Interview in The Hindu, 12 November, 2009

Click on the title above to view an interview in the Metro Plus supplement of The Hindu, Thiruvananthapuram edition.

Curious Quotes to keep

Sharing a few interesting things that people said to me on my book and my writing…

“You are not an author until you have produced a best seller.”

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“It’s no big deal. Anybody who knows a language can be a writer.”

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“Remember, you are neither Dan Brown nor Sidney Sheldon.”

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“Do you have westerners following your blog?”

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“When is your next book coming out?”
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“I am waiting to read your book. I’m a ruthless critic, I’ll have some hard-hitting comments to make on your book.”

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Asked by someone after a short introductory speech I gave on my book. “Is your book in English or Malayalam?”

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“I found your blog riveting, in fact, stunning for a person who kept a surprisingly low profile while doing college.”

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“Someday when you write your autobiography, it’ll be nice to begin with stories of your early struggle as a writer. It’ll make good reading than the biography of an IIT/IIM graduate, who held corporate positions for years, and then shifted to writing.”

O mama, I've won a prize !!!!

Trrrrrnng..…

“Hello, this is from the Man Booker advisory committee and I would like to speak to Asha Iyer Kumar, please.”

“You are with Asha,” I drawled, not hearing the first part of what was said to me nor catching the distinct British accent in the voice. That’s what happens when you pick a call while in sleep mode.

“Ms. Kumar, congratulations. This is to inform you that you are the recipient of the Booker this year.”

Still half asleep, I droned, “A cooker?” It could have been from the Hyper Market where I had dropped countless raffle coupons in the past few months. A cooker, when the grand prize was a BMW! Well, something was better than nothing.

“Electric or pressure cooker?”

“Not a cooker, Ms. Kumar. The Booker, Man Booker.”

“Waaaat??” I fell off the cot and hurt the funny bone. I can still feel a dull phantom ache there.

"For what??"

“For your debut novel Sand Storms, Summer Rains.”

This wasn’t funny – this prank. I had almost decided to hang up when I heard the voice say, “The jury has decided that you are the most deserving of all the nominations this year.”

“Eh?” I gulped emptily and squinted at the receiver before putting it back to the ear. “But, this isn’t possible. I hadn’t even got the book into the market when the nominations must have been made.”

“Oh, that wasn’t an issue. We had your manuscript in hand. Almost every literary agent on the globe had a copy and we simply had to make a call to fetch one. Although I must say that they were bewildered at our choice and their inanity. They just had gone a Booker winner slip out of their hands. Lack of business acumen.”

“Oh well... (I am sure I must have rolled my eyes in contempt). But it beats me how the jury ever knew about the book. I haven’t even touched 1000 copies in sales yet.”

“That wasn’t difficult. We knew about your efforts, we knew the hopes you nurtured and gave to other unknown, aspiring writers and we were certain that you could well be on your way to success with some due approval and recognition. It was all that you lacked. We have faith in your work. Your PR efforts have been fantastic so far, especially the way you have trudged along with so little outside support, although we must say they haven’t paid off as well as they should have. Our decision to award you with the Booker should more than make up for that.”

“I thank you for the kind consideration and support, but it kind of makes me feel queasy. Is it possible to not let the world know about this Booker thing? At least until I find a place to hide.”

‘That’s a strange demand to make. You are going to be on every media space as soon as the official announcement is made. It is inevitable.”

“Not a demand, a request, if you may. I have just begun to be a writer. My first work has just gone out in the middle and the second is waiting in the wings to be picked up. The third is still in contemplation and there is so much more left to do before I earn due place in this sphere. I am an amateur with just a lot of dreams in my eyes.”

“It is your dreams that the jury was enamoured of. The inspiration and hope you give to million other struggling authors. You hold promise Ms. Kumar and we would like to acknowledge your accomplishment. We know about your plans to write the biography of a certain Indian TV queen whose life is a “How to” book on just about everything. It isn’t everyday that we come across something as socially and economically viable as this.”

“You mean Rakhi Sawant?”

“That’s the one, I believe. We just have a sketchy notion of your future projects.”

“Oh, it isn’t the best thing to do, but I am toying with the idea just in public interest. It can be a very popular project. I have yet to decide on that.”

“I am sure it will work. You just need to know the difference between what can be popular and what can pop in the market. It is this discernment that makes you deserving of the prize. I hope you will not reject it.”

“Reject? Oh no. I am just hugely embarrassed. It will take a while for me to get used to the idea of being a Booker winner.”

“You will, eventually. When the hype takes over the book and the hope takes over your actual work, you will.”

“Ah, I now have to find a specialist to handle this. It is too much, too soon for me to take in.”

“You had better be quick. Public memory is very short and shorter is your time in fame.”

“Yes, I understand. Thank you for your kind words.”

“Congratulations, once again.”

“Err..I would like to say that I don’t deserve it, but I accept it. Thank you.”

“You are welcome. Must say, your words have a distinct presidential ring. So noble..”

I must have drifted deeper into sleep by then, for I only remember muttering something under my breath before hanging up.

Trrrring…..

It is the morning alarm going off after a 15 minute snooze.
Yet another day in the life of an upstart writer begins.
More mails, more follow ups, more query letters, more PR efforts, more market challenges, more hurdles, more quirky people to contend with, more hopes, more dreams and more miles to tread..

Less 'senti', more 'mental'

Suddenly, all too suddenly, we have made a point of hyperventilating over just about anything around us – social, domestic, political - pick any issue and we have ample reasons to feel ‘offended’ and ‘hurt’.

Our urgency to react, raise an alarm and rebel is getting to levels of absurdity and making me wince with absolute disgust. Not that we are not aware of our sickening but growing propensity to kick up rows, not that we personally support such indiscriminating clamour, not that we don’t know that it is all but part of a larger, individual design in the portals of power and pelf, not that we don’t know how ridiculous we sound and silly we look and not that we are not bored with it. Yet we put up with the theatrics, merely because we, the common men and women, need to get by. It is a world of the supremely strong, sumptuously vain and severely antagonistic clusters of people and the last thing we want is to get caught in the cross fire of indiscriminate wrangling and ego wars.

But we are a sensitive lot, mind you. I need to keep saying this, to survive in these tumultuous times. We are awfully sensitive and I am scared out of my wits to say anything about anybody ouside my family. Who knows what can get me into a flap, whose sentiment and pride can be hurt and what if the wound that I inflict causes him/them to bleed and then, to die (martyred??)? I don’t intend risking such eventuality, not when my business of life is cruising along with its own small and not so small concerns.

Yes, I am self-centred, to the point of being indifferent to the dramatic overtures of the more sensitive, less sensible slice of our democratic society.

I am self centred to the extent that I feel deeply for the thousands rendered homeless in many parts of the world, thanks to natural and man made calamities. It is just another television grab for those of us watching it from our living rooms, but to those out there, it’s a life put paid to. Their immediate wait is for an air dropped meal, their next dream is about a home to call their own, their plight much worse than what a copter riding politician can know from above.

I feel angry about the injustices in the world, much of which is beyond my comprehension and my power of suggesting solutions.

I feel helpless and frightened when the imbalances in the society affect the weakest and the rage over the inequity spills over, spreads and takes vast swathes of the world into its fold.

I feel depressed when a father rapes his daughter, parents kill their children for honour, debt worn peasants commit suicide, double crossing politicians come scrounging for our benevolence, and fritter our money on weird things from statues to feeding pampered airline employees and worse still, when we question, put up a nauseating charade of being austere…ugh!

Yes, I am sensitive and there are things that I am concerned about, but they don’t push me to burn and break, they don’t turn me into a vandal, they don’t make me a pseudo rebel. I must confess, I don’t have the sensibility required for such response, much less the inclination and nerve.

For some reason (and condemn me for it if you like), my sentiments are not hurt when someone makes a caste remark in a movie or if a former diplomat punches a cattle class tweet or the city I live in is called by its former name or a veteran artist in exile has shown a Hindu God in poor colours. There are better things in life for me than these to ponder on. My belief system is not so fragile as to be shattered or smeared by a remark or artistic rendition. My faith is not so shallow as to be disturbed by passing winds of disregard. And my sentiments not so touchy as to be hurt by nondescript issues that have no bearing on my heart or hearth.

To those who have made a sport or vocation of extremist activity, there are ample opportunities to revel in. But to me and those of my ilk, wearing social sentiments on the sleeve and making war cries is simply gauche and absurd.

I'm no Dan Brown, Damn it!

What does it take for someone (all right, not ‘someone’, read ‘yours truly’) to be a Dan Brown?
Why Dan brown you may ask, of all people on this flat, crowded, exploding earth?
I ask, why not?
Isn’t he the most happening, selling name in this given moment? And he happens (though not incidentally) to be an author too. An author, not like me, of course. On the contrary, an author who needs no publicity yet gets oodles of it, who needs no money anymore (come on, he must have stopped longing for money soon after Da Vinci), yet gets windfall after windfall, whose book needs no reviews actually, yet gets written about in mixed tones, although the writings have no bearing on readers’ decision to lunge at it.
So if someone were to ask me whose shoes I would like to be in these current times, it would be Man Brown’s. I mean, Dan Brown’s. But the trouble is the shoe wouldn’t fit, even if he were to give me a pair gratis. And getting the shoe to fit is what the struggle of a start up author is all about.
A remark that was casually flung at me recently woke me up to the reality of the unfitting shoe. I hadn’t even thought of it remotely till then. But when someone made a snide comment that I was no Dan Brown and I could expect no instant ground swell of response or support for my first book, I told myself, albeit wryly, “Well, it’s true. I am no Dan Brown.”
And it has become my favourite pick up line since then.
I am no Da(m)n Brown.
It has given me an apt excuse to hand out to people who thought my first book should have done a million copies by now and my name should have been splashed all over and I should have gone to the Alps to celebrate the success. (God save them from insanity and bless them for their innocence).
It saves me from explaining the difficulties of being a first timer, gives me the strength to fight, the freedom to fail and a point to ponder when I have little else to do – what, after all, does it take to be a Dan Brown?
I may never figure out the trick, but for the moment, I am content with the fact that I share a corner of the cyber space with him. Find my book nestling below The Lost Symbol on http://www.oxfordbookstore.com/dotcom/oxford/
It is nowhere near getting the shoe to fit, but it at least gives me the satisfaction of having gone to the same high end shoe shop from where he gets his pair, sat next to his seat for a while and then walked out dragging my unshod feet, acknowledging that I am no Dan Brown.” This time, not so wryly.

The New Indian Express

Write up on Sand Storms, Summer Rains in The New Indian Express
Click on the JPEG above to read

Write up in The Week, Oman

Spectator of life

Tridwip K Das

theweek@apexstuff.com

Novelist Asha Iyer Kumar, who is the third Indian expat in Oman to publish anovel in a year, says that Muscat inspired her more than anything else

The publisher of Asha Iyer Kumar’s book hammers the nail squarely on its head. “It is soaked with ordinary life. Our lives,” Sunil K Poolani of Frog Books wrote responding to an email query on what he considered was the USP of Sand Storms, Summer Rains. Asha is Indian and was a resident of Muscat – for nine years – when she wrote her debut novel. She relocated to Fujairah a year ago but is still hopelessly nostalgic about Muscat. “There is nothing that I don’t miss about the place. The beautifully laid out city, the clean, wide roads, the green sidewalks, the way the city breaks into colours in winter…” That descriptive style of narration is evident in her writing – it is full of imagery. Asha opens Sand Storms, Summer Rains with these words – “The flight to Muscat lasted three hours. The sky and the sea merged into a blue vignette at the altar of the universe. Straddling clouds hung from the sky like wads of cotton wool. From the window of the giant steel hawk, they looked like angels wheeling over a confused humanity.”

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What I saw of men here (the Gulf region) who came from their homeland (Kerala), leaving their
people behind, was a far cry from the stories I had heard of them back there. The much touted,
much envied Gulf returnee there was a sweating, slogging, lonely campaigner here. I saw them all around me, in the pick-up taxis, on the streets of Ruwi, on the lawns along the highway, under the summer sun, inside factories. I can describe them as my literary epiphany for the novel. They inspired such despair in me that I felt an urge to write about them”
– Asha Iyer Kumar

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Released in India in April and expected in Borders outlets in Oman soon, Asha says she owes it to Muscat for providing an atmosphere conducive to literary expression. Asha came to Muscat soon after her marriage in 1998 and worked as a freelance writer for publications in India and the Gulf region. This followed a stint teaching English grammar, literature and creative writing to expatriate and Omani students at her residence. “It was during this time that the idea for the
novel came up and I began to write. It took three years to complete the novel. If places can be one’s muse, Muscat was it for me.” Nevertheless, the story is not set in Oman. It begins to unfold with a flight to Muscat but, curiously enough, the rest of the Gulf setting is in the UAE. “That’s because people relate to Dubai and Abu Dhabi more when we say the Gulf. It was so at least in the past in Kerala (the Indian state to which a large proportion of the Indian migrant workers in the Gulf region belong). So much so that the Gulf used to be synonymous with Dubai – some even called it Abu Dubai – several years ago. So I set the story in these places. But it could be the story of any Indian expatriate in any of the Gulf states. Take out Dubai/Abu Dhabi – the names are mentioned very sparsely in the story – and insert Oman, Bahrain or Qatar, and the plot and the story would remain as relevant.”
Sand Storms, Summer Rains tells the saga of two men from Kerala who arrive in the Gulf – one chasing a dream, the other under compulsion. The plot is a maze of twists and turns. These could reflect a fertile imagination or even an ability to be inspired by real life. Either way, Asha tells a compelling story with her vivid imagery. At the heart of her novel are its ironies, which no matter what the reader’s cultural conditioning, can’t be missed. In Asha’s own words, “A resonating sentiment in the novel is the fact that everything in life comes at a price, a price which many times fails to justify the very gains.”
Considering fictional writings tend to be autobiographical, when asked if the generalisation held true in her case too, Asha said hers is biographical. “A novel cannot happen unless you draw on the huge resource of either your or others’ experiences in life because art, in its essence, is a reflection of the real.”
Asha’s husband, Vimal Kumar, who is now getting used to life as a novelist’s husband – “Her literary achievement is adding quality to our life, except that we get less time for many other things these days” – did not see himself anywhere in the story.

The response to her book, Asha claimed, has generated interest among expatriate communities
spread across the world. “But the response in Kerala, where I hail from and where the novel is partly set, has been overwhelming.” She has, however, been slammed for committing a linguistic flub’. One reviewer caused Asha enough grief to prompt her to post an entry on her blog for the ‘unpardonable’ offence of not knowing the difference between a mangrove and a mango grove. “It’s an error; I admit it happened because I was genuinely ignorant. It was just one of the many plain things that I did not know of in this world,” she wrote on her blog.
Asked what’s next, Asha let loose another volley of literary idioms and phrases typical of her style. “I shall continue to write till I stop being a keen spectator of life. I love the feel of words, the throb of literary expression, and revel in the experience of putting my thoughts down.” She has just completed a collection of ten short stories, titled Marie Biscuits and Other Snacks.
“There is another long story knocking on my head. The idea is still sketchy, the plot is embryonic, but I can feel it brewing inside me. It looks like sooner or later, it will become apparent as a novel.”

Band-Aid for the world

Eight years have passed since the dreadful Manhattan Tuesday - the day when the world felt as though it were looking up from under a chimney hole on the TV screen. Yet it is inevitable that the world discusses or dissects it all over again, albeit in feebler tones given the time that has elapsed and revokes and relives the single binding emotion that rippled across the world years ago. First as horror, which later whittled down to fear and paranoia. It did not dilute for days and months. It stayed in us in varying measures. It outstripped our everyday sensibilities. We rechristened the emotion overnight. It suddenly had tags of a white turban and a flowing beard. It became a gargantuan surrogate to the emotion we feel when the lights go off abruptly in the night or an alley cat suddenly jumps across. Curious how our mundane domestic worries ballooned to take gigantic aspects! It suddenly had to do with getting on planes and living in high rises. To do with bombs and bullets. Terror took a definite form that day – the form of human beings completely devoid of it. Of human beings who took draconian oaths to destroy despite their lives. And silly, we had panicked that someday the extraterrestrials would invade and annihilate us!

Every year the anniversary of the event that would go down in history as one of the most uncouth demonstrations of the human spirit will be ‘laden’ with a palpable wariness. There will be a sense of foreboding. A presentiment of a recurrence. Folly. It would take sometime for us to realize that history repeats but in different versions. That the same would not happen again. Something else, but not the same. History hates to be typecast and the playwrights of the event would be well aware of it.

Strange are the ways of the new, aggrieved world. A world where there are no perfect rights or perfects wrongs. No perfect heroes or perfect villains. Where combat is the new order. Where wounds and pain are the only levellers. And death is the only upshot.

There is no clue to who would strike next. Or where. We are living a terribly frightful existence. There is no foolproof defense against maverick suicide bombers or schemers ready to take the gallows or decay in detention. On the other side there is no guard against the mighty force that can turn its heat on anything that rankles its whims and wits. Or anything it simply takes a fancy to. Caught between the two and ranged against its own idiosyncrasies, mankind is smarting. It is bleeding from its vital organs. And it needs palliatives. We need reprieve from the pain of our own devising and from the struggle we have taken upon ourselves. That is what we need to find in this anniversary week. And every week after this. Year after year.

The human spirit has failed miserably and it continues to crumble. The only power that can prevail over this eroding human soul and save it from complete devastation is the Divine. Religion, of the kind that guides, of the kind that teaches forbearance, of the kind that can help us see right from wrong and of the kind that heals, can be our only succour. Probably. It is a little like administering poison as anti-venom. The cause of pain turning into the antidote when dispensed in the right manner.

It is the only thing on my mind as I stand in the balcony of my flat at dusk in these holy, Ramdhan days, absorbed in the prayer call that draws the devout to its vortex. It gives the silence that preceded it an impeccable quality. It almost makes the presence of the divine in the air palpable. It marks the culmination of human endurance, determination and devotion. It is a slice in time when nothing except divinity prevails in the inky air.

Makes me wonder as I take in the brisling atmosphere around me, why and how do such delectable solemnity and serenity get marred by booms and bombs elsewhere in the world? What makes it so utterly urgent for men to sully the sacrosanct nature of these holy times?

Sometimes, nothing makes sense, not even faith and its manifestations.

Interview in 'Thursday', the Weekend magazine of Times of Oman

Agony and Ecstacy of life in the Gulf

Asha Iyer Kumar’s novel ‘Sand Storms, Summer Rains’ is a book about life in the Gulf, observed from close quarters, MRUDU NAIK finds

WHEN the ambitious and starry-eyed Achu and the sober and subdued Mustafa embark on their individual journeys to the Arabian lands, they have only one aim — as do all others heading off to the enticing desert dunes — to earn money. Leaving their families in their villages in Kerala, south India, they go to make riches that would place them in the distinguished and envied league of ‘Gulfees’ back home. But the chimerical Gulf dream sours when tragedy strikes them in different ways, forcing them to reassess their priorities.
As they lurch between love and money, life gives them lessons in endurance, sacrifi ce and relationships. They return to their homes to make an attempt at resuscitating their family edifi ces that are waiting to collapse, to try and give meaning to their personal lives that have begun to wither, and to repentantly mollify their troubled consciences. But can they salvage anything worthwhile from the debris of their already mangled lives?
This is the gist of fi rst-time author Asha Iyer Kumar’s novel Sand Storms, Summer Rains. For Asha, the book is about a life she has watched from close quarters and incidentally the novel was written while she was in Oman, though she is now based in the United Arab Emirates.
In an interview with Thursday, Asha talks about Sand Storms, Summer Rains, which has earned good reviews.

THE BIRTH

Although I have been very fond of writing and have had great affi nity towards the written word from my college days, a novel wasn’t on my mind at all. It wasn’t like I had made a decision that someday I will be writing a novel or someday I will become a fi ction writer. I used to write small things, shorter versions of fi ction like stories and other articles of self opinion, but a novel was the remotest thing on my mind. I never tried too hard to acquire the special skills required to
write something as long and sequential as a novel. But being a keen observer of people and things around me, I realised that over a period of time, I had collected in my kitty, a lot of things to which I was raring to respond in my own personal way. Different people, their lives and conditions, their responses to life – it was like having a huge collage in front of me that was begging to be translated into written form. This included my numerous observations and experiences after I came to the Gulf in 1998. These impressions of people and life were such that they demanded a more serious treatment than an ordinary feature, article or a short story. Thus came about the idea to string the impressions together and create a novel. I think the first seed of thought was sown way back in 2001 during our brief stint in Sharjah.

THE JOURNEY

In all, it took three years for me to write this and this is excluding a few sabbaticals I took in between, owing to personal reasons. Although I had the basic premise of immigrants in the Gulf in mind, I couldn’t start until and unless I culled enough fi ctional material to weave a believable plot with characters that the readers could easily identify with. I had no direct biographical data to depend on, nor was it a plot that required too much of methodical research, but talking to people here without the intention of making them parts of the story, helped me understand the
common predicaments in their complex lives. It often had to do with the falling apart of the family structure, losing love, trust, confi dence and sometimes even the money they earned at the cost of all else. There was a general sense of resignation and commitment to fate in them that depressed me. And it piqued me so much that the world outside of theirs viewed them in a different light. Envied by friends and neighbours in their homeland, despised many times by compatriots here, I understood that many of them merely went through the motions of life. Nothing of what people thought of them back home was true, as far the men and women here themselves were concerned and I wove little incidents and instances that were purely fi ctional to take us through the lives of these two protagonists, who are symbols or representations of what life in the Gulf stands for. It meant getting into the skin of the characters who endured more than they could reveal, in ways more than they could express.
To make it life-like and to bring the story close to reality, I had to live their lives in my mind, vicariously feel their agony and ecstasy, and believe it or not, it was emotionally very exhausting. Add to it, the demands of literary expression and it was like being in the throes of creative childbirth. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. I never thought I was capable of going through such a prolonged creative journey that was also emotionally draining. I strongly think that for a story to become realistic and relative, the writer or teller has to know and feel the characters very closely and this proximity cannot be achieved unless there is absolute honesty in one’s creative pursuit. You have to tell a story because the story will not let you live otherwise. It has to be so intense an urge.

THE STORYLINE

The book tells the story of Achu and Mustafa, the two protagonists, and their families. We first see the events that lead up to their Gulf journey and thereafter, the numerous incidents
in their lives that make them consider returning for good. While Mustafa returns in good time, albeit to be met with a trail of woes at home, Achu stays put, despite a crumbling personal life. He is the obstinate man of the two. The two men meet 18 years later and exchange notes on the vast distances they have travelled since they parted ways — their lives now completely changed and their circumstances entirely different from each other — one, a symbol of summer rains and the other, a dismal representation of sandstorms.
It is a story that, through its characters, makes us assess our priorities in life.
No, it doesn’t pontifi cate, but makes a subtle effort to defi ne wasted exercises. I must mention here that I have not dwelled much on the protagonists’ everyday life in the Gulf as I did not want to make the book, even in parts, an essay on an expat’s everyday hardships, as one would expect it to be by the mention of the background. That would have been very predictable and documentary.
The book deals more with the characters’ domestic and personal predicaments in relation to people in their lives.

THE SETTING

Back in Kerala, from what I had heard and seen during my school days (and I am talking of some two-and-a-half, three decades ago,) working in the Gulf was the ultimate dream come true for people. The great lengths they went to get a visa and land here are unimaginable, although things have changed to some extent now.
I had a couple of close friends in school whose fathers worked here, and what I saw of their lives, made me believe that it indeed was a worthy thing to achieve. But this perception changed when I came here myself. I don’t know what it was that debunked the Gulf myth in me. It perhaps started with the trips we used to take in the pick-up bus in Muscat, where we saw the work-burdened labourers in the evenings, or our weekend outings to Ruwi, where I saw clusters of expat men around telephone booths and other places or meeting a few men and women who had left their families behind and were slogging it out here, with the dull, nagging ache of being
away from home.
It was one or many such things that told me categorically that there was much more to a working class expat’s life in the Gulf than making money. With age, I discovered that the gulf dream wasn’t as shimmering as it looked. It was a realisation that broke my juvenile fallacies and the novel is an outcome of this slow and systematic understanding of the living-alone expat people in the Gulf — the man out there who toils in the sun when the rest of the city cools it off in the interiors, the woman who puts the picture of her son on her desk and wonders every morning if he must have eaten his breakfast, gone to school or given a headache to his grandmother, the young son who lives in the perpetual fear of not being next to his aged parents when they pass away, the family back home that although enamoured of the new riches, still thinks it was better if the man of the family had not
been so far away.
The kaleidoscope of their lives presents endless patterns. Even today, when I see these men and women, my heart goes out to them. You can read the despair on their faces, if only you take a moment to read them.

THE INSPIRATION

As far as this novel is concerned, the story is inspired by real life, people we see almost everyday, whether here or back home. It is hard to pin the infl uence to any one person or incident. There is a bit of my characters in everyone we see about us, because essentially, the story is a sum total of every man’s fears, faults and failings.

THE FUTURE

More books. I would continue to write, for writing is now a cant-do-without part of my life. I have a collection of short stories ready and I am looking for a good publisher for the same. Meanwhile, I have begun to toy with the idea of another novel. It is still sketchy up there in the head. But looks like it will soon begin to shape up and become manifest. I don’t know how long it will take to write it, but yes, there is certainly another novel in the offing.

THE OMAN CONNECTION

That’s an interesting question. You will be surprised to know that the opening sentence of the novel reads like this, “The flight to Muscat lasted four hours.” So there you have Oman, right at the beginning. After this, the setting moves entirely to the UAE, because in the past, it was Dubai and Abu Dhabi that caught the imagination of people. So it was easier and relevant to have these two cities as the background. I thought it was easier for readers to relate to these two places than any other country in the Gulf.

But there is another major Oman connection — it was written during the years I stayed in Muscat between 2002 and 2008. It has been only a year since we moved out of the wonderful place that Muscat is. Had the book been published before April 2008, it would have been a novel from an expat writer based in Oman!
I am in talks with Borders, Family Book Shop and Turtles for the retailing of the book in the stores. I am hopeful of the deals happening soon. However, the book can be bought on www.amazon.com. Yes, they deliver books to the Middle East.

From Khaleej Times, Dubai

A home away from home

Raziqueh Hussain
4 September 2009

Novelist Asha Iyer Kumar talks about her debut book Sand Storms, Summer Rains, and gives an insider’s view of an expat’s life in the Gulf and how she’s made herself at home and etched out a new life in her adopted land.

An article Asha Iyer Kumar was asked to write for the Khaleej Times’ wknd. magazine on ‘Gulfees’ (a term for expats she coined herself) was the trigger for her to pen her book Sand Storms, Summer Rains. “I decided to take the thread of privations from the article and weave a story, keeping the sentiment intact but filling it with fictional characters and instances. I stuffed it with my own observations and broad view of people and life,” she reveals.
The premise of her book is the life of expats living in the Gulf. The two main protagonists are symbols of the emotional and personal upheavals men suffer when they travel to distant lands to make money and support their families back home. The book takes the reader on a dune-bashing ride through their agonies and ecstasies, their lives summing up the futility of the expat journey in personal terms. It took three years for Kumar to write her book, and three more to have it published. Kumar moved to the Gulf in 1998 after her marriage, but becoming a novelist wasn’t a conscious choice. “It was joblessness and boredom that drove me to take up writing full time, not the intention of getting published,” she says. “It was a means of keeping myself busy. As my observations and experiences of life in the Gulf grew, I felt an urge to write them down.”
Although Kumar admires authors like RK Narayan, Ruskin Bond and Shashi Deshpande, she vehemently denies any marked influences in her style. “I haven’t tried to imbibe any particular style from any particular author. I doubt if any writer would consciously do such a thing and risk losing their identity. I think, as we evolve through reading and writing, our own style becomes a confluence of various influences — of theme, thought, technique, even the genre of writing. But yes, there might be a mild sway here or there that is evocative of some other author, but that cannot be intentional,” she says.
Kumar, who lives in Fujairah, feels the best part of being an expat is having to make a home for yourself in a different culture and learning 
to adapt.
“You are in a country that has a completely different culture from your own, yet you feel at home because of its adoptive nature and its multicultural and cosmopolitan fabric. I don’t think my first novel would have happened if it wasn’t for the fact that I live here,” she says.
But like all expats, she misses home. “Oh, how I miss the monsoon and the lush green landscapes of Kerala. How I regret not being able to partake in family gatherings and occasions.
“I see the life of an expat as an extended metaphor for life itself. There’s no guarantee of being here tomorrow, so live today to the fullest.”

- Khaleej Times

Putting the Khan Drama to rest..

Oh, I am so tempted to register my thoughts on the play down drama by the hero who was stung at the Big Apple and is now on a reconciliatory mode, lest the people who made him what he is stamp him as a major stuck up not belonging to their lot. But I am loathe to discuss it now. I am still not sure if it was the man, the media or the masses that stirred the issue to such ridiculous levels, but I am going to pass it, because it simply isn’t worth dwelling upon at such length.

Remembering India's Bhagya Vidaatha

After the panic and paranoia posts, it’s time for some patriotism.
Considering we are four days past the Indian Independence day, I might be a bit behind date to post something related to national sentiments, but since I am not going to get hoarse with jingoistic cries that are common flavours of the season, I believe it isn’t misplaced or irrelevant to let a few thoughts flow.
It is a thought that emerged as I listened to our national anthem on TV on the 15th of August that just went by. It wasn’t the first time I was hearing it, it wasn’t even the first time I was moved by it, but it was the first time that a thought occurred - How many of us really understand our national anthem? How many truly get emotional upon hearing it? How many really know its history and background?
I remember my school days where at the end of our morning assembly the national anthem was played over an aging, croaking speaker and we stood in attention only because the teacher behind us was keeping a watchful eye on us. The anthem barely meant anything to us. We sang along, the lyrics mostly wrong and mispronounced, and waited for the Jai hey, so that we could scoot out of the heat to our classes. The tune, that now brings a rapt expression on my face every time I hear it, sounded so harsh in those days owing to the faulty record. The school never thought of replacing it and it played on, day after day, inspiring nothing in us except boredom and a few girlish giggles when the voices stretched and strayed. It made us wonder why on earth we were put through the ordeal of listening to it everyday. But we asked no one and no one ever explained why that strain of music was so important to us.
I don’t remember when the national anthem permeated my soul and became an exclusive rendering of national sentiment that made my eyes moist every time I heard it. Whether played as a vocal rendition or an instrumental melody, it now makes me close my eyes and lend myself to its soothing strains and I experience 52 seconds of absolute peace. It is the most exquisite piece of music that I have ever heard.
Although I had read and known the meaning of those lines sometime long after the school assembly days, last week as I heard it again on TV, I felt the urge to know our anthem all over again. I felt I owed it to my country, to my love of it despite its deficiencies and to the genius of the poet who gave us this gem of a lyric.
Thanks to the internet, the same day I read about its history, the numerous controversies surrounding it, the allegation that it was written in praise of the British King and then the poet’s own disclosure that it was actually a pronouncement of victory to India’s God of Destiny.
For those still suffering from colonial hang over it is probably a matter of contention. But it doesn’t bother me what it could have meant at that point of time - a eulogy to a monarch or an invocation to God for our motherland. I believe that in today’s context, if taken to heart, it can arouse a deep, collective feeling for a nation that is desperate for its citizens’ genuine love, dedication and prayers.
For the benefit of those who don’t have the patience or time to google it up, here is what our national anthem means. Remember it the next time you hear it and feel the tug at your heart strings. If it stirs up a sentiment, India can smile, for there is still hope. If it doesn't, God save our mother land.

O! Dispenser of India's destiny, thou art the ruler of the minds of all people
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, the Maratha country,in the Dravida, Utkala and Bengal;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,it mingles in the rhapsodies of the pure waters of Yamuna and Ganga
They chant only thy name.
They seek only thy auspicious blessings.They sing only the glory of thy victory.
The salvation of all people waits in thy hands,
O! Dispenser of India's destiny, thou art the ruler of the minds of all people
Victory to thee, Victory to thee, Victory to thee,Victory, Victory, Victory, Victory to theeee!

Welcome to the real world, Mr. Khan

At 62, India is an exceptionally robust nation comprising of (un)enviably vigorous citizens who have made blowing their fuse at the slightest tripping of sentiments a huge virtue. Come, this independence day, lets thump our chest and say with pride that we are an immensely responsive (not responsible, dummies) lot! We are so ready to burn and break, huff and heave and take matters to a point that gives our starved media rollicking times with simmering sentiments and boiling over emotions. You cant blame the channel wallahs though; after all they need to run the show 24x7 and if people are giving them fodder on a platter, they are only too pleased to lap it up, discussing, dissecting and in the end whooshing over to something else when it has been sufficiently done to death.
Even as the H1N1 show is running successfully, we have been subjected to detailed reportage of how a popular Khan (from millions of other Khans in the world) was ‘humiliated’, ‘angered’ and ‘discriminated’ insensibly by a nation that despite considering itself above everyone else on this planet, is today terribly paranoid.
Yes, it is scary to be held and questioned in a foreign country for no apparent reason and it can freeze your very life in its tracks with fear, but times are such. If you are on the wrong side of luck, anything can happen to you once you stray out of home. It is frightening and distressing; there are no two ways about it. But to cry foul and make an over the top reaction because it happened to a Khan who considers himself above the rest of the Khans in the world – it smacks of some egocentricity. And worse, the entire Indian janatha is ballistic because according to them, it shouldn’t have happened to this Khan. He is an icon, after all.
This puts me off. This high end profiling of people based on their public, larger than life stature. This nauseating culture of putting people on the pedestal, not just by their dim-witted admirers, but also by centres of power and intelligence.
Actually, it was the way the whole incident was portrayed and played out, as something that stripped the icon of his self respect, got him embarrassed and left him humiliated, that irritated me. Come on, he is not the first person on this earth to have gone through such experience and emotions. It could be just that he hasn’t had a taste of it in a long long time, not after the DDLJ days. Not after adulation and idolization became his staple. Not after anything he spoke made it to the headlines. It must have stung him sore because he had so long been insulated from the inconsistencies of the new, lopsided world. Welcome to the real world, Mr. Khan - the grueling world of ordinary people. For once you will know what it means to be unknown and anonymous.
Will anyone dispute if I said that for the lay man, in which ever part of the world, humiliation and persecution is an everyday reality and he endures it at different levels, in different forms without a whimper? He is destined to be crushed and killed by injustices because he is no icon with a wax statue to his name. He can’t afford to be embarrassed, because his self respect is subordinate to those around him. He can’t go to the media and create a ruckus about his woes because he simply isn’t saleable. And lastly, the ordinary man, ever intimidated by social, political and economic factors, simply doesn’t have it in him to take the power horses on. So he merely surrenders, puts his head down and carries on with his small, insignificant existence.
I am tempted to relate an incident that took place at an airport in India when my husband and I were on vacation. But that would mean a longer posting and so I pass it on. But the incident was in no way less gross or humiliating than what Mr. Khan went through at Newark airport, although the issue in question was slightly different. The writing is clear for common citizens like us – if you are pulled up for any reason, no matter how unjustified, just apologize, cooperate and if need be, eulogize the system that has such honorable men at the helm. We fully understand your sense of duty and respect your position, sir, you mumble humbly. A word of protest or a gesture of impatience and you are done. It’s the way the world works, dearies. Whether at home or abroad.
You stand no chance where the power of your persecutor is ultimate and if it has to do with sovereign power, the less said the better.
The issue we recently saw was a clash between the personal pride of a man who considers himself slightly above the ordinary and the collective paranoia of a country that despite its tall claims and bravado still knows that given the slightest chink, any wily, wicked rodent can crawl into its innards and have a party.
It’s fear and ego on one side and power and paranoia on the other. It is this old, lethal combination that is driving our world and there is very little one can do to change it. Those who can afford it, can raise a din; those who can’t, can just continue living the way life pans out for them. Without a demur.
It’s not about being meek, it’s about being realistic in an irregular matrix that the world is.

One flu over the human race

It has been a week of panic, paranoia and patriotism taken in different doses, evoking responses in varying degrees and causing some unusual flutter in my little thought shop. I can feel my head reeling with random thoughts, one trampling the other for prominence, crying for space on the thought shop rack (something akin to my book seeking shelf space in major book stores) and challenging my ability to think cohesively and comprehensively. In such high strung circumstances, it is important to be aware and cautious of common intellectual pitfalls, like getting carried away and falling to the temptation of flooding my shop with indiscriminate scribbling. But it is so impossible not to react to things and give vent in order to retain the crumbs of sanity left in the wake of my slugfest with my first book. So, letting forbearance take a back seat, I let myself loose in a two part posting on a few topical things..
The world is evidently in a grip of paranoia, in the levels and kinds that would soon leave a section of it either paralyzed or effectively dehumanized (depending upon one’s destiny). First it was the recession (oh, not this word again!) which kept us all chewing our finger nails. News about near, far, known, unknown people getting pink slips kept us thinking through the night if we would fall to the axe in the name of redundancy or restructuring, although either would have sent us home packing with equal apathy from the bosses and collective pity from the masses. Now there seems to be some let up in the situation (ahoy, we are seeing green shoots, they say) and those of us who have managed to scrape through the period unscathed are plain lucky. Thank God for big mercies.
When the scare of the down turn began to abate, there descended a pandemic, which now is creating absolute panic among populations. I was relatively unconcerned till a few weeks ago, counting it as a distant thing happening in far away places like Mexico and America, and I read about it smugly, attributing it to the vile ways of the world and nature’s newest way of exacting revenge on an erring humanity, but now it seems like the demon is entering our territory and beginning to give us the chills. Literally.
I sneezed a few times yesterday while at the hyper market and for a split second I worried if I had caught ‘it’, for the sneeze was followed by a sudden rasping sense in my throat. I cleared my throat instinctively and gave off a deliberate cough as you would always do when you get a scratchy gullet. I noticed my fellow shopper, standing next to me, give a wry smile as I reached for the tissue in my hang bag and I knew what was on her mind – I probably had ‘it’!
I had sneezed into my palms and if I had ‘it’, I was presently going to give it a free run with my subsequent contacts with things in the store. In a flash the lady vanished from sight and I suddenly felt as though I had contracted the plague and not a flu. Worse and ridiculous still, I felt that I had lost my freedom to sneeze in public places. I don’t deny it was as irrational a thought as it can be, lacking sense, but it came to me, making me hopelessly vulnerable to scrutiny. Believe me or not, an ordinary sneeze or a cough can now get you the suspicious glares if you don’t do it on the sly, behind the hand kerchief, in suppressed muffles. Forgive me for the crass comparison, but it has become as abject an act, if as not as indecent, as a loud public burp or you know what…
Caution, unarguably, is the better part of valour, but what if caution is taken over by senseless fright and paranoia? You begin follow the news to count the fatalities in India, you scour the Internet to know the latest situation in neighbouring Oman (where speculation and rumour is now as rife as dates in summer), you think twice before going to the cinema or the mall, you seriously consider stocking surgical masks (because it will not be until the vacationing crowd returns that the true impact of ‘it’ will be known in these parts, so better stay stocked than to be stuck on emergency), and as I have done now, conclusively drop any travelling plans for some time. Why risk it, after all?
Unmistakably, people en masse are seized with genuine fear and those who are seemingly unruffled, are at least a little nervous. Because, you can’t put your business of life on hold on account of a flu, can you? Nor can you afford to be complacent about it and put yourself in harm’s remotest way. So what do you do? No one’s prepared to take a call.
I am not sure if we are over reacting to a crisis which in my view is only one among a slew of punitive handouts from the Supreme Authority whose rules we flout so brazenly, unmindful of consequences. It makes me think it is a wake up call for us to mend our ways and come round and make a sincere effort to live by the laws of nature and God. Justice, in its ultimate, desperate effort to reinforce its presence, sometimes takes swathes of life in its fold. The H1N1 and other mass disasters are only a symptom to this; the real malady has yet to strike a severely stuck up human race. And it seems frighteningly imminent. When it does, the odds are that there will be no business of life left for us to mind.

Think about it.

My first fan mail..

Wanted to share a mail I received from my ten year old pupil in Muscat who I tutor online. I don’t want to take away from the charm of this lovely epistle by making any overture or explanation. Suffice it to say that to me it is a coveted trophy, the kind that no adult world can bestow. Only a guileless, innocent and generous heart of a child can be capable of expresssing such uninhibited sentiment.
I accept it whole heartedly.

Dear aunty,
Aunty I saw your interview. It was superb than i thought. I am proud to have a teacher like you.
When i saw your interview i discovered what actually was in your mind.I didn't think you are a great writter and a observer who observes other's life and hardships at heart.I was mind blowed by your angle of view to the lives and hardships of people who come from their native places and settle in the gulf or middle east. When I heard about your first novel tears prickled at the back of my eyes. Aunty i wish to tell you that i would like to have your first novel because i was
impressed by it's outline. Aunty your interview was very touching and you did extremely good.I really admire you aunty...................................
Your sincerely,
Aswin.

(Reproduced with all the naive errors in syntax)

A writer's agonies and ecstasies

It has been a tardy, tepid week at the ‘little thought shop’, with no whippy ideas, bouncy reflections or any story worth sharing to the small community of people that checks my blog out regularly.
Things tend to wind down now and then, don’t they?
There are times when you are so upbeat about everything that you don’t mind adding two extra spoons of sugar to your tea or prance around the house feeling wafer thin after 3 back to back ice cream days or croon loudly in the bathroom as if you are on the Indian or American or Australian or any damn Idol show, feel ‘inspired’ to watch the most idiotic reality show on TV for kicks, squint at the cover of a magazine and utter wryly to the face staring at you, “so what’s the big deal about you being there? Some day, I will too.” Days when you brim with confidence to take on anything in this world, turn around and face anybody who breathes down your neck and essentially, feel on top of the world, for…absolutely no seeming reason. The heart sometimes goes on a trip to the moon on horse back. And on those days everything around you makes for a reason to live.
And then there are those down-in-the-dump days, when the best of your friends seem hypocrites, you suspect the whole world to be conspiring against you, the filter coffee suddenly tastes insipid, the AC isn’t cooling enough, the TV is the biggest source of sleaze on earth, your breath smells despite the Listerine wash, when nothing you do seems enough for you to make the cut and at the end of the day you plunk into the cot feeling like an utter loser. A loser who just wants to dash to the end of the earth and kick the bucket. But all you end up doing is thrash your limbs in the blanket and snooze off, because you know that the end of the earth is too far and kicking the bucket is the dumbest thing to do. It is just one of those days when the heart simply doesn’t find a horse to go to the moon.
I have been going through this zany period these past few months. Alternating times when I have felt enthusiastic about the book, loving it so obsessively that I have to talk myself down to some sanity and days when I have felt it was the daftest thing on earth to do – writing a book and expecting it to be read and worse, to be liked. In what witless moment must I have succumbed to such imbecility that goaded me to write a book, of all things in this world! And look where it has brought me now – reduced to a worrywart who can’t think of anything beyond it in the waking hours which now have extended, thanks to the..oh yes, the frequent fretting exercise over promotion, marketing et al.
But slowly, that phase seems to be passing. Not because my passion for the book has diminished, nor because I have given up altogether, but during one of those rides to the moon, someone whispered to my heart, “How does it matter, after all?”
What insightful words to heed! It knocked me back to some good sense and I don’t feel hassled any more. I have suddenly become enlightened !!!!
Fortunately, I don’t live off writing.
Thankfully, I am not overly ambitious.
All that I seek to do by writing is to give my life a direction, lend the journey some meaning, fill it with some preoccupation and if during the course of it I gain some worth and acclaim, it will only be a bonus. I shall get what I deserve by natural design. So why hanker after anything specific?
Meanwhile, I shall continue to write, because it is the one thing I would like to spend my life doing, apart from other routine affairs. It’s a commitment unto me. A job that would make my days complete and fulfilling – good or bad, returns or no returns.

Interview in Malayalam magazine - Kanyaka

Page 1

Page 2 Page 3 Click on the images for a larger view and to read the interview..

Defining Success

Continuing from where I left off last time, with a loaded question on the definition of success….

I apologize for being so hopelessly moralizing, but certain things don’t fade from the mind so easily, especially when the reality of life strikes you so hard in times like these. And what a blessing this blog is, for some like me to dump all woes, disburse thoughts and voice views! It provides fomentation to the thought-swollen, fatigued mind and a lurching spirit. It feels like going out to the end of the universe and bawling your lungs out, with no one to chide, no one to take offence, no one to be pleased.
Now to the point…
Yesterday, a metro bridge under construction fell in Delhi. That admittedly is nothing new in a country where rampant corruption almost guarantees public disasters of this kind. Nor is the resignation of someone at the helm owning responsibility so rare in a country where such acts have become if not pure charades, at least mediocre stunts.
But what set the resignation of the grand old Rail man (I am so tempted to call him India’s Dagny Taggart) E. Sreedharan in the wake of the bridge collapse in Delhi is the manner in which the nation responded to his uncompromising stance to quit. The nation stood up in unison to back Mr. Sreedharan, to absolve him of any responsibility for the slovenliness at the work site, and there was not a single soul that wanted him nailed for what had happened. What a refreshing contrast to instances where the public sentiment generally bays for the blood of the helmsman after such occurrences!
Held in unparalleled esteem by an entire nation not just for his technical prowess, but also for his absolute integrity and a spotless career, Mr. Sreedharan stood tall as a true leader who the people could not dispense with. A nation could not let its dreams come crashing behind a collapsed bridge and it chanted paeans to his ethical probity in unequivocal tones. The Delhi government lost no time in refusing him leave, for where would it go to find a replacement to such unmatched amalgam of competence and complete honesty? What a rarity to be found these days in high places!
This is success. Unadulterated. Inspiring. The kind that wins you admiration brought by immaculate reputation. The kind that makes you an icon for what you are than for what you have acquired in terms of countables. The kind where, not a blot, nor a blame comes between you and your lifetime. The kind that makes you utterly indispensible to an entire population.

I have found today, one example of success to live by. My search for more will continue..

Random thoughts, post MJ...

It might be a gross aberration in these mournful (?) times to say that that I have not been a great fan of MJ and that his death did not leave me particularly somber or teary-eyed. Blame it on the circumstances that I grew up in or my own lack of popular taste, but Thriller and Billie Jean have just been passing fancies in my teens that I didn’t carry to a point which would leave me shell shocked at the news of his moving on.
Yes, it was a sad and unexpected piece of news; especially the manner in which it happened was surprising. But it also underscored the theory that great lives often had depressing and inglorious ends, the death over shadowing the lofty life it plucked away.
As I watched TV grabs of the memorial service, two thoughts occurred, both of which had me mulling over some profound truths.
It is a curious thought, but so true that death obliterates the evils in a man’s life. It wipes out the worst chapters from his past, brings to fore the merits, both real and fictional and makes a saint out of even a deviant character. In the aftermath of one’s departure, the world (as if facing a deadline) suddenly hurries to glorify the past like a final burst of pyrotechnic and surging tributes clog the psyche of a world that previously criticized and cast aspersions.
In the generous view of the world, it is a sin to slam the dead.
Nevertheless, one thing that death can bring to a public figure, apart from a spurt in career, is posthumous fame that highlights only the purple patches and pulls a rug over past blemishes. All courtesy of frenzied media ingenuity.
The other dominating thought I have been wallowing in, unable to quite pin my mind to a certainty has to do with the virtues of success. Viewed in the light of MJ’s life, success failed to make its impression on me either as a virtuous means or as a desirable end.
Is merely having millions of one’s work sold, with truckloads of cash flowing in, in its wake, success?
Is having a world tripping over itself to catch one glance of a grotesque looking, caked with make-up face, success?
Is, having to put up with the ignominy of a heinous crime that was later buried in the lucre, success?
Is tossing all the money one has made into senseless, arbitrary purposes, success?
Is living the life of a weirdo, who the world looks upon more with suspicion than with affection, success?
Is harbouring so much inferiority that one subjects himself to bizarre treatments under the scalpel, success?
Is having to pop pills for a good night’s sleep success?
Is being a puzzle than a person, success?
Is having the world sentiment work up into a lather when the news of death flashed, success?
Will someone explain what on earth this abstract, illogical yet overpowering thing called success is? And why, for God’s sake, are we so hopelessly subservient to this mad fixation?

Picture Pickles..

Presenting a copy of Sand Storms, Summer Rains to the Consul General of India in Dubai,

Mr. Venu Rajamony at a private function in Dubai.

Introducing SSSR to the audience

A personal triumph to cheer

Let me plunge straight into a question that has been increasingly playing on my mind in the last few weeks – is publishing a book a crust-moving accomplishment? I am caught between an ‘aye’ and a ‘nay’ for answer.
Going by the over whelming response that I am receiving these days from people who have just known about this not-so-common-occurrence in their immediate circles, it seems like I have pulled off something worthwhile. But I am not certain.
The response has been a mixed bag so far, dominated by the whoopees and wows with a smattering of reserved and cynical rejoinders. I apologize for being so vain and self-conscious. But with this book taking so much of my attention and anxiety these days, it seems only natural for me to dwell in thoughts related to this new development in my life.
Coming back to my question, is having your name to a book laudable and worthy of raising a toast? Let me first tackle the ‘nay’ that is weighing down on me rather forcefully. The current glut in the book market (thanks to any one who has an experience of something in life taking to pen a manuscript, dishing it out between covers as a novel, memoir, biography or poetry) makes me contend that writing a book is something that one can do as easily as learning to swim. It may not be as easy as fish taking to water, but with a few floats on you to sustain in the initial days, you can become an author, no less. You just have to have a will, an idea to flesh out, some fast paced, snappy lingo and the time to actually stamp it down as a document and voila! You have what you can call a manuscript that will sooner or later find a place to roost in the vast, easy-to-get-lost literary firmament.
I am not joking, anybody can venture to write a book and quite a few people that I know have said that they had a mind to do so, but have never got to doing it, owing to constraints on time. Some of them are people with immense experience, are a repository of worldly knowledge and have fantastic linguistic and syntactic skills. They are the ones I sincerely wish would write. But they don’t for their own reasons. When such folks congratulate me on my first book, I take the credit with guarded pride. For, I suspect that in their view, I have only done something that they could do so easily but have consciously chosen not to. To them, writing is a cinch and so, what is the big racket I am creating about a book? I can almost hear the words in their voice.
And then there are those uninitiated tribes who responded to my mails about the book with news about their family and friends. They did not care if I had spent 6 years or 16 years trying to make this book a reality. They didn’t have the slightest interest in knowing if my novel was about people or pygmies. No congratulations, no commendation, nor any casual remark of acknowledgment. It was as though I had written a book because I had nothing better to do in life. According to them, a house wife, tucked in some remote corner of the desert land had just found a new way to stay occupied after her chores. To each, his own!
Now, to that lovely cluster that presently makes me feel like a celebrity in my own right, with their glowing praise of my new enterprise. Some doffed their hat, some trilled that I had done something incredible, some were immensely proud to be my acquaintances and some in their over enthusiasm even said that I would go on to carve a niche of my own in the literary world (That’s a rather long shot, but who knows??).
I would like to share a few such compliments that came by e-mail from people who I believe are truly pleased with my small accomplishment and pulled no punches with their appreciation.
There are also those who conveyed their generous thoughts personally too, making me go red of face with an unspecified emotion. I dedicate this post to all of them.

- Dear Asha, I was pleased and delighted to know that someone I know has indeed written a book, a novel at that! Being a student of literature myself and one who spends at least an hour every night reading before sleeping, I know that reading is easier than writing - especially when it comes to churning out some 450 pages!! Congratulations !!

- Congratulations Asha. I’ll certainly go to the Palakkad store and get a copy. Proud to say that you’re my friend.

- Hi Asha, I had to write a quick note congratulating you on this great endeavour. I read an excerpt of Sand Storms, Summer Rains on bookwag.com and it left me wanting more. I have already asked my husband to pick up a copy of your book at the local book store in India.

- Hey aash!
what a wonderful piece of news! Great! really great! I’m really proud of you, gal.

- Hearty congrats. Very nice great stuff. Does not read like a debut novel.


My heart felt thanks to all those who acknowledge that this book has been a culmination of a long period of sustained work, seasons of struggle and some teeny-weeny flashes of talent.
A new friend told me recently, “It is not everyday that you come across a person who has written a book. We see books in the book stores, we hear about people who write, but I am seeing an author for real now.”
It was one surreal moment which put my doubts to rest.
Is writing a book really an achievement?
Yes, it’s a hell of a personal triumph and I am going to bask in this self-consuming thought for some time to come.

Anything for nothing...

We have an incurable penchant for freebies. We heartily welcome anything that comes free of cost with child-like-glee and sometimes, even gloat over our unique ability to wangle out a thing or two from a tightfisted shopkeeper, friend or even a relative. It doesn’t matter if it is a mere diary or a calendar from someone trying hard to liquidate his collection dumped on him by his eager-to-please acquaintances, or if it is some food stuff nearing its sell-by date hurriedly shrink wrapped by the seller to heave it out of his system or if it is a hand out that will do no good to you, your home, or your life except create a clutter in the cupboard; if it is free, then we shall have it. For use or disuse, for keeps or for stash away.
Let’s admit it, it is not an issue of affordability; it is just the habit of asking for or taking gratis that we simply cannot imagine growing out of. It is as though things that don’t need to be paid for have an unmatched value, so much that we hoard unnecessary gifts and complimentary things that we may not even consider taking out and dusting, forget using, every once in a while. Or is it just the juvenile pleasure of having conned the man who must have so arduously put in his effor t and money to churn out things that he thought were priceless, but turned out to be duds in the end? Or are we seriously pleased that we saved some money that would have otherwise been “squandered” on those “unwanted” things?
I am perplexed by this queer behaviour that makes us put our hand out, wear a comical grin that is tantamount to asking for that ‘little extra” or “something free”, wink at our partner in nasty pride when we indeed succeed in landing something, expect a friend slogging away at a chocolate/juice/biscuit/cosmetic/or even inner wear company (trust me, people don’t mind taking them free even if meant a little loss of grace) to bring us a complimentary packet every time they visit us.
While I have acknowledged this nearly incorrigible manner in almost every human being that I have known, barring a few exceptions, I have never been so tickled by the tendency of my acquaintances who have unabashedly asked for their free copy of my recently published, first novel. While the reaction to the news about my maiden literary endeavour among my contacts has varied from grim nods, gleeful appreciation and grave quizzing to gross disregard and gawky silence, one question that has stood above all responses is, “Where is our signed complimentary copy?”
To all those who presume that having a book published is only a step short of being a best seller and that it would soon help me laugh all the way to the bank, and to those who even believe that I already have a big signing amount in my kitty, here is an earth-shattering truth. I make any money only if you want me to. Only if you pay for those 450 pages that I have painstakingly penned in (all right, punched in on my pc). Only if you earnestly stand behind me and cheer me on.
Only if you consider buying it as an act done for a worthy cause – helping a friend find her feet in a crowded, competitive literary world – can I gain even a grain out of it.
And to those few who cheekily quipped that they were die hard fans of pirated copies, and hence would buy my book at the traffic signal, here is a disclosure: only best sellers ever make it to the traffic signals. Thanks for wishing me a place there.
I shall wait for the day when my book touches such levels of popularity. If and when it does, I shall take a bow with a chest stuffed with gratitude towards all those who did not ask (even jokingly) for a complimentary copy or wait for the book to hit the signals, but went out and got it for money. If ever I make it there, it will be because of you.

Announcing the grand arrival..

After three years in gestation and three more years in incubation, my baby is finally out, ready to face the world!!!
Plump and cherubic, she has taken over my life and my attention like nothing else ever has. She is named Sand Storms, Summer Rains, SSSR in short. I had decided on her name the day she was conceived in my mind. And I loved it instantly. The name symbolized seasons, sentiments, spirit and reflections.
Although she was clinically born, as a manuscript, three years after the first seminal thought was sown in my mind, she was premature, barely in a state to be presented in front of the world. Imagine me, a fragile baby in hand, about who I spoke only in whispers, reiterating that she indeed was there, but not in a state to be seen or felt, reassuring myself that she would survive in the end, hoping that I would soon find someone who would nourish and foster her, scampering around in a frantic attempt to find that elusive messiah, the publisher, who would give my baby the elixir of life!
Days of hope alternated with nights of despair, as I watched over her, loving her more with each passing day, wondering if such a beautiful creation indeed came through me, thanking the universe for giving me the inspiration to beget her and at times, dropping in utter desperation over having her in a partial state of existence. Neither alive nor dead. Three years passed in waiting, as I continued to watch her, clutching my heart, helpless and hopeless, often tempted to strangle and dump her. My hopes of her coming out of the condition began to fade. The messiah was not coming to my door, after all. I saw her vital signs beginning to fail and I found no way to revive her. I found myself on the verge of giving her up to death amidst ardent entreaties to the Gods.
And then one day, heeding my ardent appeals, the angel came down. It was a miracle. I handed my baby over to him, with shivering hands and quivering lips, with a plea in my eyes to give my baby a life. The angel smiled and said, “Do not worry, she is in my care.” He took her to his care home, gave her proper form and breathed fresh gust of life into her. All the while, away from them, I waited, not knowing what I might finally see.
Then the stork arrived, in postman’s uniform, and handed me my bundle of joy. It was a moment when my innards imploded with ecstasy, my limbs went weak with disbelief and my heart pounded with the force of a frenzied gale. It was an amazing moment of holding Sand Storms, Summer Rains in my hand. SSSR looked into my eyes and gave me an angelic smile, as though she knew what it felt to have her before me as a bona fide testimony of my labour and love.
I have yet to get over the euphoria of having her back in my life as a veritable entity. I presume I will never get over it. Now, as I hand her over to the world, for I know that she was born for the sake of the world to regale its people, I am fearful, like all mothers, of what would befall her. Of how the vast expanse out there would receive and treat her. Of how she would survive among the sharks and squids in the dark, unknown, fathomless depths of the earth. I am paranoid about her future and it makes me do things that only a mother will venture to do for her child.
As I prepare to move the mountains and shift the seas to help her set sail on her maiden voyage into the literary world, I pray for her success, for her to win her moment in the sun, to be a name that the world will recognize.
As she takes leave of me, I stand tall, preening with the pride, feeling disquiet in my heart all the same. Will she make it? Or will she fall by the way side? Will she find her way? Or will she get lost in the alleys? I can’t stop agonizing over her. Which mother, for that matter, has ever succeeded in doing that?
As she slowly seeps into the crowd, I wait, with bated breathe.
A mother’s grand dreams for her little one has just begun to roll.
Jai Ho, I whisper, as my maternal instinct overwhelms me and I toss a tear off my cheek.