The bookish business

Like it or not, we have to acknowledge we live in a consumerist world and book is also a commercial product. But we often fail foresee that because so many spiritual and moral values are associated with book. Hence when Time of India carried a full front page advertisement of the book ‘Half Girlfriend’ by Chetan Bhagat few months back murmurs were heard all over the reading community.

Many accused Flipkart and Chetan Bhagat of selling book like you sell cola or chocolate.  That’s outrageous?

They are right.

Mr. Bhagat defended “Come on, I am not fighting against any book or writer; I am fighting against apps, I am fighting against video game. If books are discussed, advertised in an innovative way and if that helps a book to develop readership against all odds what wrong with it?

 I believe Mr.Bhagat is also right.

Then a writer of moderate popularity appeared before the TV screen and commented with a mischievous smile “I don’t want to go into merits of Chetan’s writing but even after intense involvement and many awards I fail to grab attention like Chetan do, but in morning I was twitting a series satire on the TOI advertisement by evening I am in a elite panel disusing serious business J

So that’s the dilemma of promoting a book.

One have to aggressively promote a book or after two months of release will be nowhere in picture even if it deserve to. But if you overstretch, people accuse you of overdoing.

I also belong to the generation to whom books belong to the sacred element. But when we look at the worldwide trends we observe books have suffered heavily after the advent of so called modern fast live (with Smart phones ,apps, multiplex ,mall ,20x7 TV etc etc) ,but books are still in business and we have observed some unexpected phenomenal success in the publishing industry also, which might not have been possible had the  business of book opted to the old way of marketing .

Yes ethical aspect is a big issue and that have to be maintained.

Old timers are still amused at the money and fame these new writers are generating. Even conventional old time writer are seeing some light after lifelong misery they have lived in.

But that is happening only with English language publishing, as English publishing house are adjusting to the wind of change.

In most places of India vernacular book business is being operated in the same way as it has been doing in last fifty years. But like life and society the business of book is also changing to a great extent.

Last year I met one book seller who used to run the profitable business of running a book shop in a popular bus stop in the national highway that connects Delhi to Dehradun. He was running the business that his father had established way back in forties. Now he has call it a day and closed his shop. But the business of book was inherited to his son in some other way. The son works with flipkart and does something that has to do with book. We can call it degradation as the son stopped being his own master, but we can also call it need of the day in order to survive.

Book shops are closing everywhere, and that is an ominous sign. Thankfully this epidemic has not spread to my home state Assam yet but when I observe the business of book in Assam I have an apprehension that it is bubble that can burst anytime soon.

Movies that helped shaping my thought process 2 The Three Colors Blue

After ‘Gandhi’, I have to mention the film named  Blue from the famous The Three Colors series. or its creator Krzysztof Kieślowski. His art of storytelling has influenced my thought process to a great extent.

I had been writing a series of parallel stories since the year 2000; I had no idea at the time that these are called parallel stories.  Most of the stories dealt with the dark aspect of the human mind and had an undiluted structure. I didn’t compromise by altering even a single sentence of this chronicle just for the sake of so-called linearity of structure. The result was that for those who couldn’t devote enough time to a paragraph and reflect on the human feelings behind those words, this series remained indecipherable or worse, an exercise in futility. I experienced great creative satisfaction while writing them and was eager to see the reaction of my readers. This was where I faced a problem; you see, most of my friends are not into literature and hence, I couldn’t depend on them to give me a proper feedback. Moreover, I was residing away from my home state, Assam, so I could not understand first-hand how the readers were responding to my creative effort by any sort of interaction with them.

I concluded that the stories into which I had put so much time and effort, turned out to be some incoherent gibberish. I went into a kind of depression, repeatedly asking myself whether I should compromise on my writing style. Should I start writing in a simple linear style (which is not my way of storytelling)? Should I write about populist clichés that do not excite my creativity at all? (Assam has its own trends of bestselling plots). On a more megalomaniac note, I was beginning to think that there was no one in this world, who thinks like me, that there were no takers for original thinking, that I was a lone man amongst an indifferent swarm of people.

Then I happened to come across this much heard series – directed by Kieślowski . Three colours Blue was my first Kieslowski movie, which I watched in 2007. As the film progressed, I realised that the thought process of the protagonist or the scriptwriter behind the scenes reverberated with mine.  Many of the frames of ‘Blue’ inspired me. What I found most inspiring about this series is that the auteur didn’t compromise on anything while presenting his creative vision, yet he was able to connect with his audience, to convey his version to the world. This fact encouraged me and eventually I decided NOT TO CHANGE MY STYLE.

In this movie, there is a scene in which the female protagonist was having coffee in a restaurant and a street musician was playing some music. The tune was the same as the one her husband was composing, but he died before being able to complete it. How could an unfinished musical score have reached the street musician? Later, during an interview, Kieślowski had this to say about it, “Music never dies, it vibrates, swirls in the atmosphere, you just have to pick it up from nature.”

I watched Three colors Blue in 2007, but this message from the scene was the seed of a Play –ঐক্যতান Akoikyatan (The Beethoven of someone’s love), I had written, directed and staged in 1997.

At that time, the whole unit of the play had the same doubt that I had been having – “Does anyone think like us?” The discovery of Kieślowski through Blue was a positive propelling force for me, it reinforced my intention to continue writing in my own unadulterated style by being true to myself.

Movies that helped shaping my thought process 1.Gandhi

The thought of selecting ten movies that shaped thinking process came to my mind while I was noting down my favorite books. I have to admit after books, movies are my food for thought. All the movies I have enlisted here cannot be called the greatest movies of all time by everyone, but they seems to have affected, inspired, encouraged, me the person and all the bizarre thoughts that engulfs me most of the time.

Now I am a lazy bone, if I plan to write about 10 movies in one blog I could never finish the project due to pressure in the day to day life and change in my interest.  

                                                                        1.Gandhi :

It was 1983 or may be 82, one of my early memories of going to movie hall and watching a movie was that of Gandhi. It was turmoil time for my states and ordinary life was frequently halted by various kinds of Bandhs. It was one such bandhs in those days we walked to the cinema hall –should be it was Apsara to see the movie –Gandhi. At the same time posters of then super hit movie –Disco Dancer was also displayed in the hall and my mind wanted to see –Disco dancer only. But we were forced to see Gandhi.

I have vivid memory of few scenes in the movie hall -like the Jallianwala bagh massacare, or Om Puri the angry rioter throwing a roti to Gandhi and appealing him to give up fast the Raghupati Raghab raja ram at the end.

Face of Om Puri that I can not forget

After that I have watched the movie n number of times, in many independence days, Republic Days, Gandhi Jayanti this movie frequents television channels even now.

Every time I watch the movie I go through a spectrum of positive thought process, many times it is about Indian History, many times about the communal feud we have, many time about perfect cinematic representation of something that actually occurred not in a distant time from today.

Later on when I was working on my original play –‘A German Dream' in 2000, I felt the pain this great man had undergone while searching truth. That feeling is a life changing event and may be the seed of this change was implanted by this great Richard Altenburg film.

I had traveled a lot to feel the smell of the place where Gandhi left his foot print, or may be to research about things I wrote and while visiting those places scenes from Attengorg’s Gandhi came to my mind as if I was present there when history was shaping up.

As in when I was Jallianwala bagh I could hear the crying baby near the  maut kakuwa(Myter’s well ) , I could hear a angry mad rioter shouting at Gandhi at the Hydari house at 26 balighata road ,Calcutta ,or in Sevagram I could perceive how could he virtually run the country from a faraway village n Maharashtra. Same is feeling evrytime I visit Rajghat or the Birla mandir in Delhi.

At that time budget of the film created a lot of controversy , some said with this budged –indian Government could have produce ten movies but as the final product was out ,the product silenced most of the query that was circulating in the media.

When the curator –Sir Richard Altenburg died, just a few days ago various article surfaced about his life long effort to make this movie a reality .26 years of patients and hard work is not a small thing at all. It may be a example of patience and pursuance to any people in the age of restlessness we are in today.

And now I lough at the thought that one day I preferred 'Disco Dancer' over Gandhi

I wanted to watch Disco Dancer over Gandhi

Mid Life Crisis

I have been suffering from the disease since I was 15 or something, and the symptoms continue to persist even today. I started suspecting the disease without actually knowing how you feel like if you have the disease. Without going through the signs and symptoms I was sure of my mid life crisis.

I think I acquired the bug watching some of the auteur's so called classic movie where they actually depicted their sexual frustration arising out of long standing marriage and the protagonist take fantasy with some young girl and faces consequences out of it.

But with me acquiring the disease at 15, without a girlfriend or any obvious psychopathic tendency (to the best of my belief) was something very peculiar.

What started with a silly joke with friend gradually turned into a (pseudo)philosophical metaphor.

If you don’t know the length of your life then how can you define your mid point? If the journey can be ended at any point, why the midpoint can’t start as soon as fifteen?

So what were the symptoms like?

With time symptoms are also changing, but to be precise whenever mind is full of melancholy –I think this is it.

In nineties the symptoms were precipitated by lack of connectivity with the so called world at large, Guwahati was a small city then and there was paucity of information regarding what we thought to be happening world.

Now I live away from my loved city, there is excess of information though but nothing is there to fill the vague in those time of incompleteness.  

There are many other precipitating factors that lead to such desperation, so I started a methodical root cause analysis for the so called disease I am suffering from. It can be loosely hypothesized “as not having achieved what I thought to be achievable at that point of time”. With time the faith and confidence level is getting down and down and down. As the suspicion of failure is creeping in that is leading to the melancholy which I call as “Mid Life Crisis”.

I cannot tell you for sure but if I have to explain “My Mid Life crisis” to you; I got to tell you it is almost like love. While explaining my mid life crisis I have to quote from my memory of a famous film whose dialogue still resonates in my mind. The film was "Suraj Ka Satwa Ghoran” by the maestro Syam Benegal .Here after a long and complicated tryst with the ‘element’ called love protagonist Rajat Sharma explains :definition and feeling about love is something like soul or God ,until you find one your quest for love will go on .

So my quest for my mid life

The life journey of life is mysterious and unknown

To the great Indian middle class, Mid Life crisis has nothing to do with libido, mistress, or sexuality,

Being grinded in a routine called life we long for a way out looking for some sunshine and if we smell of losing the goal sadness creeps in. We name this sadness by various name, and mid life crisis is just one such example.