THE WORDS FILE

Most ideas are easier dreamed up than actually executed. And my plan for teaching writing to children and adults was one such thought. Having been a journo, and done other kinds of writing—words were what I knew something about. And, more importantly, felt and cared for. So, it was time for me to walk my words. 

After a year or so of reading books on teaching writing, going through my dusty MA notes, researching worksheets, informally test marketing, and luxuriously pondering, I came up with a blueprint for my version of an effective writing course, and chose the workshop model. 

The group for this creative writing workshop was a mix of 7- to 12-year-olds. I had made folders from red chart paper for the kids to file their worksheets. (A hangover from my handicraft shop running days.) These folders caused some buzz with my young participants. One of them came up and asked me if I was the owner of Inkpot (the label on the folder, and the name I had bestowed upon my venture), or worked there. Talk about brand exposure! 

The handmade folder distributed to the kids

The budding marketer within me glowed. But the teacher inside (the larger share) felt competitive. I decided to gauge my brand new students idea of creativity through this craft item.

A while into the workshop, I asked them why they felt I had made folders instead of just zipping across to the stores and picking up fancier ones. Their answers made me grin stupidly and do mental cartwheels:One kid declared that since this was a creative class, it was better to create things. Another said that perhaps I loved craft. A third voice solemnly added that this ensured that we had a folder nobody else had.

My young learners intuitively understood what creativity is: doing your own thing (as your imagination dictates)—in words or form—for the love of it. And being original!

PETS OVER PEOPLE

As part of their evolutionary destiny animals have been substituting humans—sometimes because they were better suited for the job or just more expendable. As beats of burdens lugging the load, winged messengers, or more recently bomb sniffers—they had jobs thrust upon them; mostly undesirable ones vacated by humans.

But often we see urban jungle dwellers extending the function of animals to a humanoid level—that is, seeking them to fulfil roles that easily could be desired by humans. What’s one to make of that?! Are humans failing to relate to each other at an interpersonal level? Why are we turning to the low rankers of the evolutionary ladder instead of the evolutionary elite?

When did animals turn human—outside of fairy tales and inside our drawing rooms?!

A pampered pet class has been around as a status statement or personal whim. But this cute-on-call pet was an accessory to the Complete Family. These lavished upon expensive breathing toys were often the affected eccentricities of the Haves. However privileged the pet, it was fitted around family obligations, social rituals, personal commitments. The pet was a pet—always an animal. When? How? Why? Did this pet turn into a person?

In this new equation the helplessness of the pet is matched by the confusion of the human. The Master is enslaved to the Servant by the forces of need created by—emotional support denied by humans, alienating situations, or the fear of intimacy/commitment. Pets have become for some (and who knows for how many to come) comfortable objects of expressed-displayed affection.  

Humans want someone to care for, relax around, and share with…just someone to come home to. But to handle the complications and emotional demands of human relationships is not always possible. So that brings in the pet into the picture subconsciously as a substitute person. The owner projects on it human feelings and wants—which the animal is not even capable of experiencing!

In science-speak, when you make an animal a person—attributing to it human motivations and characteristics—it is called anthromorphism. Or try Pet-Turned-Person.

AMITAV GHOSH IN BANGALORE

Unfortunately, I have read only one novel of Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide. He’s on my must-read list, but in spite of—or rather because ofPratibha Umashankar-Nadigerits high priority marking, I have not got around to reading him. His books belong to the category of books you want to read when you feel that inner stillness that can absorb meaning (read: concentrate). 

Ghosh descended on Bangalore for a reading of Flood of Fire, the third novel in the Ibis trilogy. The publicity emails mentioned that the author will be in conversation with a certain Rohan Murthy. (I did not make the connection.) Ghosh is, well, phenomenal so I was wondering about this unknown-to-me Bangalore intellectual who will be in a tete a tete with the powerhouse writer. At the venue, Ghosh with his shock of silver hair and black rimmed frames looked every bit the big-time author. His interviewer was suitably bespectacled alright, but sans the impressive frost in the hair and sagacious lines on the visage.   

Okay, so Rohan Murthy is Narayn Murthy's son who is doing some brilliant work in publishing with the Murthy Foundation. But to be honest, I was disappointed by the choice. I mean, how seriously can you take someone who announces in an Indo-American twang that since his notes are on his phone, the audience shouldn't misconstrue his referring to them as texting! And then he grandly announces that the said questionnaire has been put together by inputs from friends who are academicians.  He makes it a point to say that he has landed in Bangalore this morning from Boston, and makes some purportedly casual references to Ivy League: beware; these academician friends are not just academics but firang academics. I guess, we’re supposed to be suitably impressed. 

Here is one question from "a friend and gender studies professor", from I think, it was Cornell. The question: Ghosh's earlier work in the Iblis trilogy had strong women characters but his later work has only men. How does he explain this breach? Ghosh replied: he loves having strong women character but when his book is set in a garrison town, where there are no women, it was quite difficult to write in an impressive female protagonist. 

Then comes one where I think Ghosh must have inwardly rolled his eyes. The question was something like how as a novelist writing about historical events he handles a situation when he runs out of research material. Does he start inventing? Ghosh replied that his books are not historical works but stories springing from his imagination – otherwise it would not be fiction.

Ghosh talked about his role as a novelist. He said that though his books are based in historical times and he loves doing research; but at the end of the writing day, he’s not a military or trade historian. True, he pegs his novels around real events, people, and places. But what he loves is creating characters (their motivations and emotions, relationship with other principal players); and what the weather was like, or was there a festive occasion on that day. All this comes from his imagination – history is purely the catalyst.

Someone in the audience asked him that what were the real events and what were the created ones in his books. Cheekily, Ghosh remarked, that the most unlikely ones were quite the real ones.

In his intro talk, he had shared slides of what a travelling garrison would have looked like. In the long line of trooping soldiers, accompanied by cooks, book-keepers, drummers, dhobis, livestock, et al stood out a pert black dog. I never thought any one had even noticed this solitary mongrel. But someone in the audience had and was curious to know what was the mutt's role?! That took Ghosh by surprise. (He said it probably was a hunting dog as the soldiers often stopped for hunting). The limelight grabbed by the sketched dog must have left the audience vaguely baffled (most of them), indifferent (some), and stupidly pleased (me).

BISCUIT WALKS

At the appointed hour--seasonal in nature--Sando, my dog, bays out for his daily walk. Or what my mother calls his "newspaper reading time"  (It seems that dogs need their walk not only as a physical exercise, but as a social one too: where they sniff around to learn what fellow four-legged ones in the area were up to.)

Sando, unfortunately, unlike the late Kalu, is not a popular dog. We cannot pass by most streets and houses without being greeted by angry barks. And in some lanes, dogs would actually chase us! I think Sando was the problem (he growls at the hostile ones and turns up his nose on the friendly ones). Finding enemy-less routes was not easy-- we were experiencing a route crisis.

Until biscuits happened.

I did the old-fashioned thing of bribing our way -- literally -- for this unsocial dog. And now he was the new Mr Popular. Well, not exactly, but at least his sight was welcomed by the biscuit-bought dogs.

A particular pack of three, were his most loyal watchers. Irrespective of who (my parents or brothers) walked Sando, for these three mutts he was the highlight of the day. They enacted a small drama around him everyday: dancing in circles, sniffing him up, yelping excitedly, and of course, gobbling up the "bribe."

One day, I noticed a pair of tiny tots from a construction site nearby following this road show. I tentatively gave the kids a pack of biscuits, and the next day they reappeared. Sando had new followers.

Now the neighbourhood's most detested dog has a guaranteed fan following of three dogs and two tots.

THE LOST BYLINE

When you are a brand new journalist; the world is divided into two categories – the ones with by-lines and the rest.

It is a different life, very different. The world is your oyster and you are always going for the jugular. Why?…well, because you think what you write is possible history, probable immortality, and definite fame.

It will be some time before the novice journo learns that the flashing, glowing by-line under the headline is often missed by most readers (who are more interested in the celebrity than the chronicler).  It will be after some uneventful pint-sized by-lines later that the journo will realise his/her insignificance in the scheme of print.

However big you get, you are still smaller than your subject. Unless, of course, you become the subject – a revered columnist or a celebrated editor – popping on TV panels and posing in print. But for the vast majority of pen-pushers (or rather, keyboard bangers) it is just a profession that pays the bills.

THE DOG'S DIWALI

During Diwali, my dog Sando (a hardy Indian dog) has a ritual: he starts living under the bed until the fireworks go away. This includes staying put during mealtimes: He would rather die of starvation than face the fireworks. We feel sorry for him and he gets served under the bed. But even then most of the time his bowl stays untouched.

I don't know why Sando feels safe under the bed because the noise level cannot be any lower there. Or for that matter anywhere else. My other dog, Kalu (another Indian dog), blissfully gets through Diwali without any complaints. On occasions, when the blast-and-burst sounds cross a certain decibel, Kalu may frown, sigh, and change his position. His subtle protest. But running for cover under the bed is just not his style.  And his considerable appetite is not in the least affected.

But one thing is very strange about Sando. For a dog who is so petrified of loud sounds, he never gives up on his walks: come what ear-shattering firecracker. The moment he hears "walk-walk", he sprints form under the bed and posts himself at the gate.
On the road too Sando is a brave soul. While other dogs go cowering under cars and drains, Sando struts the streets. Kalu, of course, is the coolest. I know Sando is scared deep down because when we head back home and near the gate, he runs into the house and dives under the bed!
But call out "walk-walk" and he's ready in a moment to glide the streets and ignore the detonating bombs. Just what is this dog thinking?!

THE FIRST COMMENT

My erratic blog got it's first comment (and a positive one at that) and I' m feeling, well, elated.What surprises me is that you are never jaded or cynical enough to remain untouched by a response to what you have written. Blog post or cover story, as long as someone reads what you write, life is wonderful. 

Every time, since the first time, I have seen my byline in print I have experienced that high. My first job was at a lifestyle magazine and my obsession with bylines did not go unnoticed by my editor. She used to say that after the annual appraisal it would kick me more to get an increment measured in point size of bylines than, perhaps, ordinary money. Very true.

My campaign against modest Indian bylines, in favour of the ones GQ, Vanity Fair, and Esquire crowned their writers with (on the cover! and again inside in huge fonts!) made no impression with the editor.

Of course, TV journalists have their faces plastered on the tube with matching fame matches. And columnists have prominent bylines and professionally-lit photos accompanying their text on printed pages. But the humble byline just by itself never did break the glass-ceiling.

 But I got a more than satisfactory compensation while still at the magazine.

My colleagues at the magazine (under the direction of our editor) gave me a birthday card that I have treasured and treasured till now. The card has the mock-up of a cover story I had done for the magazine. The same celebs were decorating the cover but splashed in huge fonts on the "cover" right across the centre was my byline!!! 

Yes, it has been my best birthday card ever. :-)