[This "interview" is in three parts and since all of the parts are meant for a wide readership, these are classified safely under Humour category instead of using catchy committal phrases for categories like Novice Advice or Social Inquisition.]
My life?s absurd Odyssey took me, in the recent past, decimetres close to the co-ordinates of a book presentation by its author and publisher. Sufficient time has elapsed since, for me to brew now these fantastic replies, on behalf of the then hapless, gentle, author. The ingenious queries posed to the author by the literate mob are presented almost unaltered with selective exaggeration. I assume the author and the publisher, if they read this, would share again the smile with me for our shared sarcasm on these queries at the event.
And I begin. There the event happened amidst people, whose ancestors were deemed illegal aliens by their grand-pre-ancestors, in the land now called India. Breathes there the Author with soles well trodden, amidst the literary confines of the wisdom shop; Stands there him, naked in all his literary fingers; Lifting his head, up from his thoughts, pausing for the questions from the chairs around, bracing and posing…
Are you experienced (as a writer)?
Since this question has many existential and metaphysical implications that explicitly imply far reaching conclusions not only in particular on the writer?s personal side, which is useless and selfish, but also in general on the Literary Word, which is equally useless and ruthless, I would like to express myself in a daringly baring fashion throwing front, back and sidelights on some of the mysterious corners of the murky abyss of my mind. So the audiences with lighter hearts are asked to close their ears or leave this gathering. For the rest of the strong-willed intelligentsia, I try to prove my experience with the following descriptions of myself, which, by any established standards of Classic Literature Author Identification scheme, would undoubtedly classify me as one. As the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the vomiting.
To begin with, I consciously dress shabbily with one ?hand? of the full-sleeve shirt nonchalantly rolled above the elbow while the other is cuffed to the wrist in defiance to existential subordination. With a writer?s cultivated arrogance, I smear lots of red and blue ink on my shirt pocket (I buy ink in retail, as drops), in the un-webbed gaps between all of my 19 and odd fingers (I am ambidextrous on both hands and legs) and parts of the cheek around my mouth unreachable by the licking tongue. To save Paper (from my writing), I resort to write in English (fewer alphabets than Tamil) using a second-world lap-top, which I carry in a cloth-bag straddling my shoulder. The laptop prints by randomly substituting one vowel for the other (and never the typed one) and all the consonants in bold. When read, this gives my writing a fresh literate Liverpool accent. However, my mother tongue is two-feet long.
The hair on my head is a bushy, mushy, cushy, shrubbery vineyard, complete with a cuckoo and a wood-pecker nest. Naturally, all the stories I write are heard from the grape-vine but for the One Who Flew over the Cuckoo?s Nest. While talking to you, I wear Oxford glasses and ogle through it with intelligent eyes, at a general point somewhere around you. Then I get up and bump into you, feel equally annoyed, and go on to write utterly other-worldly essays like On the Degeneracy of Man as a Social Construct and How to Use your Myopic Bump to open your Third Eye. Nobody reads these seminal works, but one doesn?t need to read Franz Kafka or Deepak Chopra to know they are great writers.
Notwithstanding these professional setbacks, I have also written 562 and a half travelogues about my to and fro Drunkard?s Walk trips in Chennai – between Adyar and Anna Nagar via West Mambalam, each time travelling in a different auto-rickshaw. My first outing was a one-way trip from the airport. All of these travelogues are soggy, poignant essays, never failing to make a philosophical point, understood by everybody else.
Pause… A slight sound of clapping from one hand is heard, which avalanches into a thunderous ovation. Outside the shop in which the event was being held, it rains…
[Wait for more fantastic replies to actual queries in Part II.]
