Akshay, Katrina and Singapore's Billu Barber

Ever since ST Life! correspondent Deepika Shetty wrote about Bollywood film director Priyadarshan's shooting schedule in Singapore, she says that her life has become miserable.

"Since last week, my mail box has been filled with requests, my cell phone has buzzed so many times that I've been forced to switch it to a perpetually silent mode. Random folks call my office line pretending to pitch stories, when all they want is a brush with the stars" she writes in her ST blog. "Acquaintances have re-surfaced almost as dramatically as they had exited from my life. I have open-ended invites to lunches, to dinners, to drinks, even to salons to get my hair done."

Well, perhaps Deepika did not realise that there is price one has to pay for being able to be up, close and personal with celebs! I was not surprised at all at the reaction she got. "People are generally star-struck and the reaction you are getting is bound to happen when it comes to Indians and Bollywood stars" I told her.

Given the topic, I have two points to make here:

1. In the age of YouTube, when theoretically every one could be a star, why are people still so star-struck? Stars used to be demigods but in the age of Blogs and Twitter, they come across as savvy businessmen plying their trade. Let them be, folks--that's what I want to tell people! Let the stars do their job. Watch their craft, if you have to, but with a distance, and let the journalist do his or her job in peace. What's the point of basking in reflected glory by being photographed with actors?

Many actors and filmmakers now connect with their fans through blogs and other social networking sites. You can connect with Shah Rukh Khan, for example, on Twitter. Why not do that? You can even send him a direct message!

And since so many Indians are so web savvy, can't anyone do what Natalie Portman is doing for Hollywood with her social networking venture, MakingOf!

2. I have seen that some newspapers (even in Singapore) have their journalists pictured with stars (Hollywood/Hong Kong/ Musicians) and these stories (with the star struck journo standing by the side of the stars) getting published with a clear regularity. Their writings are also so fan-like. I believe that when a journalist is interviewing someone, for that moment, he or she is on par with the interviewee. The job needs certain seriousness--if you are not serious (in purpose) you are not being fair with the interviewee who is giving you his/her time. Displaying the behaviour of a fan does not suit a journalist. In private life, yes, (in a blog, yes) but not as a journalist of a serious newspaper.

Is my opinion too old school?

Talking books with Deepika Shetty

Some have just a little brush with celebrities and they think they have lived their life's worth. But some are fortunate enough to have literally gone to the level of one's dentition with a celebrity. Journalist and literary blogger Deepika Shetty is one of them. In one of her recent literary meetings in Sri Lanka, famous novelist Vikram Seth offered to publicly examine the state of her teeth. Apparently, as Nury Vitacchi puts it, at one point of the discussion, Vikram Seth told an entertaining story about a relative who was a one-armed dentis and to illustrate the challenges involved, he put his arm around the head of moderator Deepika Shetty and duly inspected her back molars.

But that is just one of Deepika's many literary brushes, so to speak.
Those who tread the literary red carpet in this part of the world--Singapore (Singapore writers festival), Ubud, Bali (Ubud writers and readers festival), Australia (Byron Bay Writers Festival) and Sri Lanka (Galle Writers Festival)--would have mostly probably already seen her in action, grilling a celebrity author or a panel of writers. In the last few years, Deepika has been actively engaged in not only moderating writers's sessions in these festivals but has also been increasingly involved in organising these literary events.

Until late last year, Deepika was associated with two leading TV programmes in Singapore--Show Prime Time and Off The Shelves, the latter an interactive programme with authors. Deepika now works with The Starits Times.

Her job as a literary editor, mirroring her deep interest in the world of books and writers, afforded her opportunities to meet a myriad variety of writers that general people can only dream about: Shashi Tharoor, Paul Theroux, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Michael Ondaatje, Romesh Gunesekera, Jeffrey Sachs, Thomas Friedman, Alexander McCall Smith, Nury Vittachi, Chitra Banerji Divakaruni, Neil Gaiman and Suhayl Saadi to name a few.

Hailing from Chandigarh, Deepika has a masters in political science from Panjab University. She started writing book reviews for The Tribune, which paved the path for her to become a full-fledged journalist. In India, she was a journalist with the daily ‘The Times of India’ and the newsmagazine ‘India Today’ before she moved to Singapore almost a decade ago to achieve greater heights in her career.

In an exclusive interview, Deepika takes us on a fascinating journey of books and writers and tells us what it takes to engage with great literary minds like Vikram Seth and Michael Ondaatje. Excerpts:


1. You interview writers for TV and print, you engage them in intelligent discussions at writers festivals and book readings, and you blog about books regularly. In short, you live and breathe books. How did you develop such serious interest in books and writers?

DS: By not being forced to read books. My mother surrounded us with books and comics, but never pushed us to read them. School work was not to be missed, the other reading could be done on our own time. Apart from academic pains, my childhood was wonderful. My sister and I read a lot of Amar Chitra Katha, Asterix, Champak, Twinkle, a fair bit of Enid Blyton, the Schoolgirl comics, even Archie at a slightly later stage.

We spent ever summer at my grandmother’s house and it was filled with a lot of books on war strategy, conflict, war zones and a lot of literature books. The eclectic collection traced its roots to my grand-father, (Brigadier Sampuran Singh) who was a war hero (he received the Maha Vir Chakra and Vir Chakra).

Every year, we’d dust those books religiously. The dusting effort would earn us a princely sum of two rupees every week that we would save up to buy Schoolgirl comics from the Capital Book Store in Chandigarh. In addition to all those books, my Aunt had studied literature and we knew all the names even before we knew what was in the book. There was Shakespeare, Hemingway, Pearl S Buck, Anita Desai, R K Narayan and a whole lot more. But till the age of 15, I hadn’t made any serious effort to read any of their works. After my 10th Board exams, when I was liberated from the pain of having to deal with Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and veered towards Humanities something happened. I started reading. I’d spend all my spare time in the college library. If it was a holiday and the college library was open, you’d be sure to find me there. The librarian would always urge me to head back home, when it was time to lock up. I think by the time I was done with my Bachelor of Arts degree I would have read every single book the library had to offer. I’d even make recommendations for new book buys. It was great to see that be taken seriously. The journey that started at the age of 15 hasn’t showed any signs of slowing. There is always a book in my bag. I can read anywhere. In the cab, on the bus, by poolside, before lunch, after lunch – you name it. Even now, when I go back to my grandmother’s house there is a standard joke about my working towards a PhD in reading.

My late induction into the world of words is also explains why I’m a reluctant speaker when I’m asked to talk about what it takes to get children reading. Honestly, I don’t have any serious advice to give, nor am I in the business of dishing out advice. What worked for me, might not even work for my own children, so who am I to say anything? What I do believe is that reading is a love, it has to be nurtured, it can’t be forced upon you and once you’ve found it, there is no fear of ever losing it. I’ve traveled to so many places thanks to the wonderful world of books, I have made so many friends thanks to the written word. Sometimes I feel I’m in Bangladesh, other times in Sunderbans, or feeling the pain of the Biafra war, a book can do it for you. It’s an intense experience. I love watching movies too though the movie experience doesn’t have the magical impact of books. You can take your book anywhere, it can be a part of your life, you mark the lines that moved you, a couple of years later, you re-visit the places marked by the post-its and it feels like it’s time for another adventure again.

I digress a bit, but I think there is one incident worth recalling. It was while we were on a tram at the Singapore Zoo a couple of years ago. There was this young mother with her son. She was so focused on teaching her young son everything. “Look at the tree,” she’d go, “how do you spell it?” “T-R-E-E.” She even had a note-pad in which she was writing everything and spelling it out again. By the end of the short ride, she had pronounced and spelt out everything – Tiger, Lion, Monkey, Giraffe, Hippo and her son was just listening quietly. Now, that’s a sure way of killing the adventure, I thought to myself. And I think, it was an assessment that wasn’t too far off the mark. When the tram ride ended, the little boy, who couldn’t be more than five was the quietest among the bunch of noisy children. Yes, induction is important, but I’ve always felt there is a really thin line between doing it for fun, doing it your way and making the reading experience close to the academic one.

2. Singapore does not have a Book TV kind of a channel but your programme on Channel NewsAsia, Off the Shelf, comes closest to it. How did it come about?

DS: Lots of talking. Old habits die hard. I was always talking books. I was reading them all the time and I was recommending the good ones to anyone and everyone who cared to lend me an ear. One of them happened to be my former boss, Susanna Kulatissa. She possibly saw that spark somewhere and suggested I start a book on Prime Time Morning, Channel NewsAsia’s breakfast show. It didn’t happen instantly. While I’d been writing book reviews since I was 18, television was a totally different ball game.

Several things bothered me. How would I make it work? Could it be sustained on a weekly basis? Would there be enough content? Most importantly, could I really do it? Susanna would bring it up at every other weekly edit meeting and I’d hesitate. In the end, she just pushed me to the wall and set a deadline, I shall be eternally grateful for that. It took four months of work (lots of it), to get the segment off the ground. It included everything, right from thinking about the title – Off the Shelf, working out the graphics for the segment, promos, establishing contact with book publishers in Singapore and beyond, finding writers, filming. I was breathing books, every weekend saw me in a book store or filming. Then just as we were ready to flip the page, three weeks before the segment was to take off, my months of labour was lost. The entire Off the Shelf folder disappeared from the computer system, the IT experts couldn’t trace it even in the back up files. In that instant, I was shattered. I felt like the segment was destined not to take off. Those testing moments taught me several things. Not too plan too far ahead. To expect the unexpected. When the unexpected happens, to pull yourself together and get on with it. As I write this, I find it hard to believe all of that was three years ago.

The segment started with ‘The Ambassador Series’ where High Commissioners based in Singapore spoke about books that caught their attention. Many of their recommendations tipped off my reading in the months ahead. I can’t thank them enough for their attention, their time and their extended support for the segment.

3. You have interviewed scores of internationally famous writers for your TV show. Was it difficult to get guests for the show as Singapore herself does not have many writers?

DS: Initially, yes. But I found a way around it by doing phone interviews. There were several in the initial months of Off The Shelf. With Vikram Seth, Jeffrey Sachs, Chitra Banerji Divakaruni, Amitav Ghosh, Tarun Tejpal, Rana Dasgupta and many others. They willingly gave their time to an untested book segment and shared so much about the writing process. Each interview was a humbling experience. There was so much more I needed to learn, miles to go, as they say. As the segment established a reputation of sorts, authors started writing to me, publicists were pitching interviews and the blank slate soon found itself transformed into an over-booked segment. It was always hard to say no, to turn down some interviews that deserved air time. But there were times when two authors happened to be in town at the same time and I had to pick one. It was heart-wrenching to say no on occasions like that. Not being able to interview some authors when they were in town is one of my deepest regrets.

4 . Writers are known to be quirky individuals. Any memorable experience of interviewing eminent writers for the show?

DS: Meeting Paul Theroux was a revelation. So much has been written about him, about his friendship with V S Naipaul, how things fell apart between the two of them. Based on what I’d read of Theroux, I had a certain image of him. He stumped me with his warmth and the fabulous stories he had to tell. His train journey from Amritsar, his efforts to re-trace some of his earlier literary efforts. In fact, we ended up chatting for 30 minutes after the interview was over, it was moments like those that made everything magically special.

Jeffrey Archer was an engaging conversationalist, he minced no words. I asked him if he was interested in the Ubud Writers Festival, prompt came the reply, “only if the organizers know I don’t come cheap.”

Investment guru Jim Rogers dished out a lot of advice off air and signed off “get them before they get hot,” he was wrapping up some advice from his book ‘Hot Commodities.’ Some authors ended up becoming friends. Kunal Basu, Elmo Jayawardena, Meira Chand, Janet de Neefe, Kiran Desai and all of it wouldn’t have happened if not for the book segment.

5. You have also been closely associated with some of the biggest writers festival in the region, especially with those held at Ubud, Singapore, and Galle. How was the experience of meeting and talking to writers at these relatively new festivals? Can you please give us a peek behind the show, the process of organising a lit fest?

DS: Before I get to that, I’d like to talk about how my involvement at literary festivals happened. If anyone deserves credit for it, it has to be Janet de Neefe, the founder of the Ubud Writers Festival. We bumped into each other at a media conference that was organized for the Singapore Writers Festival in 2005. I was the only journalist asking questions after the speeches were done. Janet asked the PR person for an introduction and that afternoon we ended up talking for an hour and a half and we haven’t stopped since. She gave me her card, told me about her festival, how it was born, what she hoped it would achieve and I was fascinated by her commitment to use words to heal, to build bridges. Bali, which had suffered from the deadly bombings, needed to go in recovery mode and what better way to do it than through literature. I didn’t think anything would come out of our accidental meeting. The next thing I knew, Janet, the Festival Director was inviting me to her festival. She asked if I would moderate sessions at the festival. I told her doing a 10 minute segment for television was one thing, an hour long session with a live audience quite another, but I was willing to test the untested waters.

There were three sessions that were allocated to me. Then three weeks before the festival, Australian journalist Ramona Koval, who was supposed to do the one on one with Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje pulled out of the festival. Janet called me and asked if I’d do it. I still have no idea what made me say yes. Then it was lot of sleepless nights. Would I be able to pull this off? This is the Booker Prize winning author? Someone whose work I greatly admire. I finally got to meet Michael at the opening of the festival. I told him I’d never done this before. I still remember that moment, he put his hand on my shoulder, gave me him his warm smile and said, “it will be alright.” I couldn’t sleep the night before the session, I was reading, re-reading my script, my research, re-visiting some of Michael’s work, then when the moment arrived, it was time to erase all of that and get on with it. The session went beautifully. I had no idea there were some Australian festival directors in the audience. Soon, there were invites from Australia, the next year Libby Southwell, Festival Director of the Galle Literary Festival was there and she invited me for the inaugural festival in Galle. Of course, none of this would have happened, if my husband Bala wasn’t funding some of these trips, if my office wasn’t giving me permission to appear at the festivals and if my boss wasn’t convinced of the worth of bringing back stories that can only be born at a literary festival.

It’s a totally different dynamic interviewing authors in a live setting. The interviews are more relaxed. You can talk about more than just their latest book to give the audience a full insight into an author’s writing process. It’s amazing to see how different it is for different authors. Then it is the audience that makes the difference. They are always animated and one has to be aware that they often know more than you, sometimes they’ve even read more into an author’s work and could end up knowing more about a particular incident than the author does. I always look for ways to engage the audience beyond the official Q & A. It could be a reading, it could the official introduction, it could be a brief enactment of an author’s work. There are various ways of doing it, one just has to be able to gauge what an audience would like. It’s often a blink moment and over the years I’ve been fortunate to catch it.

6. Apart from these festivals in the Asia Pacific region, India too has been hosting festivals like Kitab in Bombay and the Jaipur writers festival. Do you think these festivals are fads or marketing driven events? Or have they emerged because there is a genuine love for literature in the hearts of the organisers?

DS: Since I haven’t attended Kitab or the Jaipur Writers Festival, I’m not in a position to comment on them. What I can say not just about literary festivals but about everything else in life is that anything that is done with passion, with love, with commitment, anything that is truly Dil Se will find a way of speaking for itself, it will rise above the rest, the audience will relate to it as much as the writers themselves.

Literary festivals are a great way of connecting writers with their readers. Amitav Ghosh said this to me at Ubud. “I spend the better part of my life working on my book, when I get to a festival it’s amazing to see what has resonated with the readers.” It’s almost a way of bringing the writers out of their study, to feel one with their readers. Before literary festivals, readings, book signings became the thing that they are today, what did we have to go on? A writer, his book, a critic and his or her take on it. Today, you have the entire blogosphere at your disposal, just as you choose your writers, you can choose your critics too. What I am saying is literary festivals have opened a whole new avenue for dialogue, for interaction, for healthy criticism or even for bringing your literary heroes into real life. And in this case, too much could actually be a good thing.

7. You have interviewed writers both in front of the camera (recorded) and at festivals (live). How are the two processes different?

DS :Very different. At festivals, often the writers don’t even know the cameras are rolling. They are totally at ease with themselves. The studio often has an unsettling effect. I’ve seen the best of writers clam up, looking in vastly different angles, going on for too long or not saying enough. Being in a live setting also gives you the added advantage of getting a readers reaction to what the author has said. Visually, I’ve found festival coverage a lot more interesting. And I’ve enjoyed the whole process of filming the festival, scripting the story and showing all that happened in a tightly woven television narrative.

8. What kind of preparation and research do you have to do to interview writers? What it takes to engage with minds like Michael Ondaatje, Kiran Desai, Anita Desai, Amitav Ghosh, etc?

DS: It starts with the reading of their work. As a moderator, you’ve got to ensure you’ve read and comprehended the author’s work. At the risk of repeating myself, going with the assumption that the audience always knows more than you do. Checking and counter-checking facts. Don’t believe everything that shows up on Google. Double check the reports. Exchange emails with the authors, meet them before the session. It’s always good to know whether they want to do a reading, how you would connect the reading with a question. Prepare for it 200%, then go with the flow. Study the audience reaction while the conversation is on. You get a sense of what they want more of and what they’d like less of. Beyond the session itself, there is the other dimension of managing the Q & A.

I had a really interesting experience at the Galle Literary Festival. This was after the session with Kiran Desai. When I opened the floor up for questions, there was a sea of hands. The very first question on the ending of the book as was the second. When it came to the third question, I had to put my foot down and tell the audience that if there were any more questions about the ending of the book, they would have to talk to Kiran about it after the session. I’ve found the ending of ‘The Inheritance of Loss’ very clever. You can take what you want to take from it. Without giving too much, I said that much and added that discussing the ending wasn’t being fair to all the people who had bought the book. It was like going to a movie knowing what would happen next.

9. You not only interview writers but you are also a prolific reviewer of books as readers can gauge from you book blog, Read@Peace. What were the most stimulating reads for you in 2007? In fiction and non-fiction?

DS: I enjoyed very much ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘A Golden Age’ by Tahmima Anam, ‘Mister Pip’ by Lloyd Jones, ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ by Mohsin Hamid, ‘The Yacoubian Building’ by Alaa al Aswany, ‘The Blood of Flowers’ by Anita Amerazzvani, ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ by Khaled Hosseini, ‘The Last Nizam’ by John Zubryzcki, Adib Khan’s ‘Spiral Road’, Richard Flanagan’s ‘The Unknown Terrorist,’ Christopher Merrill’s ‘Things of the Hidden God,’ Tan Twan Eng’s ‘The Gift of Rain,’ Hari Kunzru’s ‘My Revolutions,’ Anupama Chopra’s ‘King of Bollywood’ – gosh this is turning out to be the Queen of longlists. I had better resist the temptation of adding on more.

10. And who are the Asian writers to watch out for in the new year?

DS: Start that with Tahmima Anam. ‘A Golden Age’ is bound to figure prominently in the award lists. Also watch closely, Preeta Samarasan from Malaysia whose book ‘Evening is The Whole Day’ will be out next year. Chandrahas Choudhry has finished his novel. I’ll be looking out closely for that. There’s poet Tishani Doshi whose novel is expected to be out soon as well. From Singapore, look out for Balli Kaur, who won the prestigious T K Wong Fellowship. She’s currently at the University of East Anglia, in UK, working on her debut novel.

I’ll also be eagerly awaiting Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Unaccustomed Earth,’ Amitav Ghosh’s ‘Sea of Poppies,’ Manil Suri’s ‘The Age of Shiva’ and Hanif Kureishi’s ‘Something to Tell You’ and of course Kunal Basu’s collection of short stories – ‘The Japanese Wife.’

The reading’s only just begun. Here’s to flipping lots of pages in 2008.

An edited version of this interview appeared in India Se, June 2008.

Scenes from a Lit Fest

Crossings, Singapore's Writers Festival 2007, celebrated literature in its myriad forms with over 50 writers from 16 countries in over 100 programmes between 1-9 December.

For me, the entire festival was an exciting mash-up of scenes from writers' lives, off and onstage. It was an opportunity to see many players in action: moderators, writers, bloggers, festival organisers. There were many international writers setting the scene abuzz. The queues were the longest for the famous Chinese writers such as Jung Chang and Bei Dao. There were enough NRI and Indian names in the marquee to make the whole festival a la Rang De Basanti. David Davidar, Kunal Basu, Madhur Jaffery, and Anita Nair, among others.

December 8, 5 pm
The Singapore Tea Party

As Sharon Bakar and I enter Earshot, the famous cafe in the Arts House by the Singapore River, Sharon spots A. Samad Said, a writer from Malaysia.

"How good to see you Sharon," says Mr Said with a chirp in his voice. His small saintly figure, complete with a flowing white beard, is preched on a chair. In front of him, there is a plate of half-eaten sandwiches. Sharon aka Bibliobibuli, herself a famous Malaysian blogger, is pleased to get the attention from the Malaysian laureate. "Oh, he is the biggest writer in Malaysia," she tells me later.

The laureate talks about his upcoming session. Sharon promises to attend his session the next day and we break for a cup of tea.

Both of us are hungry and a little tired after our session on blogging (World Wide Web of Words--Literary Blogs). Moderated by the spunky and energetic Singapore journalist and blogger Deepika Shetty, Sharon and Ivan Chew (a Singaporean librarian who maintains a books blog) had shared their insights on literary blogging in the session. While for Ivan, blogs were platforms for verbal diarrhea, it was a compulsion (to write) for Sharon. She often had to tell herself to stop posting (and occasionally feed her husband).

So, exhausted there we are with our English breakfast tea. Sharon has ordered a pizza which is yet to arrive. We had met before in Kuala Lumpur (KL) in one of the readings that Sharon had organised. So, we try to reconnect. Sharon talks about the books nominated for this year's Booker Prize. Then the discussion veers off to Tan Twan Eng, Malaysia's latest literary sensation. Tan Twan Eng, the Booker longlisted South Africa and KL-based Malaysian novelist, had shot to fame with his debut, The Gift of Rain. His sessions in the beginning of the festival were good draws, clearly pointing out how popular he had become. When asked how his life had changed after the Booker Prize nomination, he quipped: "It feels the same but things are a lot easier for my publishers and agents. Their phone calls are returned."

Even before we finish our discussion, we are joined by Elmo Jayawardena and his spouse, Dill. Elmo is a Sri Lankan writer but more of him later. We talk about his his book launch that is to follow the same day in the early evening. Elmo is a sharp wit, so he regales us with his jokes and one-liners while sipping on his latte.
Soon, we are joined by Deepika Shetty and Kunal Basu. Kunal had met Elmo in Ubud Writers Festival and I had inroduced myself to him earlier in the day, so he turns to Sharon. "Where are you from?" he asks. "Birmingham," says Sharon, "but I have been living in Malaysia for 20 years now."

Novelist Kunal Basu is an Oxford don--he teaches business and writes fiction (The Miniaturist, The Opium Clerk, The Racists). "How did you end up living this dichotomous life?" I ask him. "I always wanted to write and when we were growing up, there were no Indian role models as full-time writers," he explains. "There were Indian writers but most of them wrote on the side and had a full-time job to support themselves. So, I thought I too had to follow this model but I chose teaching as a career because it gives me control over my time."

Deepika and Sharon start talking about cyber stalkers. Kunal joins in, citing his experience of stalking. A research student, who met him first for a PhD thesis and later wrote an essay on his work, began to stalk him with hundreds of emails every day and would appear wherever Kunal went for his readings or talks. "It became so bad that we had to send her a letter through our agent to put a stop to it," he says.

I congratulate Kunal for couragiously writing in support of Tehelka's latest expose on Gujarat massacres. "I wrote a piece in Tehelka after the Gujarat riots which I think was even better than this," he says. The piece came as a reaction after a journalist asked him why he wrote a 'Muslim novel' (The Miniaturist, based in Akbar's court) despite being a Hindu. "I was angry at this question, which was like an accusation," he says, promising me to send the article.

December 8, A few hours ago
Ideas, Identities and Indian Writing

A little earlier on the same day, David Davidar, head of Penguin Books Canada, and a pioneering publisher of Indian writers in English, now also a novelist, tries to explore the misuse of religion through his novel, The Solitude of Emperors. Mr Davidar’s first novel, The House of Blue Mangoes, was published in 2002. It was translated into 16 languages and was a New York Times Notable Book and a Book Sense Pick.

His session is titled, A Tale of Two Cities. The other panelist is Kunal Basu. Predictably, there are not many audience questions on communalism, David's theme of the novel. People are more interested in knowing about his publishing experience. David rues the fact that these days editors are editing less and less, resulting in poorly produced texts.

Kunal discusses how many of his stories took birth in his journeys. The idea for The Opium Clerk came to him, he says, while trekking in Bangkok. His guide told him: In the 19th century, Calcutta was the centre of the world's drug business. That sentence triggered in him a curiosity about that period in Calcutta and he began to research for his novel, he says.

Shobha Bhalla, the editor of India Se, asks why are David and Kunal, despite being NRIs, are mentioned as 'from Canada' and 'from UK' respectively in the festival's publicity brochures. Kunal says in reply that "we don't write the brochures." But Kunal does not see any problem in the description as he thinks that he is a global citizen as well as Indian. "When it comes to identity, I am carpetbagger," he says. "If I can get under anyone's skin, I would be happy to do that. And that's why I am not happy with the term Indian Fiction too. It does not exist. Look at the range of our writing. Rushdie is so different from Davidar and so on. So, I don't believe there is anything called Indian fiction."

A shorter version of this report appeared in India Se, Jan 2008.

Writers in cross hair

On Sunday, Crossings, the Singapore Writers' Festival 2007, came to a close. For me, the entire festival was an exciting mash-up (ah, scenes from events are intemixing in my memory) of scenes from writers' lives, off and onstage. It was an opportunity to see many players in action: moderators, writers, bloggers, festival organisers--everyone played cool and I did not see any fretful faces. Or did I miss something?

There were many international writers. The queues were the longest for the famous Chinese writers such as Jung Chang and Bei Dao. There were enough NRI and Indian names in the marquee to make the whole festival a Rang De Basanti. David Davidar, Kunal Basu (photo, above), Madhur Jaffery, Anita Nair, Sharanya Manivannan and Deepika Shetty (as the energetic moderator with a difference). I was also there, connected with two events, but was miraculously not listed anywhere (website, booklets) but I am not blaming anyone. When such big names are around, where do I stand? And frankly, I don't care. I'm happy enough just to be an audience in such events.

First up, on Dec 3, I had the chance to moderate a session with Tan Twan Eng, the Booker longlisted South Africa-based Malaysian novelist, who shot to fame with his debuting work, The Gift of Rain. The session was well-attended. Many had turned up to listen to Twan and get their copies of the novel autographed by the man himself. Contrary to what I had been warned of, Twan wasn't shy at all and he spoke very confidently and eloquently. I would spare you the details as Deepika Shetty has summarised the session in her blog post here.

The other was a session on blogging, again moderated by Deepika. Malaysia's top literary blogger Sharon Bakar and Singapore's Ivan Chew were in the panel. While Sharon I knew as a friend, Ivan was a revelation. I enjoyed the proceedings and discovered that Sharon and I had started blogging at about the same time, Sept 2004! What a coincidence! And Deepika was humble enough to acknowledge how she was inspired by bloggers like Jai Arjun Singh (another friend of mine) and Amit Varma to start her own blogging journey. Both Ivan and Sharon have blogged about this event, so I am skipping the details once again (lazy me!).

I regret not attending the sessions of my friends Sharanya and Chris Mooney Singh who released his poetry book, The Laughing Buddha Cab Company. Sharayna, as it happens, has been making waves in Indian media talking about the Indian discontent in Malaysia.

Rainbows in Braille

Yesterday evening, the Blue Room in Singapore’s Arts House was packed with fans of Elmo Jayawrdena who had turned out in huge numbers to celebrate one of the honest and most down-to-earth voices from Sri Lanka’s literary world. The occasion was one of the highlights of the Singapore Writers Festival. Elmo was launching his collection of short stories, Rainbows in Braille .

Captain Elmo, as the author is lovingly called, is not an ordinary Sri Lankan writer. A lit fest favourite, he is now known the world over for his simple tale of Sam, whom he immortalized in his novel, Sam’s Story. The novel, set in the twilight years of the last century, is about a village bumpkin who comes to work in a Colombo mansion. The novel’s comic façade and the charming simplicity of the text hide the dual core of anti-war and anti-racial prejudice messages that form the only turbulence in this smooth flight of imagination. The book won him the Gratiaen Prize for best Sri Lankan work in English in 2001.

Captain Elmo, now a pilot trainer, has been writing novels and short stories when he has not been flying jets or working for his charitable foundation, Association for Lighting a Candle (AFLAC). After his first novel, he penned a hefty fictionalized history of the Sinhalese kings, which won the State Literary Award for best book in 2005. Rainbows in Braille is his third book and as with all his previous works, proceeds from this book too would go toward AFLAC.

Selling at $10 a copy, the book was seeing brisk sales even before the launch and Captain Elmo was graciously autographing copies for his fans until Deepika Shetty, the event's moderator, dragged him inside the room to start the launch session. I got a copy autographed for my daughter.

"Every copy that I sell feeds a poor Sri Lankan family for a week," he later told the audience.

Elmo has got the volume published in Sri Lanka. "Why did he go the self-publishing route this time," asked Deepika. "Because I want the maximum profit to go the poor with whom I work through AFLAC," he said candidly.

Ubud Writers' Festival founder and director, Janet de Neefe, and novelist Kunal Basu spoke in praise of Elmo before the actual launch.

Kunal became a fan of Elmo after meeting him in Ubud this year. "As the Ubud festival was drawing to a close, I was sort of getting sad as I thought that I might not be able to see Elmo again, as we writers hardly meet each other and most often keep in touch only through emails" he said. So, Elmo's killer charm had worked on Kunal!

"We writers love adulation, we love our readers and fans and we love festival directors...but we hardly can stand other writers...but Elmo is a huge exception," he said.

"In writing, nothing--technique, style, language--matters more than empathy...the ability of a writer to empathise with his characters, and in all of Elmo's writings, his empathy shines through," said Kunal.

Kunal also narrated an anecdote from the Ubud writers and readers festival. Whatever books he had collected in Ubud, he gave it to his mother (an '85 year old, widely read, active Bengali writer with strong opinions') in Calcutta to read before he left for London. A few months later, he asked his mother on phone if she had read all the books. She talked about only one writer. "Who's this Elmo?" she aked.

"Elmo, that is the biggest compliment I can ever give to you," Kunal said.

Elmo talked about the origin of the stories in his collection and how almost all of them were based on real life people and events. He talked about a story, Tsunami. "It is based on an old man who lost his entire family except his two grandchildren in the Sri Lankan tsunami," he said.

Deepika said she loved his short story, The Detergent Salesman. I love it too, Elmo said. But I love all my stories, I love whatever I write, he added.

Despite writing 3 books, Elmo does not have an agent.

"I thank Kunal (Basu) for introducing me to his agent," he said, "but I didn't need an agent for this book. All, my life I have had my own literary agent in my wife Dill." We all laughed. "She is my agent and my editor," he added.

"We all write because we love to write," he said, " and I am sure Kunal will back me up on this, and once we have got the book out, we just let it travel--who knows how far it will go."

During the talk, a charming Captain Elmo acknowledged his debt to all those who had helped him write the stories in this collection. He especially acknowledged his wife’s contribution to his writing life. "She has not just been the air beneath my writerly wings that helped me soar the literary heights but the wings themselves."

Seguing from this, Deepika asked Dill (I hope the spelling is correct) to comment on how life had been with this multi-dimensional man, Elmo. Dill seemed to be taken aback at this unscripted turn of events, the limelight falling on her, all eyes fixed at her but that is the fun of an evening like this, especially when there is a spunky and intelligently unpredictable moderator like Deepika.

"Well," said Dill, "Elmo has been doing many things apart from flying. He started AFLAC and now he has become an author. Sometimes when things become too much, I tell Elmo: Hello, I had only married a pilot!" Aha, so wit runs in the family.

In a gesture that can be only called Elmosque, the author presented the book to his grandson, Navik. These stories are for my grandson’s generation, declared Elmo, whose love for people, especially children, is ever effusive. “Through these stories, I want to show to the coming generations how life used to be in Sri Lanka, so that they too know how simple but beautiful life was before it got lost to the world,” he added.

Captain Elmo’s friends also shared some thoughts at the launch. Top security and anti-terror expert Rohan Gunaratna paid tribute to this writer for his empathy for others, especially the less privileged, and his strong power of observation and the ability to chronicle human life. "I was once having a debate with Elmo over good people and bad people, and at the end of it, Elmo concluded that there are no good or bad people in the world; there are only good and bad circumstances," he said.

Finally, Elmo thanked everyone for coming to the event. "This (Arts House) is an opulent place and all of you here are literary and affluent people and I am deeply honoured by your presence here," he said. The way Elmo said it, the glint of gratitude that shone through his eyes while speaking these lines, were so honest and deeply felt that I almost had goosebumps. His words, truly emerging from the bottom of his heart (as many say it but how deeply they mean it?), made such a strong emotional connection with me (and am sure with others as well) that it would be impossible not to be moved by such heartbreaking modesty in a man who, through his work, had soared to such towering heights that all of us in the room could only aspire to in a lifetime.

(All quotes in this post are from my memory as I hate to take notes during such events; I apologise in advance for any inadvertant misrepresentation)

Impressions from a reading

I had been looking forward to Rana Dasgupta's reading ever since Deepika had informed me about it. Rana too was kind enough to drop me an email reminding me of the event. There was no way I could have given it a miss, even though I was working on that day.

Why was I interested in Rana Dasgupta?

To be frank, I have not read his debut novel, Tokyo Cancelled except in snatches. Like many other good novels, it lies unread in my list of must-read novels.

Was it the celebrity value then? The star power of a novelist? Maybe not. The star power of a novelist, seeing and listening to a writer about whom one had only read in the media and talked amongst friends, has got diluted over the years. He is among the dozens of young novelists that India produces on a regular basis year after year. He is not a Naipaul or a Rushdie, with many works and numerous awards under his belt. He has so far written only one novel. So why was I interested?

Rana is not a run of the mill author, I believed instinctively (unlike so many other young Indian writers crowding the scene today), that's why. I carried this impression after reading some of his pieces that appeared in newspapers and are available on his blog. Chucking a well-paying marketing job and globe-trotting lifestyle for the dead calm of a writerly life in Delhi is a gutsy decision for anyone to take. Rana had done that, and that impresses me most about him. "To decide to become a writer was an arrogant decision," he said during the one hour plus talk. There it is. I like this kind of stuff, when a writer says these kind of things, because when one talks like that, one knows that here is a man who understands what it means to be a writer, to decide to be a writer which comes with a certain obligation to the calling. That kind of seriousness in a writer is what impresses me most.

It took Naipaul five books to writer whenceupon he became sure of the fact that he had actually become a writer. To believe that you have become a writer, that you are a writer, is a big leap of faith. It is not a hollow pronouncement. It comes with certain givens that you have to respect and live with. That is very important to realise and I believed Rana was that kind of a Writer, a writer with a capital W.

Whatever passages Rana read from his forthcoming novel, tentatively called "Half Life" (a term taken from atomic physics, bears no connection to Naipaul's Half a Life), were mesmerising to say the least. In the reading, a retired, over 100-years-old, nearly blind methusaleh in Bulgaria takes in the view of the city from his window. The tapestry of images and sounds that Rana has woven is marvellous and reminded me of the prose of Borges, Marquez and Coetzee. It was sheer pleasure to hear him read those passages.

During the talk, peppered with innocuous yet perceptive questions from some of the students, Rana talked about many things. Why he decided to settle down in Delhi (love, conversations with a set of creatively-inclined friends), why did he name his novel Tokyo Cancelled (he didn't and it could have been NY Cancelled or London Cancelled but he wanted to shift the focus to an Asian setting for his tale of globalisation), how cinematic images inform his sense of setting a scene in his works (he mentioned a little known movie that showed New York's highways and bridges completely empty of people or vehicles, I forgot the name of the film), how he admires the short stories of Roald Dahl (when a kid asked him about his fav children's author) and what he was trying to do in his next novel (Half Life), due out in early 2009.

For a view from the other side of the table, read Deepika Shetty's post on the event. You will enjoy reading it.

Writers blogging?

Except for a few, most established writers don't blog. Why? I'd like to think that they already are famous, they have a fan following, and anything they write can be monestised through their agents. Lack of time, in a honed set pattern of nocurnal or diurnal writing, can be a good, classic excuse.

Also, many writers, like Neil Gaiman says in a Time Out interview, would not like to give away in the blog "the raw proto-material that may eventually melt down into a story." That is definitely not helpful for a writer.

But yesterday, as it emerged during a discussion with friend and fellow blogger Deepika, one more reason was added to this list. Many writers, as she put it (and you have to trust her words because Deepika meets on an average a writer a week, if not more), are still living in the age of fax machines. So, blogging would be a little too much for these technological luddites.

No offence meant to these writers. To each his own, and as long as they keep writing those lovely books, we are not complaining.

However, all old or established writers are not nay sayers to this technological marvel. Some have in fact found a rebirth through blogging. An example is Penelope Farmer who writes on her experience in this Guardian blog, 'Getting published through the blog door':

Old writers don't die these days; they write blogs...

I wrote anonymously, as Grannyp - a spur of the moment name, stolen from the Archers: (oh the irony - having declined to be called granny by my grandchildren, I am known as Granny across the web). I had no expectations of a wider audience. But as I wrote I began to wonder about other blogs and to look them out. I added comments to some. The writers of those blogs began adding comments to mine.

The book I'd been writing, like its predecessor, was turned down - that this happens frequently these days to writers of my generation was no comfort at all. I felt too discouraged to start another. But I am a writer still; my blog's audience may not have been huge but it had one; it wasn't like writing to the wall, the way I was beginning to feel.

I dared put one short story on my blogger site. Still bolder, I began putting up, chapter by chapter, over several weeks, my most recently rejected book, Lifting the World, about a child who lives next to a building site and becomes obsessed by tower cranes. Though this obsession had baffled the editors who'd turned it down, it too gradually drew an audience.

Meantime I'd started corresponding, blogwise, with your own wonderful Dina Rabinovitch, to whom I'd confessed my real name. She promptly outed me on her blog - something I objected to at first. But when the last chapter of the book went up, I outed myself with the permission of my family. Here I am, I said, author of Charlotte Sometimes and all that. (And no, I don't mind that book being my calling card, though written so long ago. After all this time I'm grateful to have one.)

And I've started on another book. Old writers may not die, but they do have to move on. Thank God for the internet.

I also thank the internet, because, without it, fledgling writers like me would be seen and heard nowhere. All my initial short stories were published in online journals, and now they are finding their way to print. And most importantly, I have been able to connect with some likeminded people through this medium. What more can one ask for a start?