After writing a novel at
the age of sixteen, I almost stopped writing for 20 years. A few years back I
was once again bitten by writing-bug and after almost two years’ struggle, only
now I can see the end of tunnel and some light. During this period of struggle,
I have come across all kinds of people- writers, editors, publishers, agents,
and their ideas, opinions (negatives and positives), their whims, their
arrogance, they humility, their kindness, their revenge (even on an unpublished
author!). So this post has been going on in my mind for a while, and at last, I
thought I must write this for my friends, for those who are dreaming,
struggling, and striving to make their place in this world.
There are three points
that have been intriguing me:
First, I am surrounded by a
number of people, among them some are writers already, some are in the process
and some have the potential to be, successful or unsuccessful, that is not the matter
of consideration at all and even if it is, no one can predict that. But it is
really interesting that all of them want to be writers. At first, this scenario
bogs down an aspiring writer. But I think it should not be. And punch line is,
‘Eh! Everyone wants to be a writer!’
Second point is more
intriguing, everyone who is related to book world has their own opinions.
General people often talk about falling readership, publishers talking about
falling sale, readers of rising price, writers of difficulty in getting
published or inability to sell their books. And punch line is, ‘Who reads book
these days?’
The third, the most
interesting point is, amidst all these claims and counter claims, the number of
publishers, writers and number of books published each year are on the rise.
Literary agents or agencies, earlier limited to the west, have made impressive
entry into Indian publishing world. It
is true that books shops are closing down but it is also a fact that several
other platforms for book selling have emerged. The number of successful writers
may be decreasing but those who are successful are breaking all records of book
sale. And punch line is, ‘Oh My God! He got 5 crore rupees in advance!’
So what future holds for
us?
We can’t deny that
everyone has the potential of doing something creative and story telling is
quite common. What is a story? Just an incident told in an interesting manner. Now
that can be told orally as used to be earlier or in a written form, be it as story,
play or novel. There are other mediums too but basically it is just a story.
And it can be told by anyone, even by an illiterate person.
Recently during my visit
to hometown, I was talking to one of my relatives, an illiterate one. There was
a feud in the family and she took almost half-an-hour to describe a simple
incident. You would think, it would have bored me no end. No, not at all. The
way she narrated the episode, with shades of emotion, with use of gestures, and
intricacies of language, I was left astonished at the end of her narrative. I
still wonder how she could tell so beautifully. Had she been educated, she
could have written a wonderful story or novel or would have been a marvelous
actor. Mind it, that was only a tiny incident of her life.
That means all of us are
story tellers, and therefore all of us have the potential to become writers. The
other day I was reading a blog post by Karan Bajaj, author of The Seeker, in
which he had quoted an American business strategist Benjamin Gilad, “There are 313.8 million potential
writers out of 313.9 million Americans.”
I think statement applies
to India also. In fact, it suits more to us, because we are numero uno in
gossiping. If applied, India can have at least one billion writers or story
tellers, considering the fact that almost 75 percent people are literate in the
country. But we must include the illiterates too, because some of them are
amazing story tellers, like the one I mentioned. Hence they have the potential of becoming
writers.
If it happens, I think, it
would be a win-win situation. Just consider, if we have a billion writers, we
will have a billion readers too, simply because, reading is a must for the
writers. As much one reads so much chances of becoming a good writer. Whatever
subject, whatever genre, one will have to read the books. In my opinion,
without reading, it is simply impossible to become a writer. So, my calculation
is 1 billion writers= 1 billion readers. And if a reader reads only 50 books in
his life, we will need 50 billion books. Isn’t that a huge number? And with
this writers will have no problem of readers. Some will get thousands and some
will get millions but no one will be without readers.
What we need to do is to
promote people for reading and writing. You too may have people around you, who
have the potential to do something creative in their life and are struggling to
make it happen. This world is full of Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Chetan Bhagat
or Karan Bajaj. The other day when I was reading about Karan Bajaj, I thought
of Neeraj Bajaj, my friend who can write a masterpiece, and reading Pankaj
Dubey I thought of Shankhdhar Dubey, whose satirical Farzinama is already being
talked about and is having his readers in fits and has generated a large fan following
even before publishing it in a book form. And Raj Kamal Jha reminds me of
Ranjan Kumar Jha, another friend, whose every one- liner, we wish to preserve
for posterity. But all depend, how they use their potentials. Every line of
action has its own trials and tribulations and they will have to face them.
So dear friends, let us
read, let us write and let us get published. Reading and writing will end only
with the end of the world. Paper production will closed down but books publishing
will not. Instead of hard copies, tangible pages, we will have soft copies, sliding
pages on kindle, tablet, big mobile, laptop and desktop, but it is granted that
neither reading will end nor the writing will stop. Those who talk, let them
talk, we just need to read and write.
What is good or bad,
should be left to readers. We need all kinds of books: interesting and boring,
thrilling and dull, soothing and irritating, because only bad can define good
and vice versa. And do keep in mind that most of the successful writers today
are the ones who have been rejected by most of the publishers.
So, get ready now, take
you pen or pencil or tab or laptop or desktop, whatever you have and start
writing. India need one billion writers, one billion readers and 50 billion
books and these are minimal targets, maximum can be anything. The sky is the
only limit.
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