English | Jaya's blog

A way ahead for words: Juggernaut

(I interviewed Chiki Sarkar and Durga Raghunath, co-founders of Juggernaut. As Chiki put it across so well, “Durga is part of the change and I am part of the continuity. The combo of us would be magic. She is the creative mind of business and I am the business side of creativity.” This interview was conducted with a face-to-face meeting with Chiki Sarkar at her office and with Durga, over the phone. It was published in the Hindu Sunday Magazine digitally on 3 Oct 2015 and in print on 4 Oct 2015. Here is the url to the link: http://www.thehindu.com/books/literary-review/chiki-sarkar-and-durga-raghunath-talk-about-juggernaut-with-jaya-bhattacharji-rose/article7720019.ece?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication )

The recently launched publishing firm, Juggernaut, hopes to take on the big players in the field. Its co-founders Chiki Sarkar and Durga Raghunath talk about what’s in store.

The key investors in Juggernaut are Nandan Nilekani, William Bissell and Neeraj Aggarwal. Chiki Sarkar, previously publisher of Penguin India and founder-publisher of Random House India, has worked with every major writer in the country. Durga Raghunath, previously CEO, Network 18 Digital, led three news websites, a fin-tech site and mobile. She is also the founder of India’s first exclusively digital newsroom, Firstpost. Excerpts from an interview.

What is the focus of Juggernaut? What are the genres it will be publishing?

Chiki Sarkar: Our behaviour is the same as that of any great publisher but asking bold questions on the digital side.

Durga Raghunath: The good thing about mobile content is you cannot ignore your consumer. It has to be both short story and all genres that keep people coming back for, such as crime fiction and romance. These have to be very compelling reads. A beginner list will have a variety and also new authors to attract the committed book lover and the new reader — a young mobile user.

Who are the authors you will be publishing?

CS&DR: We cannot say. It will be announced early next year.

What kind of manuscripts are you seeking?

CS: The ebooks we publish will be between 20,000 and 40,000 words.

DR: The length is overrated in book publishing. In non-fiction there are enough opportunities for things to be much shorter, so you will see different lengths — 5,000 to 15,000 words.

According to media reports, Juggernaut will explore phone book publishing. For what generation of phones will these be created?

DR: We will be catering to the Android and iOS platforms and targeting the top 10-12 devices. The smartphone devices market in India is approximately 159 million; we will target 10-12 million users in India. It will initially be in English moving to the vernacular in a few months. About 25 million people read news in India. Apparently 120 million have 3G on their phones. It implies you have to own a decent smartphone to be able to access it.

The user experience will be very unique. We will retain the consumer delight, but offer a lot more aided by technology. There are a lot of ways in which the internet can considerably reduce the gap between author and reader. It will be a confluence of various things. About 100 million people who transact on their mobile phones have given their credit and debit card details. People will not pay for news but will pay for books — a combination of information and knowledge. Also, Indian behaviour for digital consumption shows they are ready to pay and buy online as long as the price point is correct.

Who is Juggernaut’s customer?

DR: In India we have an overwritten book market. The big thrill is to change the market. Big publishers are not to be feared. We will publish in the vernacular too. Some of the rich textured literature exists in the local languages. Hence, Sivapriya is a critical part of the team. We have three to four editors taking vernacular publishing. It will be big play for us. It will be about democratisation of publishing. It cannot be the privy of five big houses anymore, and to enable that we must have vernacular publishing. The idea is to launch a new language list every year.

How many books do you hope to publish in one year? Will all the paper books have a digital life? If so, will this also be true of all the ebooks published?

CS: Every book will have a digital life.

DR: The super set will be mobile and phone book publishing. The subset will be physical with an initial list of 50 titles per year. A lot of surprises will be in the app, available also on the web.

What is the technology and product strategy at Juggernaut?

DR: The central mantra at Juggernaut is to give an author the best digital and physical platform, while inspiring the consumer to read and write. Given this is India, we will be extremely price sensitive. How can I get new users? How can I make it worth their while? The retention plan will always make the customer feel that Juggernaut has given them five times more than what they had expected. The relationship between the publisher and the author will be clearly redefined.

What is the publishing expertise and services that authors and readers can expect from Juggernaut which make it stand apart from traditional publishers?

DR: We will create custom formats similar to what Amazon did with Kindle. We will create .jug files. You cannot do these things cheaply, hence the focused funding exercise. There will be absolutely no shortcuts to anything.

CS&DR: The information will be super secure. We are investing in a secure DRM.

Book start-up markets are brutal. Many appear to fulfil an immediate need, usually work as a catalyst and then disappear. Even well-funded business have folded up as markets are saturated, margins wafer thin and consumption intense. What are the challenges that Juggernaut sees in the Indian market?

DR: The Internet has created a certain behaviour. We are at that point, at the cusp, when people will give Juggernaut a shot by saying, “I will sample it.”

There will be many challenges in the future but we have been unable to focus on any since we have more solutions than problems right now.

3 October 2015

Literati – “The library as social experience” ( 16 August 2015)

15 08 , 2015 No Comments

My monthly column, Literati, in the Hindu Literary Review was published online ( 15 August 2015) and will be in print ( 16 August 2015). Here is the url http://www.thehindu.com/books/literary-review/jaya-bhattacharji-rose-on-the-relevance-of-libraries-today/article7539673.ece#. I am also c&p the text below.

Buying books the traditional way is a cherished subjective experience, heavily dependent on the curating abilities of the book buyer.

My five-year-old daughter asked me, “Why can’t libraries be like bookshops? If we like a book, why must we return it to the library? Why can we not buy and keep it?” I was stumped. It was a perceptive observation.

***

“You either see it or you don’t” was an eccentric American Dennis Severs’ mantra,who converted his Georgian home in London into a time capsule with pieces collected from the 17th century till Edwardian times. Brian Selznick’s absolutely ‘scrumdiddlyumptious’ forthcoming book, The Marvels, is heavily inspired by Dennis Severs’ imaginative lifestyle. To my mind, this mantra aptly marks the rapid disappearance of brick-and-mortar bookstores and at the same time provides a possible solution for their survival.

In Delhi, two iconic bookshops — Fact & Fiction and Galgotia — are closing. There are many factors responsible globally for closure of bookstores, such as rising rents, fewer customers and an increasing use of e-readers like Kindle, iPads and smartphones. Buying books the traditional way is a cherished subjective experience, heavily dependent on the curating abilities of the book buyer. Obviously, a regular customer is wistful at the announcement of their favourite bookstore closing. On the other hand, online retailers have to innovate, evolve and work constantly at providing customer satisfaction without ever knowing who is buying from their portal.

For most readers, it is like being in a dream spell. Having read about a book, many readers want instant gratification and engage in impulsive buying, usually possible only with online retail. It is a human behaviour that has evolved with access to the Internet 24×7 for more than a generation.

Recently, I read a bunch of absolutely delightful titles from the TED Books that take off from where TED talks leave off, such as Pico Iyer’s The Art of Stillness, Chip Kidd’s Judge This and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should all be Feminists. I also read a devastatingly moving novel, The Blue between Sky and Water, by Palestinian writer Susan Abulhawa; a delightful anthology, The Pleasure of Reading,edited by Antonia Fraser; and an excellent collection of commentaries, Nehru’s India, edited by Nayantara Sahgal. War novel Escape from Baghdad! by Bangladeshi Saad Hossain and The Word at War made it to the list. When I discuss these books animatedly with friends, many automatically order these online. This change in human behaviour has affected the lifeline of bookstores.

In a possible model for a bookstore of the future, non-profit Pioneer Works in Red Hook, U.S., opened a ‘remarkably small’ bookstore. It stocks new and used books, local zines, lit mags, children’s books conveniently located at their height and a modest wall spotlighting a rotating small press. Also, the shop clerk assures customers that if they do not find the book title they are looking for, he will order it for them.

Then there is Trilogy in Mumbai, founded by Meethil Momaya and Ahalya Naidu in December 2014. It houses a library and a bookstore; though they are under the same roof they do not share shelf space. Titles are available in Hindi, English and Marathi. The library functions like any old-school library and the bookstore works like (almost) any other bookstore in the world. The very idea of having a bookstore and a library together in the same place without a wall dividing the two was to allow members the freedom to read books without owning them (library) and when they love a book they would like to own, they always have the option of buying it (bookstore). There is a symbiotic relationship between the two spaces. Borrowers very often want to buy the book they have either issued or find in the library. If it is available in the bookstore they can buy it immediately.

There is also the model that legislator Dr. T.M. Thomas Isaac has suggested in Kerala wherein libraries turn into centres for students to gather and study together in the evenings.

These examples illustrate a recommendation made at the Indian Public Libraries Conference 2015 held on March 17-19, 2015 in New Delhi. Recommendation on refurbishment of public libraries, point 8f, states, “Facilities in public libraries should include, ‘multi-purpose social space’ for use by the community extending services beyond the provision of reading facilities.”

Paul X. McCarthy, in Online Gravity: The Unseen Force Driving the Way You Live, Earn, and Learn, illustrates how a new set of economic rules, very different from those in the physical world, are governing businesses. According to him, one of the fundamental consequences of gravity-giant formation is the way in which it is influencing the shape of products, companies and ultimately the whole economy online. But I wonder if the cross-filtering and influencing of experiences across mediums has not already begun? What is the future of libraries and bookstores if they don’t evolve by catering to community demands and expectations? Libraries and bookstores die because they fail to fulfil this. Reading may be a personal experience, but libraries and bookstores are social experiences. Somewhere the customised experiences of individuals increasingly created by blending digital and real services have begun to spill over into the physical world.

15 August 2015

Dharamvir Bharti, ” Chander & Sudha”, translated by Poonam Saxena

21 03 , 2015 No Comments

Poonam Saxena reading “Chander & Sudha”.

When he could school his mind to stay calm, when he could endure everything with a smile, why couldn’t Sudha? He was the one who, with his every breath, had fashioned Sudha into what she was. He had, bit by bit, constructed her, polished her, embellished her. She was his work, his creation. How, then, could she exhibit his weakness? ( p.143)

…

The house shone like silk. But within every ball of bright, colourful silk there is always a little silkworm–sad, silent, holding its breath, waiting every second for its imminent death. In the middle of all the hectic activity, the preparations, the excitement, there was one person whose lifebreath seemed to be ebbing away, whose eyes were slowly losing their sheen and mischievous sparkle, whose heart was emptying itself of all joy and happiness — Sudha. ( p.161)

Dharamvir Bharti’s popular novel Gunahon ka Devta or Chander & Sudha has been translated into English by prominent journalist Poonam Saxena. It is a story set in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh in the 1940s. Sudha is the daughter of Dr Shukla and Chander is his student. Chander spends a lot of time at his teacher’s home, practically lives in it and moves in after Sudha gets married and leaves. Chander & Sudha is a “love story” more than a romance, told ever so lovingly by the 23-year-old Dharamvir Bharti. The gentleness with which it is recounted is absorbing to read, never dull; all though the storytelling and the ending is reminiscent of Bollywood films of the 1950s. Nor does the language sound stilted even though Chander is prone to intense self-reflection and being privy to a lovestruck Romeo can get quite painful to read if not written about deftly–probably a large part of the credit for a readable story goes to the translator, Poonam Saxena.

Chander & Sudha is a novel which will probably make it to the longlist, even the shortlist, for any award instituted for translated literature in India. It is a book that tends to occupy one’s mind for a long time after it is over. Time well spent.

I am posting excerpts of an email interview conducted with Poonam Saxena earlier this week.

1 What are the sales figures of this novel in Hindi? You say it is still in print and selling well. Who is the publisher?

I don’t have any exact sales figures for the novel but I do know that it was written in 1949 and has never been out of print. I have two copies with me. One is a 20th reprint 1986 hardcover that was first published by Bharatiya Jnanpith in 1959. (I don’t know who the earlier publisher was). Then I have a paperback copy also printed by Bharatiya Jnanpith in 2014 which is the 70th reprint. Hardcover + paperback from 1949 to today — I don’t even know how many copies it must have sold, but the numbers must be huge. I do know it is widely considered to be Hindi’s biggest bestseller.

2 Was the author only 23-years-old when he wrote it? Does it not make him similar to the young authors we have today, who commercially success — Ravinder Singh, Durjoy Dutta etc?

In Hindi and Urdu writing, many authors did finish very successful works when they were very young. For example, Rajendra Yadav wrote Sara Akash at 21, Sahir Ludhianvi wrote Talkhiyan at 22.

3 What was the purpose of your translations when you began it — be true to the source text or reader friendly to a modern reader?

My translation is not literal. It is not true to the text in the sense that I haven’t translated every single line as it is written in Hindi. The idea was to be true to the characters, emotions and feelings in the book and to make it work as a novel in English. I didn’t want it to sound stilted. I kept some things in mind — for example, the book is written in 1949, so I tried to avoid casual, modern words and terms like ‘stressed’ or ‘hassled.’ (I also felt that people hardly write great love stories any more — but here was one which still touched your heart even though it was written so many years ago. It needed to be translated.

I didn’t skip over passages, I didn’t omit chunks. I retained what the writer had said – the metaphors he had used (for example, the temple, the oil lamp – these are the images he has used throughout the book when writing about Chander and Sudha’s love). There are long passages of reflection, philosophy, all of which I have retained. I have tried to keep them as true to the book but at the same time I have tried to make them work in English. Also, just to give you another small example, there is a long passage early in the book when Chander is wandering about in Beritie’s rose garden, where there is a detailed description of flowers. I could have cut that passage but I didn’t. I kept it. On the whole I tried to be true to the writer’s voice and way of expression while making it fluid when translated into English.

4 Why did you change the title of the novel from Gunahon Ka Devta to Chander and Sudha? What would you have translated Gunahon ka Devta as? Isn’t the title in Hindi far more apt than the one chosen by you for the English translation?

The Hindi title is absolutely beautiful. Gunahon Ka Devta is an incomparable title. But when you translate it in a literal way, it becomes ‘Lord of Sins’ or ‘God of Sins’, which doesn’t sound right at all. My editor and I went through about 20 titles and somehow none sounded okay. We finally settled on Chander & Sudha because really the book is also a great love story. I guess there was some inspiration from titles like Romeo & Juliet which are based on the two lead characters’ names.

5 How old were you when you first read this novel and fell in love with it?

I first read the novel in my twenties and fell in love with it.

6 The article you wrote in Scroll ( 15 March 2015, http://scroll.in/article/713676/why-a-66-year-old-hindi-love-story-needed-to-be-translated-into-english ) was adapted from the afterword published in the book, was it not?

Yes it was. They wanted the piece quickly, literally overnight. They were okay with an extract from the Afterword too, but I adapted it and sent it. The Afterword as it is gives out the whole story, so obviously I didn’t want that.

Dharamvir Bharti Chander & Sudha ( Translated by Poonam Saxena) Viking, Penguin Group, Gurgaon, India, 2015. Hb. pp. 330. Rs. 499

21 March 2015

Jip and Janneke – two kids from Holland

09 03 , 2015 No Comments

I received a beautiful book in the post last week. The moment I opened the parcel, my five-year-old daughter took the book away from me and said triumphantly, “This is mine!” Sarah was charmed by the beautiful illustrations and insisted I read the story out aloud immediately. So I did. Jip and Janneke – Two kids from Holland is about two children introducing Holland to an international audience.

Supported by the embassy of the Netherlands, the book has been made available in India by A&A Book Trust. They are pleased to offer Jip and Janneke – Two kids from Holland by Fiep Westendorp, in English or Hindi, to NGOs promoting literacy through libraries, schools and centers for underprivileged children.

Jip and Janneke (pronounced Yip and Yannaka) are the Netherland’s most famous kids. From 1952 right up to now, generations of Dutch children have grown up with them. Parents read these stories to their children, just as these were read to them by their parents when they were young.

In this hardbound book full of colour plates, Fiep Westendorp’s illustrations – among the most beautiful that she ever made – are the starting point of a journey through the Netherlands in which Jip and Janneke show children from other countries a number of typical events in the lives of Dutch children.

NGOs promoting literacy amongst children are invited to express their interest in this pictorial introduction to the Netherlands by writing to A&A Book Trust at aabooktrust@gmail.com

9 March 2015

Who will win the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature? (13 January 2015)

20 01 , 2015 No Comments

According to the vision statement, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature celebrates the rich and varied world of literature of the South Asian region. Authors could belong to this region through birth or be of any ethnicity but the writing should pertain to the South Asian region in terms of content and theme. The prize brings South Asian writing to a new global audience through a celebration of the achievements of South Asian writers, and aims to raise awareness of South Asian culture around the world. This year the award will be announced on 22 January 2015, at the Jaipur Literature Festival, Diggi Palace, Jaipur.

The DSC Prize for South Asian Shortlist 2015 consists of:

1. Bilal Tanweer: The Scatter Here is Too Great (Vintage Books/Random House, India)
2 Jhumpa Lahiri: The Lowland (Vintage Books/Random House, India)
3. Kamila Shamsie: A God in Every Stone (Bloomsbury, India)
4. Romesh Gunesekera: Noontide Toll (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin, India)
5. Shamsur Rahman Faruqi: The Mirror of Beauty (Penguin Books, India)

( http://dscprize.com/global/updates/five-novels-make-shortlist-dsc-prize-2015.html )

The jury consists of Keki Daruwala (Chairperson), John Freeman, Maithree Wickramasinghe, Michael Worton and Razi Ahmed.

All the novels shortlisted for the award are unique. They put the spotlight on South Asian writing talent. From debut novelist ( Bilal Tanweer) to seasoned writers ( Jhumpa Lahiri, Romesh Gunesekera and Kamila Shamsie) and one in translation – Shamsur Rahman Faruqui, the shortlist is a good representation of the spectrum of contemporary South Asian literature in English. Three of the five novelists– Jhumpa Lahiri, Romesh Gunesekera and Kamila Shamsie–reside abroad, representing South Asian diaspora yet infusing their stories with a “foreign perspective”, a fascinating aspect of this shortlist. It probably hails the arrival of South Asian fiction on an international literary map. The three novels — The Lowland, Noontide Toll and A God in Every Stone are firmly set in South Asia but with the style and sophistication evident in international fiction, i.e. detailing a story in a very specific region and time, culturally distinct, yet making it familiar to the contemporary reader by dwelling upon subjects that are of immediate socio-political concern. For instance, The Lowland is ostensibly about the Naxalite movement in West Bengal, India and the displacement it causes in families; A God in Every Stone is about an archaeological dig in Peshawar in the period around World War I and Noontide Toll is about the violent civil unrest between the Sinhala and Tamils in Sri Lanka. Yet all three novels are infused with the writers’ preoccupation with war, the immediate impact it has on a society and the transformation it brings about over time. The literary techniques they use to discuss the ideas that dominate such conversations — a straightforward novel (The Lowland), a bunch of interlinked short stories narrated by a driver ( who is at ease in the Tamil and Sinhala quarters, although his identity is never revealed) and the yoking of historical fiction with creation of a myth as evident in Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone. All three novelists wear their research lightly, yet these novels fall into the category of eminently readable fiction, where every time the story is read something new is discovered.

Bilal Tanweer who won the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize 2014 for his wonderful novel, The Scatter Here is Too Great. Set in Karachi, it is about the violence faced on a daily basis. (Obviously there is much more to the story too!) Whereas Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s novel The Mirror of Beauty, translated by him from Urdu into English is primarily about Begum Wazir Khanam with many other scrumptious details about lifestyles, craftspeople, and different parts of India. It is written in a slow, meandering style of old-fashioned historical fiction. The writer has tried to translocate the Urdu style of writing into the English version and he even “transcreated” the story for his English readers—all fascinating experiments in literary technique, so worth being mentioned on a prestigious literary prize shortlist.

Of all the five novels shortlisted for this award, my bet is on Kamila Shamsie winning the prize. Her novel has set the story in Peshawar in the early twentieth century. The preoccupations of the story are also those of present day AfPak, the commemoration of World War I, but also with the status of Muslims, the idea of war, with accurate historical details such as the presence of Indian soldiers in the Brighton hospital, the non-violent struggle for freedom in Peshawar and the massacre at Qissa Khwani Bazaar. But the true coup de grace is the original creation of Myth of Scylax — to be original in creating a myth, but placing it so effectively in the region to make it seem as if it is an age-old myth, passed on from generation to generation.

13 January 2015

Amit Chaudhuri

03 01 , 2015 No Comments

In 2014 Amit Chaudhuri published two books – Telling Tales ( a collection of essays) and Odysseus Abroad ( a novel). Some of the other notable literary engagements were delivering the Infosys lecture “The Origins of Dislike” (http://www.infosys-science-foundation.com/amit-chaudhuri-lecture.asp) , Guest Director of The Times Cheltenham Festivals Literature 14, co-organising the second edition of The University of East Anglia India Creative Writing course in Calcutta ( https://www.facebook.com/pages/UEA-launches-International-Creative-Writing-Course-in-India/473787526006225?fref=ts ), a symposium on literary activism ( Anjum Hasan, “On Recovering the Literary through Literary Activism”, December 26, 2014 http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/recovering-literary-activism ), contributor to Granta:130 focussing on India ( The first volume on India was Granta:57. Amit Chaudhuri is the only Indian author present in both issues, seventeen years apart). All these literary engagements are apart from his regular teaching assignments and musical performances.

Reading Telling Tales is a like the Casebook series of critical essays, popular in English Literature studies. The difference being the Casebook series consisted of a collection of essays by various critics, analysing a text or an author. Whereas in Telling Tales it is a melange of writing by Amit Chaudhuri. These were previously published as columns, introductory essays, commentaries, chapters from books etc. Pieces of writing that could not be accommodated elsewhere but are an integral part of Amit Chaudhuri’s development as a writer and critic. These essays are not necessarily meant to be read from cover-to-cover otherwise the monotonous of style will overwhelm the reader. It is preferable to dip into the essays and discover literature. Three related links: An interview Amit Chaudhuri gave to AuthorTV ( http://www.authortv.in/author/amit-chaudhuri ); a review in the New Statesman by Deborah Levy where she says, “Chaudhuri’s intellectual project is not so much to cross academic boundaries as to remove the sign that says: “No playing on the grass”. Like Barthes (and Lacan), he sees merit in concentrating less on the meaningful and more on the apparently meaningless. For this reason I relished every tale and essay here, not least because Chaudhuri subtly politicises the ways in which both writing and writers are culturally placed, described and sanitised.” ( http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/telling-tales-amit-chaudhuri-principle-mode-our-epoch-isnt-business-business) Finally a review by Dilip D’Souza where he says “Amit Chaudhuri has grown from a writer with humour to one in love with excess words.” [“Baffling verbosity” Tehelka, I March 2014, Issue 9, Volume 11 (http://www.tehelka.com/baffling-verbosity/?singlepage=1)]

Odysseus Abroad is in a class of its own. It is better appreciated if familiar with some of Amit Chaudhuri’s writing. The novel is experimental—his experiments in literature, fascination with language ( English and Bengali), playing with words and meaning, hidden jokes in structure and of course the “journey” of the protagonist. The novelist Amit Chaudhuri has access to a number of literary gatherings, student conferences and is the bridge between two cultures — English Literature and Indian Literature. By being at home in two distinct cultural and geographical locations — India and Great Britain, there is a sense in Odysseus Abroad that Amit Chaudhuri is attempting to make a “bridge” between the high culture of classical literature and the low culture of the mundane and dull lives of ordinary folks. In an interview he gave to he Hindu in Nov 2014 he said, “plot is an overrated device”. ( http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/i-am-drawn-to-the-quirky-by-vaishna-roy/article6555245.ece )

2014 has been a prolific year for Amit Chaudhuri. What will 2015 bring?

3 January 2015

Kitaabnama: Books and beyond, Ep#60

07 12 , 2014 1 Comment

Conceived by writer and literary activist Namita Gokhale, Kitaabnama has a participatory and inclusive format and showcase the multilingual diversity of Indian Literature. Addressing literary issues of contemporary through dialogue and conversation, Kitaabnama shall feature books, readings and encounters with writers from the spheres of Hindi, English and various Indian languages, as well as guest appearances from International names and voices. The programme is telecast by the Indian government television channel, Doordarshan.

In June 2014 Ravi Singh, Publishing, Speaking Tiger and I were interviewed by Jasleen Vohra on the world of publishing and literature. The programme was aired on 15 November 2014 and uploaded on YouTube on 5 December 2014. Here is the link:

The second half of this episode has an interview with Reza Aslan.

7 December 2014

Literati: Happy readers ( 2 Nov 2014)

02 11 , 2014 No Comments

My monthly column in the Hindu Literary Review was published online on 1 November 2014 and in print on 2 November 2014. Here is the url http://www.thehindu.com/books/literary-review/literati-happy-readers/article6555142.ece . I am also c&p the text below.

A recent article, “The Percy Jackson problem”, argued that Rick Riordan’s rewriting of Greek myths for a contemporary audience is unacceptable since it lures young readers away from the “classics”. The journalist also did not subscribe to the view that kids should be allowed to read whatever they are reading as long as they are reading! Apparently the huge crowds of youngsters (outnumbering the adults) filling synagogues, theatres, and basketball stadiums to attend the interactions with Riordan, a former middle-school English and history teacher — who is currently on a tour to promote the last book in the Olympians series, The Blood of Olympus — was insufficient evidence that children were happy reading. A publishing colleague sent me a furious response to the article saying that it was mean spirited and unfair given that Riordan has touched thousands of kids’ lives in a positive way and reached many reluctant readers.

New generations of readers are crucial for the survival of publishing. While delivering his acceptance speech at the PEN/Pinter Prize 2014, Salman Rushdie said, “I always believed that the book is completed by the reader that out of the intimacy of strangers created by the act of reading emerges the book as it exists for that reader; and that out of that private act of union comes love, the love of literature, of reading, of that particular book …”

The powerful impact an author can have on a reader, even in a large group, was demonstrated at a literary evening that I curated at the Embassy of Ireland. To commemorate the centenary of World War I, three Indian authors were invited to a panel discussion on “Conflict and Literature”, moderated by the ambassador H.E. Feilim McLaughlin. The authors spoke powerfully of their engagement with conflict and how it has influenced their writing. The audience sat in pin-drop silence. Some wept. Most had lumps in their throat. The topics or narrated experiences touched a raw nerve in many, especially those with direct links with Partition, the 1984 riots and communal conflicts.

Of late there has been a growing debate on how the Internet is cutting into the time of readers. It is estimated that, by 2018, 3.9 billion people will be online; many on smartphones. It is not surprising to discover that Adobe has been collecting data about its customers’ reading pattern. Last week, Nielsen announced that it was expanding its ratings to include all kinds of digital content. The writer-reader relationship is evolving rapidly with the growth of technology. People are operating these devices not just to communicate with each other but also to read articles and books online. Consequently word-of-mouth recommendations will only grow. The relatively new ReadMyStori.com “is a platform that helps authors get readers to read, appreciate and popularise their work”. Authors say that at least 40 per cent of downloads are converted into book sales.

As Tim Parks points out in an NYRB article (June 10, 2014), “The conditions in which we read today are not those of 50 or even 30 years ago, and the big question is how contemporary fiction will adapt to these changes, because in the end adapt it will. No art form exists independently of the conditions in which it is enjoyed.”

An excellent example of such a response to the changing reading environment is Samanvay: IHC Indian Languages’ Festival (November 6-11, 2014), comprising 90 speakers and performers in 20 languages and dialects. The theme is “Translations Transnations” with focus on Indian languages that have a transnational presence like Bangla, Bhojpuri, Chhattisgarhi, English, Hindi, Konkani, Malayalam, Punjabi and Sanskrit.

The effect of storytelling sessions and stress on reading books other than textbooks is also evident in the crowds of happy children that attend Bookaroo: Festival of Children’s Literature (IGNCA, New Delhi, November 29-30, 2014). The youngsters can be seen mobbing authors and illustrators, seeking autographs, asking a zillion questions, offering authors manuscripts to read, listening in rapt attention to the writers, participating in workshops and buying piles of book at the temporary bookstore.

This year, 83 speakers such as Jamila Gavin, Natasha Sharma, The Storywallahs, Vivek Menon, Rui Sousa and Prayag Shukla will participate.

These children are accessing e-books and books in print, but it does not matter as long as they are reading!

2 November 2014

Literati – “Stories on Conflict”

02 08 , 2014 3 Comments

( My monthly column, Literati, in the Hindu Literary Review was published online ( 2 August 2014) and in print ( 3 August 2014). Here is the url http://www.thehindu.com/books/literary-review/stories-on-conflict/article6274928.ece . I am also c&p the text below. )

Off late images of conflict dominate digital and print media– injured children, rubble, weeping people, vehicles blown apart, graphic photographs from war zones. We live in a culture of war, impossible to get away from. What is frightening is the daily engagement we have with this violence, to make it a backdrop and a “normal” part of our lives. The threshold of our receptivity to it is lowering; the “appetite” for violence seems to be increasing.

Take partition of the sub-continent in 1947. Vishwajyoti Ghosh, curator of the brilliant anthology of graphic stories with contributions from three countries, This Side, That Side, remarks, “Partition is so much a part of the lives of South Asians.” It exists in living memory. Generations have been brought up on family lore, detailing experiences about Partition, the consequences and the struggle it took refugees to make a new life. For many years, there was silence. Then in India the communal riots of 1984 following the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi happened. For many people of the older generation who had experienced the break-up of British India it opened a Pandora box of memories; stories came tumbling out. It was with the pioneers of Partition studies–Ritu Menon, Kamla Bhasin and Urvashi Butalia–that this tumultuous time in history began to make its mark in literature.

Contemporary sub-continental literature comprises of storytellers who probably grew up listening to stories about conflict in their regions. It is evident in the variety, vibrancy and strength discernible in South Asian writing with distinct styles emerging from the nations. There is something in the flavour of writing; maybe linked to the socio-political evolution of the countries post-conflict—Partition or civil unrest. In India, there is the emergence of fiction and nonfiction writers who have a sharp perspective to offer, informed by their personal experiences, who are recording a historical (and painful) moment. Recent examples are Rahul Pandita’s Our Moon has Blood Clots, Amandeep Sandhu’s Roll of Honour, Chitrita Banerji’s Mirror City, Sujata Massey’sThe City of Palaces, Sudipto Das’s The Ekkos Clan, Shahnaz Bashir’s The Half Mother and Samanth Subramanian’s The Divided Land , a travelogue about post-war Sri Lanka. In Sri Lankn literature conflict is a constant backdrop, places and names are not necessarily always revealed or easily identified, but the stories are written with care and sensitivity. Shyam Selvadurai in his introduction to the fascinating anthology of varied examples of Sri Lankan literature, Many Roads to Paradise writes “In a post-war situation, this anthology provides an opportunity to build bridges across the divided communities by allowing Sri Lankans access to the thoughts, experiences, history and cultural mores of their fellow countrymen, of which they have remained largely ignorant due to linguistic divides.” Contributors include Shehan Karunatilaka ( The Chinaman), Nayomi Munaweera (Island of a Thousand Mirrors) and Ashok Ferrey ( The Colpetty People and The Professional). Bangladeshi writers writing in a similar vein are Shaheen Akhtar’s The Search ( translated by Ella Dutta), Mahmudul Haque’s Black Ice (translated by Mahmud Rahman), Tahmima Anam The Good Muslim and Neamat Imam’s The Black Coat. Pakistani Nadeem Aslam’s last novel Blind Man’s Garden is a searing account of the war in Afghanistan and its devastating effect on the lives of ordinary people. In his interview with Claire Chambers for British Muslim Fictions, Nadeem Aslam said his “alphabet doesn’t only have 26 letters, but also the 32 of the Urdu alphabet, so I have a total of 58 letters at my disposal”. Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone uses fiction (the story is set during the World Wars) to comment upon contemporary socio-political events (Peshawar). Earlier this year Romesh Gunaseekera told me while discussing his latest novel, Noontide Toll “All over the world, including in India, people are trying to grapple with the memory of conflicts, and trying to find a way in which language can help us understand history without being trapped in it.”

From Homer’s The Odyssey onwards, recording war through stories has been an important literary tradition in conveying information and other uses. Today, with conflict news coming in from every corner of the world and 2014 being the centenary year of World War I, publishers are focusing upon war-related literature, even for children. For instance, Duckbill Books new imprint, NOW series about children in conflict has been launched with the haunting Waiting Mor, set in Kabul and inspired by a true story. Paro Anand’s No Gun’s at my Son’s Funeral was one of the first stories written in India for young adults that dealt with war, children and Kashmir; it is soon to be made into a feature film. All though ninety years after the first book was published Richmal Crompton’s Just William series, about a mischievous 11-year-old boy set during WWI, continues to be a bestseller! The culture of war has been inextricably linked to literature and media. As the protagonist, Adolf Hitler says in Timur Vermes must-read debut novel Look Who’s Back “after only a handful of days in this modern epoch, I had gained access to the broadcast media, a vehicle for propaganda”.

2 August 2014

Shibram Chakraborty

28 06 , 2014 No Comments

The Merry Adventures of Harshabardhan and Gobardhan is a delightful collection of stories about two brothers — Harshabardhan and Gobardhan. They are well-meaning but bumbling chaps. The stories are gently told but the brothers can get into some silly scrapes. With every story you want to read more and more. For once the book blurb encapsulates the stories well — “Mildly dishonest timber merchants, foolhardy adventure buffs, reckless explorers, blundering do-gooders, occasional philosophers and gullible blokes, the endearing duo creates the most hilarious misunderstandings, commits the silliest mistakes and falls into the weirdest traps.” I read the book in one go. Loved it!

According to the delightful author blurb in the book, Shibram Chakraborty ( 1902-1980) wrote extensively for both children and adults, using his trademark humour and wordplay to tell stories about the peculiarities of human beings. Chakraborty was a free spirit who ran away from home as a boy, took part in the freedom movement and went to jail as a teenager — he never finished school — and lived alone in a boarding house in Calcutta most of his adult life. His stories are about eccentric people in absurd situations, and brim over with fun and puns.

Arunava Sinha is an experienced translator. By now I have lost count of the number of books he has translated from Bengali into English. Many of his translations have been sold abroad as foreign editions in English and other languages. Here is the link to an interview I did with him in 2011: https://jayabhattacharjirose.com/jaya/2013/08/22/arunava-sinha-on-translating-buddhadeva-boses-classic-tithodore-and-the-future-of-translations/ His translation of this particular book is as competent as the others I have read by him. This translation made me giggle and chuckle. Then I was left wondering. Did he have to intervene in the text to transmit and convey some of the original puns from Bengali into English? Is translating humour difficult? How do you translate wit? Did he have to worry about losing some of the original material or did he manage to retain much of it? And this is what he said ( quoted with permission):

Sometimes I think this book is really for adults, not kids. At least, the wordplay is not for children. The policy I followed was to always have a pun in the translation whenever there was a pun in the original. And yes, it was not possible to retain both the meaning and the pun in most cases, so it was pun first. In that sense there was a replacement of material, but none of it changed the story. The puns don’t really take the story forward, they are effects. I did some readings to kids in schools, and they seemed to enjoy the stories.

I would happily recommend this book for confident readers of 11+ and above. But I suspect this book will go down very well with adults too. The stories would travel well to foreign shores too since they are not too complicated in cultural details. The illustrations by Shreya Sen Handley complement the stories well.

Shibram Chakraborty The Merry Adventures of Harshabardhan and Gobardhan. Translated by Arunava Sinha. Hachette India, New Delhi, 2014. Pb. pp. 150 Rs. 250

28 June 2014

English Posts