Virtual Work

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"He's dead now,  but his restless spirit still wanders about the dark deserted house. And as it passes before the only occupied room, where I am working, it stops to listen at the door and find out whether that boy is really busy or whether he is chatting with that woman..."

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That was Nino talking about his dead father.

The operative word in that para is 'working'. Nino calls his writing 'work'.

I guess most professional writers also feel so...they make their living out of their writings. I have read accounts of many reporters who interview celebrity authors (for a few minutes) and post their interaction in newspapers. 

A question invariably asked is:

"Sir, what are your working hours?"

The answers are varied, like:

"From breakfast to lunch"

"From lunch to dinner"

"Whenever I get the inspiration"

A celebrity Telugu writer was once asked:

"Ma'am, who is your favorite author?"

"None...where is the time for me to READ?"

Having never worked for a living at any time of my life, I don't know what real work is. My teaching at IIT KGP was fun. Yes, I did work during exams, four times a year...setting question papers, invigilating, and checking answer-scripts. And I hated that work. Otherwise it was all fun.

After my retirement, naturally, I refused to work. Instead, I took to daily blogging for the last 5 years. And I can say that blogging is a gift of God to crazy retired chaps whose heads are full of unremitting chatter. But for blogging, I would surely have been a pain in the neck to my son, daughter-in-law, and Ishani, not to speak of the departed soul of my wife. 

Early in the morning, chatter starts. And it goes on and on till it somehow organizes itself by evening into a couple of fairly readable paras. When the 'Publish' button eventually gets pressed and the blog seen in its posted form, a short-lived thrill ensues. And then there is a drained feeling...till next morning.

Blogging nowadays has become for me a 'Nishkama Karma'...'Desireless Action'. By now I have ceased to care if my blogs are read or not. That doesn't mean that I don't check the Stats on the blogspot...I do it, all the time. But that is more out of curiosity than thrills. 

Nowadays I find that there is a 'referral' system of 'likes' that has taken over the viewership. All of a sudden a long-forgot post starts getting thousands of hits within a month for no apparent reason. A couple of years ago I posted a series of 27 blogs titled, 'Gole Bazaar, 1960s'. I now find that one out of these 27, the one about Kamal Sports, has suddenly risen up to a viewership of 3000 and more and going strong like a whirlwind.  3000 is a whopping number for my type of nostalgic blogs. I re-read the post a couple of times to see if there is anything special about it, but I find none, compared to the others. 

Crazy!

Once in a while, my daughter-in-law, Sailaja, asks me to collect and publish all the Muthukur blogs in a book form. She was born and brought up in Nellore which is 12 miles from my seaside village, Muthukur. And it is natural that she relates well to those posts.

I don't know how folks become celebrity authors. Getting one's first book published is like the conundrum of a mad man trying to get married:

"No girl will marry him until he is cured of his madness...and no one can cure his madness until he gets married"

I guess most of the best-selling authors started off with a God-Father who recommended their first book to his publishers; like Graham Greene to RKN. But for Greene, RKN would have languished as a school teacher in Tamil Nadu, teaching English and drilling his students.

Nowadays however, if you have the money to spend, you can become a published author very easily. There have sprouted several Self-Publishing Houses ('selfus', like the regrettable Obama 'selfie').

They invite you to send your manuscript to them as an attachment. And they take care of the rest. Their services come in several Packages, starting from Rs 10,000 to Rs 1,00,000 or more.

The lowest Package just prints and delivers you 20 copies in a bound form. No editing, no formatting, no proofreading, no nothing. 

But you are now an Author. What you do with those 20 copies is your business. Like I did with my Ishani booklets, you can send a few to your friends and relatives and keep the rest in your showcase to show them off to visitors. Since your manuscript goes out of your reach once you send it to the Self-Publishing House, you can only imagine the quality of the output...just pray! 

Then on the services keep increasing by the Package, i.e. by the money you send them.

First they format and print...

Next they also edit...

Next they also proofread...

Next they get you a copyright...

Next they permit you a dedication...

Next they get you an ISBN...

Next they convert your book into an e-thing...

Next they advise you how to sell it via Amazon and her cousins...

Next they print posters and business cards...

Next they get for you a VIP and  arrange a Book Release Function...

What more can you want?

Yes, there is a 5% discount for Senior Citizens and Women...

I will go any day with my bald-headed Varun Printer at Hyderabad who lets me sit beside him everyday till I get what I want exactly the way I want it...bloomers and all...

Cheers!

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