The Bonding of Writers

My name is Bond, Ruskin Bond. No, I am not related to James, the fictional character.

Yet I was spying around in Bhubaneswar trying to locate a hangout for authors when I overheard that the writers of the city were going to meet and discuss what bad writing was all about. That’s a happening thing! What else might a person like me want to cheer? Reading, writing, that’s what breathes life into me. It’s encouraging, there are ever more youngsters taking to reading and writing nowadays. I wanted to be there, to be part of this literary adventure, but alas, I had a ticket booked to Dehradun that weekend. I was bracing the heat of June, and if I didn’t get back to the hills, I would soon be hospitalised with heatstroke.

With only a day left for the event I departed the city, but not before setting up a CCTV camera in the restaurant where the writers were to meet. It took some conniving with the manager to fix a camera in the hall where they regularly met. This mysterious technology was beyond me, but I was pleased that, on the appointed day, the scene in that hall in Bhubaneswar played seamlessly on my cell phone in Mussoorie. A shade of guilt that I was prying into their personal activity pervaded me, but I kept that pinch aside and listened to them with passion like that of a novice writer. After all, they were not meeting in secrecy that it should knock on my conscience to be eavesdropping. I convinced myself that had I been present there, they would certainly have welcomed me to their fold.

They came in one after another until I counted 15 of them. That was a handful number and so many weren’t really expected to turn up. They had to draw in more tables and chairs to accommodate themselves. After some banter, they started the session by introducing themselves. Here, I must admit, I couldn’t catch the name of even a single participant though I could see their faces clearly. There were more young faces than older ones in the gathering, and I thought it best to identify them with an epithet that I thought suited them best. Among them I noticed a bald eagle, his face faintly familiar.

Bad Writing – what a catchy theme! Though I have come across quite awful writings that have passed for literature, I had never considered that as a theme. I came to deliberate upon it: if one picked up a bad book and removed the bad writing from it, what would be left would be a good novel. Simple. I was keen to learn and sat down at my study table and plugged in the earphone for better audio quality.

Miss Moderator-One began and others joined in with their opinions. I must say I was impressed at the seriousness with which they thrashed out the blunders that ought to be avoided. ‘Too much telling and not enough showing,’ read out Mod-One (that’s short for Miss Moderator-One. How often can one read out such long names?) and asked for views of the litterateurs present.

Bald-eagle was the quick to respond. ‘Bring in dialogues,’ he said. ‘Bring in dialogues and actions to describe a situation, rather than the writer narrate it in plain words.’

He was quite right, but I wished he had illustrated it with an example. As they progressed, I noted that most of what they discussed was educative, but devoid of examples. Same was the case with ‘viewpoint’ and with ‘use of the five senses’.

‘Not enough use of the five senses,’ pointed out Mod-Two and she ended it all too soon saying, ‘all five senses – sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste – of the reader should be engaged.’

But how?

Here’s an extract from my short story, Riding Through the Flames, where the writer connects to the senses of the reader. This is a scene of a jungle fire:

The smoke was thicker now, and Romi caught the smell of burning timber. But ahead of him the road was clear. He rode on.

...

Suddenly, from the side of the road, several pheasants rose in the air, and with a whoosh flew low across the path, just in front of the oncoming bicycle. Taken by surprise, Romi fell off.

...

Not only pheasants but smaller birds too were streaming across the road – parrots, jungle crows, owls, magpies – and the air was filled with their cries.

...

He could see the flames now reaching out from behind the trees on his right, and he could hear the crackling of the dry leaves caught fire. The air was hot on his face. Leaves still alight or burning to cinders, floated past.

Did you feel singed? That’s the difference between a driver and a writer? One transports people to a new location using his vehicle. The other transports readers to a new scene using words that appeal to the reader’s senses.

Pardon me, if I am being overly audacious in promoting my own work. I returned my attention to the conference. At the end of the table sat Mr. Reserve. He was noticeable for his composure. Though he spoke little, he had a confidence about him that spoke of his experience as a writer, yet he was ever keen to learn, quite unlike Bald-eagle who piped in at every opportunity to offer his wisdom.

The proceedings progressed between sips of iced tea, and that was something I missed. Nothing tastes better than iced tea, or cold coffee in a sweltering weather. I felt like reaching into my screen to touch the beverage glasses frosted on the outside with droplets of condensate. The waiter strolled up and down with hopes of a bigger order, but he had no idea that writers have little hunger or thirst when they are immersed in their craft.

And how could I miss Little Miss Muffet who sat aside and sipped her lemonade and bit into her muffins! The little girl, under the pretext of reading a book, was overhearing every word of the discussion and making mental notes. I believe she is a writer in the making. Every once in a while she would look up at the TV, and I would worry she would soon catch sight of the CCTV camera, positioned right beside it. My fun would be ruined. Fortunately her attention was divided between her book and the happenings on the table beside, and my prank wasn’t discovered.

Between Mod-One and Mod-Two, they covered many pitfalls that writers need to avoid. So by elimination they zeroed down to what they need to practise. The diligent ones took down notes. A few others borrowed pens, wrote nothing but played with them and finally pocketed them when they left.

My publisher had informed me of a gender shift in reading and writing. It seemed the 2 R’s out of three had passed into the women’s domain. I began a headcount for men and women in the group. Someone, who I thought was a man took me by surprise when she spoke. She turned out to be a lady and a professor too. Pardon me, Professor, I had noticed only your jeans, shirt and your hair trimmed short and not any other feature. So Miss Professor tipped the balance; women in this group outnumbered men, and were certainly more articulate. I have been told there are more women readers out there, and if my books didn’t cater to their liking my publisher would reject them. As I deliberated more, I found it was not so in the days when I was aspiring to be a writer. One would occasionally find a separate section in a library that catalogued books by authoresses. The genre called women’s fiction has all but vanished. There are glaring pointers to a contrary trend now. Books by women authors are topping the bestseller lists, popularity charts, and are bagging the awards. The Nobel Prize for literature for the current year has gone to a woman. No one can be happier than I. At long last I get to read and understand women.

Somewhere along, they discussed good books, bad books, good authors and bad authors. The focus, somehow, shifted to bad authors and they trashed a number of Indian authors. Then my name popped up and I was apprehensive: how would they assess me? I was relieved they didn’t think of me as all that bad. They, especially one starry-eyed youngster, seemed to like me. But I was to realise, soon afterwards, that the endorsement was not exactly for my writing skills but rather for different a consideration.

This Miss Starry-Eyes confessed to the crowd that she had fallen head over heels for me, and that she wanted to marry me. Did I hear her right? Yes, Starry-Eyes repeated her situation unequivocally. I put my mobile down, took a deep breath and turned towards the mirror. ‘Calm down, Ruskin,’ my reflection told me. ‘Look at you. You are 82. And she, no more than in her twenties, mind you!’

‘Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter,’ I quoted some author; I guess it was Mark Twain, and hoped the reflection would shut up.

But it continued to chide me. ‘Ruskin, stop looking into that silly phone. Get back to your desk and complete that story you are midway through. Your deadline is...’

‘It’s not a silly phone, it’s a cell phone,’ I shot back and picked up the phone. Live streaming was still in progress. I focussed my attention on Starry-Eyes. She was... well, she was the most charming one out there, to speak the least about her.

In a lilting voice she continued to recall the one encounter she had with me. ‘Actually, when I met him last, I made a buffoon of myself. I cried and told him I loved him so much and I wanted to...’ It was soothing to hear her endearing words, but I couldn’t place her. When did she meet me?

It was Bald-eagle who, unknowingly, came to my rescue. He asked her when that was, and she replied, ‘November,’ again in that childlike lilt as if it was yesterday. Then it came back to me. I had been to Bhubaneswar to attend a literary festival and she, with some of her friends, had accosted me, either in a bookshop or in some campus, I couldn’t recall the exact location. I was at a loss for words to comfort for her, but to my relief, her friends restrained her while my host took me aside. And the incident got out of my mind in the din of a tight itinerary.

Having heard Starry-Eyes a second time, a wave of nostalgia swept over me and I was transported back in time some fifty years. Girls, those days, made a beeline for guys like James Bond. And if you happened to be an author they would avoid you like birds shun bare trees. They knew you could always eke out a living, but that would be about all.

The meeting came to end and everyone filed out. Someone noted that she was glad the session had started on time and ended on time. And for my part, I noted that the discussion hadn’t deviated from its scope. Nothing unrelated had come up, (except for that little romantic reference by Starry-Eyes). It was heartening, especially when I contrasted it with the manner our parliamentary sessions are conducted. I wish they put writers in place of parliamentarians to conduct the affairs of the state. No sooner did I disconnect the live relay than my phone rang. It was Bald-eagle.

‘Hello,’ I said, pretending I was unaware of the goings on out there.

He was quick to inform me that I should talk to a desperate fan of mine, a lovely young lady, and handed the phone to the fan. I waited with baited breath and with the phone to my ear. Not she, I suppose, I tried to ward off mixed feelings.

‘Hello!’ It was that lilting voice. Before I could make up what to say, she spoke out the three words I had been dreading to hear. I thought I must caution her about this silly adoration pang she was going through when she beat me to it again and added quickly, ‘I can’t believe this is happening to me. I’ll faint.’

‘Listen Starry-Eyes,’ I said quite unaware that the phone had already got disconnected. ‘Fifty years ago when I spoke similar words... Starry-Eyes, are you there?’ I realised the line was disconnected, but I completed my sentence anyway. ‘...similar words to girls my age, they made up some excuse and wriggled out of my arms. Now I think it’s too late for me for any romance.’

I stared into the handset and knew Bald-eagle, at the other end, had run out of balance. The lesser said about writers’ income the better; they can barely maintain enough balance in their prepaid phones.

****

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Note: This is a creative work by Surendra Nath. The interactions with Ruskin Bond are purely imaginary and Mr. Bond has no knowledge of it and does not subscribe to the words and actions ascribed to him in this fictional piece.