Unlooked for Joy

 I have a huge respect for literary awards and glory. All modern writers–Deborah Levy, Hilary Mantel...–who've left an enduring mark on my writerly character are winners of major awards. In the year 2008, when I was eighteen, I read my first Naipaul; presumably because he won the hundredth Nobel Prize for Literature. The year 2012 is an important year for Booker Prize enthusiasts: as it had such a remarkable short-list. 2012 is when I got my first job as an Automation Design engineer at Schneider Electric, Guindy, Chennai. The first book–actually, the first gift–that I bought for myself from my very first salary was Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil.  I read Narcopolis eight times. Then I chucked it out of the window. The book had altered me. It washed away all the Naipaul. I went from God to anti-God and I wasn't sure if I wasn't left with an improvement!! Swimming Home by Deborah Levy (which was shortlisted the same year for the Booker as Narcopolis: 2012) is a modernist marvel. I am now working my way through Mantel's trilogy... So, I do have a lot of respect for literary awards and glory. But. 

The times have changed. Centres are changing. If the purpose of awards is to sift through the junk of books that all the writers of the world crank out year after year after year from the conveyor belts of their minds, and to present to the reading public, only the cream, do we still have to be dependent on select organisations to carry out this responsibility in these modern times where we are able to broadcast like never before? could writers begin to wear the pants and try to do away with middle-men altogether? 

But awards play another role: they give validation. They tell the writer, 'Yes, you are going in the right direction.' It is something like getting admission into a prestigious institution. But are there other kinds of  artistic validation? Let us explore.

Let me recall a small and personal story. The dancer Anita Ratnam has had a huge influence, not just on me, but on many Millennials. I have always believed that there exists no duality between 'the local' and 'the universal'; just think of the last puppy you saw: is its appreciation limited to people of a particular community, nationality, political/religious affiliation? It is Universal, yet it is dead local. Maybe this is what we should all strive to achieve as artists, because we none of us know what it really means to be local, or universal. Anita Ratnam is local, she epitomises Andal, the eighth century Tamil poet who transcended to godliness; Anita Ratnam is Universal, her dance-dramas are narrated by her in an English that might better become a Shakespearean actor than a Bharathanatyam dancer. I am sure her French and German, (possibly even Russian) are as good, but since I don't have these languages, I am in no position to comment. So, obviously, I wrote a story in which the protagonist is inspired by her presence: the story is titled  Mother's First Play. 

In the year 2013, I quit my first job. I went to Chicago to pursue a Master's Degree in Computer Engineering. I did great in the first two semesters. Even got a research assistantship. Came into money. Bought books. Other stuff. And my interests completely changed. I kind of offer a fictionalised version of my experience in Chicago in the story Pigeon and Koel. I couldn't think of myself as anything but a writer now. I failed in one subject in the third semester. In the fourth and final semester, I quit. I came back to Bangalore, to my parent's home, where I still live. For two or three years, I did nothing but teach myself how to read and write. These were tense years. Tongues wagged. My parents, my mother especially, were very cooperative. Then in the year 2020 (just as the Corona crisis had begun) I got a teaching position at a minor institute, where I taught English to aspirants of Law examinations. Two years later I got to work with a major and national institute where I still teach English, but to aspirants of a whole range of examinations. I am more than reasonably compensated. 

So, I have come to the understanding that it is okay if I'm not able to live off my writing. (In fact until about a week back, I had never received anything in the nature of monetary compensation from the few platforms that have published my work.) But that's okay. Was Mahler able to live off his compositions? or Vincent van Gogh off his paintings? I am not trying to compare myself with these great artists. I am merely giving you an example. So, what I really seek now is readership. Curious readership. In the words of Deborah Levy:

We live through the same historical events, and the same Pepsi ads. Writers and readers, nervously sharing this all too fluid world, circle each other to find out what the hell is going on.'

This is what I am doing. Circling. And I knew that Mother's First Play would increase the girth of this circle. As indeed it did. But in a way that it is impossible for me express in any loud and intelligible manner! 

Somewhere towards the end of December 2023 (in many parts of South India, the latter half of December and the first of January, clubbed together, is dedicated to the deity Andal) I received a DM on Instagram from a doubtful editor who wondered if I might have a story to share with her. I shared Mother's First Play. The editor was very intelligent. She immediately spotted structural flaws in the story that I was only too happy to rectify. My submission was then accepted. It was a miracle! Mother's First Play, then, was indeed the breakthrough that I had been seeking for so long. More so, when you considered the fact that the magazine (Pena.litmag) actually pays its writers! So the money I received from them last week was my first monetary-compensation for a literary endeavour!  It was a miracle. Even more so when you consider the fact that it happened in a month that is dedicated to the deity Andal, and that it happened through a story that is inspired by someone, who, as I have said earlier, for me and many Millennials, epitomises Andal, and even, even more so when you consider the fact that the name of the editor who contacted me is also Andal! what can I say, as G.K. Chesterton puts it somewhere:

The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen. 

So, what is it that I seek now? I'd say, about five hundred readers who are actually interested in my work. Five hundred readers who become a part of my creative process and of whose creative process I become a part. It is really like working for a company isn't it: we're all colleagues, and we're all here to do the same thing basically: bear witness to this most liminal and complicated and all-encompassing age in which we live. So, yes, it has become amply clear to me that I am not going to be winning any major awards. Some minor ones here and there maybe (to get me to the five hundred!) but for the most part mine is going to be a minor and remote presence. I am happy with this!

This reminds of Shakespeare's sonnet 25:

Let those who are in favour of their stars,
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumphs bars,
'Unlooked for joy' in that I honour most.