/

INTERVIEW WITH DR. Fil Munas, author of Mission To Earth

Fil Munas fashions a string of long short stories as a chassis, a platform, for the profligate history of planet Earth since its inception and of the achievements  and failures of homo sapiens, as they await a sixth major mass extinction.

Murli Melwani (MM). Dr Munas it is my pleasure to interview the author of a book that has been compared to Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. You have presented a large number of themes in Mission To Earth. Could you please outline the themes?

Dr Fil Munas (DFM)… I truly appreciate this privilege to appear on your blog, Murli. Thanks! You started me off on an easy one. I am humbled by the quote you took from Dr. Surendra Kelwala, a famous psychoanalyst here in America. Stephen Hawking is one of my heroes, and to be compared to him is indeed a great honor. In fact, Hawking’s speculation than incoming extraterrestrials could harbor malevolent intent toward humans, supports a passage in my novel (page 17):

Most unsolicited extraterrestrial contacts are usually intended to secure territory and strip resources from stars and planets. The hunt for copious oxygen bearing atmospheres to expropriate and use for the benefit of the invaders is especially common in certain parts of the Universe. These oxygen hunting species, frequently fleeing oxygen depleting worlds, confiscate oxygen rich ones like Earth, often decimating preexisting lifeforms on captured territory. 

Fortunately for all concerned, the visitor this time turns out to be rather benign. The plot of my novel—and it is a science-fiction, or a “scientific” novel—describes the adventures of the protagonist Mac, a visitor to Earth from a planet called Galymon in a different galaxy. Mac informs the reader at the very outset about the Commission assigned to it (Mac has no gender). We are told on page 12:

My name is Mac. I was commissioned by the Most High Tribunal of Galymon to journey to a small rocky planet selected from among several dozen other life bearing planets we detected during a systematic scan of space in a narrow wedge of the Orion Arm in the Milky Way galaxy.

One of the difficult tasks in writing a novel such as this, is to not become careless and accidently assign Mac a gender at any time! That was hard to do.

Mac concisely describes and records the profligate history of planet Earth since inception, and of its currently dominant species, Homo sapiens. That is the plot. I have tried to write this novel in an unusual style, not normally encountered in modern literature. The book is divided into 14 chapters enclosed within a brief prologue and epilogue. The chapters themselves are organized into vignettes, bracketed within embellishments. Each vignette, though woven into the fabric of the main novel, has the ability to stand on its own and be read as a “long short story” apart from the main tale. This allows the busy modern reader to start and put down the book at any time, permitting a more leisurely and unconventional platform for reading a novel packed with complex scientific information. The manuscript can be opened anywhere to read at will by the gentle reader. The late great Sir Fred Hoyle used a storyline in his timeless book, The Black Cloud, where a sapient being attempts to transfer information to a human and overloads the circuits. I remembered this cautionary encounter from Sir Fred’s own extraterrestrial tale. Since my book is an “opus” novel (527 pages), this was especially necessary! I have added footnotes—again an unusual device for a novel—as explanatory asides.

MM: Please comment on the narrative curve of the themes.

DFM… The literary devise of an extraterrestrial visitor is not new. Voltaire used the technique in his Micromégas. In a different sense, Jonathan Swift did that in Gulliver’s Travels. The narrative curve in my novel follows the encounters of the protagonist Mac during a visit to Earth, and is communicated in the first person. For example, a passage in my novel, an eyewitness account by Mac when that bolide struck Earth 66 million years ago to wipe out the dinosaurs and usher in the last major mass extinction, reads as follows (page 66):

Right about then, a whistling sound could be heard approaching from the north. Within moments it had become an earsplitting boom. A brilliant light appeared in the sky, slicing violently through the cloud cover, heralding the end of that world. A huge object from space traveling at 12.5 miles a second was about to strike the planet. Exactly at 12:08:02 PM, an enormous fireball brighter than a thousand suns smashed into Earth’s lower atmosphere, releasing more energy upon impact than five billion Hiroshima sized atom bombs. The payload comparison here is to the atomic bomb dropped by the United States of America in 5 BP on the city of Hiroshima in Japan. The Hiroshima bomb was a small uranium fueled nuclear fission bomb with a yield of 15 kilotons, the explosive equivalent of 15,000 metric tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT), a chemical explosive. That single atomic bomb leveled an area of about 2 miles in diameter around the point of impact. Between 60,000 to 80,000 people were killed instantly. In just 150 days, close to half the city’s human population of 340,000 were dead. More died later from delayed radiation effects. My gentle reader can imagine what an asteroid or centaur packing the punch of 5 billion such bombs would do.

MM: The structure of the book in reader-friendly. Your comments please.

DFM… Thanks you noticed that!—it was most important to me. The reader is the real protagonist, and I have tried to deal with him or her with the greatest of respect and the highest of regard. Because the manuscript is chock-full of advanced, real-time (and future!) scientific information, I have tried to explain the details as best I could, without patronizing the reader’s intelligence.

MM: How did you get the idea for the book? What made you choose such a vast subject?

DFM… Your question embarrasses me! The subject is indeed vast and literally encompasses the entire history of the current Universe. That may be an impossible task, even for a pretty smart extraterrestrial! The subject is enormously important, though. Our biosphere is now experiencing a sixth major mass extinction since metazoans appeared on this planet in the Cambrian 500 million years ago, and humans are the primary cause for this.

MM: What was your reason for choosing, Mac, a visitor, from another planet, as the character through whose eyes we see the evolution of Mother Earth?

DFM… Mother Earth is our only home and we should be her faithful custodians and stewards, guarding and protecting her integrity for future generations. Instead, post-modern humans have embarked on an orgy of resource consumption and environmental degradation that spells doom for them and their fellow-travelers on this fragile rock in space. By choosing Mac to relate this dialectic, I am employing a narrator who can be objective in telling this story, and who has, so to speak, no dog in the fight.

MM: Let us leave aside Mac’s point of view for a moment. What are your thoughts of the response of the present generation to climate change, emissions and other occurrences that may impact the survival of our species?

DFM… You hit the nail on the head, Murli. The present generation and their elders have been thoroughly derelict in their duty to Mother Earth. They are “shitting where they eat” as the saying goes.

MM: How much research went into a book with such a broad vision?

DFM… A lifetime—and that may not be enough. I am grateful to Christian Medical College in Vellore, South India, for preparing me with the basics for this task.

MM… Please tell us about your publishing journey. Publishers nowadays are interested in manuscripts that turn in a quick buck.

DFM… Yes indeed, it’s hard not to be Stephan King—I hope this interview will sell me a few more books! For a first time author, publishing can be a nightmare. Just getting someone to read your manuscript is hard enough. Fortunately for me, I had dear friends who eased this tribulation.

MM: I understand that the book has gone into a second reprint.

DFW: I didn’t push it.  It moved on its own steam. I’m grateful to my readers.

MM: What are your future literary projects?

DFM… I don’t want to jinx it, but I’m sort of working on my second book, provisionally called Biology Of Religion. I hope the title is not too grandiose.

MM… Thank you for your time.

DFM… Thank you, Murli. It was my privilege and pleasure.

( Italics added by ISSE)

1.The Indian Short Story in English. If books were a stage, you’ve played many parts on it. With your writing skills, you could have chosen to write novels. What made you choose the “drill sergeant”(sorry for the echoes of Paltan Tales in the question) discipline of the short story?

Madhavi Mahadevan

MM: Drill sergeant discipline – nicely put!  The short story was a conscious choice for me, but also an instinctive one. My predisposition came from a rich exposure to oral storytelling at an early age. There were some remarkable storytellers in the family who, through the choice of material and the alchemy of voice, rhythm, inflection and facial expression, created sheer magic. There was something of a ritual involved in creating the story world, starting with the almost incantatory, Kisi zamaane mein ek raja hua karta tha…( Once upon a time, there used to be a king). It was inclusive, requiring not just a listening attitude, but also the appropriate audience responses. The intensity of those engagements and the emotional connection that developed with storytelling has remained till today. When I began to write, it was that magic I hoped to create for the reader. Acquiring the self control and focus, what you rightly term discipline, is what I am still learning in the process.

2.ISSE:So what would you say are the advantages of a short story over the novel?

MM: As a reader I have enjoyed both, but the reading experience is different in each case. A good novel is like a well organized cruise, offering variations in the scenery, several diversions even exotic pleasures. Your experience is connected, there are assorted memories to keep, multiple meanings to be drawn.

 On the other hand, a good short story is akin to shooting the rapids. You have to be a bit of an adrenalin junkie.  Time is compressed, awareness is focused, emotions are peaking and nothing else matters till you make it to the end. After that, all you know is that you’ve gone through something, some of your assumptions have been dislodged, but the experience is so embedded  its basic structure – the frothing water, the spinning landscape, the roar in your ears, your own fear – that its meaning is ineffable. It works at many levels. The mood cannot be stored in memory, it has to be relived.  (Just think of the opening line of Kafka’s  The Metamorphosis, and you’ll know what I mean!)

Only the most powerful short stories manage to do this, but using the analogy of rapids, such is the suppleness of the form in terms of content, stylistic choices and meaning  that even the lower grades make for a worthwhile ride.

3.ISSE. In spite of these advantages, why is the short story treated as the step child of literature, by (a)  publishers, (b) book reviewers, (c)  readers?

MM: Publishers tell you  that short stories don’t sell. This is due to the widespread belief – among publishers, reviewers and the public –  that  the short story is the nursery slope of fiction writing, where you “learn the craft” before you move on to bigger challenge of the novel. I don’t share this view. However, it is true  that  the entry barrier is low and a talented amateur writer can pull off a brilliant short story, but it does not necessarily mean that s/he can write an entire collection that is uniformly good.  A novel allows  a publisher to make a more complete assessment of the author’s capability. As publishing is a business where everyone is notoriously risk averse, those in it , agents, editors, marketing, look for authors who are in for the long haul.

With reviewers it comes down to personal tastes. An anthology, whether by a single author or multiple authors, is a mixed bag: every story cannot appeal equally, but the collection is  judged by the ‘dislikes’ as much as the ‘likes. Novels, in contrast, are treated more leniently.

Finally, the reader, and this is where I am forced to train my guns. It’s interesting  that you use the word “step child” for the short story. To me that implies an alien/ outsider whereas the short story is celebrated in our languages. Think of all the folktales, songs, poems, aphorisms and anecdotes in all the native languages.  I wonder if the problem lies with Indian Writing in English (IWE) which is, comparatively speaking, the new kid on the block. There is even now a certain formality, dare I say discomfort, with this language. Though more people are speaking it than ever before, it is unlikely that they are learning it for the pleasure of reading fiction. Given the severe competition in examinations and job interviews, English is  a basic tool for survival.  Brevity, clarity, unity of meaning, all of which are primary requirements of the short story, rest on articulateness way beyond this kind of functional  learning that is available to the average Indian.  

Another reason for the short shrift given to the short story could also be it that we discriminate without applying sense or sensibility. Given that we have other ridiculous and damaging “preferences” in our society – fair skin rather than dark, boy child rather than girl – perhaps the bias against the short story vs the novel should be reviewed in the same light. In the long run fiction is a covenant between the writer and the reader. Every society creates its own literature. By denying the short story breathing space it is society that suffers the most.

4.ISSE: With the growth in the number of readers and the mushrooming of publishers, do you think the situation will change?

I  am optimistic, but I don’t expect miracles. More people are reading, which is a good sign. Another positive is the increase in online exposure; excellent short stories, from the old masters as well as newer writers, are available for free on the net. Also Twitter, FB and other social media platforms have boosted flash fiction – very difficult to write successfully, in my opinion. So, yes, there is increased exposure, awareness and sensibilities are changing. All of it augurs well.

5.ISSE:With the next few questions allow us to enter the workshop of your writer’s mind,

MM: Permision granted^-^

a)what triggers the idea of a short story in your mind?

MM: There are mainly  two different types of triggers. Memory is one, social observation is the other. A news report, an overheard conversation or even an impression of a setting that stays in the head. Whatever be the trigger, I have to sense the germ of conflict in it. It’s a bit like water divining or pigs sniffing out truffles.

For instance, last Sunday I had gone to Lalbagh, once the city’s pride, but now in a deplorable state of neglect. I saw this majestic silk cotton tree. Its trunk and lower branches had been disfigured a long time ago. Rajeshwari loves Sridhar – that sort of thing. The tree had, in girth and stature, grown far beyond the scribbled nonsense. Given the fact that the silk cotton lives to the age of 200 years, I wondered what had happened to Rajeshwari, Sridhar and others of that ilk. Had they been college students in the 70s? Did their trysting lead to a wedding? How did the marriage turn out? A nasty voice in my head catalogued all the horrible things that could, and maybe should, happen to those who vandalize parks and monuments. I smelt the beginnings of a story.

 (b) how do you flesh out the idea?

MM:It begins with a setting. As words are the foremost economy one has to practice, this means that only the telling details, ie., those absolutely relevant to understanding the character and/ or furthering the plot are included. The character comes next. I dwell a fair bit on getting this precise, at least for myself. I have to understand the character/s thoroughly so that I retain some semblance of control over the story. The germ of conflict that triggered the original impulse is considered next, expanded, detailed. But it’s all still in my head. Only when I have some premonition of how the character’s journey is going to end that I sit down to the actual writing. A sense of the ending is therefore the starting point.

6. ISSE. Can you tell us why the voice in your first collection Paltan Talesis different from that in Doppelganger. (Madhavi, please feel free to dwell on the theme, the locales, the characterization, the narratives and the humor. You have a 130 x 100 yards soccer field to dribble and weave patterns with the above elements.)

MM: It’s an insightful question: the voice and the change in it over the decade or so that separates one collection from the other.  It recognizes the fact that developing a writerly voice is a struggle. However, it is extremely important for a writer to develop a distinctive voice. Authenticity is a hallmark; it comes first from knowing the milieu you are writing about very, very well.

With regard to the change in voice that you remarked upon, I would say it was  largely due to the initial triggers for each collection. With Paltan Tales it was memory I relied on; with Doppelganger it was close observation of what was happening around me at that time.

To elaborate

To elaborate: The cantonment was my environment right from birth for several decades. I was an insider there. It was only after I’d left that life that I gained sufficient distance to see it as a backdrop or locale for fictional purposes. Also, entering civvy street gave me something to contrast it with. We don’t have conscription in our country, joining the armed forces is purely voluntary, like choosing to be a chartered accountant or a civil engineer, yet the civil-military divide does exist. (The recent OROP crisis has only underlined it.) The Why of this situation fascinated me, probably because it was one of the Whys of me as well. The self and the other has frequently been the starting point  in fiction. I felt the difference between myself and my peers in school. I was an army brat who had moved from place to place, adjusted to new cities and schools because the cantonment, its vocabulary, its set ways provided me with inner stability in a changing outer environment.The belief system was fairly solid, clear-cut and permeated everything and everyone. It was only when I gained exposure to other values and beliefs, other ways of living, that I began to question and appraise what I had grown up with, to see  it, as material for fiction.

The themes in Paltan Tales reflect the world view of the cantonment, through characters that are almost stereotypical to those who can recognize them.  The incidents were almost entirely real, or realistic enough, and reflections on them were minimal. It wasn’t necessary for me to go too deep into the heads of characters and dig out psychological motivations that informed their actions. The psychology of an infantry officer or a fighter pilot is not terribly convoluted. I was merely describing a largely patriarchal society, not overtly commenting or criticizing it. The “gender neutral” tone that one reviewer mentioned came from this approach.

Reader always on the mind

As a writer, the reader is always on my mind. From the early responses to the stories, I understood that the general public would probably pass them up, but those who understood the world I was writing about might be entertained. It was therefore a niche audience. In a way, it freed me.  Vocabulary, diction, both of which are the nuts and bolt of developing a voice, came spontaneously and so did the themes.( As I said, I was an insider.) With regard to humour, as anyone who has read and liked Catch-22 will know, irony is the best defence against the mind numbing drill, discipline and inscrutable ways of the fauj. It is perhaps the only viable response to “Theirs not to reason why.” So humour when it came was spontaneous  in the situation, and not really an attempt to be funny.

The change in voice in Doppelganger

Coming to the change in voice in Doppelganger: The development of a writer’s voice  is a deep internal process, also a slow one –at least in my case. Reflection is very necessary to developing a voice. You have to have a world view that you feel strongly about.  You can see it in the work of the best short story writers: Premchand’s gritty  social realism, Kafka’s gallows humour, Chekhov’s sublime simplicity.

In the period that followed Paltan Tales the city around me changed unrecognizably, and the dislocation anxiety  deepened that sense of the self and the other.  It also  served as a good writing prompt. I was not an insider writing about a world I understood , but a well- adjusted, albeit slightly bemused, outsider observing the world around me becoming something else. Everything and everyone was reinventing. The changing scenario, a different cast of characters, entirely different dilemmas, now became my material. The certainties that were inherent in the world of Paltan Tales, did not exist  in that of Doppelganger. There were new characters whose back stories were unknown, but the complexities of modern urban life, its deeper conflicts and all its grey areas required me to pay closer attention to how the story would “sound” in the reader’s head. Hence the careful modulation.

7.ISSE: What other works are on the anvil in your workshop?

The search for a publisher for Doppelganger  was very long drawn. “ Show us  your novel,” they said, and said it so many times that finally I was driven to start one. Nearly done.

8.ISSE: Great. Look forward to the novel. And thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience with us.

“His face may have remained hidden behind shelves and files but his mind floated in a world of words”

U.Subramaniam

Written by Soma Basu

After listening to his story, I am forced to presume U. Subramaniam was never the typical Government servant. He may have retired from the State Department of Cooperatives in 1992, but from three decades before that and two after, his heart always remained elsewhere.

His face may have remained hidden behind shelves and files but his mind floated in a world of words. And he never gave up the pursuit of his literary or journalistic calling.

“It was that inner voice constantly pushing me to make up my mind and start writing,” he asserts.

Well, you may think there is no dearth of writers these days. So what is so special about lean and petite Subramaniam? Not only has he authored 130 short stories and over 200 essays and articles in English but he has voluntarily undertaken an additional job of distributing his books free of cost.

During the last two decades post- retirement, Subramaniam has derived immense joy and honour in traversing the city by bus notwithstanding the crushing summer days or rain filled roads and giving away copies of his compilation of short stories to schools and public libraries. He doesn’t bother about the physical strain and the holes the exercise leaves in his pocket. “I have a supporting wife and son, who are also my best critics,” he smiles.

“Majority of the city schools will have at least two of my anthologies in their libraries,” shares the author of six volumes of short stories with a tint of pride.

“So many factors can easily deflate the drive, self-esteem and spirit of aspiring writers of any age. I have had my share too. But once a written piece is published, it sustains the writer’s spirit running in the vein,” he says.

First piece

His brush with the pen began when he was posted in Ooty. “I got my first piece ever on tribals of Nilgiris published in an English daily in 1967. Ever since there has been no stopping, despite rejection from several publishers.” His ‘Middles’ on edit pages, short essays on contemporary issues, simple stories about life, book reviews have been in circulation in various publications.

As a little boy, temple festivals and caparisoned elephants fascinated him. “Now I like to observe people. I started reading fairly young to learn new things and writing a lot in the school’s literary magazine,” recalls the Kerala born and bred boy. Even as he read different genre of authors in his growing years, he had his favourites from Ernest Hemingway and Somerset Maugham to Alice Munro, Toni Morrison, Irish Murdoch and R.K.Narayan, from John Updike and Nadine Gordimer to Shashi Deshpande and Kamala Das, Vivekananda, Sarat Chandra and Tagore to Arundhati Roy, Vikram Seth and Anita Desai. His personal collection exceeds 3,000 titles. While his articles appeared in a wide range of publications including The Mail, The Mirror, The Tort, Nilgiri Herald, Kochin Window, The Afternoon, Alive, Caravan, he feels the turning point came when M.J,Akbar changed the face of journalism as Editor of the erstwhile weekly magazine “Sunday” inviting commissioned writers.

“I switched to short stories. I always look around myself to draw inspiration. I feel you should always write about what you know. Even though much of Indian English literature is soaked in Indian myths and traditions, it is more comfortable to be rooted in the present than writing about the past.”

Personal perception

To convey his personal perception of the world, Subramaniam employs lot of capturing examples and draws parallels from daily life. His six compilations of two dozen short stories each are an interesting combination of light-hearted, nostalgic, enjoyable, and even not-so- terribly important matters.

With a good narrative flow and randomly but well-chosen themes, he relates his life experiences and influences in succinct language and delivers the impact. His first compilation “Vimala is willing” was published by Kolkata-based father of short stories R.Lal in 1996. “It was like a project. I sent him my manuscript and he printed it at a nominal cost. Then it was my job to sell the first print order of 150 copies priced at Rs.120 each. All were sold to colleges and Universities in and around Madurai and the District Library in Chennai.”

Just two years before his retirement, he was transferred to Madurai in 1990 and ever since made the city his home. As short story writing remained his pre-occupation, he came out with his second compilation in 1999 titled “In the Afternoon of Life.” Thereafter, followed “The Committed Official”, “When Pandavas Lost”, “The Enemy of Life” and the last one in 2008 “As Dusk Falls”.

In each of his work not only has Subramaniam remained essentially Indian in terms of story telling but also displayed his brilliant ability to laugh at the system with his self-deprecating style of humour. For instance, he takes on the bureaucrat in The Committed Official or his favourite story is “The Visit” about a family which sits and chats through the night when a relative comes. “The essence here is in the genuine and simple conversation of any ordinary family which is easy to relate to and not merely one woven and crafted with beautiful words for the business of writing.”

True, Subramaniam’s works are mostly spontaneous creations which come out of his inner being. Just the way he says, “I stick to life”, pure Indianness mediated through the English language makes the charm of his works. And because he wants the young people to “know, experience and feel the different emotions and expressions of life” that he goes about distributing free copies of his books after printing them at his own cost.

This article first appeared in The Hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/musings-of-a-writer/article1712102.ece

Editor’s Note. U. Subramaniam’s new collection, Selected Stories, was published in Feb 2016.

This is what the author writes in the Preface to the collection: “six short story collections have appeared in less than two decades. Now it is time for a selection of them and here it is. In my stories there is no attempt to dazzle the reader with plot. They are the fruits of an attempt to understand life.”

 Literature is sensitive to developments in society. The Nirbhaya outrage brought the issue of injustices done to women into the open. The debate has thrown up a book that deals with most of the injustices women suffer. Defiant Dreams: Tales of Everyday Divas, published by Readomania has received good reviews since its publication in December 2015. TheIndian Short Story in English (ISSE) spoke to the two editors of the book, Rhiti Bose and Lopa Banerjee.

ISSE: The first thing that strikes us is that the publication of Defiant Dreams is timely since the abuses and injustices done to women are being openly discussed in India.

(Rhiti Bose/ Lopa Banerjee) RB/LB: We are truly happy that ‘Defiant Dreams’ has happened to us. More than a book, it is a dream, it is our collective vision of articulating the extraordinary journeys of everyday women. Though we are not keen on pitching the book as feminist literature, we are content that the collection brings to the forefront the journeys of ordinary women which we always wanted to share with the world.

ISSE: Could you please tell us how the idea to put together such a collection arose?

RB: As you know, I am the founder and chief editor of an e-zine called Incredible Women of India, where we curate real life, inspirational stories of Indian women. The idea of the book evolved from the e-zine itself. I wanted IWI to take a bigger leap and curate inspirational stories in a book form. That is when I approached Lopa, pitched my idea to her and asked her to be the creative editor. In a moment of madness, I am sure, she said YES!!!! And thus began the journey. Looking for a publisher who would believe in our vision was the next step

Rhiti Bose – Editor

Together we launched an online contest named STREE, where we asked our readers to send us inspirational stories about women. We received a stupendous response. From the absolutely brilliant entries we received, we handpicked 24 to go into the book.

We sent book proposals to many, but it was Readomania who said yes to our dream. Dipankar Mukherjee, the founder of Readomania, our publisher, has shown immense faith in this project. His faith was our strength. We are thankful to Readomania’s Indrani Ganguly, who mentored us through the editing process, for making our journey smooth. 

It has been a long demanding route, but a really gratifying one.  

LB: As for myself, I got to know about Rhiti and Incredible Women of India in late 2013 when she approached me to share a real-life nonfictional account. The Nirbhaya incident had just hit the headlines and brought my own sense of helplessness and wrath to the surface. My reaction formed the basis of the personal essay that was published in IWI. A couple of weeks later, I was again approached by Rhiti, this time to give an interview for the blog/e-zine. I was a struggling writer studying Creation Nonfiction in a State University in Nebraska, working on the manuscript of a memoir about my collective journey as a woman, a daughter and a mother.  The idea of the e-zine and the stories and interviews of women achievers from all walks of life struck a chord deep within me. It was the first time that I publicly articulated my own struggles and challenges, as well as my pleasures and my vision of the world of literature and the arts. I, also found resonance with all the other stories as they celebrated the meaning of womanhood in their own unique ways.

Lopa Banerjee – Editor

The request to collaborate with Rhiti on ‘Defiant Dreams’ gave me the same adrenaline rush as discovering IWI had. As editors, we undertook the immensely challenging, yet fulfilling task of editing the chronicles of the dreams, passion, and struggles of women and the life choices they make. When we first pitched the proposal of the book to Readomania, we knew the journey would be a roller-coaster ride.  In the process of selecting the stories for the collection, we actually discovered that the voices of women in the stories were the voices of our collective consciousness. This realization enriched us in amazing, unthinkable ways.

ISSE: Could you share some of the challenges you met and overcame as you worked on the project?

RB: The book is authored by 24 brilliant writers. The book went through three stages of editing, namely developmental editing, copy editing and proof reading, so you can imagine the chaos and madness that followed trying to co-ordinate with 24 different individuals.  Another hurdle to coordinating as editors was the time difference: Lopa is based in US and I in India.  But thankfully, everything fell into place.

LB: As for the challenges, the first one came in the form of the overarching themes of rape and exploitation, social and gender-based injustices women suffer. Most of the submissions we received focused on those issues. We had a really tough time deciding which of the stories belonging to the same broad subject matter to include in the book. We had to really zero in on those stories which were diverse in their treatment of the themes. That, I can tell you, was a daunting task.  We had to reject a few very good narratives to keep the variety of the book. Our objective was to produce a collection of stories enriched with a refreshing feel and perspective, celebrating the undaunted spirit of womanhood. There were a few creative differences along the way but they smoothed out pretty quickly.

Another major challenge was  developmental editing and copy editing of the stories in collaboration with the authors. Our objective was to keep the emotions and essence of the stories intact and also  maintain the unique voice of the authors; our task was  to fine-tune them to make them more readable, thus engrossing to the readers. Since both Rhiti and I were  first time editors,  we relied on Dipankar Mukherjee of Readomania  to steer us in the right direction with his innovative ideas. We must also mention that Readomania’s resident editor, Indrani Ganguly, put in long hours of hard work and mentored us in editing the stories. She also checked the final proofs.

ISSE: The blurb of the book extols the courage of the protagonists in overcoming overwhelming odds. As a reader, I would interested in knowing the themes of the stories. 

RB: We have tried to cover multiple issues and themes. Amlanation by Anirban Nanda deals with the issue of Acid Attacks on women. The Bride by Esha Chakraborty focuses on the practice of dowry and how it is masked a lot of times under the garb of  gifts. We have Memories in March by Sutapa Basu, which talks about domestic violence and abuse of a pregnant young woman. A particular favourite of mine is Please leave your sex outside by Aashisha Chakraborty, which deals with the Gender Equality issue in a very intelligent way. Tanushree Ghosh Dhall writes about the importance of perseverance and sacrifice in Anjali Chakraborty.

LB:  To pick up from where Rhiti left off, in Bidisha, Paulami Dattagupta portrays the effects of insurgency in the north-east on an ordinary young woman and how she fights her own demons of insecurity and mistrust of men serving the military/armed forces. Avanti Sopory’s Here I Come Benaras portrays the life of a widow caught in a racket of prostitution in the holy city and  how she remains heroic in spirit in spite of her daily ignominy. There is positivity and light in the treatment of the stories like Built From the Ashes by Radhika Maira Tabrez, The Journey of Two Women by Deepti Menon, Second Innings of Ma’ by Namrata Chauhan. In the last-named story, two women, unrelated by blood, become kindred spirits and lead one another to the path of self-recovery. There are poignant, searing portrayals of rape and cruelty on women in Safe Passage by Sanghamitra Bose. There are also stories of startling epiphanies that change a woman’s life as in A Second Chance by Arpita Banerjee.

 ISSE: That is quite a wide range of situations you have covered. I’m sure the style, presentation and the narrative must be as engaging as the themes:

 RB: Every writer has their own signature style, and when you read the book you will see every single story is different from the other in terms of theme, presentation, language and of course, narrative.

 LB: Certainly, they are. In fact, as editors and compilers of this collection, we strived to maintain diversity and uniqueness in the stories.

ISSE: If you can sum up the stories in a sentence or two, the reader will get an idea of the reading pleasure that awaits him/her.  The trauma of her parents’ death makes the nineteen year old protagonist a drug addict; setting up an orphanage helps her to fight the addiction and regain her self-respect (“Drug Addict”). 

 RB: I have already talked about a few, apart from them there is The 40’s by Ramaa Sonti which is a light hearted take on a woman in her forties trying to seek appreciation and love. Tara by Geeta Negi shows the transformation of a child bride to a woman of power, through her own grit, Yamuna Ma’s Hand by Mahesh Sowani tells the tale of a homeless woman and her ordeal and how she finds a new life through music. Pregnant Dreams by Sridevi Dutta is a beautiful tale of a woman dreaming of a better life.

Moreover, we have not only focused on women’s issues, but also situations which can be common to both men and women. This is evident in stories like  Moinak Dutta’s Story Once for a Change…, where a young fashion designer finds herself in a challenging situation which she overcome in the crime based story To Be Or Not To Be by Paromita Mukherjee Ojha where the crime tears open the protagonists’ family ties; in Unfound: Searching for home by Vasudha Gulati, which sensitively deals with the pangs of adoption. Some Porridge and An Education by Sreesha Divakaran talks about a woman’s journey to find self-respect for herself and a new life for her son. These stories can be seen from a lens where they do not simply remain a woman’s issue, but one of human rights. 

We must realise women are not different from men, we are all humans at the end of the day, and a woman’s issue or feminism is as much a man’s concern as it is a woman’s discourse.

LB: To it, I must add that the stories not only add to the gender discourse in a meaningful way, but also attempt to push boundaries. avoiding clichés, which is what we were looking for when the idea of the book was conceived. The stories presented here are not heroic portrayals of larger-than-life, black and white women protagonists, but they are chronicles of women who surround us every day, flawed and vulnerable, yet strong and indomitable. For example, we have the helpless drug addict girl from Kashmir in Santosh Bakaya’s The Drug Addict fighting with the trauma of her parent’s death, the troubled wife in Kirthi Jayakumar’s It’s Not the End, who chooses to terminate her pregnancy after discovering her husband’s promiscuity. Then we have the maid Fariba of Debosmita Nandy’s She Chose to Live, fighting to free herself from the nexus of human traffickers and later seeking redemption from her marital ties. We also have the young woman Dharma of Bhuvaneshwari Shankar’s Dharmambal, who discovers her sense of freedom by exploring the life and excruciating struggles of her grandmother.

ISSE: With such rich material, both thematically and stylistically, we are sure the book will sell well.

RB: This was our first work, and the focus entirely was on making a book that we could be really proud of. We wanted to create a book that would inspire others to rise above the ordinary and face their own demons and challenges.  Sales were never our only concern. We put  our blood, sweat and heart into the pages of Defiant Dreams; no amount of money could ever cover that. I only hope the book reaches a large section of readers who also appreciate the work put in  by the entire team .

LB: Of course, like every other book released in this competitive marketplace, we as editors would like the book to be a success commercially. But that is not our only concern. Our larger objective is to raise awareness to the issues in the book

ISSE: I’m sure the book will succeed in doing that, especially since the time is right. Another indication that the time is ripe is the fact that a petition to end Female Genital Mutilation in India has recently been posted on change.org (https://www.change.org/p/end-female-genital-mutilation-in-india). Is there anything else you would like to add?

RB: The time is always right to raise our voices, but realistically there is still a long way to go for intentions to be translated into awareness and action.

LB: Yes, while a lot has been said about sensitive issues regarding women, including the recent focus on Female Genital Mutilation, a lot still needs to be accomplished especially in terms of mobilizing resources. We need to act proactively to effect social change in countries and regions where women are the most endangered species. As writers, as women, as thinkers, who have fortunate enough to have education, we must attempt to facilitate social change in whatever small ways we can.

ISSE: We wish you and your book great success

RB/LB: Thank you very much. It has been wonderful sharing our thoughts with you.

The book launch

The book is available on Amazon