Caferati's first annual Celebrating Shakti Bhatt Workshop - a report

A report on the workshop (which was announced here & here) is long overdue, for which, my apologies. If it had been up to me, I would still be searching for my notes. Thankfully, there is an Annie. And an Anita.

-peter


Annie Zaidi on the session about Indian Poetic Forms:

The evening began with me making emergency calls to Ashwini — had forgotten to organize envelopes — and Danish — would he please pick up blank paper and extra pens — before landing up a good 45 minutes early at the Attic, where the organisers of the miniature paintings sat at a little table, looked at me expectantly and offered me a chair.

I looked at the paintings, thought about how beautiful the photos would look with these as the backdrop, fretted about what we’d do if enough people didn’t land up or too many did, and paced about anxiously while the Attic staff laid out the ‘farsh’ and the chairs.

As people began to stroll in, I worried about whether to put the shoes inside or outside and whether there was a chance of them being stolen outside. Then I went about collecting money from the participants — and one would-be participant who could not attend because of a last-minute emergency, but showed up anyway to pay up since he had confirmed attendance (thank you, gentle person).

When Professor Shivaprakash called, unable to find his way from Regal, Monica kindly went down to fetch him. He arrived with another scholar from JNU and ten minutes later, we started the workshop.

While the good professor said several things about poetry in general, and more specifically about the historical contexts of forms and short forms like the haiku, I did not manage to take down everything.

However, I do remember that he had compared poetry to firecrackers.

Just like there are two kinds of crackers — the single dazzle-burst kind, like the anaar for instance, and the multiple boom-boom-boom kind, like the larhi — similarly, there are two kinds of poetry. The latter kind gradually reveals itself, one idea leading to the next, and culminating in one final burst that may be a big, definitive finale or a quiet fizzle. The other kind says all it has to in a very short space of time with a very limited use of words. The haiku for instance. Or a doha, a tanka or an abhang. Or the vachana.

He also said that these shorter forms could be equated with a Zen-like instantaneous illumination.

Prof Shivaprakash had chosen to concentrate on vachanas, a form of Kannada poetry from the medieval ages, and also the subject of a forthcoming book he is editing for Penguin India.

Literally, a vachana means ‘speech.’ Alternately, it also means ‘promise.’ A vachana he said originates from triplets in Kannada that was often sung by women, and often contained rural and/or domestic themes.

In the medieval era, vachanas were popularized by speaker-poets many of whom came from the artisan classes and as the form evolved, their poetry became a tool of critique, against both the existing modes of poetry and transmission of knowledge.

Poetry is comprised of meaning and sound, he said. And what these new speaker-poets did was to challenge the content of Sanskrit poetry while simultaneously changing the way it sounded. They were opposed to the use of ‘abhida’ or a referential language. A referential language would depend on figures of speech, such as similes. They felt that a simile is a substitute, and therefore nor the real thing. Only real experience ought to be the subject of poetry, according to the vachana poets and therefore, they often spoke of their own lives, their work and their immediate environment.

Professor Shivaprakash also discussed the two foundations of meter in poetry. One depends on the contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables, which is how it is in older English poetry. The other kind depends on the equivalence of syllables, that is, vocalic length, such as it is in a ghazal. However, meter, he said, is only one manifestation of rhythm in a poem. There is also the notion of a sprung rhythm, which is what vachanas use. Such as ‘we were the first that ever burst into the silent sea.’

In the Kannada vachanas, there are few end rhymes, but there is often an initial rhyme. The first or second sounds of each line may rhyme. This brought a different kind of symmetry to the language. One of the best-known, and Professor Shivaprakash’s favourite, vachana poet is Akkamahadevi. He had circulated copies of some of her work as samples that were given away to participants.

The session was opened up to questions later and several participants wanted to ask the professor tough questions. On the question of what exactly the form was like, he said that the thing about this form was that it followed no rules. It is rooted in the breaking of form, and therefore, it is difficult to ascribe rules to it. He was not sure that new poets will succeed in writing a vachana, or how to advise them to write it, but added that it is possible to write ‘a vachana-like poem’.

Towards the end of that discussion, I observed that forms seem to grow from one to the other, with new twists and variations leading to new names for the form. Such as the qasida giving birth to the masnavi, the marsiya and the ghazal and how the ghazal itself seems anxious to grow in different directions but seems not to be able to find a new name for the newer experiments.

That led to some talk of other Indian poetic forms such as the anthadi and the keh-mukarni (both of which we have seen many examples of in Caferati's forum), examples of which were read out and met with much delight.

The participants seemed more enthused by the idea of the naughtier, saucier keh-mukarni so that form was chosen for an exercise. Several people came up with instant verses which were read out to much merriment and blushing. (Note to participants: do post your efforts in this thread, if you don’t mind.)

Though I had not read mine out, I had written this one:

There’s such black in his eyes
Black his tongue, black his lies
Black as coal, black as a rai
Your beloved? No, the kadhai.

This was followed by a short break for snacks — dhokla, samosa, gulab-jamuns, tea — and we went on to the next session on editing, led by Anita Roy and Urvashi Butalia.


Anita Roy, on the Editing for Non-Editors session that she and Urvashi Butalia conducted. Urvashi and Anita are from Zubaan.

The workshop kicked off with the participants all coming up with their own definitions of what an editor should be/should do. This ranged from correcting grammar to taking the author out for a drink (specifically: after their MS has been rejected). The nice list of editorial roles defined by Gary Kamiya — “Editors are craftsmen, ghosts, psychiatrists, bullies, sparring partners, experts, enablers, ignoramuses, translators, writers, goalies, friends, foremen, wimps, ditch diggers, mind readers, coaches, bomb throwers, muses and spittoons — sometimes all while working on the same piece” — was added to by the group: my favourite being “butcher.” Urvashi went on to elaborate on all the different kinds of editors there are out there — commissioning eds, desk eds, copy eds — and what to expect from each.

I then, perhaps fancifully, compared an editor's work to that of a gem-cutter: polishing, honing, cutting, until the light passes through as sparklingly and as clearly as possible. Some diamonds are rougher than others, so need more work. Some will never be more than a hunk of coal, and best consigned to the fire early on.

Then, having hedged around a bit and said how there aren't any real guidelines about how to approach a commissioning editor with your work, proceeded to contradict myself totally by laying down THE LAW in the form of 10 Commandments (see below).

Getting down to brass tacks, we all had a bash at re-punctuating a piece of de-punctuated text: specifically, an extract of Don Marquis's free verse work, Archy and Mehitabel. Had a lot of fun figuring out where to put quote marks and arguing about commas.

Then we sharpened our pencils and the cutting blades of our editorial minds by tackling an extract of an article that appeared in "Crime and Detective", whose idiosyncratic usage of the language reduced many participants to tears — of laughter. But which, usefully, kicked off a discussion about how much authorial quirkiness (and specifically Indian-English intonation, usage and vocab) one should or could allow.

One of the nicest comments afterwards was a backhander: "When they said there'd be editors coming to talk to us about editing, I thought: Oh my god, how dull can it get? But actually, I really enjoyed that."

Well, good. So did we.

I think Shakti would have too.


Anita's Ten Commandments:

Submitting your MS to a publisher
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

1. Thou shalt first find out about the publisher.
If you’ve written a short story for children, there’s no use sending it to Granta. If you’ve written a book review, send it to a journal that actually carries reviews. If you’ve written a book about growing dahlias, don’t send it to a publisher of feminist fiction. Etc. etc. Go to a bookshop or your bookshelves and see who’s published the kind of book that you think yours would sit well next to. Do your research first, and find out which place is going to suit your work best, which ground is likely to be the most fertile for your kind of seed to grow.

2. Thou shalt abide by the submissions process.
Usually on their website the magazine, journal or publisher will have something called “Guidelines for submissions”. Do stick by these if you possibly can.. They are there for a reason. If they state up front that they only accept proposals through an agent, don’t expect them to make an exception for you. If they say: don’t send it by email; then don’t.

3. Thou shalt not tell the publisher why they should publish you.
It’s an editor’s job to figure out whether this MS is suitable for their list, whether it will sell, and why: not yours! Editors are invariably turned off by authors going for the hard-sell: eg “I am sending you the gist of my most valuable work. I am sure it will excite you and you would react positively.” Also be realistic about your target readership — “It will appeal to young ones and senior citizens” cutteth zero ice.

4. In your covering letter, never resort to LARGE FONTS, underlining, exclamation marks, bold, or coloured type.
This smacks of a kind of lapel-tugging desperation on your part — not good — and also the suspicion that you think the editor has the deductive powers of a three year old, who needs Bright colours and Loud sounds to hold his/her attention. Is this really who you want to be editing your precious prose?

5. Thou shalt make sure thy covering letter is not full of typos!
Scan and rescan and print out on paper and then get someone else to read through your covering letter before you send it off. There is nothing more off-putting than having an author make spelling and grammatical mistakes in his/her initial approach – does not encourage an editor to read on.

6. Thou shalt judiciously exploit personal contacts.
“X suggested I contact you.” “We met at Y launch”. “I heard you speak at Z conference” – anything that helps the editor feel that there is some kind of personal connect will help your MS stand out from the crowd.

7. Chose your fonts with care.
Go for safe fonts: Courier, Times, Garamond, Times New Roman. Don’t feel that you need to have ‘designed’ your page before sending them in. In fact, that may backfire: if you’ve got illustrations that the editor hates or have laid out a page in a way that just doesn’t go with their style, it makes it that much harder for the editor to see past the flummery to the “meat” i.e. your words!

8. Attach attachments.
Double check when you say you’re attaching an attachment that you actually do! And make sure it’s in as bog-standard a format as you can think of: MS Word almost always. 1.5 or double-line spaced.

9. Tell them who you are.
Always helpful to have a bit of biodata about the author — where you’re based, age, profession, what else you’ve written or done. But keep it relevant, and keep it short.

10. Thou shalt take ‘No’ for an answer
If you’ve been rejected by one publisher, go kick the door, or the dog, put on some loud rock, pour yourself a stiff whisky, cry, wail or otherwise get it out of your system. Then find someone else to reject you again. Do NOT argue with a ‘reject’ letter. Everyone knows they are full of platitudes like “not quite right for our list at the present time” — do not write back and say, oh, that’s ok I can wait, what about next week/month/year?
There’s no reason why you can approach the same person/publisher with another story another poem another time, but asking for a re-trial is a big no-no.

....


And finally, comments from some of the participants.

Monica Mody:
Thank you, you guys, for organizing this fabulous workshop! I enjoyed Prof Shivaprakash's session even though I wish there were more interactive, poet-friendly elements in it. And sorry I couldn't stay for the entire editing session.

Nupur Maskara:
Yes, it was fun to attend. Thank you for organising it, it was a great way to remember your friend and what she stands for. I have put up the kehmukarni I wrote at the workshop on my blog.
The pics are great!
looking forward to the next session.

Gopika Nath:
I really enjoyed the workshop. Professor Shivaprakash was really very interesting and enlighteneing and opened new windows of interest. In fact I have recently picked up a book by Ramanujan on Vacanas! Urvashi and Anita were useful in terms of the exercisesthey made us do. I would have skipped some of the points Anita made re what one should or shouldn't do, which mostly called upon good ole common sense. Some of the comments/suggestions presented a& very personal, even prejudiced view, rather than one that could be seen as universally appplicable advice. There were times when I felt that for every negative idea she presented, I could already hear someone I had read/heard etc, contradict this, in my head. But that was really a very minor point.
A workshop in memory of someone who has contributed significantly to the field of writing and publishing is a great idea. However, it would be appropriate to list these contributions during the introduction. I, did not know Shakti, nor her work and really would have liked to know more than what the young girl talked of. I could not make much sense of her "being a huge person" and that ilk.
Thank you for all your efforts towards organzing this and hope that we shall have more in the future.

Venita Coelho:
I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop. Thanks to you guys for putting it together.
Just one suggestion. You might want to start earlier next time. It's not very fair to people of the caliber of Urvashi and Anita to have people leave mid workshop. Perhaps an all day affair next time with a break for lunch?

Preeta Priyamvada:
It was great to be at the workshop. I did find it useful, but I had to leave early and could not sit through the entire second session - the one i was more interested in. The invite mentioned the editorial workshop would be the first one and I had planned accordingly. Anyway, I do look forward to more of such workshops. Can we have one on hindi literature too - giving an overview - history + brief information about the different genres?

Michael Creighton:
Yes, it was a good afternoon. And I did think Anita's ten commandments were helpful. Thou shalt drop names! Why not?
For what it's worth, here's my keh-mukarni, written that day.

I lick wet, salty, spicy skin;
I bite, I suck, I sigh, then grin.
Who gives so gives so good, I wanna hollah?
My wife? No, friend, the Bhutta wallah!

....

If you were at the workshop, please feel free to add your impressions and/or feedback as comments. Those of you who attempted keh-mukarnis, please post them in the comments, or email me.

P.S. There are photographs taken at the workshop posted in a Facebook album.

Nyah-na-na-na-na!

The sunset was awesome, and we witnessed it silently, marveling at how caferati has grown from an idea on a lazy afternoon in one head to meetings of like minds across six cities (and growing every month!), an opinionated well-read group that converses and exercises online, a publishing effort that has four hundred plus stories waiting to be judged, a blog that is so active it changes shape every passing hour, sponsors who want more from us, and dreams and visions that suddenly seem to be coming together...

This read meet was different! So different, we have been promised an article and a picture in the next week's issue of Tehelka, the newspaper.

This time the meet was small, but oh, what a meet! The reporter from Tehelka (another of Sunil's bright ideas) was there to find out more about the Stories At The Coffee Table project. She found out that this was more than just what she suspected, it was not a mere effort to get published! It was the face of something that has never been attempted before. An effort to make a dent in the system! The views flew across the room with such brilliance and speed, we had to slow it down with coffee! Everything from,"Whoever says short stories are not marketable has not seen the four hundred entries to SATCT!" to "As long as the corporate sponsor respects our editorial judgments how does it matter what the color of his money is?" to "Did you know who was interested in becoming editor of our next book!" to "maybe we should make it a full-scale production!" was discussed.

Needless to say it was turning out to be more meet than read, but those who missed it, missed a wonderful session of dream weaving. Dreamers who have their heads in clouds and feet firmly planted in reality. I hope the photographer had large enough lenses to cover the breadth of our dreams!

And now that I am writing about it (waited for Max or John to write the report in their inimitable style, but General Pete's orders, what to do!), I am so glad I did not miss this! John read out a piece previously published about a boys' first crush on Shobha teacher. Although it made for a great listen, I would be less than honest if I did not admit that I was distracted (and so were all of us) at some point or the other into thinking about the Shobha teacher in our own lives.

The discussion that followed was very helpful to the rest of us: the whys and hows of when 'description' becomes 'exposition', how one could 'show' character development rather than 'say' it.

Max read...yes...Max was in Mumbai for work and he could not miss the meet! That's the amazing part of Caferati, methinks. No matter which city we are from, we belong! Max was not carrying print-outs of his story, but had a CD! My laptop behaved as though demented and it took General Pete himself to tame it. Max created a great portrait of a picky landlord with rooms to rent. He made us chuckle, made us grimace, made us nod in agreement...It was as good as Max's poetry!

Max allowed us comment and we had a lively discussion about the use of adjectives in a narrative. (If that sounds like a dull classroom, I apologise for my pathetic reporting style!)

Arjun Chandramohan Bali read his color piece. The reading style suddenly and sharply brought into focus the person behind the piece. He related how being a film director helped him create a writing style. The conversation just flowed from there. Creating pictures for the reader, what an effort! Arjun seemed to be grinning happily into his moustache until the discussion veered him into defending use of expletives and other devices! The clever writer had even incorporated colour (from the message board exercise) into the name of the character in his piece.

Peter asked 'prose or poetry?' The unanimous answer was 'poetry'! We are treated to the sawaal jawaab that has seen the Peter Griffin and Annie Zaidi Fan Club grow to the tribe that you have all seen on the blog. Two writers, in two different cities, have managed to create such a wonderful saga that one is reduced to an inarticulate sputter of 'wow'. Am I glad to be in such august company. Sunil voiced out what most of us felt: this sawaal jawaab was turning out to be very very visual and dramatic...could we stage it?!

No one noticed when the reporter escaped the animated bunch to file her story (she did make one comment though: you have how many such amazing people in your group?) No one cared how long this meet went on! But it dissolved into vadas and sambaar and cake and more coffee!

Personally I loved the intimate nature of this meet, but cannot forget the variety in the last meet when we actually had to keep an eye on reading time, moderate the discussion and the thirty plus gathered, and someone with lots of school experience behind her had to shepherd people away! Before I sign off, I want to apologise to someone called to ask, "So how was the meet?" and got just a childish "Nyah-na-na-na-na!" from me.

Report - Delhi read-meet

I lurrrve Caferati!

Sigh!

Now that that's out of the way, I'll get round to writing a report of our Delhi read-meet, which happened on Saturday, December 18, 2004!

This effusive affection is, in part, due to the undebatable success of the meeting. When I mention success, I refer to the fact that I saw all the reasons for which this group was formed, come alive at Anita's place (yes, the same venue again... Anita's been too generous for words). We had plenty of good writing, and it was being shared with other writers, who received it with honesty and encouragement. There was intelligent discussion, no negativity and plenty of warmth and laughter.

I walked in four minutes later than the stipulated time of 3 pm, and some people were already there, including Anita, Rajesh Lalwani, Asmita (Minx) and Richa Dubey.
Sairee and Ritu (Junoesque) followed soon after. Then came Vinod Nair and Rajaraman G. and finally, my teacher-mentor-guide Anjan Ray.

The gossip and introductions lasted a good forty-five minutes. Rajesh began the reading session by reading out a non-fiction piece on how to get in the news, and stay there. This was written for rediff, I believe. Rajesh, who teaches at a public relations/communications institute, clearly knew what he was talking about. The efficacy of the article stands established, as it was followed by a discussion on the media and the questionable quality of news content that we are all subjected to.

Sairee was persuaded to read out some poetry from an old college notebook - it was received with comments ranging from 'fresh' and 'innocent' to "it is so 'you'!". Richa proceeded to read the first chapter and a few other extracts from her unpublished book - a Lewis Carroll-esque take on the world of alphabets, which was received with much laughter and sheer joy - that one of us can write this well - and wonder - that this sort of manuscript can be turned down by established publishing houses!

We bitched about publishing houses, discussed how to get round them, and went on with the reading. Anjan (a scientist too, incidentally) read out one of his short stories, from a forthcoming collection titled 'Just Beyond'. The story, like others in the collection, dealt with the world that is just beyond our 'normal', scientific understanding. He has promised to join the network and post the story on the board, in the first week of January, after the book has been launched formally. Yes, he actually managed to find someone to publish his book!

This was followed by a long discussion on the so-called supernatural realm, and many of us narrated personal experiences that cannot be explained, perhaps.
Ritu prefaced the piece she was reading with one of Atrayee's poems (she won't mind, we trust) - the much-debated 'Kali'. While Anita got out a framed image of Kali and placed it in Ritu's line of sight, she read out from a book about the many legends/myths associated with Kali. This particular legend was one about Kali's creation of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, who refused her love, and went on to destroy Kali, before regenrating her as Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati.

After a short discussion bordering feminist realms, we had Rajaraman reading out two of his sports articles. Both were cricket-related, and his narrative, descriptive style had us all listening like children listen to fairytales. [And yes, Sachin was brought up, in the course of conversation.... I mean, what did you expect?]

Then, Vinod held court with his Urdu nazms. Although we did ignore the rule about translations, at this meeting, it was worth our while listening to Vinod. That he writes well was established (his poems are up on his page and the Nazrana network) but to hear his read out the poems was an additional treat.

Richa also recited a Hindi-Urdu poem, in the general mood of things. Anita declined to read, as did Asmita. Rajesh was persuaded, however, to read out some more. This one was a travel piece, describing a rather adventurous Christmas eve journey (via maal-gaadi and so on) to Jaipur.

I am omitting a description of the goodies we ate intermittently, throughout the meeting - simply because this is getting to be a really long post. Suffice it to say that our tummies were as happy as our minds were. But we did stand up and formally thank Anita, for playing hostess, a third time. It was so much fun!

Sigh...

Did I mention that I love caferati?

Musings on the Readmeet at Manisha’s

Manisha and Mahesh have what I have wanted all my life. A home by the sea and a balcony looking into the sunset. Some day I would like to retire to a house like that by the sea and gaze into the sunset sitting on a cute wicker chair.

The fiery sunset and cool wind blowing just overwhelmed me at yesterday’s readmeet! I had read about Manisha complaining about the smell of drying fish near her home. I said I would endure fish smells and the loss of my right limb to see such divine sunsets from my own room. So I thought I would attempt a little reporting, though I guess the detailed one will be posted by Avi Das, the coordinator of the readmeet event.

“Gold Mist” it said on the nameplate. When I was directed to the entrance, I saw Basu Bhattacharya’s name written beside Manisha’s and Mahesh’s names. I knew I was in some distinguished company. Seeing Manisha in her gown and hair clipped on top of her head, I thought she was getting ready for the event. I said if I were early I would loiter around the seashore and then come back later when all was set. I didn’t realize from her posts on caferati that the lady was so charmingly and delightfully informal. She remained in the gown the entire evening, this good “bad” girl!

Indeed the golden rays of the setting sun had caused a mist to rise over the Arabian Sea when I watched it standing in the balcony with Vijay, Ratna, Manisha and Avi. We were the early birds except Manisha, of course, who was the hostess of the event.

6:30 no sign of people. The wait irritated Ratna who in her best schoolmarmish tone said later that we should all be present on time or not come at all. The problem with us Indians is that after several on-time appearances where we find the host having a bath or a harassed servant running around making arrangements we take it for granted that 6:30 means 7 or 7:30. So thank providence for people like Manisha and Ratna who, when they say 6.30, mean 6.30. I guess one should mention “Time 6.30” and “Reporting time 6.15” so that people do not assume they can saunter in by 7.

Aside from the four of us, the first to arrive was our “Zorba the Fenugree” Ajit Jani. Whipping out something that looked like a scrapbook he read his minimalistic poem “Etlo.” “Etlo” in Gujrati means, “that is.”

There was a longish short story, haiku-like poems about mobiles, a poem about a journey on the Bombay-Pune expressway, engineering-sounding poems, poems about seashells, my own short story, and the grand finale, a play reading by Manisha, Peter and Vijay.

Participants came from as far as Jaipur and Pune. There was Vincent who is an intelligence officer in the revenue department who wants to open a chapter of Caferati in Jaipur. He came with his wife who is a forensic expert specializing in genetic coding and their 28-day old daughter who never even once made a noise and was rapt in a world of her own throughout the event (talk of early initiation into the readmeet culture!).

That makes me wonder, why people meet to read an almost dead art form commuting long hours when they could have sat in front of a television and enjoyed inane recycled serials and skimpily dressed girls dancing suggestively? Why do people like Manisha open up their homes and their hearts to kindred souls who need a refuge from the overpowering cynicism of the world around them?

The answer is we humans have an innate need to communicate, as the ancient cave dwellers did. After a hunt they would gather around a campfire (remember, we have a campfire event coming), eat the cooked meat and talk (mostly in grunts and sign language) about the hunt and visualize about the future where their future generation would gather in a largish drawing room, sit on stylish mats and listen to others read their delicately created works. Have a heart writers, poetry or prose will never die with people like you around!

So what if an unkind word was said in criticism, an unguarded comment, or offense taken over a misinterpreted meaning? Let the writers of the world sink their differences and be bonded as one. After all when they need to write content for a website or copy for an advertisement or script for a play they have to depend on us. Writers today are paid well by the technology freaks and they had better do that or we would sabotage their software programs and dollar-dreams of BPO bliss!

As a people we no longer have the time to sit together and tell anecdotes, or read carefully written and edited stories and poems to each other. Our lives are like one long succession of routines where we do what others expect us to do. We do the obvious routines, even writing for a living, quite easily. But the challenge comes in writing with a purpose, to discover the beauty of nature, write about interesting people we have met, to encourage and to enlighten and to break barriers and experience the writer’s words as our own. The creative urge takes us away from this stereotypical life and makes us think, dream and discover new worlds. I think that objective was achieved at yesterday’s readmeet.

Later we dispersed to the dining room to feast on samosas, cutlets, and brownie cakes (mmmm!).

Delhi's first Caferati meet - Oct 16, 2004.

First things first - there was cake!
Not cheesecake, not orange-n-walnut cake, not raisin-n-chocolate cake. But soft, homemade lemony, light-on-the-palate cake. Mmmm!

That said, let me proceed to thank Anita (and her sister-in-law who did the baking, I believe) for the goodies we partook of (yes, yes, I know. Archaisms don't go down well with everyone, but this is MY report.)

I walked in to Anita's Defence Colony residence, and was led upstairs into a warm living room where I was introduced to Madhu (editor of journeymart.com and fellow-ryzer) and Meera (who kept introducing herself as "I'm not yet a ryzer" until we told her it wasn't necessary). Meera works at the Greek embassy, is a voracious reader and buys a lot of books, which I trust will make her very popular with this network. She is going to join Caferati very soon, I hope.

While we waited for the others, I indulged in some light-hearted nostalgia and told the others about our first reader-meet, at Bandra Bandstand.
Harjaap, a new member, was the next to join us, followed by Gaurav (who's into business writing for mighty search engines and the like) and Yamini Dhall, who came all the way from Chandigarh. Somit Makar and Shilpa Bhatnagar were next. There was the usual reticence to begin with; most people did not bring anything to read.

Anita began by reading something that she wasn't quite sure how to describe - a short story? An extract?
As it turned out, the piece seemed rather complete by itself, though it could just as easily metamorphose into the first chapter of something larger. Her protagonist, Jia, was likened to the character played by Anuradha Patel in the film Ijazat. I still remember one of the last few lines - the death of a muse... in my eyes.

Yamini was prevailed upon to share one of her short poems. She hadn't got any written out, but she'd saved as an sms on her phone, so it was available anyhow. I trust she will share it here as well.

I read out three poems. The first one, White, drew mixed reactions. Some noticed the... well, the whiteness of it. Others commented on the lack of grey, which led to a short discussion on the white, black and grey of the mind and its reflection in our writing.
And the second one drew a question about why the toast was dry (refer to the blog for the whole poem), which enforced a revelation of my breakfasting habits.

I followed this up by reading out Keki N Daruwala's 'Chinar'. Simply because it's such a favourite with me.

Anita set us off on several discussions by asking us what we were all reading/writing. And this led to an interesting tangent about letters and diaries. Anita, it turned out, is writing three sets of journals. One is a set of letters to her young son. Another is her rant-diary, and a third in which she pours out her gratitude.

The next interesting bit of information came from Harjaap, who's great-grandfather has put together a set of letters in a book called 'Letters From Jail'. The title is self-explanatory, but let me add that these were letters from India's freedom struggle era.

I have to admit that I couldn't keep track of all the parallel conversations happening in the room, and soon, we were all getting restive about getting home. We left promising to meet again next month, tentatively on the afternoon of 20th of November, though the details will be finalized a little later. We've debated the pros and cons of another venue, especially with the infamous Delhi winter upon us, and Anita generously offered to play host a second time.

Needless to add, we all had a very nice time.

The read meet on the 9th at Manisha's place, ended in too many discussions and suggestions.

Sunil and Peter will post the changes, and also details on the next read meet.

The Launch - a Max's-eye view

Oxford Book Store, as one enters it, hits you suddenly as a piece of ultra-sophisticated housekeeping, almost like an embassy of another advanced nation on our soil. The ambience, the design, the upkeep and the general get-up are tremendously seductive. On Friday 1st Oct., 2004, seven-thirtyish on a drizzling evening, as I entered the store I heard a soft and cultured voice, discussing writers and publishers. A disembodied voice wafting in the cool air, without a source…. I knew I had come to the right place, and yet this lightly accented voice floating around seem to belong to a Britisher –not an Indian author, leave alone one of the Caferati.
Walking through the maze of lip-smackingly inviting books to the end of the store I saw a motley crowd of familiar faces –and Peter Griffin holding forth with a wireless mike. He immediately expanded his speech to welcome me, for a travel from Pune to Mumbai for a half an hour launch of the book, Stories At The Coffee Table, seemed a staggering adventure to most of the participants. I was touched, caferati.
It was like this : about 25 hungrily listening souls in the ubiquitous white plastic chairs, with four luminaries facing them, Manisha Lakhe –the lady with a razorsharp sense of humour, Peter Griffin- the grand master of ceremonies, Deepa Gahlot – the prim and unbending organiser always in the background, in the chairs on the dias, and Sunil Nair the main ghost who has been haunting others right out of the woodwork, to come to the fore and claim their fifteen minutes of fame to quote Andy Warhol [ whom Gore Vidal had described as a genius with the IQ of a moron] –were holding forth.
After the customary nice words about the enterprise, and words of hope : for SATCT happens to be in the eyes of the participants, [and n number of as-yet-silent lurkers], a unique venture with its own momentum, its own crisply righteous sense of belonging and its own place in history, for writers nowhere have ever tried to come together and beat the publishers at their own game. SATCT will always be the first enterprise at self-publishing by writers whose works may have never seen daylight…
There were a couple vociferous interruptions from the restive audience, who probably had a boiling cauldron of queries, but shot off only a few at the foursome facing them. Satisfactory answers were provided by major domo, P.Griffin who had done his homework well, and whose MC-ing also kept the queries at short leash – wonderful time management, for there was no overshooting the schedule.
The traditional lamp was lighted by yours truly, Manish, Peter, and Deepa to mark the launch of the ambitious venture. The audience clapped in glee, and the custodians of the BWC, good old Rats, Vijay, John, Manisha, Brahmanand, Dilfiza, Pranay, et al also got up to circulate around as the tea was served with a very intriguing tea-cup holder made of a silver alloy.
The whole event was stage-managed with astonishing precision and élan. One met a lot of new faces, one of the most notable ones being Meera Warrier, the Bookshop Gal to the ryzers – who was the hostess, and a very gracious one at that. Met Sir Lancelot [ Lalit] also –good old Brahmanand Singh had come alone minus the better half who always shines like a thousand watt bulb and lights up any assembly of limpest possible mortals. Met Avi Das, who has been posting interesting messages and even a whole short story [to yours truly for assessment] – who seemed to be oozing ideas about the future of the enterprise.
Well what is half an hour? Talked a little with a handful of others and it was time to go… yours truly had another long journey to make so a quick exit seemed in order.
All said and done, an event to remember, very professionally staged, despite the lack of celebrities and the camera wielding media teams. Dilfiza was in charge of photography assignment and she has promised one and all the results in a few days.
Keep the flag flying, BWC and caferati, a wonderful kick-off!

Max Babi

The Launch - from the inside

For something that started on a lazy afternoon, the BWC has been rocking. With chapters in Pune, Bangalore, Delhi, San Fransisco, the Bombay Writers' Cafe now seems to be heading towards becoming something bigger than what I imagined. There were murmurs of calling it Indian Writers' Cafe and rumours that the guys behind it are attempting something so big that serious established writers are beginning to sit up and take notice.
That Friday at 6 pm people started to filter in one by one. Manisha was the first, ok ok I was there before her, but then I am the guy who communes with the shelves and hence I dont count. The lamp was there and the wicks and Meera the lady from Oxford had the press kits ready.
It was decided that tributes be paid to the greats who passed into history last month. Manisha read out Mulk Raj Anand's Moustaches - a story about how the society in India is divided by the style of the Mouchie. Then Vijay took over and read out the first poem from Arun Kolhatkar's Jejuri. I would have loved to have a few more of those glass poems read out but the launch had to happen.
Deepa - the Chief Editor of SATCT took over and introduced the concept of SATCT and the Bombay Writers' Cafe. Then Peter spoke about the rules and the dos and the donts and spoke about the website.
There was a brief session of questions and answers, where the audience cleared their doubts. The Lamp was lit by Max Babi and the candle was passed on to the others who are the custodians of the forum.
It was chaitime thereafter and the Cha Bar was generous with the cookies and the masala chai. People interacted for over an hour. Menka Shivdasani - renowned poet was part of the audience and shared her thoughts and ideas on how the forum can progress. There were publishers who wanted to pitch in. A young man from a finance consultancy who wanted to help with sponsors.
The evening ended with people promising to write the stories and help in making the BWC rock and grow into a revolution.
I hope it does.

Sunil R Nair

P.S. on a personal note - a gentlemen old enough to be my grandfather walked upto me and tapped me on my shoulder. He spoke words which I will value forever. He said that he had been a part of so many writers forums in the past. He has rubbed shoulders with Nissim and Dom and many more. But this evening was important for him. He saw that there were no egos, there were no prima donnas. And he said he knows this will grow. I was overwhelmed and thanked him profusely. Unfortunately I could not ask him his name.

A Tongue-In-Cheek Report

Hi Caferati,

The unbroken silence indicates no one from the twenty odd souls that gorged on coffee and sandwiches and cakes, is going to tap the keyboard for a report on what exactly transpired at Pranay’s flat on 060904, bewteen 1700 hrs to roughly 2130 hrs.

Here’s a full-bodied, sanguine, slightly tangential and somewhat tongue-in-cheek report :

The bored-to-death chowkidar seemed surprised when I gave the address… wahaan koi nahin… he said, and having reported half an hour before the time, I had to vanish. When I returned, a motley crowd was milling around –Soeb Fatehi welcomed me, we knew each other from our photos on the ryze pages. Rats disappeared into the kitchen, with cool cats droolingly awaiting the taste of first coffee. It came and kept on coming. In-between some delicious mashed-potato sandwiches materialized too.

Vijay asked me to start reading, and I dithered as I had plenty of time, no need to hurry back to Pune. Was staying over with friends at Versova. So the first one to read was : Vijay himself who read John Mathew’s short story on the new culture of call centres and all their attendant problems, entitled “The E-Slave”. Vijay had to read it out once again, and there was a flurry of comments on it, as usual both praising it and poking holes in its fabric. The general opinion was, it was relevant to the times, and captured the mood well.

I, Max Babi was invited to read out three poems from the published collection of verse “Emotions In Motion”, 1992 by Writers Workshop.

I read out a poem “Freedom” first, which was received in what seemed to me a stunned silence. There was a repeat as the tradition demands, and this time Dilfiza who wanted to know if those were bamboo leaves that slithered in… so I replied in the affirmative. After a few minutes of discussions, Dilfiza and Rats made the right noises appreciatively at the last four or five lines. Many heads nodded, and Veeru asked a few questions about the background leading to the birth of the poem. I told them the story.

Soeb Fatehi who obviously has good experience in conducting training modules and seminars wanted to be allowed to read out this poem. We allowed him and he in his rather sonorous voice, which swelled up like an ancient church organ inside a small chapel, somehow lent a new life to my poem, giving me a new taste.

All of us enjoyed his rather dramatic reading of the poem so much, we allowed him to read out the next two poems too. Over to the loudspeaker, I would say, after having read out a poem. And he would dig in with unconcealed delight, gusto and vim –quite a sight. Peter Griffin who came in late, placed himslef in the balcony to let out gusts of smoke from his ‘shweta rung, lumb roop, dhooan – dhadak dandika…’ so often, he remained there for a large part of the meeting.

Coffee breaks settled on us, as the evening shadows lengthened outside and the traffic seemed to come alive with vengeance, to an alarming degree of noise and urgency. My next two poems “A Wish” and “Welcome” were received similarly, and there was a particular dwelling of the discussion on my use of the word “hoarding” which Manisha mistook for what a miserly trader would do with intention of making black money, not what the Yankees call a billboard. Soeb was also doubtful about the usage word, because of the line implying a negative space whilst a hoarding is a positive entity… this is a typical engineer’s [or an architects]’ response, I explained to him, and stressed the fact that it is the phenomenon of looming up –just as a hoarding looms up on a grey evening when riding on the highway… Manisha objected to my use of the cat and the buffalo doing their own thing.

This lead us to re-open the discussion we had at Deepa’s place, with Brahmanda Singh recalling the topic : whether a poem should be edited or not. Most of us opined that spontaneous editing soon after writings is all right, but too much editing could transform the mood and content of a poem too much. I maintained that words written long ago, I like to preserve as they were written for I am not the same person anymore. Some mentioned that if the editing dramatically improves the content, well, why not?

Rats had to be summoned and she read out as scheduled her rather satirical piece on How To Open A School Without Education, and indeed it was a satire on the present state of affairs in education which has fast metamorphosed into yet another business. She illustrated this, later with many examples of almost illiterate but powerful persons wishing to open up schools. It was suggested that she should put this piece up on the Blog, and names also must be clearly mentioned….

Manisha then recounted a number of her own experiences wherein the entire suspenseful scenario –young mothers anxious to get their children into school, and the ill-matched teachers not inspiring confidence in the minds of the mothers, etc., and ultimately Manisha read out a very entertaining dialogue between two such ladies with children to be enrolled. Her script was very lively and full of humour.

Pranay the host read out his three poems, and there followed a longish discussion on the merits and demerits of writing verse that rhymes… for his poems as a rule rhyme. Bramhanand had a lot to say on this –and we all concluded that it is not easy to write rhymed verse if you care for the metre as you must. Quite often the poet would have to dilute the content or go off tangentially from the main theme to preserve the rhyme and the metre.

Cakes and sandwiches were relished with vigour, soon after.

Peter Griffin read out some hard-hitting short poems, which he had hand-written –what a rare sight in today’s computerized world –and many first-timers like Veeru, who had been religiously lobbing questions to the writers and the readers, seemed rather touched. Peter also made comments and told us about the background of each poem : he is an articulate person and it is a pleasure to listen to him.

Brahmanand the film-makers, whose articulation also demands attention, read out some of his very engaging poems, with the Dangling Woman being a clear cut hit –half way through the poem, the irrepressible Manisha commented she would rather leave the woman dangling than go any further… a point worth pondering upon!

Copious comments were made on his other poems, and it was well past 2100 hrs that Vijay brought the excited pack of writers and readers and listeners [and oranisers] to discuss the SATCT project.

Rats wanted to know why only short stories, why not poems, and Brahmanand suggested essays to be included too. However in the absence of the editor Sunil Nair, it was decided that it may be too late to change the basic idea. The next meet, will be on 2nd Oct. 2004, it was decided at Manish Lakhe’s place in Versova –and Annie informed us that that being Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary ‘The Final Solution’ by A. Patwardhan is going to be screened at 50 places, so why don’t we combine the reading and screening both? Almost unanimously the idea was welcomed.

When we parted –the strangers who had been talking or listening or thinking, parted as close friends. A wonderful event.

Cheers

Max Babi