A Meeting with Sheela Reddy

By Manjushree Thapa

Going from Kathmandu to Delhi, one is always struck by the great, teeming life of India, where political events have both local and global relevance; where the English and regional language presses churn out staggering numbers of copy; where non-government institutions function smoothly, even vibrantly; where the private sector is burgeoning; and where civil actions are launched with punch and vigour. This time around, I went as a Penguin India author, much impressed by the publishing industry. Three weeks after its Kathmandu release, my book had passed through the hands of distributors and was in stores throughout India. Penguin had informed the media about the book. A few papers had reviewed it, and other papers and magazines wanted to meet me. As a result of the media coverage, sales had been brisk; the first print had sold out. And through all this, neither Penguin, the bookstores, I, the newspapers and magazines, or readers felt we were doing each other a favour: everyone was getting what they wanted from the book. This, I thought to myself, is a functioning book industry. (By contrast, in Nepal, there is hardly any relationship between publishing houses, the media, bookstores, and the reading public. And authors almost never see royalty checks).

Sheela Reddy, Special Correspondent at Outlook magazine, was quick to complicate my impression of Indian book publishing. We met for lunch at one of the shiny eateries popping up all over Delhi, the kind that boasts a salad bar rather than a tandoori oven. The eatery seemed to match Outlook’s sheen-and-gloss spirit. 

Reddy is direct, clear minded and—as the person who oversees Outlook’s book review pages—extremely well informed about India’s publishing scene. "Penguin had free run for five years, before HarperCollins set up in India," Reddy said, running over the general books scenario for me. "Penguin pioneered publishing affordably priced fiction, and made it available throughout India. A lot of young authors came up who had no hope, before, of getting published. When HarperCollins set up, it waged a price war—its titles are still notably cheaper than Penguin’s. Picador set up last year. Roly’s is another new international publisher. Of course, English textbooks and academic publishing have much longer histories. Oxford University Press (OUP) is the oldest of the international publishers in India. It got Indian academics to start writing for a general readership, and it encouraged general writing in the process." OUP doesn’t, however, publish general writing itself. Instead, its former editors Ravi Dayal and Rukun Advani have begun their own publishing houses. Along with India Ink, Katha, Kali for Women, Seagull and others, Ravi Dayal Publishers and Permanent Black are the leading national publishers of English language general books.

Almost all the major English publishing houses are located in Delhi. The output of all the English publishers of India amounts to approximately 10 books a day. "Despite this," Reddy says, "only English writers who are published abroad can afford to live as writers." She names Amit Chaudhury, Pankaj Mishra and Arundhati Roy as a few examples. Within India, the publishing industry can’t afford to pay writers a living royalty. (Of this I was already aware.) Most surprisingly, the print runs—often of a mere 2,000—are tiny for a country with such wide English literacy rates. Most international publishers are taken back by the small amount of money to be made in Indian publishing. "It’s really a fledgling industry," Reddy insists. "It can’t even support a books magazine."

Still, the media takes a heartening interest in the world of books. Before joining up to do features writing in Outlook, Reddy worked, initially, as a political correspondent. Burned out by the demanding pace of that work, she shifted to HarperCollins. This move from the media to book publishing is common in India; it is less common for someone to then return to the media. It was only after shifting to Outlook that she began to specialize in books.

Outlook and India Today have always had a books page. No respectable magazine can really do without one. But recently, Times of India did away with its books page—without having its sales suffer. According to Reddy, this proves that the papers are not dependent on books; but publishers
need papers.

"For example, Outlook receives an average of 5 to 10 books per day," she says. The magazine has no in-house reviewers; and in fact, none of its reviewers could live off reviewing books alone. Selecting books to review is not easy. Reddy laughs, "I spend most of my time fending off calls from publishers and authors." She bases her decision on a mix of books that have recently come in.

Having closely observed the publishing industry, Reddy has strong views on its flaws. "It’s almost impossible for someone without the proper connections to get published," she says. "The book publishing world is very insular."

She is also quick to criticize some current business practices. "Publishers should put some of their profits back into developing the industry," she says. She takes the general practice of making authors pay for their own book launches as one example. "Most writers are writing simply to earn glory—and publishers are exploiting their egos," she says. Since the publishing houses have the most to gain by high book sales, they should bear more of the brunt of publicity costs. "They should do more to extend the size of their print runs and sales."

Reddy’s critique extends to other new practices such as having readings at bookstores. "They’re good for bookstores, and they should be done, but they’re getting more and more freakish," she says. She takes as an example a recent panel discussion held by a Delhi bookstore, ostensibly to sell a new book by the psychologist Sudhir Kakar. The discussion was titled: Do men and women love differently? It attracted so many listeners that there was hardly any standing room. "It was just a circus," Reddy says. "And the author didn’t even speak. People were complaining. He was just moderating the discussion."

Still, she admits that the prospects of the publishing industry are good. "Basically, publishing is cheap here," she says. "World-class English skills come cheap in India. Editors and writers are cheap. The presses and materials are cheap. Obviously, there is a profit in publishing. There are more publishers today than there were before. There are more bookstores all over India. And there’s more space for growth."

In other words, there is a system in place, and it could do more, but it does pretty much function. (Whereas in Nepal….)

At the end of our lunch, Reddy and I parted, she to go back to her world of chain-smoking
editors, deadlines and cubicles and I to return to the higgledy-piggledy, get-by-any-which-way-you-can world of a writer.

(M. Thapa is the author of   The Tutor of History)

Taralbad Comes Alive in Essence

By Pushpa Acharya

Taralbad, a poetic movement that began in 1983, is a fusion of the poetic theories and philosophies of Wordsworth, Eliot, Sartre and others. This movement came as a reaction against the tradition of writing difficult and obscure poems. One of its exponents, Thirtha Shrestha pulled out of the movement because he wanted not the manifesto but his poems to speak about taralbad. How right he was.

Taralbad is dead and over. But the taralbadi urge in the poet Thirtha Shrestha is alive and kicking. His latest collection of poems Jindagi Ko Kurukshetrabata is taralbad writ large. And his poems are like what the manifesto of taralbad would like a poem to be: Short, simple and beautiful. Sample this from "Pahad ra Samaya":

Ghans katne ketiharu/ Ghans katiraheka thie/ Sangai sangai kura pani katiraheka thie/ Tinlaai pattai bhaena/ Ghans katda katdai/ Kurakatda katdai/ Bainsh pani katieko kura.

His choice and composition of words are superb. His hold over the arrangement of words impeccable. No wonder that his poems have pleasing and rhyming effect. In the above poem, he has used the verb katnu in describing different actions. This has enabled him to achieve a musical quality in the poem. He repeates words and phrases, uses alliteration and assonance, and pauses and occasional end-rhyme to glide his lines by. Here is an example from "Annapurna Waripari":

Annapurna himal chha
Aanna apurna chha
Bedana purna chha.

A poem for Thirtha Shrestha, as to every taralbadi, is a Wordsworthian phenomenon—a spontaneous overflow of emotion. When something he sees knocks at his sensibility, his poetry forms. Even a person doing a mundane sort of work evokes his sensitivity. That’s why his poems do not seek grand subject matter, neither do they take a long time to get composed. However that doesn’t mean that his poems aren’t thematically serious. In fact, the poems under the "Pahad Series" have a philosophical ring to them:

Pahad Hunu Bhaneko/Matoko lakshyan haraunu hoina/ Pahad Hunu Bhaneko/ Dhungako bajan gumaunu hoina/ Juna dina/ pahadle/ Ma aafai uviyeko chhu bhanne thanchha/Tyo dina/ Usale/ Aafai uviyeko tharatala gumauchha.

"Kala Hatharu Ko Geet," "Balakharu Ko Sapana," "Aago" show his love for freedom. In "Satta Ko Andhyaro Gallima" and "Latokoseraharu," he criticizes the corrupt leadership and their demagoguery. A decade of democracy that could not usher in social transformations disappoints Shrestha and he burns with patriotism: Ma sanga yatikhera aago chha/ Ma aago ko geet gaairahechhu/ Tapain ko mutu ko kunai kunama/ Desh chha bhane/ Tyo aago tapaai sanga pani hunuparchha/ Aaunos / Samabet swar maa aago ko geet gaun. (Aago Ko Geet).

In poems like "Bhaigo Durgadai" and "Annapurna Waripari," he speaks for those who are poor and hungry; he weeps for those who go abroad and fritter their youth toiling in the foreign land; and he shares their misery with their family. "Geet Lekhe Pani Nalekhe Pani," "Abhab Ko Aago" present a clear picture of Nepali life besetted with hosts of problems. "Sunkeshri Raniharu" and "Sindhupalchok" are the symbolic expression of the tragedy experienced by girls trafficked to the South of the border. Sapnako Rajkumar concerns the plight of women widowed in the prime of their youth. All these poems explore the unhappy side of our society.

Shrestha uses many metaphors, symbols and images, which come from Nepali culture and society. In poems like "Bhai Tikako Bhachchieko Mukhundo," "Padherniharu," "Saahinli Tamang" and "Kaali Damini," he uses images and symbols rooted in Nepali culture at times twisting them (he has that knack). And we find that Sunkeshari Rani of "Sunkeshari Rani" is not the queen with the golden hair (but a harlot). Ditto the latokosero of an ancient folk tale that misleads other animals into destruction. He also has the ablility to transform hackneyed ideas into fresh images. The use of "sea" to represent vastness is a stock idea. Howover, the poet presents it amazingly: Manchheka tirkha bhanda hajaraun guna thula sagarharu. Even the metaphor formely used by other poets becomes another metaphor in his hand. In one poem, Shrestha has used Columbus paaitala (Columbus step), a metaphor coined by Bairagi Kainla, in discribing a different situation.

Simplicity is Shrestha’s hallmark. The simplicity in his poems springs from the language of everyday use that he uses so effectively. Simple and ineffably good, "Devta" is one of the best poems included in the book. It reinforces the Taralbadi philosophy that stresses, like Sartre and Nietzche, human superiority over god. It also reitierates what the Taralbadi manifesto failed to do— the logic of short, sweet and simple writing.

Jaba Jiban Dekhi Thakera

Mandirko dhokama lampasar parchhu ma

Devata aayera

Usaka navayeka hataharule

Malai Sumsummyaudaina

Malai Usaka navayeka

Ankhaharule Karuna Barsaudaina

Ma swayam Samartha navayeko bela

Ma bhanda asamartha hunchha devta

Ma swayam kamjor bayeko bela

Kasari Baliyo hunchha mero devta.

(P. Acharya writes Nepali poems)

Managing Insects

By Jagannath Adhikari

Higher incidence of insects and pests in crops has led farmer to use stronger and more poisonous pesticides. The adverse impact of this use is being seen in the food chain and the environment of intensively cultivated areas, particularly cash crop areas. Though the level of pesticide use in Nepal is lower than other agriculturally advanced countries like India, pesticide misuse is widely reported here. On a per hectare basis, Nepal’s pesticide use ratio, though uneven within the country, is six times less than India’s.

Farmers are increasingly using insecticides and pesticides to control insects. But insects have become resistant. This has posed a challenge, which is yet to be conquered. What this shows is, controlling insects and pests through pesticides and other chemicals is like fighting a war with nature, which, scientists have now realized, is not easy to win.

It is therefore time to look for human health friendly ways of managing insects and pests. Two recently published books —Insect Control through Herbs and Integrated Management of Vegetable Insects— are directed toward this end. Written by one of the senior entomologists of the country, these books show how the use of pesticides can be reduced through eco-friendly practices. The books also shows that the eco-friendly practices will be helpful in reducing the cost of crop production, retaining the multiplier effects of farming within the community and producing healthy food. As the books are written in the Nepali language, a wider section of our society can use them in learning the harmful effects of pesticides and methods which require no or minimal pesticides in solving various problems related to insects.

Integrated Management of Vegetable Insects gives an account of the main insects that affect vegetable production in Nepal and how they can be handled with the minimal application of pesticides under what is popularly known as ‘integrated pest management.’ The book discusses the problems caused by insecticides and pesticides in the beginning. Then it traces the history of ‘integrated pest management’ and the principles and practices behind this method of pest management. The book argues that pests and insects are part of the ecosystem and there is no way of totally controlling them. But the damage they do can be minimized to an economically acceptable level through ‘integrated pest management’. The book also discusses various insects and their biology, damage to crops, and ways of reducing the impact of insects through a combination of chemical, biological, physical and herbal methods. This book will be particularly useful to farmers specializing in vegetable production through excessive pesticide use.

Controlling Insects through Herbs discusses the various plants available in Nepal that can be used in reducing insects and pests, the experience of farmers who use these plants and studies conducted all over the world. The book asserts that there are 2,400 plant species, which can be used in one way or another to reduce the incidence of insect damage to crops. Out of these species, 324 are available in Nepal. And out of the 324 available in Nepal, 13 species will be sufficient, when used singly or in combination, to reduce the impact of almost all of the insects on various crops. To my amazement, I found most of the crops with insecticidal properties tobe commonly grown spices, herbs, shrubs and fruit and fodder trees. But sadly some of these plants are slowly being replaced by new plants introduced while modernizing the farm.

These two books deal mainly with technical issues in entomology. However, they also raise various questions for policy makers, scientists, and agricultural experts. Some experiences related in the books show that there are ways of producing chemical-free food. But much exploration hasn’t been done in these ways of production. Even research hitherto supported by the state or donor agencies has focused mainly on the production of more potent chemicals and the development of modern varieties through gene manipulations. If the resources that were allocated to research in modern farming were available for the development of chemical-free agriculture, more innovations would have been made in ecological farming for the benefit of farmers and the people.

Though attention has been given to the policies regarding ‘integrated pest management’ of late, conventional technology is still being widely used. This has to do with the erroneous assumption of planners and policy makers that it is the market that can lead to the desired changes. But can such a sensitive area of public health and common good be left to the market, which is so imperfect and often manipulated by big business houses, particularly the multinational companies? This is a question best left to polito-economic analysts.

(J Adhikari is currently working on Environmental Justice)

Mishima Wanted to Exist but Never Could

By DB Gurung

Yukio Mishima, one of Japan’s most prolific and spectacularly gifted writers, chose to die a fanatic death. On November 25, 1970, he committed harakiri after exhorting the Japan Self-defence Force to rise up with him "against a postwar democracy that had deprived Japan of her military and her soul." A deluge of speculations surrounded his suicide: the Japanese themselves were scarcely better able to fathom what Mishima did to himself, let alone the rest of the world. Some had a ready-made explanation that he had acted simply out of patriotic passion; others whispered that he was a masochist who might have enjoyed the pain. John Nathan, Mishima’s translator and biographer, surmised that it could have been principally because of his erotic fascination with death that he passionately wanted to end his life. If not, Mishima must have been so obsessed by the beauty of his own genius that he yearned to destroy the temple, his physical body, about which he had reflected metaphorically in his novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. In the novel, a young Zen Buddhist acolyte, Mizoguchi, is so obsessed with the beauty of the golden temple, Kinkakuji, that he chooses to burn it and himself down. The story sparks a powerful psychological drama in which the dream of beauty and the feeling of alienation merge together.

His vast literary legacy prompts us to believe that his artistic grandeur falls in the class of Proust and Radiguet. He is like Dostoyevsky in the exploration of destructive characters; and Stendhal, in his sharp psychological analyses. He had rounded out forty novels, eighteen plays (all lavishly performed), twenty volumes of short stories, and countless write-ups and literary essays. Thrice, he had been nominated for the Nobel Prize and won almost all the literary prizes his country could confer. Besides being an international celebrity with incessant zest for life, Mishima was a man who always seemed singularly capable of enjoying the rewards of his prodigious talent and his nearly superhuman will and deeds.

Given Mishima’s colossal literary output, it seems futile for me to treat all of them here. So I will pick up only those (mostly novels) I have come across. At thirteen, his first novel was published in his school magazine. Forest in Full Flower is a tour de force, dazzlingly accomplished. Here the world-weary sixteen-year-old narrator turns his implacable longing into a personal and privileged destiny. This is Mishima’s endeavour in evolving an aesthetic theory in which ‘beauty’, ‘ecstasy’ and ‘death’ all stood equal. "Thieves" allegedly supervised throughout by Kawabata, portrays the glorification of his addiction to fantasies whose luminous object was death. It’s a sardonic commentary on love. Akihide Fujimura, the son of a nobleman, a recent graduate of Tokyo University, is a dreamer of such intensity that he walks on the false plane of reality, and bears a phenomenal capacity to deceive others and himself about his real feelings. He develops a grand passion for a beautiful debutante, Yoshiko, who also loves him initially but refuses to marry him. Emotionally shattered, Akihide runs across another girl, Kiyoko; she too is a victim of love tragedy. The two are united by their mutual resolution to die. And they make true their resolution when they commit suicide on their wedding night.

His ‘Greek Fever’ culminated in The Sound of Waves, probably inspired by the Daphnis and Chloe story. A handsome fisher boy, Shinji, meets young Hatsue, a diving girl newly arrived on the island called Song Island—and first love sprouts. They confront each other’s nakedness across a bonfire in a cave, and kiss for the first time, but both agree not to go further, taking comfort in the promise to wait until the wedding night. There are hurdles in their way, but these, Shinji overcomes, and the lovers get betrothed. The Sound of Waves is the only book that Mishima wrote, which is unremittingly normal in a universal sense, and is perhaps his most healthy effort. Among those popular novels, A Misstepping of Virtue stands on top. It’s utterly entertaining and deftly done, based on a love affair between a
young married woman and a much younger bachelor. It’s scandalous. But the book did a brisk sale.
The standard Japanese expression for ‘adulteress’ became ‘lady misstep.’  And Mishima became a household name.

Thirst for Love reminds one of a statement Mishima once made in 1948: "I’m desperate to kill a man...I began writing novels so I wouldn’t end up with a death sentence...." In the novel, Mishima spill is own homicidal passion through a heroine named Etsuko. Etsuko, a woman consumed by a desperate need to be loved, loses her husband and becomes a mistress of her aging father-in-law. However, she harbours a deep passion for her stolid farmhand, Saburo. She forces him to meet her in an orchard late at night, and finally drives him to reach for her. He hesitates. She screams. Meanwhile, the old man comes out with a mattock, but stands irresolutely not knowing what to do. Etsuko seizes the mattock and slices through the peasant’s neck. This novel pulls in a lot of the nostalgia D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterlay’s Lover. Kyoko’s House, which meant so much to him, is an unsettling and a terrifying book.

The autobiographical novel Confession of a Mask that smokes out the discovery of his homosexuality and the root source of his ‘nihilistic aestheticism’ and his long essay "Sun and Steel," the most significant document of the writer’s behaviour and a search for his personal identity, were therapeutic efforts to keep himself writing in order to live. But ironically he couldn’t.

On the morning of his death, Mishima had delivered the last volume of his tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility, to his publisher. Critics hailed The Sea of Fertility as a monumental breakthrough and Mishima’s testament to the world. Spring Snow, the first book of the tetralogy, which evokes Japan’s twilight era in the first decade of the 20th century, was followed by Runaway Horses, which is a chronicle of patriotic conspiracy and the roots and nature of Japanese fanaticism that led to war. Here Honda is the honoured judge and the legal defender of conspirators. The Temple of Dawn carries the narrative through the aftermath of World War II. Honda goes to Thailand and obtains an audience with a young Thai princess. In pursuit of enlightenment, he takes an arduous pilgrimage to India, and returns a different man. The final novel, The Decay of the Angel, in its climatic drama, reveals the decay of Japan’s courtly tradition and Samurai ideal, and the essence and value of Buddhist philosophy and aesthetics. Now being senile and a wealthy man, Honda adopts a sixteen-year-old orphan boy as his heir. In the final scene, he struggles down a slippery path to Gesshu Temple. The empty flood of sunlight heralds not only Honda’s death, but also the terrible death of Mishima.

(DB Gurung is the author of Echoes of the Himalayas)