Poornima Manco

Author

writing

What’s the point?

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Every author, regardless of the genre they write in, has some kind of message in their writing. Whether that is good overcomes evil, soulmates exist, happily ever afters are possible, crime doesn’t pay, etc, etc. You get my drift. Now, these messages aren’t necessarily emblazoned on their covers or blurbs. In fact, sometimes, the messages are so deeply buried within the writing that a reader would be hard pressed to vocalise them if asked. But they are there, even in the fluffiest romcom, the bloodiest crime caper, the most nerve-tingling thriller. Search and you will find.

However, sometimes, there is a disconnect between the message sent and the message received. What an author may be trying to say is open to hundreds of interpretations and misinterpretations. It depends on the reader, their mood, their provenance, their cultural history, their upbringing, their exposure to the world and many such factors. That can make for a jarring experience, both for the reader, and also for the author when they read a scathing review of their work. “That wasn’t what I was saying!” An author might cry out in the privacy of their home.

Whose fault is the misunderstanding? The author’s or the reader’s?

Now, having been both, I can tell you that the answer is complex and nuanced. As an author who is trying to put a point across, I want to be subtle. I want to layer my message within the story, the dialogues, the actions of the protagonists and the consequences of those actions. Do I want to beat the reader over the head with my message repeatedly? No! That is the most basic and worst kind of didactic writing there is. Yet, within all of this lies the risk of being misunderstood.

Let’s take the last novel I wrote and released back in 2022: Intersections. Most of the reviews I received were wonderful. Haunting, complex, emotional and compelling were some adjectives used to describe the story. So far, so good. But any writer worth their salt knows that it’s the negative reviews that stick in one’s head. I know of many authors who refuse to read their reviews, content if their works have a high star rating. I, sadly, am not amongst those. I enjoy reading my reviews because I see it as a learning ground. Somewhere I can find out firsthand what my readers are thinking, what I did well and what I could do better.

This one review had me baffled. The reviewer said she found the book was very well written, that I, as the author, had tackled an intricate plot with four alternating viewpoints and kept her engaged throughout. She then went on to talk about the story and finally ended with saying that the reason she wasn’t giving the novel a full five stars, despite having enjoyed it, was because the book didn’t seem to have a point or a higher message. Therefore, she felt it would not endure.

Picture a knife to the heart. That is how gutted I was to read this review. You see, my point had escaped her completely. This novel about four young women from very different walks of life who become friends in childhood, only for their friendship to splinter in their teenage years, for them to go their separate ways and reunite in their forties, had a point and a higher message. I wanted to show how random life can be. How those we perceive to be more fortunate and more blessed than us are subject to the same vagaries of fate as anyone else. Being born into a higher social and economic strata does not ensure happiness nor is it a guarantee of success, while conversely, coming from the lower end of society is not a predictor of misery and failure. Life is messy and unpredictable. Our spheres of control are limited and the sooner we accept that, the quicker we will adapt to and thrive in changed circumstances.

Perhaps it was my fault that my message wasn’t clear enough. Maybe the novel, which begins with an accident, and ends with the reason the accident occurred and the consequences of that fateful evening, felt jarring to this reader because it was too arbitrary to come to terms with. Unfortunately, many a time, life is that way, too.

As I’m working on my next novel, this criticism keeps me wondering whether I’m doing enough to convey my point. This book deals with the circularity of life, of how what goes around comes right back around. Do I keep it understated as I would like to? Or will that be too obscure and unfathomable to a potential reader? I could choose to ignore this reviewer and write what I want to write. That would be at my peril. You see, every reader is precious to me, and their criticism is a part of my growth as a writer.

Therefore, it is incumbent upon me to work on my craft and deliver a reading experience that is consistent with my philosophy, my convictions, and my worldview. Hoping these will be understood and will align with those of the reader, too.

That, after all, is the point.

 

 

My Cup Runneth Over…

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I started my Guest Blog month in the hope that at least 50% of the people I had contacted for articles (people whose thoughts, lives and words I admired) would get back to me with some material. In actual fact, nearly 80% did! Yes I did pester and harangue them quite a bit (SORRY!) but my goodness, the response! I am humbled, grateful and overwhelmed beyond description.

My month overran, once again, like last time. But I didn’t mind and nor did my readers. It’s refreshing to come to a blog and read something new and unexpected. And boy, were the articles different and the topics varied!

André chronicled his unusual life and path in My unlikely journey to fatherhood. It was honest, heartfelt and emotionally uplifting. The response to his article was phenomenal. People reached out to tell him (and me) how much they admired him for his choices. His love for his children and their mothers shone like a beacon, and I hope it allowed other seemingly unlikely candidates to believe that they too can be mothers and fathers. After all, families come in all shapes and guises. It is love that holds them together.

The ghost in the office was Shantanu’s retelling of a mysterious series of events that occurred in one of his early offices. Does the supernatural exist? For a practical and rational person like Shantanu, nothing can explain away the incident he mentions. Spooky and eerie, sometimes there are things that are beyond the realm of our understanding, and maybe it’s best to leave them as is. What did you make of it?

Diya had a cushy existence till she decided to take the plunge and start teaching a group of underprivileged children in My rendezvous with God’s angels. What she found there was more rewarding than she could have ever expected. Their innocence, their eagerness to learn, their love for their teacher transformed her life. She learned to let go of the petty annoyances that plagued her, and immerse herself in giving back. To this day, it enriches her life in ways big and small.

Making mosaics became more than a hobby for Jyoti. It was an unconventional choice of craft and she encountered more than her fair share of problems, from the paucity of tools to the reluctance of other practitioners to share their skills. As a result, she started her own blog with the aim of helping other beginners and amateurs to source materials, tools and provide guidance in the process as well. Not only does she create the most beautiful mosaics, but also believes in the adage – ‘Gaining knowledge, is the first step to wisdom. Sharing it, is the first step to humanity.’ In Why do I make mosaics? Jyoti’s passion, humanity and humility shine through. She is an incredibly inspirational lady.

The Call of a Siren was an article sent to me by someone who wished to remain anonymous. If you’ve read the article, you will know why. The beauty of it is that this man has turned his life around from that lapse of judgement he details, and today he is an incredibly successful entrepreneur. He is also an avid reader and dabbles in the occasional bit of writing. It was my exhorting him to put pen to paper that created this thrilling recounting of an incident from his 20’s. I’m sure you’d agree that it reads like an episode from an exciting television series. My own heart was thumping as I read it for the first time! My friend, if you’re reading this, write more. You do have a gift.

HeartonWheels is Jeanne’s raison d’etre. She spends half her life in these refugee camps in Greece helping children overcome the trauma of escaping from war torn countries and being separated from their families. In extremely difficult conditions, she tries to fill their lives with laughter and with joy. This is not just a part time job for her, it is a calling. She is invested physically, mentally and emotionally in the well being of her charges. Her dream is to provide free education to all children in such conditions and through her mobile bus, which she is raising funds for, she hopes to realise this dream. Do have a read and contribute to her justgiving page if you can.

To say that Mohana has had an interesting life would be an understatement. A straight A student, who, for many years let her academic qualifications dictate the course of her life, then suddenly, on what seemed like a whim, let her art and talent take her on an entirely different journey. Yet, in her article, Life’s Nudges to Eke an Untrodden Path, Mohana explains how the seeds of this journey had been planted many years ago. The daughter of a renowned dancer, Mohana herself was an exceptionally talented danseuse. But it took many years, and many tiny hints from the Universe for her to realise where her true path lay. Unapologetically spiritual, she incorporates elements of her faith in her dance. There is an unalloyed joy that she transmits to her students through her teaching, that elevates her dance from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

Bharat is a writer I admire immensely. His grasp on the English language is breathtaking. He can bend, twist, transmogrify and transmute words into astonishing combinations of sentences, transporting the reader into worlds where these words dance and twirl around one like whirling dervishes. A man whose imagination is so fertile, so fecund that he can trot out poem after poem without breaking a sweat. Yet, a self confessed procrastinator, it took me close to a year to get him to write about his Vipassana experience. For a man of words, how strange it must have been to have none for ten days. A retreat that is a true test of one’s mettle, but also a retreat that helps one to delve deeper into the self. Bharat’s take on it is part humorous, but there is an underlying awe and a deep love and respect for humanity that comes through. A tale of two beards is more than just about beards, it is about man’s search for meaning and silence in a world that grows louder and more chaotic each day.

Finally, the poignant and heart wrenching The Bus Stop was Joan’s tribute to her mother who suffered from Alzheimers for several years before succumbing to it. Disease of any kind strips the body of its well being and dignity, but Alzheimers strips the mind of everything. To not know oneself, one’s own life forgotten, one’s family becoming strangers, must be a horribly scary and isolating experience. Joan’s poem gives words to the wordless. It is an insight into a lost and wandering mind, trying to find its bearings, trying to grasp fruitlessly at memories that are slipping away. ‘Am I a lost article?’ is what her mother asked her once. Maybe we all are, lost in one way or another. But to be lost to oneself… what could be worse than that?

My Guest Blog month hasn’t quite ended. A colleague, the extremely intelligent, erudite, politically astute, deep thinking Joke Brunt is working on a series of articles on Brexit for me. The month of May will be devoted to her take on what Brexit stands for, and what the ramifications will be, to those of us on both sides of the fence. Do keep reading, keep commenting and stay engaged!

A very BIG thank you to all of my contributors once again.

The ghost in the office – Shantanu Saha

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It was the year 2004, and I had set up my own bootstrapped venture, an Executive Search Firm. Our first office was in a fairly old bungalow in the heart of South Delhi.

I had leased the entire ground floor of this bungalow, spread over an area of 3000 sq. ft. with an additional front lawn and a back courtyard. Outside the house was an old Banyan tree adjacent to the main gate, with aerial pop roots hanging from the branches, giving an eerie look and feel to the whole house. The first floor with terrace had the landlord’s family: a husband, wife, child and his elderly mother.

The ground floor of the house that we occupied had three fairly large rooms with an attached bath in each. There was an even larger drawing and dining area. Doors of some of the washrooms, especially the one in front of the house, tended to make a creaking sound whenever the wind blew. In this place I occupied one room at the back of the house from where I used to work and I had a team of three girls: Raj, Swati & Rupa who would sit and work in the adjacent room. There was also an old chap Kartik who was the office help. His job was to manage the pantry, lay out the lunch, supervise the cleaner who would come once a day and open & close the office.

The business was doing well and all was hunky dory till a series of strange events happened. Initially these were minor things.  A couple of the girls complained that after lunch when they went back to their workstations, all the windows tabs in their computers they had kept open while searching for profiles on job sites, had been closed. Another girl complained that though she had switched off the light and fan switches in their room before coming to the dining hall for lunch, they had all been mysteriously switched on when they went back. I made light of all this and told them that they were getting absent minded. However, after a while, they got it into their heads that this was all down to a ghost. They were also convinced it was a female ghost who was not bothering me but only the girls, as everything happened to them and not to me. I refused to buy into this line of thought.

Then something even more mysterious happened. It was a bright sunny afternoon in the month of June, when one of my team members Swati was discussing something with me in my room. The doorbell rang. In those days we were recruiting for our own team and we used to call candidates over to the office for an interview. The candidate would be attended to by the office boy, given a job application form and after they filled that out, Kartik would bring the candidate’s resumé and form in to me. I would send one of the girls to do the first round of interviews and if they cleared that, I would meet the candidate.

I asked Swati if she could see who the candidate was, as although the drawing room was a little far off, there was a direct line of sight from the place where she was standing in my room. She described that the girl was looking away toward the French windows overlooking the lawn and was wearing high heels and a salwar kameez. She added that she looked smart enough, and that she would meet her once Kartik had got her to finish the formalities. We then went back to our discussion.

After 10 minutes, I suddenly reminded Swati that Kartik had not yet come in with the candidate’s form. She called out and Kartik came in from the back courtyard which had an entry from the room where the girls used to sit and work. We asked him what had happened and why he hadn’t brought in the girl’s form and resumé. He asked – which girl? Swati and I looked at each other. I asked Kartik had he not opened the door when the bell rang? He said he never heard the bell ring and that he was in the back courtyard anyway. We immediately went to the drawing room and there was no one there. I was stunned! I thought I had heard the bell ring and so had Swati. Besides, she had vividly described the girl. We did not know what to make of it.

However, when I discussed  this with Raj and Rupa separately, they speculated that since Swati had recently been through a bereavement and been quite distressed, that maybe she had hallucinated the episode. Although I was not fully convinced, I thought I had what could be the best explanation under the given circumstances.

A few days later, I was talking to the girls in the room where they used to work. All the girls at that time had Personal Computers on which they worked. To ensure an uninterrupted power supply in the event of a power failure, all PC’s had a Battery Backup Device attached to them. While talking to them I walked across to the window in the room where the curtains were a little out of place. I was adjusting the curtain when all of a sudden Swati’s PCs Battery Backup Device started beeping. She looked at me in alarm. I looked at the power plug to which the battery backup device was connected on the wall which was located just below the curtain and I noticed that the switch was off. I told her that maybe the switch had shut off when I was adjusting the curtain and there was nothing to be alarmed about.

That night I was at home when at around 10 pm Swati called and her first question was – ‘Sir, what’s the backup time of the Battery Backup Device?’ At that instant, a shiver ran through me as I realised that the device had, at the very least, a 15 minute backup. It was fairly new, so its in-built alarm would not beep unless it ran out of power. If  by my moving the curtain I had inadvertently switched off the main switch from which the device was drawing power, the beeping sound could not possibly have started that soon. Swati had been working on her machine all morning, and the power backup device had beeped only when I was in the room that afternoon. Both of us realised that no logical explanations were working. She insisted I speak to the landlords about any unnatural deaths in the house.

I briefed the landlord the next day and he said he had no clue why these things were happening. He said that only his father had passed away in this house but, there was no reason why he would be spooking us. It was then that Rupa in my team disclosed some more details about the area where this house was located.

Apparently, just across the road from our house was a 5 star hotel that had been built adjacent to an old graveyard that had been there for centuries. She had worked in that hotel for a short while before she joined our firm. She said that many guests and staff in that hotel had reported hearing eerie screams on the upper floors quite frequently during the night. It had come to such a stage that hotel staff had refused to go to the upper floors late in the night. She also pointed out the Banyan tree outside our office. Banyan trees in India are associated with the God Yama, or the God of Death. The tree is often planted outside villages in India near crematoriums. It is believed to be the abode of ghosts.

Upon hearing all of this, my entire team and I decided that it would be difficult to work from there any more. We frantically searched for an alternate location and within a week shifted out.

I do not know whether the house was truly haunted or not, but our experience there was spooky enough that even now, reminiscing about these incidents sends chills down my spine.

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Shantanu resides in New Delhi, India and holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics as well as a Master’s degree in Business Administration.

He had a successful Corporate Stint in the Human Resources Function and became a Head  of HR at the age of 25 in a Manufacturing Multinational. He worked in various sectors subsequently as a Head HR, before setting up his own Executive Search Firm in 2004 that now has a presence in multiple cities across India. He is also a guest judge and speaker in various management forums & institutes in India.

He lost his father at the age of ten to a genetic disease that later affected him and his sister as well. He had multiple surgeries and a near death experience and survived to tell the tale both literally and figuratively. He wrote a book on how he overcame the disease describing his whole experience and the same is available on Amazon globally. He unfortunately lost his sister to the disease too.

He is a workaholic, likes traveling, is an amateur photographer, likes reading & writing occasionally, is an exercise freak and also has interests in the areas of Science, Arts and Politics.

He can be reached on :-

Twitter : @ShantanuSaha1

Instagram : @shantanusaha1

Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/shantanusaha/

His book – “Fight for Life: My Journey from a Fatal Disease to Good Health” is now available for Kindle on Amazon. The Paper back is also available in some countries.

The link for India is: http://www.amazon.in/dp/B014YFEFES

The link for US is: http://amzn.com/B014YFEFES

The link for UK is: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B014YFEFES

7000 or 70,000?

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I was waiting in the Doctor’s surgery for my name to be called out and idly leafing through a glossy magazine when I chanced upon an article. It showed a bestselling author in her country pile with her husband and 2.5 children. More power to her, I thought! Then I read a paragraph in the article that said that at the start of her writing career, her agent had asked her a very pertinent question: Do you want to be the kind of writer who sells 7000 books or 70,000 books? Her answer was the latter, of course! She then set about selling millions of copies of her books that were lapped up by avid readers and has obviously made a neat little living out of it.

Now, I have nothing against popular, bestselling novelists as two of my favourites Stephen King and JK Rowling belong on that list. However, my issue is with those who ‘tailor’ their writing to fit in with popular demand. For instance, when the 50 shades phenomenon happened, every second writer tried producing a bonkbuster to jump on the bandwagon of S&M love stories. Or, when the YA genre took off, there were so many copycat writers trying to tap into teenage angst that the market was saturated.

Any writer worth his/her salt knows that the most important thing in writing is honesty. Whether you write about ‘what you know’ or whether you create a completely fantastical world out of your imagination, it is important to have a voice and style that is entirely your own. Market trends should dictate fashion not authorship.

Which is why a question like the above bothers me. Yes, I understand that publishing houses need to make money, as do agents. But an agenda that hinges on book sales puts an unnecessary onus on creativity to be perforce marketable and consumer orientated.

On the flip side of the argument is the fact that bestselling authors in the times of yore wrote what their audiences wanted to read. A Shakespeare enjoyed royal patronage because his writing entertained, amused, saddened and delivered. A Charles Dickens serialised his novels so that he could earn good money and keep his audiences guessing from one issue to another. Were these writers commercial? Yes, they were. Were they successful? Wildly so. Hence, creativity and crass commercialism aren’t mutually exclusive. However, trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole purely on market dictates is a terrible injustice.

I have been asked why I chose to go down the route of Indie publishing? Why, I didn’t go knocking on doors, soliciting agents and publishers for my writing? Here’s the thing- I didn’t want someone else telling me your stories are too dark, change the characters’ unpronounceable names, short stories don’t sell, we aren’t digging your style etc etc. Luckily for me, I don’t need to make money out of my writing. I just need to express my tales, in my own way, in my own voice and in my own style.

There are an increasing number of authorpreneurs- (authors + entrepreneurs) who are thinking along the same lines. Creative people, choosing to express themselves, free from the constraints of what may or may not sell. Of course, like anything new, one has to work hard at separating the wheat from the chaff. However, by and large, I have come across some amazing writing from other fellow Indie writers who are going it alone, without the support or the limitations of the traditional publishing format.

So, the question that begs answering is what would I rather be doing? Selling 7000 or 70,000 copies of my book? Of course I’d rather it was the latter. But not for the reason you’re thinking. I don’t care to make millions out of my writing. If that was the case, I wouldn’t be giving it away for free on my blog. What I, or any writer wants, is to reach out to people. To hear that yes, my writing struck a chord, that my writing transported someone to a different place and time, that my writing helped them inhabit another body, just for a short while. Everything that good writing should and must do.

To tell you the truth, if that means selling only 700 copies or touching only 70 souls, then those numbers suit me fine too.

 

A numbers game

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How do you judge a book? More precisely, how do you assign a number to that judgement? Goodreads asks for a book to be rated between a 1 and a 5 star. But is your 3 star rating the same as mine?

Rating books is so subjective. After all, one man’s meat may very well be another man’s poison. Take Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’, a classic by any reckoning. Well, it has 218,196 ratings out of which 6070 people rate it at a 1. A measly 1!! Their reasons being it is bloated, didactic, over long and quite simply boring. I wouldn’t know as I’ve never been brave enough to read it myself.

Let’s take a modern classic- ‘To kill a Mockingbird’ (one of my favourites but admittedly one I read too many years ago) and look at its ratings. It has 3,657,329 ratings out of which 65484 rate it at a 1. Wow! Reading through the 1 star reviews I see racism, white privilege and a skewed view of segregation in the 60’s. One dimensional, poor prose and a lack of self awareness are the other criticisms levelled at it.

So, if one were to rely only on reviews, and if, as most readers do, you only read the 5 star and the 1 star reviews, would you still read these books?

Upon publishing my book, I was so excited to receive my first 5 star rating. Yes, it was from a friend and no doubt there was an inherent bias there, but that did not stop me from savouring the moment. Conversely, my first 3 star rating immediately had me doubting my abilities. It took quite a few ratings to stop me see sawing between joy and despair. I was lucky enough that I did not get any 2’s or 1’s or I might have become suicidal! (Just kidding).

I have to admit to being a generous reviewer. I happily dole out 4 star and 5 star reviews to most books. My reasoning being that I only pick up good books to read. Books that have come to me through recommendation or have won some major awards. However, somewhere behind this also lies the fact that I am aware of how much sweat, blood and tears goes into writing and publishing a book. Therefore, I am naturally inclined to err on the side of generosity. I have only ever rated one book with a 1 star, and that was because it was truly abysmal.

I was approached not too long ago by a self published author who wanted me to read and review his book of short stories. As this is my preferred genre, I agreed happily, only to discover that the entire book was riddled with bloopers. From grammatical errors to idiomatic faux pas to gender anomalies, it was as though it had been through no editing process at all, and had been presented to me in its first draft avatar. I still gave it 3 stars and a subtle nudge to the writer to ahem, make some amendments to his manuscript.

Interestingly enough, I stumbled upon a conversation between a few writers on a forum, who were trying to decide on the protocol of reviewing other people’s work.

Writer 1: “So, what rating do you give them? I mean, I don’t think it’s worth a 5, but maybe a 2 will be too disappointing….”

Writer 2: “Why not a 4 then? That is a good enough compromise. It’s not too low but it’s not the highest.”

Writer 3: “I reserve my 4’s for reeealllly good books. If the book is decent I give it a 3.”

They ultimately decided, in all their wisdom, that fellow writers could be given a 4 as a sign of encouragement and kinship.

This made me look at my own 3’s and think that maybe someone’s 3 was worth my 5, or maybe someone’s 3 was actually worth a 1. Aaaaarrrghhhh!

In the end, does it really matter? What matters is that people read, and they read extensively enough to be able to distinguish between the good, the great, the bad and the truly awful.

As for the ratings, take them all with a pinch of salt. It is only a numbers game after all.

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If you’d like to read my reviews and my book (Parvathy’s Well & other stories) follow the link:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38231415-parvathy-s-well-other-stories?ac=1&from_search=true#other_reviews

Who am I?

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The most rudimentary of questions. Yet the answer escapes most of us. Try and define yourself. Not describe, define. Who are you? Stripped down to the most elemental level. Are you brave? Are you a coward? Are you brutish or sophisticated? Are you conservative or liberal? Are you religious or an atheist? Who are you?

The answer is a complex one. And I’ll wager, not one you are expecting. The answer is: I do not know. I do not know how brave I am, till I am in a situation that requires courage. At that point, will I choose to save my skin or save another’s? I think I am sophisticated, till you put me in an unfamiliar milieu, and the social shorthand fails me. Then I appear brutish, unrefined and uncouth. I think I am liberal till my daughter brings home a boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks, and all at once, every bit of my socialism flies out of the window. I think I am religious, yet I laugh at the barbaric rituals and stone gods of the ostensibly primitive.

Any of this sound familiar?

We are all complex, multi layered, multi dimensional wonders of evolution. We are all a work in progress. What I am in this moment, I will not be in the next. Nor will you. Our experiences, our joys, our sorrows contribute to our own unique signatures.

Fundamentally though, we all believe that we are good people. From the terrorist who bombs a hundred people in a square, giving up his life for a cause, to the politician who bombs a country, in pursuit of a higher good. We believe we are good. But are we?

These moral complexities are the shifting sands that govern human nature.

Who am I? The song from Les Misérables where Jean Valjean questions his moral core is perhaps the best way to end this rambling, philosophical blog post. Who am I? I am me.