I am up in the air. I just got done with a 10-city publicity tour for 'Land Where I Flee', my delicious new novel. Some of the launches (why do we call them that after the first, err, launch?) happened at literary festivals (yes, yes, English-speaking India’s favourite places to be seen at) and others as stand-alone events.
The past two months have been a blur of Gangtok-Delhi-Kathmandu-Delhi-London-Wales-Dhaka-Kolkata-Delhi-Goa-Bombay-Chennai-Gangtok-Kalimpong-Calcutta-Delhi-Bangalore-Pune-Bombay-Sri Lanka travels. I spend more time at airports than I do anywhere else. I get that sense of homecoming every time
I enter an airport. It’s like one going into the embrace one’s alcoholic parents.
I am a writer.
You wouldn’t think so if you looked at the number of words I have written in the past six months. I have, in fact, spent more time travelling to, from and attending book-related events than I have on writing. And literary festivals have, of course, been among these events.
Ah! Festivals – where do I begin? How I love them. How I loathe them. There are so many of them. Far too many of them. There was this fest where we panelists angered the audience because we declared that we didn’t have a responsibility to become spokespersons for our communities. There was this other festival where we were heckled. And there was yet another one where someone drew a sketch of me – the triple chin diplomatically dwindled to a double chin – but wouldn’t sell it to me.
And there are these festival parties – the bane of my existence – where we dissect our sessions and diss the poor writer who shared the panel with us but isn’t present at the party. Had he not rambled, it would’ve been a perfect session, we slur. And the moderator, we spit, ummm, wouldn’t it have been better if she had actually read our books?
Every festival in the region has a session on the South Asian writer’s identity. And every festival has someone asking you whom you write for. Autopilot answers help. Well, sometimes.
Wait a second, what’s that? Ah, ah, ah, a review. It declares 'Land Where I Flee' the best thing to have been written since Hamlet.Wait, the publicist is on the phone. Put it up on Facebook right away, she pleads. Yes, yes, on both the personal page and the fan page. And, yes, tweet about it, too.
I am a writer.
This is the longest piece I have written in three months. It’s choppy. It’s shoddily done. Don’t blame me – I need to run to chair a session on diaspora writing. After which I have to carpet-bomb my Facebook world with that other glorious review I received. My third book will be out in 2040.
Parajuly is the author of the recently released 'Land Where I Flee (Penguin India) -
Source:businessworld
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| Prajwal Parajuly |
I enter an airport. It’s like one going into the embrace one’s alcoholic parents.
I am a writer.
You wouldn’t think so if you looked at the number of words I have written in the past six months. I have, in fact, spent more time travelling to, from and attending book-related events than I have on writing. And literary festivals have, of course, been among these events.
Ah! Festivals – where do I begin? How I love them. How I loathe them. There are so many of them. Far too many of them. There was this fest where we panelists angered the audience because we declared that we didn’t have a responsibility to become spokespersons for our communities. There was this other festival where we were heckled. And there was yet another one where someone drew a sketch of me – the triple chin diplomatically dwindled to a double chin – but wouldn’t sell it to me.
And there are these festival parties – the bane of my existence – where we dissect our sessions and diss the poor writer who shared the panel with us but isn’t present at the party. Had he not rambled, it would’ve been a perfect session, we slur. And the moderator, we spit, ummm, wouldn’t it have been better if she had actually read our books?
Every festival in the region has a session on the South Asian writer’s identity. And every festival has someone asking you whom you write for. Autopilot answers help. Well, sometimes.
Wait a second, what’s that? Ah, ah, ah, a review. It declares 'Land Where I Flee' the best thing to have been written since Hamlet.Wait, the publicist is on the phone. Put it up on Facebook right away, she pleads. Yes, yes, on both the personal page and the fan page. And, yes, tweet about it, too.
I am a writer.
This is the longest piece I have written in three months. It’s choppy. It’s shoddily done. Don’t blame me – I need to run to chair a session on diaspora writing. After which I have to carpet-bomb my Facebook world with that other glorious review I received. My third book will be out in 2040.
Parajuly is the author of the recently released 'Land Where I Flee (Penguin India) -
Source:businessworld
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