Extract from the forthcoming title, Longing, Belonging: An Outsider at Home in Calcutta by Bishwanath Ghosh

Extract from the forthcoming title Longing, Belonging: An Outsider at Home in Calcutta by Bishwanath Ghosh

THEN ONE EVENING, in the autumn of 2010, I found myself in the dimly lit confines of Trincas, the restaurant on Park Street. I was sharing a table—laden with bottles of beer and varieties of kebabs—with two men who were distantly related to my wife and were now my friends. The live band was in attendance, and all eyes were on the singer—a small woman, mildly plump, wearing a black cocktail dress that was short and tight.

‘How old do you think she would be?’ one of my companions asked.

‘Twenty-five, or twenty-six?’ guessed the other.

‘Are you out of your mind? I first came here some fifteen years ago and she was here even then. She couldn’t have been singing here at the age of ten.’

‘Then how old do you think she is?’

We all looked at the woman. Under the soft lights, it was impossible to even guess. We returned to the beer and the kebabs.

Later that evening, as we stepped out of Trincas, I asked the liveried doorman who had just saluted us, ‘That woman singing inside, how old do you think she is?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘Since when has she been singing here?’

‘Since a long time ago.’

‘How long?’

‘Very long.’

‘And since when have you been working here?’

‘Since a long time ago.’

‘How long?’

‘Very long.’

‘Still?’

‘I don’t remember the year, sir. When I joined, Usha Uthup was still singing here.’

A long time ago. This was an expression I was coming across often in Calcutta. And the ‘long time’ would invariably be traced back not to a particular year but to the lifestyle indicators of the time.

One waiter I had spoken to at Olypub, also on Park Street, had come from Orissa at a time when one drink at the bar cost Rs 1.75 and a cotton vest was sold in the market for Rs 1.25. A little distance away, on Camac Street, is stationed a cart that sells dal vadas. The joint is called Victoria Vada because the owner had started off by hawking wares outside the Victoria Memorial a long time ago—when the rail fare from Jaunpur, the town in Uttar Pradesh where he had migrated from, was seventeen rupees and a meal could be had for ten annas. And now the doorman at Trincas was telling me that he had come from Bihar when Usha Uthup was still the crowd-puller at the restaurant.

Men like these expected me to do back-calculation on the basis of nuggets their memory could serve. But how was I to know which year a cotton vest cost Rs 1.25? As I prodded them for more clues about how long was a long time ago, I realised that these people have been living in Calcutta, doing the same thing they are still doing, from the time I was born—even before.

They are still around, so are the places. Except the escalation in the cost of living and biological aging, very little change seemed to have taken place in their lives and, by extension, in the parts of the city they were serving. This also meant I still had a chance to make up for not having grown up in Calcutta.

At the same time I could not think of relocating to Calcutta, mainly for the fear that its charm may begin to wear off once I had become a resident. Surely there must be other ways of knowing a city where I could not be born but would like to die—someday—to eventually mix with the soil that had given me my surname?

So that night, even as the age of the singer had remained undetermined, I became determined to write this book. That way I could return to Calcutta soon—and return more often.

By the time I hailed a taxi from outside Trincas, my mind had already begun working on a synopsis—even though I had barely finished researching a book about Chennai I had signed a contract for and was a long away from delivering the manuscript. Looking at one city as a subject had given me the courage to look at another. In a way, I was going to follow the footprints of the East India Company—first in Chennai, then Calcutta.

‘SPEAKING OF ADS…’ by Kenny Deori Basumatary

Kenny Deori Basumatary

I sat on one of the footpaths in Mindspace, a BPO hub in Mumbai, looked up at the sleek buildings and thought to myself: if things don’t work out, I’ll have to look for a job here. This was in December 2007, when I had just moved to Mumbai, intending to leave my mark on this world through the frivolous pursuit of working in films.

 I told myself that I would go for a hundred auditions. If I didn’t get a single job out of those 100, then I would look for something more mundane. Like a regular office job. What a dreadful thought.

 So I started going to auditions. The first one I went to was for a dance film. The venue was a pretty large hall, with tea and snacks laid out for the hopeful, hungry masses of struggling actors. (I’m exaggerating). I was pretty impressed – wow, they give you food as well – nice! That good feeling didn’t last too long as I soon asked someone whether all auditions were like this and they said of course not.

 I didn’t get the role that I auditioned for there. In fact, as far as I know, the film hasn’t even been made yet, a fairly common occurrence as there lie many, many a slip between the cup and the lip when it comes to getting films made.

 Most auditions are for TV ads, so after that rare debut of a film audition, I started auditioning for ads. Fortunately, I didn’t have to toil through a hundred rejections before my first selection: a Godrej Washing Machine ad.

 According to the audition script, as far as I can remember, I was to play an actor receiving an award, walk on stage and wave at the cheering crowd, then yank the award out of the presenter’s hands and blow air kisses. I did a decent job of it – the casting director chuckled.

 An old Hero Honda catchphrase used to be – fill it, forget it. My policy for auditions is similar – do it, forget it. There’s no point daydreaming about what you’ll do with the money you get for this ad, because getting selected or not selected is completely out of your hands, unless, of course, you’re related to or good buddies with somebody in the production house or you know the right kind of dirty politics to play – wish I knew that.

 So I was pleasantly surprised and highly thrilled when I got the call that I’d been selected for the ad. Yahoo! My first acting job in Mumbai! Which cliché should I use – over the moon, on cloud nine?

 I was summoned at 8 am, and I dutifully arrived on time after a little confusion regarding the location of the location, and soon realised I was the only bloke there apart from the carpenters and electricians. Half an hour later, people started arriving; we had breakfast, and were then assigned to respective vanity vans. I shared mine with two other actors – Dr Sharad Nayampally and Nikhil Ratnaparkhi, whom you’ll easily recognise from several ads and also as Ali Zafar’s cameraman inTere Bin Laden.

 Wow, I thought, as I sat in the comfort of the air-conditioned van, actors are pampered, eh. My addendum to that thought now is: more than they deserve. Nikhil was called to shoot after a while, so I spent most of my time talking to Dr Nayampally.

 

Chocolate_Guitar_Momos

The hours went by. 10 am, 11, 12. They still hadn’t called us. Lunchtime. We ate heartily. Wow, lots of food – I was happy again. The afternoon went by. 2 pm, 3, 4. They still hadn’t called us.

 Anupam Kher has said, as an actor, you’re not paid to act – you’re paid to wait. Wait for the set to be readied, wait for the lights to be put in place, wait for the camera to be placed, etc., etc. Most regular folk would probably be bored to tears by the actual experience of shooting.

 At around 6 pm or so, we were finally taken to the set. Remember, I had been called at 8 am. So for nearly 9 or 10 hours, I’d been doing nothing but sitting on my arse and getting fat.

 Now, remember the part I’d auditioned for – the actor receiving the award? Well, it turned out that I’d been selected all right, but not for that. I was simply gonna be a passenger on a plane where Preity Zinta’s life-size cutout would be. No action, no dialogue, nothing. I was to just sit down in a dummy business class seat doing nothing but reading an in-flight magazine. All the doing would be done by the air hostess and Nikhil, who was playing Preity’s secretary. Talk about comedowns.

 As for being seen in the ad, well, between me and the camera were the following obstructions: one more passenger, the air hostess, Nikhil, Preity Zinta’s cutout, and the tiny aircraft window. And it was all over within 20 minutes or so. After about 10 hours of waiting. But that’s how shooting life is. No complaints.

 I stopped watching TV in 2004, so I don’t have one. As a result, I never got to see the ad, but I suspect that my appearance in it was limited to my left trouser thigh.

 Epilogue: I’ve managed to get quite a decent amount of acting work so far. My first decent-sized film role is in Dibakar Banerjee’s political thriller Shanghai, to be released next Republic Day.

 (Kenny Deori Basumatary is an actor, and his debut work of fiction, Chocolate_Guitar_Momos, has been published by Westland/Tranquebar.) 

‘EVERY COPYWRITER HAS A BOOK INSIDE…’ by Indu Balachandran

Indu Balachandran

Almost every copywriter in any advertising agency will tell you “there’s definitely a Book inside me…” Only it seems like very few actually prise that book out. (One possible reason: there’s always, but always, a super-urgent, serious-panic, life’s No.1-priority, ad campaign to get out of the way first.)

When you think about it, there’s no better training ground than Advertising to help one write a book that should be a potential best-seller.  Advertising trains us writers to first find a clear, compelling Idea around  what we wish to say.  Advertising teaches us never to bore our readers, to stay fresh and engaging.  Advertising hones us to look for human insights; and build the characters in the story around some universal truths.

This creative urge to ‘do it my way some day’ with all the training advertising provides, is true of ad film-makers too. After honing their craft at story-telling, usually within just thirty seconds – in which they aim to establish the scenario, characters, plot, dialogue, song, a twist in the end – ad film makers long for the unbridled space of a two and half hour feature film to say a good story with all the time it demands. And we’ve seen great examples of this happening, like ad film maker Rajkumar Hirani and his Munna Bhai films.  And of course there’s the sure-fire hit-film-maker-come-ad-man, R Balki, who debuted with Cheeni Kum.

Perhaps not many know that Salman Rushdie and Joseph Heller began life as copywriters. Salman Rushdie worked part time at Ogilvy to help pay bills, while writing his first novel, and is famous for his one-liner for cream-cakes: ‘Naughty. But nice.’ Joseph Heller worked on ad promos for TIME while plotting his bestseller Catch-22.

From our own crop of desi-Mad Men of the 70s, prominent personalities who’ve written books include Alyque Padamsee (A Double Life); Ram Sehgal (9 Secrets of Advertising), Ivan Arthur & Kurien Mathews (Brands Under Fire).  The prolific Anita Nair (Ladies Coupe, Mistress) was once a copywriter too. More recently we’ve seen the most insightful collection of observations on life, by Santosh Desai (Mother Pious Lady), once a celebrated ad man with McCann.

Don't Go Away, We'll Be Right Back: The Oops and Downs of Advertising

In the circle of advertising copywriters that I know, Cauvery Madhavan, a copywriter from JWT probably first got us all thinking: I too will definitely write my Book one day! This was following her two instant bestsellers, Paddy Indian and The Uncoupling.  Since then other friends of mine, Anuja Chauhan, Swapan Seth, Sunil Gupta (all ex-JWT copywriters) have written their witty, engaging, fast-selling books too.

And then there’s the ultimate copywriter-turned-bookwriter, James Patterson , the international best selling author. Once a junior copywriter at JWT New York, he has written an astonishing seventy-one novels in the last thirty-three years. His thrillers constantly hit the best-selling charts, and he sells more books than Stephen King, John Grisham and Dan Brown combined. Plus, he holds the record for the New York Times highest bestselling hardcover fiction titles by a single author: a total of sixty-three. Which incidentally, is also a Guinness World Record!

Call it inspiration. Or call it by its more primeval expression: envy. Nothing like a pang of good old jealousy to make one run right off to do something about that book that’s just waiting to get out.

(Indu Balachandran , former Executive Creative Director and VP, JWT Chennai  is the author of the newly released Don’t Go Away, We’ll Be Right Back: The Oops & Downs of Advertising.)

 

WRITING by Bishwanath Ghosh

Bishwanath Ghosh

Writing, to me, is a lot like having a bath on a freezing winter morning in a geyser-less bathroom. Since the water spewed by the shower is bone-chilling, you rarely have the courage to stand under it straight after getting into the bathroom.

You have foreplay with the water first: you show your palms to it and slowly wet your arms. If courage still shows no signs of showing up, you raise one foot under the shower and then the other. If courage is still elusive, you put your head under the shower and wet your hair. It is only when you are left with no more choices or are running horribly out of time that you finally decide to take the fusillade of chilling water on your chest. The torture lasts for a few seconds but after that you can spend hours soaping yourself under the shower.

Something similar happens to me when I get back home every night and switch on the laptop in order to write. I stare at the blank screen for a while and if nothing comes to my mind, I get up to fix a drink. It would have been easier if I had a Man Friday who served me a drink, but that would not have served the purpose. The idea is to let your thoughts ferment while you go about finding a glass and getting some water from the kitchen to pour into the whiskey.

Once I return to the computer with my glass and if inspiration still refuses to strike, I take two sips and try writing a sentence. That’s the test. If the first sentence is spontaneously followed by another and yet another, you are on. If not, you have to think all over again. And in order to think all over again, you try not to think for a while and look up the list of friends online on gmail.

"Chai Chai"

At one in the night, there are not many friends online, but those who are there are your kind: people kept up by an unexplained restlessness. They are drawn to the night like moths to the flame. It is only in the night that you talk to yourself: the rest of the day you are talking to others. And when two people talking to themselves talk to each other, you get sufficiently warmed up to stand directly under the chilling shower. By then, the alcohol would also have had its desired effect. Sentences start flowing.

I am sure the result would be the same, maybe even better, if one started writing at the crack of dawn, after a good night’s sleep, instead of midnight. Sentences will come to you if you summon them with sincerity: you don’t need help in the form of alcohol or online friends. But can’t help it. Just like you have a style of writing, you also have a way of writing. We are slaves of habit.

Also, in order to write, you need to think. What can make you think more than the silence of the night, the stimulation provided by alcohol and the solace offered by the invisible arms of an online friend?

(Bishwanath Ghosh is the author of the bestselling Chai, Chai: Travels in Places where You Stop but Never Get Off, recently translated into Marathi. His forthcoming title is Tamarind City: Where Modern India Began, a biography of Chennai, to be published by Tranquebar.)

ON MARRIAGE by Urmilla Deshpande

Urmilla Deshpande

Now here’s something I can talk about from a place of wisdom and experience. If, that is, you agree that this experience made me wise. I’ve been married for two decades, so I have no use for this particular wisdom, and I’m passing it along for someone who might need it. I could give a lot of advice on this subject. But, at this moment, with the limited attention span of most of you out there, with the flurries of distractions to distract you, with– okay, okay, here’s my advice on marriage: Don’t.

Now before you get all hot and bothered, try read the next bit: Not immediately.

So if I still have your attention, here’s what I am getting at. I am not going to talk here about my anti marriage-as-an-institution stance, as I hear the indignant cries of,  ’You’ve been married so long, what gives you the right… ‘ etc. (I’d answer that being married so long gives me the insight, but not now.)And I am not going to talk about sex and related flora and fauna. ‘What?’ I hear, ‘Where’s the fun in that then?’ Yes, no fun. But bear with me. What I am proposing is, that when two of you find each other, when you are sure you want to spend the rest of your blissful days together staring into each others’ eyes and doing the laundry together and, and, and, consider this:  Maybe, just maybe, if you stayed in that ‘you and I against the world’ cocoon for a bit longer, by delaying the marriage aspect of the relationship, it may last a bit longer. Why? Because, once you tie the knot, or exchange the ring, or take the vows, or circle the fire, or walk between the pews, or spit three times at the ghost, or, as I did, sign on three copies of the perforated government paper in front of three witnesses and a crow, then your relationship is fair game for the world.Friends. From both sides, dreaded parents-in-law, most distant of cousins several times removed, old aunts, great, grand, great-grand, and all manner of aunts and uncles. Neighbours. Grocery store clerks. Banks. The state. The church, temple, or mosque, and the deity or entity who rules it, and the mediums who convey their messages and rules to the newlyweds. Everyone, and I mean everyone, owns the relationship.

Seriously, I just think, if couples held on to their couplehood for a bit, if they gave their relationship time to grow and expand, if they kept everyone– the mothers and fathers and sisters, the government and god– out of it, I think they give themselves a better chance at succeeding in the long run. I think couples should marry after their first child is in kindergarten. I mean, imagine all the heartache and frustration which could be saved if the two of you didn’t have to listen to advice and instructions and follow random rules and be party to atrocious restrictions and if you were free to just be a couple. Imagine how much more confident and stronger and capable of saying ‘No!’ you would be as individuals and as a couple to meddlesome and well-meaning outsiders.

A Pack of Lies

I think a lot of the problems and resentments in a marriage come from external pressure in the early days. I think these resentments grow and grow like slow tumours. I think they are responsible for many many unhappynesses. I think delaying the legitimising and sanctifying of the relationship may just help.

I also know, from personal experience, that nobody learns from the mistakes of others. And although I say all this, I have very little doubt that societal, parental and religious pressures are far greater than common sense and instinct. Still, worth a try, what do you say?

Anyone there? Hmm. Guess you’re all off to buy rings and call wedding planners and such. Ever thought about having a big party at your twentieth anniversary instead? I’ll save that for another post…

(Urmilla Deshpande is the writer of Slither: Carnal Prose, A Pack of Lies, Kashmir Blues and co-editor of Madhouse: True Stories of the Inmates of Hostel 4 (IIT-B))

THE ROAD WELL TAKEN by Siddhartha Sarma

'East of the Sun' by Siddhartha Sarma

(A new post by the 2011 winner of the Bal Sahitya Puruskar of the Sahitya Akademi! Congratulations, Siddhartha!)

There are different ways of travelling. Some prefer their travel plans to be made by professionals, but personally I feel it takes away from the overall experience of a place if the itinerary has been made by somebody else.

Another way is to make your plan yourself, which gives you a lot of space to make matters interesting. Using this method, you can either choose to take the road many others tread, or go find your own, little-known places. It is entirely up to you.

If you are travelling using the third method, a lot of care needs to be taken about what you carry. Backpacking is the best method, for the obvious reason that you might end up walking a lot, and having both hands free is a big plus. Also, your back can carry a lot more weight than both hands.

As a backpacker, you will soon realise the necessity of packing light. Unless you are the sport of person for whom clothes matter a lot regardless of where you are, you will eventually learn to manage on the barest minimum, depending of course on the duration of your trip. Also kit yourself appropriately for the weather and the climate. This last will not be difficult to do, but there are some places you might find yourself in with vast temperature differences over relatively short distances, and these can affect your body some.

Be ready for different kinds of food, sometimes not cooked in exactly hygienic ways. If your stomach is not accustomed to different kinds of food, it will limit the kind of places you can travel in.

An essential you have to remember if you travel alone is a first aid kit, with medicines for headaches, nausea (if you are into high-altitude travelling) to other ailments which might strike just because the water or food is different. It pays to watch your back, particularly when there is no one to look after you.

Finally, after you’re done packing and have reduced the weight to a manageable level, remember that the new or exotic place you’re travelling to is someone’s home, or homeland. Respect the people and try not to get on their wrong side, and you will find that, no matter where you go, you will meet the most hospitable people you ever expected to encounter.
Once you do that, you will find that your pack weight is much lighter too.

(You could check further details on how to set out travelling in my travelogue, East of the Sun).(Siddhartha Sarma is the writer of The Grasshopper’s Run (published by Scholastic and Bloomsbury) which went on to win the 2009 Vodafone-Crossword Award, and more recently, won the Bal Sahitya Puruskar of the Sahitya Akademi. Westland has recently brought out Sarma’s East of the Sun: A Nearly-Stoned Walk Down the Road in a Different Land under its Tranquebar imprint.)

‘THE BUTLER DID IT’ by Siddhartha Sarma

Siddhartha Sarma

Next to erotica, crime thrillers must be the most difficult to write a half-decent story in. The advantage is, if you write a bad piece of erotica, people assume it sort of reflects on your, shall we say, personal life. No one has yet accused a crime thriller writer of being a bad murderer.

The principal difficulty in writing a crime thriller is to decide which part to concentrate on. As far as I have gathered, the plot, the characters and the technical details are all significant in crafting a whodunit. Some concentrate on one of these three, and the really good ones are known for this concentration. Of course, one needs to do it properly to be, if not in the same league, in the same frame as the masters.

Sherlock Holmes is a character created solely to be a superb analyst. Doyle’s stories, therefore, do not pause much to reflect on the characters, but rather on the elements of the case. As Holmes himself says, in The Sign of the Four, he regards a human as “a unit, a factor” and nothing more.

In contrast, Christie’s novels have a lot more human elements to them. The characters are explored to some extent and the crime is not solved so much by a brilliant little piece of deduction as by gradual probing, not unlike that of a surgeon.

PD James comes somewhere in between. You get introduced to all the suspects, and some amount of details go on about the characters’ motivations. There is more to the plot than just the crime.

Police procedurals, on the other hand, are a more appropriate reflection of how crime is solved in the real world. People like Michael Connelly bring their experience covering crime or being involved in the myriad branches of the
crimefighting world into their plot, and carry the reader along towards the denouement.

Of course, one can introduce elements of the fantastic or eerie into a crime thriller, but here one needs to tread even more carefully. People like Janwillem van de Wettering’s Grijpstra and de Gier conduct lengthy dialogues on the meaning of life and such, which are woven deftly into the plot.

In other words, it takes all sorts to write a good piece of detective fiction. I have not, I must clarify here, read much crime fiction from India, but I hope the samples available do justice to the genre. Like fantasy, as I pointed out in my
blog a while ago, crime fiction is such a small pool in India that only the best need to be published, and some heavy winnowing is in order so the pool does not get muddied.

(Siddhartha Sarma is the writer of The Grasshopper’s Run (published by Scholastic and Bloomsbury) which went on to win the 2009 Vodafone-Crossword Award. Westland has recently brought out Sarma’s East of the Sun: A Nearly-Stoned Walk Down the Road in a Different Land under its Tranquebar imprint.)

 

ON SEX by Urmilla Deshpande

Urmilla Deshpande

Since the last blog was about marriage counselling, and since my last book was carnal prose, this blog could only be about one thing: cooking.

No, I’m joking, don’t touch that remote. It’s sex.

I often joke to my friends that Indians don’t do sex. And they counter with the billion plus population. But I really do want to re-iterate: Having children has not much to do with sex. Not of the kind I’m talking about anyway. Just like food: we eat for survival, but we also eat for pleasure. And, we have sex to procreate, but we also have sex for fun. Or to express our feelings for a partner. Or to feel good. Or to make someone else feel good.

I was asked, after Slither came out, why Indian writers, most writers, in fact, fail at sex writing. I hadn’t thought about it, and I’m not qualified to make that judgement. But I did say that the answer might lay not in our skills as writers, but as sexual beings. I want to use this forum to explore this idea, and I encourage readers to join in the discussion. Let’s keep this serious folks, and not get all silly about it. Indians have a tendency to get silly about all things sexual.

For example, I was recently asked about a kiss in some film – I’m told there’s a controversy about whether or not it should stay in the film. Not having seen a Bollywood film in years and years, I had no idea this was still an issue. Especially as the song videos that play in the one Indian restaurant in my small town look to me like pornography in full clothing. I mean they are doing it all. All but penetration, that is. I think I’d rather watch honest pornography. There is something inherently ugly about the non-sex in the Bollywood song and dance. It makes me cringe, in spite of the undeniable beauty of the stars.

Seriously, is sex a problem in India? I have not lived there in over a decade, so I don’t know anymore. But, here’s an anecdote from my former life: I had this boyfriend. I assumed he felt about me the way I felt about him. We were young, and not in love of course, but definitely attracted in the way the young are. But, he wouldn’t physically respond to me in any way. In fact tried very hard to keep our relationship in public places. I mean movie theatres and restaurants. I finally asked him point blank what the problem was. He said, ‘after marriage’. I was appalled, and stopped seeing him. I was accused of being sex-obsessed, and various other things too. You know, the usual. But from my point of view, what if I married him – or anyone – and then found out he had limbs where he should not, or that he smelled like old socks?

You tell me, don’t you test drive cars before you buy them? And more important, don’t you learn to drive, and get a license even before that?

I remember being interviewed by Society magazine. I was asked how I felt about living with my boyfriend (different one from old socks). I know now the question was about sex, and not about sharing the utility bill. The journalist wouldn’t ask directly, and I didn’t catch on. I really just didn’t. I assume today lots more people are living with people they have sex with, and marriage is not a prerequisite to sex anymore. But now, that we are having more sex (of the non-procreating variety), are we having it well? Creatively? Satisfactorily? Most important, are we getting experienced enough to write about it well?

That’s where I was going with this: how are we supposed to write about something we know nothing about? Something we are not allowed to know about? or at the very least have to pretend not to know about?

(Urmilla Deshpande is the writer of Slither: Carnal Prose, A Pack of Lies, Kashmir Blues and co-editor of Madhouse: True Stories of the Inmates of Hostel 4 (IIT-B))

HELP THYSELF by Vijay Nagaswami

Dr Vijay Nagaswami

When I first started writing a self-help book several years ago, I paused and asked myself what on earth I was trying to do. Would people actually read a book to find answers to burning questions? Would the quality of their lives really change by merely reading a book? And in our country, at that? Given that we operate on a ‘panchayat mode’ when it comes to conflict resolution, would we be willing to buy a book to deal with our issues? I still had no clear answers to these questions when my first self-help book was launched in 2002. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried, for  the response to not only my first book, but my subsequent books (Westland’s ‘New Indian Marriage’ series) was unexpectedly remarkable. It appears that educated urban Indians are perfectly prepared to use the self-help route to find answers.

However, as one of my email interlocutors asked me, “If a marriage is coming apart or one has experienced extraordinary stress, wouldn’t one do better seeking professional intervention than reading a book?”  In an ideal world, yes. But, in our country, there is still a strong stigma attached to seeing psychiatrists or counsellors. A book, though, can be read in relative anonymity and just like one finds it easier to open up to a stranger on a train, one might find it easier to establish an in-absentia-therapeutic relationship with the author of a book. Compared to suffering in silence, reading a book, seems to me a pretty good option.

Expecting people to resolve all their marital or other problems by reading a book would be foolhardy. But what I do expect to happen when one reads a self-help book, is that it might jump-start a process of seeking solutions. Rather than believe that nothing can be done, readers do feel empowered enough to seek solutions by talking, listening, reading some more, and maybe even talking to a therapist. In other words, reading a self-help book could be a very vital first step in moving out of the victim mode that most of us fall into when faced with a crisis, to a survivor mode that gets us out of emotional quagmires. But let us not for a moment believe that a book can offer us neat and pre-packaged solutions. I think the trick to using a self-help book is not to expect it to magically resolve all one’s problems, but to rather think of it as a piece in a jigsaw puzzle (a corner piece if the book is a good one). In other words the book is not going to change your life. But it can empower you to change your life.

That self-help books are here to stay is a well-documented fact of contemporary life. The truth is, we all need help and advice, whether it’s on cookery, gardening, adoption, relationships or healing the soul. The sooner we come to terms with this reality the better. Before we dismiss this tendency towards using self-help books as a ‘western’ phenomenon, let us remind ourselves of the phenomenal success, in our own country, of the Chicken Soup series and others like it. Obviously Indian readers are willing to invest in self-help books. In the final analysis, if we learn how to use self-help books well – as sources of inspiration and mental stimulation than of solutions, we might well find ourselves browsing for these online or at our friendly neighbourhood bookstore, and not just at airport bookstores while we wait for our delayed flight to be called.

(Dr Vijay Nagaswami is a couples counsellor. He has written two bestsellers for Westland’s ‘New Indian Marriage’ series: The 24 X 7 Marriage and The Fifty-50 Marriage. His next in the series, about handling infidelity, is 3′s A Crowd, out in November.)