Peek-a-Boo

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For a copy of "The Remix of Orchid", mail to nanda_lit@hotmail.com now.
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It's high time I pasted a sample of what I've written in my book, and this will give my blog a tone of authenticity. But, at the same time, it's not easy to select something that would represent the style, theme and context of the book reasonably accurately. What is more, a writer is no reader and what he can best do is just a reasonable guesswork.

That said, I'll now go ahead with my cut n' paste business. Here you are. This is my sample; and this is my guesswork.
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I retreated to my cabin reflecting everything I witnessed. A night of beauty sleep was waiting for me in my cabin. The anchored ship was stable and cool. The sky had patchy clouds, but the Great Bear constellation was clearly visible through the window of my beautiful cabin. I switched off the lights and allowed darkness to inundate the interior. The cabin haunted me no longer. Solitude could be so delightful! Given choice, I would no longer welcome sleep; I would rather like dream to defer her soporific spell on me. But the nocturnal bliss made her duty-bound. I was soon to snuggle up to her loving care.

‘Which story would you relish tonight,’ she asked me for my choice.

‘Anything sweet’ was my answer. I had completely surrendered myself to her and it was a marvellous feeling to surrender.

‘Then listen to a story of a Nicobari girl. I know you will like it,’ her eyes gleamed with cherubic smile.

I blushed and felt a little curious and asked her how she could come to know that. She smiled again and said she had been watching me for the entire day. She was amused at my timidity, for she had marked me going up to the vivacious Nicobari beauties and retracting so often. She chided me lovingly for my gutlessness and unmanly gestures.

Then she started her story. She was slow and she was sweet. She was rhythmic, and she was poignant. She was warm, exciting, and lively; she was everything that I wanted. Oh, she was life in herself. I was the protagonist and she assumed herself the role of that Nicobari girl. She took me along the farthest she could venture. She showed me everything she had—her glowing buttery skin, her hourglass perfect body, all her hidden beauty spots, all those special spots of must-visit where her skin was the thinnest of thin, where I could feel her warm blood flowing like sylvan rivulets...

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By
A. N. Nanda
Bhubaneswar
25-03-2007
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A Suitable Boy

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Need a copy of "The Remix of Orchid"? Contact the blogger at nanda_lit@hotmail.com
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I promote myself writing a book; I promote the book writing a blog; I promote the blog writing SPAMs—is there an end to such promotion spree? Honestly, there could be no end to this when means of promotion itself needs to be promoted so doggedly!

I’ve a joke to share here. It’s a joke intended to blend writing with selling, something I should need now badly. The joke goes like this:

A writer is at his wits’ end, not knowing how to sell the unsold books. (Obviously he is one like me who has chosen the self-publication route.)

But one day he did something and all his books were sold out.

How?

He gave an ad in the matrimonial column. Yes, of all places he chose a matrimonial column to sell his book:

"Match needed for a successful software professional in a Fortune 500 company earning 10k plus and settled in the States with a permanent visa. The girl need not be an extraordinarily beautiful one; she may not be even highly educated; but she should have all the qualities of an Indian women, qualities that are beautifully portrayed in Shalini, the leading lady of the novel ‘I’m For U, Darling’ by Sam Sunder.”

No wonder “I’m For U, Darling” became a blockbuster overnight.

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By
A. N. Nanda

Bhubaneswar

23-03-2007
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Revisiting my Place via Wikimapia

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Ad line:
Want to order a copy of "The Remix of Orchid"? Mail the blogger at nanda_lit@hotmail.com (nanda underscore lit hotmail dot com)
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Mr Bond's reading of "The Remix of Orchid" makes him feel that the work is the expression of the author's love of the place. Thank you, sir for your nice words of appreciation. This generated a kind of nostalgia in me. So I tried to visit that place, not physically but along the virtual course: the wikimapia and marked the place "ABERDEEN BAZAAR POST OFFICE". That's the place I stayed in Port Blair between 1995 1nd 1998 and witnessed the real sunrise every day; the holidaying mood of travellers converging at Marina Park, the serious sprinters along the beach road, the bikers coming out of the velodrome and racing towards Corbyn's Cove....

Here you are the map taken from http://wikimapia.org




I've not visited the town after tsunami and hope the damage to my old place is not much.
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By
A. N. Nanda

Bhubaneswar

19-03-2007
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The Blessed One

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For your copy of "The Remix of Orchid" please contact the blogger at nanda_lit@hotmail.com (nanda underscore lit at hotmail dot com)

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I've been telling, nay bragging, about the nice words of foreword written for my book "The Remix of Orchid" by the master storyteller of India, Mr RUSKIN BOND. So, shouldn't I be posting what he has written about the book? Yes, it's in the interest of my book. Again, it will give a twist to the flow of my blog from a sulking posture to an encouraging stance.

So let me reproduce.

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FOREWORD

A. N. Nanda loves the place he writes about and it is this love that brings an extraordinary sense of purpose into otherwise ignoble characters and entities. His letterbox gains power to punish a debauchee; a crustacean helps the lovers to understand each other; a cow helps in dispensing justice; a patriotic ghost returns to earth to gain his salvation; and so on.

Nanda portrays the Andamans as a place where everything important and interesting happens—here players win the gold cup for hockey, writers slip into and come out of their blocks, where megabuck films are shot, a sex slave is rehabilitated and rescued from far Kuwait. Life is something to be loved here.

Nanda has his characters drawn from various parts of the mainland, all of them converging on the islands to make stories happen. It is yet another attempt to realize the meaning of the adage: there is unity in diversity. Nothing very political about it!

Nanda goes beyond the familiar, as he goes underwater to make a story happen. He does not just write stories; he makes them happen too! He goes beyond the narrowly rational.

Society changes, even in a place like Port Blair. The archetypical gives way to the possible. Even living is an art of the possibles. When a son fails to consign the ashes of his father to the Ganges, what alternative does he adopt? He just dumps them into the Bay of Bengal.

‘The Remix of Orchid’ is the maiden work of prose of Nanda. He has chosen, very intelligently, a theme that few attempt. The Andamans is a place that everybody wants to visit, at least once in a lifetime. It’s a lovely place and people would definitely like to read about it. And I can say this to those who love books: your choice of reading a book on the Andamans should start right here. With ‘The Remix of Orchid’ you will not be disappointed.

Ruskin Bond
Landour, Mussorie-248 179 11/1/07

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By
A. N. Nanda
Berhampur
16-03-2007
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Blaming Oneself--It's the Easy Way

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Ad line:

Interested in A. N. Nanda's "The Remix of Orchid?" For a copy e-mail at nanda_lit@hotmail.com
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Sometimes blaming oneself happens to be one’s only recourse. It’s an attitude I’ve adopted in this case, for the slip was mine and, as time has proved it, it is irreparable.

In my query spree I once reached a site called http://www.manuslit.com and quickly sent a small e-mail. That was on January 17, 2005. I was lucky to get a response. Let me quote them here to set the mood of the day’s blogpost.

Dear Jandy,

I've twenty-two short stories that can make a book of short story collections. In MS-WORD with 12-pt. font of Times New Roman, the manuscript comes to slightly over 236 pages with A4 page setup. They are set in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India,(now ravaged by killer tsunami) and the themes are dominantly Indian depicting everything that Indian culture and value system stands for. They capture the contemporary struggle of changing Indian society and their impact as echoed in its extension at the distant territory midsea. No book of short stories has been written so exclusively based on the pristine archipelago and if this books comes out, it will claim that pride of place in its own right.


Does it sound interesting? If so, please tell me how to go further from here.

Thanking you.

Sincerely

Nanda

Jandy’s aforesaid reply on 17 January 2005 was:

Please send a few stories w/SASE to me in our California office.

Thanks, and I'll look forward to reading your work.

Best,
Jandy

So far so good. But then during February, the following month, I received another e-mail from the same agency rejecting the query. It was at best a form letter with the following words:

“Unfortunately, after careful review, we have decided that we might not be the right agents for your work. However, we hope that you are not disheartened. This industry is incredibly subjective, and there are many agencies out there with many different tastes. We strongly encourage you to keep submitting elsewhere, as you might already have a bestseller in your hands.

“We apologize for the form letter reply, but the volume of submissions we receive has finally made it impossible for us to hand-write responses as we have for so many years. We hope you will understand and forgive us this necessary efficiency. In addition, we do not feel it is proper for us to provide editorial feedback on projects we have decided not to represent".

I was not willing to accept this since I was preparing for a proper submission. I wrote back. The exact reproduction of my email would look like this:

Dear Jandy,

As advised, I am ready to send a few of my stories for your editorial evaluation. But in reply to my other query, your agency conveyed me by a form letter its unwillingness to handle my work. The following is the extract:

“Unfortunately, after careful review, we have decided that we might not be the right agents for your work. However, we hope that you are not disheartened. This industry is incredibly subjective, and there are many agencies out there with many different tastes. We strongly encourage you to keep submitting elsewhere, as you might already have a bestseller in your hands.

“We apologize for the form letter reply, but the volume of submissions we receive has finally made it impossible for us to hand-write responses as we have for so many years. We hope you will understand and forgive us this necessary efficiency. In addition, we do not feel it is proper for us to provide editorial feedback on projects we have decided not to represent.”

Please reconfirm your advice. I’m ready to send them by post with SASE on receipt of your decision.

Thanks

Sincerely
Nanda

Lo and behold, there was a reply—and an encouraging one at that! Jandy happened to be a sympathetic lady, and with her reply I had now no hesitation in dreaming about an international break. So, what did she actually say? Her reply was:

That was a mistake, our assistant goes over my email too because I get so many, I forgot to put yours in a responded folder, yes please send your work. Thanks.
Jandy

Now I took my job seriously and sent my submission by post on 27 October 2005. In order to be very sure about its transmission I chose EMS channel spending a whooping postage of Rs 425.00. Not only that, I also tracked its movement. As per the tracking information, the packet had reached its destination on November 3 at 12:00 pm and one A LEWIS had signed that in token of having received it.

Months passed. There was no reply. I could not take it as a case of rejection; for I abhor pessimism in any form, and no wonder I’m a chronic patient of optimism.

Then one day I rummaged through the files in my cabinet and the e-mail archive in my PC. Tut-tut, there was a mistake! It was my discovery that I had sent the submission to Jandy in her New York address whereas she wanted that in her Californian address. Secondly, I had not sent a self-addressed stamped envelope with the submission.

Now I wrote a few e-mails to her and, finding no response(There was an auto responder--out-of-office message!), sent a snail mail too on 18 July 2006. This time I did not fail to attach one self-addressed stamped envelope!

Still there is no reply, at least not till today. The dream that I had half-way through had fizzled out.

Now I'm ready to help myself: "The Remix of Orchid" will be a self-published volume!

Sometimes I wonder: Is there no system of redirecting mails in US; or is it a system only prevalent in India? But then what’s the big point in blaming others when the mistake is mine. Jandy must be as good as she looks in her photograph and a lady of her stature should not be held responsible for the mistake of me, the wooden-headed me!

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By

A. N. Nanda

Berhampur

14-03-2007

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They Came to Praise My Books.

_Technorati Profile
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It happened with me, exactly four years ago, and to find it happening with me once again drives me superstitious.

The event I’m reminded of had to do with the publication of my book of poetry, “In Harness”. At that time I had with me a bagful of poems and I did not know what to do about them. There was no publisher willing and it was a tall order to think of publishing my first book all alone, with no experience on my side.

It was at that juncture that I came across the gentle man, Mr X. He was a person of wide-ranging interests. Himself a published poet in Sanskrit, he knew what it takes to bring out a book. He was only too willing to share that.

The day when we met, it was a query from his side.

‘Sir, I heard you also write poems,’ Mr X was abrupt in his introduction of a topic, but he was confident that a question like this, if addressed to a poor unpublished author, would not ordinarily evoke anything wrong as a response.

‘Yes, I do, but I don’t know what to do with the poems,’ I had responded, rather lugubriously.

Thereafter everything happened as was destined to. Mr X disclosed that he had access to great publishers(If there are any in this part of the world!) and I believed it. He assured that I should not worry too much about it, as my poems are excellent and heart-rending ones! And finally before he left me, he assured that my book would be in the market in a month’s time.

A month passed, then the second, and then the third…. All the time Mr X had some reason or the other to explain the previous slip and was ready to give a fresh date. The reasons were varied: once it was the month, for the month of May is well beyond the publishing season; then it was the local election time and his hectic engagements; on a third occasion he was to go for a lecture tour; then once his phone went out of order for a month, and so on. Once even his sister-in-law’s illness was to interfere.

More funny was the kind of new dates he used to give, always off his sleeve, but quite interesting ones. ‘Yes, your book will be released on the Independence Day’, ‘Dushera is the right time to bring out a book…with the blessings of the Mother Goddess!’

And finally after seven months of chasing I gave up. Yes, better things were waiting to happen only after I gave up chasing Mr X.

* * * * * * * * *

And now, after four years, I have another book to publish. So, there has to be a Mr Y.

I met Mr Y on that day at the printing press while I was correcting the proof of “The Remix of Orchid”. He introduced himself as a budding publisher presently into translation in a big way. He has a range of connections, pan-Indian and effective, with all kinds of book business fellows beginning from a page-setter to the distributors. He is also known among the political circle.

And he liked my book, “The Remix of Orchid”. Particularly he liked the excellent cover design and the foreword from a big timer.

‘I’ll help you giving a proper publicity to your book. I know quite a few big sorts and one of them will come to release your book—maybe the chief minister or His Excellency Governor,’ Mr Y said this pompously.

‘Or if you want I can bring Mrs. Z, Mrs. M, N, O, P, Q…,’ Mr Y added.

His assertions took me by awe and reverence. The young man is really something, not the one I surmised from his unassuming appearance and soft-spoken words.

‘Look, I’m not thinking of the book’s release now. I’m more concerned about the paper—some twenty-five quires of 80 gsm maplitho of natural shed,’ I responded.

‘This I’ll give you, in a week’s time,’ Mr Y responded.

Then I paid Mr Y eleven thousand rupees that constituted fifty percent of the value. And I waited till the next week.

The next week did not come—it is so very elusive that it has not come so far. ‘Your paper has come’, ‘Your paper has reached the press’, ‘Your paper is with the transporter, and it will take a day’s time to clear the tax liability’…. I had no clue how to get out of this. And I felt as though I were inside a big ballooon of lie!

Only the day before yesterday I decided: ‘Even if it entails a loss of my eleven thousand rupees, I’ll give Mr Y a piece of my mind’.

I had to stand outside his premises for five hours on Saturday and for four hours on Sunday to get him and get my money back—not in full, but nearly so, say ten thousand out of eleven.

To end the note happily: now ‘The Remix of Orchid” is out of danger.
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By
A. N. Nanda
Berhampur
12-03-2007
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Now, Not Me

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Elusive, that is what I decided to call it at last.

And it all began with an e-mail response from agency on 11-05-2006. I was late by a day to open my Inbox. The exact reproduction of the mail is the following:

Dear Mr. Nanda,

BD Barker has given me your submission for review. Are you available for a phone conversation with us Thursday May 12th 11:30 am est? Please reply with the appropriate telephone number.

Thank You,

Tony Frothingham
VP Acquisitions
Wilson Devereux Company

It took me around a couple of years to find out an agency that, after reading my submission, could come forward and offer to talk to me. Yes, the story I submitted was "The Remix of Orchid", one of the twenty-one short stories I'm going to include in the forthcoming volume. I was then naturally happy, finding the stature of the agency that finally found some worth in my submission.

But what to do? I was late by a day. I wrote e-mails, not one nor two, but a few of them in a series, requesting the Mr Frothingham to give another appointment. There was no reply.

Honestly speaking, it took me time to convert the timing (11:30 est) to its Indian Standard Time equivalent and I could come to know that the place is 9 hrs 30 mts behind India's time. So, for Tony's 11:30 AM, my time should have bee (11:30 + 9hrs 30mts) 9:00 PM.

Nine in the evening could not be said a late hour; and I was ready to talk to somebody so important to my business and me at that time. Even I downloaded both the messenger services software from Yahoo and Windows and made my computer ready to talk to Tony and chat with him, but where was the reply from him?

Tut-tut, my carelessness in not opening my email inbox for a day cost me my chance to international publishing. Could anybody have been a worse student than me in Geography? I still wonder this, even to this day.
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By
A. N. Nanda
Bhubaneswar
08-03-2007
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Beg but Poetically

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Getting published is such an attraction that everything is permitted to achieve that…literally everything, say beg, borrow or steal. And once I had to beg, in the process. But be warned: it was not an ordinary begging; it was just poetic, evocative and had the power of making its addressee say ‘yes’. Let me quote.
# # # # #

Dear Publisher

I have the following proposal for your scrutiny and comment. Hope you respond favourably.

To Describe:

Having finished the draft and its polishing, now I undertake the most daunting task of describing my project. I consider it so, because:
1) My project consists of twenty-two short stories—a genre that suffers from persecution even harsher than the ones meted to Indian untouchables of yester centuries;
2) I am a fresher in the field who deserve the highest courtesy of a preformatted auto-reply in electronic format;
3) I have to articulate in unfamiliar jargons that can sound more than they speak.

Despite all these, I’ve to move on, reach out to the far-flung corners where talent hunters wait for their day’s kill. I know they are a strange lot who thrive on others discards, who create wealth from waste, and who tackle things that intimidate others. Suddenly they find short stories cannot be the substance of hatred; they are the objects of intellectual adoration. My intuitional optimism so goading me, I’m sure I shall find one before it is too late; and that is why I’m here with my ware. I beg to quote from my own poem:

I am a dream merchant
In search of a customer affluent
For affording a fair bargain.
So Soon? Yes before late.
(‘The Ultimate Chance’—In Harness, March-2004)
# # # # # # # #

And blah…blah…and blah.

Then what was the result? Oh, it was interesting. Read on.

Dear Nada (name misspelt!),
We have received your submission. Currently you should receive word on your submission in no more than 120 days.
Thank you very much for your submission.
Sincerely,

Bob Sanders
CEO, Mundania Press

And 120 days came and passed just like that. Precisely, it is two years since that Sanders gentleman had sent this encouraging mail. But where is his response? Nothing till date. No reminder from my end could make anybody there move to the keyboard.

So I concluded: my impassioned e-missive deserved only that much—a 120-day wait for something hopeful that was not to come.

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By

A. N. Nanda

Berhampur

06-03-2007

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Rejection-rich Remix

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Rejection-rich Remix--or what do I call it? On the one hand Ruskin Bond, the master storyteller of India evaluates it so enthusiastically and on the other it has a dismal streak of rejections behind it. So what else I call it.

Rejections are always painful for an author. It's very much like the feeling a jilted lover undergoes-searching for reasons to justify oneself, mustering courage to stay on and retry, and taking recourse to negative expressions like hate or sulk. Yet, in time one just forgets. One success is enough to assuage all the trauma of the tens and scores of failures in the past. Resilience, thy name is writing!

I've put my rejection missives in my e-mail archive and love to read them sometimes. And I do marvel at their expertise in saying no's. Some of them are advisory, none too morale boosting, but most are with words that would sound like praise for your writing style, or choice of theme, or freshness: 'you write evocatively'; 'your ideas are interesting' and so on. They are just form letters!

Now I'll try to recapitulate a few such replies here.

1- 'Thanks for this query. As interesting as this does sound I'm afraid it is too difficult to take on story collections from a unknown writer, esp. from overseas. I would recommend that you try and get some stories published in lit magazines, in India or in UK. or perhaps anthologized. This would help give you a name and a leg up in this tough game.'

2- 'Thank you for the proposal.

'Unfortunately at the moment it will not be possible for us to make you any offer on the same keeping in mind the requirements of our publishing programme. '

3- 'Many thanks for your material which we've read with interest but sadly without sufficient confidence in our ability to place the book for you, to offer to take things further. Sorry to be cowardly, and we wish you the best of luck elsewhere.'

4- 'There are many factors that determine whether we accept a book for publication. Is it well written? Is it entertaining? Is there a good story hook? Are the characters fully fleshed out where the reader would care about them? Does the progression of the book make the reader want to keep reading? Does the author have a good plan for helping to market his or her book? Would the book have wide market appeal to be a sales success? Does it fit with our catalog of offerings?

'Our editorial staff has completed the review process for your manuscript. After careful consideration, we regret to inform you that we are not able to offer a publishing contract for "The Remix of Orchid." '

5- 'Thank you for giving us the chance to review material from your short story collection.

Unfortunately, the agency is so inundated with work for our existing clients at the moment that we are currently being forced to limit quite severely the new projects that we can agree to undertake. The need to allocate time effectively forces us to decline participation in many worthy projects, and regretfully that must be the decision in the case of this as well.

'Sorry we can't be of help but we wish you all the best with this'.

6- 'I'm not back to work yet (I have a six month old baby boy - Edgardo - to look after) so I won't be able to read much until September. Do contact me then, though, if you are still looking for an agent.'

7- 'Thank you for the query. To be frank, it is simply too difficult to sell short stories by new writers, so, due to our workload we can't take on a project of that nature. I believe you are better off directly approaching those publishers who take queries and hoping for a stroke of good luck.'

8- 'Dear Mr. A.N. Nanda,

'Please reffer to your e-mail dated 29th April 2006. The production subsidy required by us would be Rupees Forty Thousand for a book of about two hundred printed pages (350 to 375 words per page apprx.). This may sound ridiculous from your point of view.

'With best wishes,

'Sincerely yours,

'Dr Some Big Publisher
'M.A., Ph.D.'

9. 'After going through the pieces, I am a bit disappointed as the stories are far too long and do not have enough fresh material (for an outsider like the reader). However, if you send me a brief sketch of the rest of the stories (about 50 words for each) I can come to a final decision.

So, the list is full of varieties-brief, businesslike and bewildering. It will take me time to rummage through the archive to present the most depressing ones and I'll do that one day. With the words of advice too insincere, they are far from being useful. Still a response is a response, better than a silence. And all rejections are to be understood as such.
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By
A. N. Nanda
Bhubaneswar
04-03-2007
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Old Doubts Die Hard

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[As my book nears its release and launching, I feel the same old doubt: will it work? Will my plots attract and sustain the attention of my readers? Will the style be readable? I feel very much like a candidate before entering the examination hall: will the chapters I've prepared come in the examination or will it be a rude surprise?

In my earlier blog, now defunct, I had written a few paragraphs to capture such a feeling, say four months ago. I feel I should post it here; it will go with the previous posting seamlessly.]

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Now the question still remains: what will make these stories so readable? Its unique style? Its flawless English? Its sing-song flow?

My answer here will be a little evasive, rather a kind of a rhetorical. Is there a thing called Indian English? An English with its original nuances compromised? With inappropriate occurrences of a-an-the’s? With antiquated expressions and overuse of clichés? Even in India do we have something called standard Indian English? The other day I read in a certain blog: a fellow from Chennai has commented that Oriyas speak English in a weird fashion. I contested it giving examples of how ‘link’ is pronounced as ‘ling’ in Kerala, ‘give’ as ‘gee-you’ in Andhra, ‘three’ as ‘tree’ in Tamil Nadu, ‘Property’ as ‘praparty’ in Haryana, ‘school’ as ‘saw-cool’ in the Punjab… Is then the modern English the standard English? Go and visit a few literary sites and see how people write. To follow that I think one has to unlearn the kind of grammar one had learnt in his/her high schools.

So, what am I trying to arrive at? Oh yes, it’s about the style I have adopted in my book. Sure, it is in Indian English, the English I learnt from Wren and Martin grammar book in my secondary school, the flowery expressions in history books by Kettleby or A. L. Basham in my college days, the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the periodicals and newspapers in India, and so forth. Nowadays, I’m into the Internet in a big way, but then my English has not changed greatly. Even today I feel awkward to use ‘IMO’ or ‘IMHO’ in my e-mails, or ‘dat’ or ‘4u’ in my SMS. In that way I am traditional or a slow changer. My book will be more or less like that.

Readable? Oh no, it’s a difficult query then…looks like the question still remains despite my long-winded explanation.
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By
A. N. Nanda
Bhubaneswar
3-3-2007
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Having an Ear for Advice

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People tender advice, whether being asked or just like that, unsolicited. It’s a common societal phenomenon and it’s not always dysfunctional.

In the friendly evaluation phase of my book “The Remix of Orchid” I had got many such words of advice. There were fellows who opined that the words in the text-mass are a bit unfamiliar ones and I should write the way newspapers do—very simple and very easy. But which one among the newspapers and who are its actual readers? Do people buying their copies of the newspaper really read them? With their becoming more pictorial, glossier, and simultaneously less and less expensive day by day, people read them less and less. Many even think it wastage of time. It is sufficient if they just stroke those glossy pages for a sensuous feeling!

Another piece of advice was to change the title of the book from “The Remix of Orchid” to “Andaman Tales”. The author of this brilliant piece of advice was not anybody who was only inclined to speak non-seriously. He is a professor of English who has predicted a great future for my book. But then I had already made up my mind about the title by then. Besides, “Andaman Tales” sounded over simple and a very ordinary type. Compared to that “The Remix of Orchid” is a zany kind of expression, capable of generating instant curiosity.

So, I am not in favour of making things over simple or what? Am I writing modern poems that need not be fully understood or telling stories people would relish reading?

Definitely, readers are very important for any writer, but the question remains: who exactly are the readers? In the words of the marketing gurus which segment of readers do I have in mind while presenting these stories?

Before I’m able to give any convincing answer to all these rhetoric questions, let me cite the instance of “Harry Potter” series of books. I think I’ve read as many as four of them. Honestly speaking, not all the words were familiar to me. Can I say that those all-time best-sellers are difficult and wordy? The minimum that can be said about the books is that they are well-written ones, if one does not want to broach the religious aspect of the works.

Another instance I can cite is from a book I’m reading: that’s “Beyond Belief” by V. S. Naipual. There are occasions I understand every word of a sentence, but not the sentence as a structure. Let me quote:

“And to beat, too, but only in my own mind, the figure called up from memory: the small, hunched, white-capped and white-clad figure in the sight-baffling gloom of Mr Wahid’s backyard or garden, the eighty-cents-a-month man (at present rates of exchange more like a twenty-five-cents man), called from his very dim verandah and his chanting class in Islamic law to stand before us, and meekly with bowed head to accept my rebuke for knowing only half the Koran at the age of thirty, when he had so little to do, and the village had built his narrow little house for him and kept him in such food as met his modest needs: an unlikely successor, in half-converted Indonesia, of the early Islamic Sufis and, before them, the monks of Buddhist times.”
[V. S. Naipaul, 1998, “Beyond Belief”, Viking, page 30]

There are three reasons why I should tell the above paragraph is perfect:

1) One Elizabeth Hardwick says in the blurb of the jacket, ‘One of the greatest living writers in English language. His themes, his vision of human destiny in our time, are composed with a perfection of language, a flawless structure—and above all a profound knowledge of the world.’
2) Naipaul is a Nobel laureate in literature.
3) MS-Word does not indicate any mistake in the above paragraph except the one below “Mr” and I know the mistake is not a regular one whereas the computer indicates it as such since the same has been set to judge everything on the basis of US English. (In Us English “Mr” should be followed by a dot where as it is not required in British English)

Finally, I decided to write what I was capable of. And with the realization that writing is not a matter of accepting advice, always.
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By
A. N. Nanda
Berhampur
02-03-2007
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