SHORT STORY: A mini anthology

Recently, my colleague and I completed the editing of Deluge: Stories from Northeast India. It was a challenging task, to say the least, but also enormously fulfilling.

This was especially when a multi-national publisher accepted the manuscript and decided to publish it in two volumes.

Relaxing, after we had finally submitted the edited manuscript, strangely, I kept thinking not about the many wonderful stories and charming characters in it but about the many writers we had encountered who were not a part of it. Some of them, in particular, still make me laugh out loud now and then. Wouldn’t they make a diverting mini anthology if I were to tell their stories? Let’s see.

The first person to give me a rude shock was Fadiba (obviously not her real name), a woman writer who had just brought out her debut novel. The novel did not receive much critical attention, and the few reviews that I read had only shredded it with the iron claws of mockery and scorn. Yet, oddly, it was also shortlisted for a major national award. Thankfully, it did not win. It would have been a bad joke. Having read the disparaging reviews, we were not too keen on including anything by the author, but since she is from the region, we thought we might as well give her a chance to prove her calibre. I called her, introducing myself, explaining our project, and politely requesting a short story. I put her on speakerphone so my colleague would also hear.

Without so much as a word of greeting, she asked, ‘How much are you paying?’

I said, ‘Umm… This is actually a labour of love for us. It’s not a contracted project. No publisher has asked us to do this. We are doing it on our own, although two of the biggest publishers in the country have already shown very keen interest …’

‘How much can you pay?’
‘As I said, this is a labour of love … We don’t have any money to pay anyone right now. We thought …’

But she was not concerned with what we thought. In a tone that clearly told me what a presumptuous pest I was, she said, ‘Then I cannot give you any story! I don’t contribute without payment! Sorry!’
And she disconnected.

My colleague was shocked. She could only repeat, ‘What?! What?!’
‘God!’ I exclaimed, too surprised to say anything more. My colleague became quite hot. ‘Who is she to behave like that?’ she demanded. ‘She has brought out only a single book, and she thinks of herself as what? One of the greatest in India?’
‘God, but what if everybody demands money from us?’ I asked. ‘We might have hatched the idea, but without the wings of goodwill, how will it fly?’
My colleague was still upset. ‘How can people behave like that?’ she repeated.
‘That’s what a shortlist can do to a bad writer,’ I replied. ‘But say, why should she measure her importance with money? Should a writer be so mercenary? And that too, for a pittance?’

Then, the lighter side of the incident struck us, and we began laughing, genuinely enjoying the opportunity to have found someone like her.
‘This is very interesting,’ I said, recovering my spirits. ‘Let’s call another.’

Another was a writer, writing in a regional language. He was a big man in the small world of his literature but hardly known outside that world. But I suppose he didn’t know that. We only came to know about him because one of his translated stories was published in an anthology.

We thought the story was not too bad and decided to sample more of his stuff.
He had a deep, booming voice. A real macho man, I thought. Putting him on speakerphone, I introduced myself, telling him my name.

‘Hmm!’ he responded.
I explained our project to him.
He said, ‘I’m in Russia now. Call me again after I have come back!’
‘When will that be?’ I asked.
Ignoring me, he enquired, ‘What book is this? Again?’
‘Oh, it’s an anthology of short stories from the Northeast …’
‘Hmm. Publisher?’
‘We don’t know yet, but Penguin and HarperCollins have shown keen interest in it. It will be the most comprehensive anthology of short stories from the region so far …’
‘Hmm,’ he interrupted me. ‘I have also published a collection of short stories… in English… by a famous publisher…’
‘What famous publisher?’ I asked innocently.
Ignoring my question, he said, ‘It will be released by a very famous writer—Mr Ruskin Bond! Do you know Mr Ruskin Bond?’

People have told me that I’m too quick to anger. Like granite, flying sparks when hit just a little bit. This guy has an ego like a puffed-up pig’s bladder! I will prick it with the pin of sarcasm. Imitating his deep voice, I said, ‘Mr Ruskin Bond? What do you think? Do I know or don’t I know? Or should I know only of one Bond—James Bond?’

Amazed, he said, ‘You don’t know of Mr Ruskin Bond?! He is the most famous novelist and writer in India! In the world even! He will release my book! In Mussoorie! You call me back when I return to Guwahati!’

I have also published a collection of short stories… It will be released by a very famous writer—
Mr Ruskin Bond! Do 
you know 
Mr Ruskin Bond?

With that, he disconnected, and we laughed and laughed and did not stop laughing till we parted in the evening.

My colleague once told me about a writer friend she met at a literary function in Delhi. After being ignored by a few luminaries at the function, her friend loudly said, ‘People don’t know what a big writer I am. When they come to know, they feel humbled and try to fawn over me.’ We never called him back. We did not want to fawn over him.

There was one more character as mercenary as Fadiba, the first one. She was not a creative writer but had translated a few well-known authors from her community. We’ll call her Thena. When I called her, Thena was very excited about the project. ‘Gosh! Just the thing I need!’ she gushed. ‘You know, I have translated scores of the best short stories by the best writers of my community. How many can you publish? I will send you eight! Now, now, I will send.’

‘Good, good!’ she gushed. ‘And how much will you pay me?’
‘Haa? What’s that?’ I asked, stupefied.
‘Payment! How much will you pay me?’
‘Oh, I thought …’
‘How can you think anything like that? Translators have to get paid, no?’

As with Fadiba, I started talking about how the anthology is a labour of love, but she cut me short. ‘No, no, no! This will not do! Writers, translators, editors, all of us have to be paid! And a good sum, too! Publishers are behaving like extortionists…’

‘That’s it, you see? We don’t have a publisher yet. What if we share our editors’ fee with you? Will that…?’

‘No, no, no! I don’t want your money! I want the publisher to pay me and pay me well!’
‘What to do? We don’t have a publisher yet.’
‘In that case, I will withdraw all my stories! Except one, since you said I would get a contributor’s copy!’

For the second time, I said, ‘Haa? Withdraw?’
‘I’m taking back all my stories except one.’

When I was a kid, I was given a fistful of 
marbles by a much older boy for giving his love letter to a girl whom he fancied. Later, feeling his loss too acutely, the boy came with some of his friends to ask me to return the marbles. When I refused, his friends held my arms while he 
tried to retrieve the marbles from my pockets. 
I kicked and bit and struggled, but finally, the boy got his marbles back. But not the girl, because I told her about his real intention towards her. One day, I even taunted the boy, from a distance, ‘No marbles, no girl, Rubberman!’

What Thena was doing reminded me of that childhood incident. She had given me a fistful of stories only to take them back. However, this time I did not struggle. I only said, ‘Take if you must. What to do?’

My colleague said, ‘God! And I thought she was so generous!’
‘Perhaps I should blame myself for not clarifying things.’
‘No! She is the one who should have clarified! She should have told us they were not for free!’
‘Anyway,’ I soothed her, ‘she is still giving us one.’

Much later, I wrote to inform her that a multi-national publisher had accepted our manuscript. I requested her to formally send us a written permission for the story she had allowed us to use. To my utter surprise, she raged and ranted by return mail and ended by saying, ‘I told you I would withdraw all my stories! Why are you still pestering me?’

When I reminded her that she had given us one of the stories, she said, ‘I’m taking it back also! Anthology of stories from the Northeast, indeed! I despise the word Northeast!’

When my colleague read the email, she was livid with rage. ‘What kind of behaviour is this? She gave and then took back everything except one! And now, she is taking back even that! What will we do? We have no stories from her state! And all because she doesn’t like the word “Northeast”? What’s wrong with it?’

The Northeast is, of course, a much-misunderstood and much-abused word! For instance, ‘it is not the homogeneous province it is made out to be by many. Its seven states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya,

Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, are inhabited by such an assorted conglomeration of peoples, with such a melange of cultures, languages and religions that it would be simply an injustice to make any generalised statement about them.’ And yet, if we are in a region called the Northeast and write from it and about it, I don’t see what else we can do apart from explaining as I have just done.

‘What a lousy person!’ my colleague was saying again. ‘Write, write something cutting, will you?’

I thought for a while. I found her whimsical arbitrariness detestable, too, but what cutting remark would I write to a woman? Finally, I decided to send her this brief note: ‘Dear Thena, I’m so sorry to have lost your stories. Working with you has been an enlightening and rewarding experience. Enlightening because we have learnt so much more about human nature, and rewarding because your withdrawal made us look harder for another translator. I’m happy to tell you that now we have found a better one, indeed, an excellent one, whose English is impeccable, whose motives are altruistic and whose manners are much more ladylike…’

And we did find such a translator. How lucky that monopoly cannot have a stranglehold on things literary.

Another translator, whom we shall call Gretma, was also the cause of much trouble for us. We were frantically looking for good stories and translators from a particular community when someone recommended Gretma to us. Like Thena, Gretma also readily sent us two stories, which she had translated earlier. Because the stories were previously published elsewhere, they were well enough edited. My colleague and I gave each other the thumbs up.

Then, one day, Gretma called us and said, ‘Hi, can I also send you my own story?’

‘Oh, you also write?’ I asked happily. ‘Please do, please do! We are so happy to get more stories from your state. When are you sending?’

‘I’m still giving it the finishing touches,’ she replied. ‘I’ll send it as soon as I’m done.’
My colleague and I high-fived each other. Things were proceeding so smoothly, finally.
Gretma sent us her story a few days after that. I asked my colleague to read as I shut my eyes tight to rest them for a while.
After reading to herself for some time, I suddenly heard her utter, ‘What?!’

Opening my eyes, I also cried, ‘What?’
‘Is this a story or what? And what kind of language is this? She is a teacher, isn’t she?’
I started reading. It was not a story at all. I would say an ill-written school essay if I were considerate.

With a heavy heart, I called Gretma. ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I’m calling about your story…’
‘Ah! Did you like it?’
‘Ehh, ehh, it still needs to mature, you know?’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, her tone becoming aggressive.

‘Umm, I mean, it still needs some time to be ready… our publisher will not agree…’
‘So you are rejecting it? In that case, I’m withdrawing my translations as well!’
Because I had put Gretma on speakerphone, my colleague heard everything and uttered her, by now familiar, ‘What?!’
Gretma heard and said, ‘Yes, I’m withdrawing my translations! If my story is not good, then how, how can my translations be good?’

I felt like saying, ‘Because they are not yours,’ but only said, ‘What to do? We need to exercise strict quality control. We are answerable to our publisher.’

‘And how can you insinuate that I, a professor, cannot write? Anyway, it has been nice working with you! Goodbye!’

I have come across many professors who cannot even speak. But why quarrel with her? ‘It has been nice for us too,’ I said, although it was anything but.

‘God!’ my colleague cried. ‘Such funny people!’
For a time, we were quite disheartened. But people have told me I can be as resistant as a weed. My colleague, too, is a strong woman. There and then, we started calling people from Gretma’s state and happily found a first-rate translator after a few days.

A friend from Gretma’s community nicely summed up Gretma’s behaviour. She said, ‘Who would do a shameless thing like that, na, Ap?’

After Gretma, we encountered another odd character. He was actually a very close friend of mine. Earlier, he used to help me quite a lot with this and that. This time, too, he promised me many translated stories from his state. But he never did. Every time I called him, he kept promising to help soon. Fed up, I said to my colleague, ‘Let’s forget him.’

‘But why does he keep promising if he is not helping?’ she wondered.
To that, I said, ‘He’s a person who can never say no but can never do yes!’
We had a good laugh and immediately tried to get in touch with the wife of a famous author, whose works have been converted into movie hits, and so on. The friend who gave us her number told us that she was the only surviving relative of the author.

I called the lady, putting her on speakerphone as always. When she said, ‘Ello!’ I began speaking to her in English, trying to introduce myself. But she cut me short, saying, ‘Hindi me bolo!’
‘Hindi?’ I yelped.
‘Haa!’

I don’t know much Hindi; how could I discuss copyright permission with her in Hindi? I asked my colleague to speak to her in Hindi or Assamese.
She refused. ‘No, no,’ she said, laughing, ‘you talk. I want to hear you speak in Hindi.’
I began speaking to the lady very slowly. ‘Mei, Professor Ap, hu. North-Eastern Hill University se … Mere Hindi samaste hai?
‘Haa!’
I breathed a sigh of relief. She understood. I ploughed on. ‘Hamlog, kahania ka kitab, Northeast se, compile karte hai … Samaste, na?’
‘Haa!’
‘Aap ka husband ki kahani bhi, use karte hai, hamlog …’
Suddenly, she interrupted me, her voice quite aggressive, ‘Toh?’
‘Toh, is kahani keliye, aap ke publication permission chahiye…’
‘Mei kui kahani, fahani, malum nehi! Meine phone aur mat karo!’
Saying that, she disconnected, and we were left crying, ‘What?! What?! What was that?’
And we burst into resounding laughter, holding our stomachs and running onto the terrace because we felt our laughter would suffocate us otherwise.

A long time after that, I began feeling quite sorrowful. There is a story in our anthology about a wife taking revenge on her dead husband, a writer, by making a bonfire of all his manuscripts. What if the same fate awaits us? I began to feel pity for ourselves. I voiced my fear to my colleague. ‘What if our spouses also do the same to us?’
But that only sent her into another long fit of laughter.

The next day, we had a look at our contents page. ‘We need one or two more Khasi stories,’ my colleague observed.
I agreed. I said, ‘Apart from the writers we have chosen, there is another whose short stories, I think, are passable in English.’
‘Call him.’
I called, putting him on speakerphone. When he said, ‘Hello!’ I introduced myself: ‘Hi, Bah So and So! Bah Ap here!’
‘Ap, Who?’
‘Ap Jutang …’
‘Who?’
The line was absolutely clear. I said again, ‘Ap Jutang Shadap.’
‘Who?’
Feeling insulted, I decided to ring off before I exploded. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ I said and disconnected.

My colleague stared at me open-mouthed. This time, she could not even say, ‘What?!’
Later, she asked me, ‘Why did that fellow behave like that? Doesn’t he know you or what? But who would not know you in Shillong?’
It would be impossible for him not to know me. We belong to the same society of Khasi authors. We have met several times and have participated in many literary programmes together.

‘He knows me,’ I replied. ‘And to the best of my knowledge, he has no reason to hold a grudge against me.’
‘Then why did he say, “Ap, who?”’
We have a phawar limerick in Khasi that says:
Ooooo!
U langtylli langteh,
Uba teh hu mawbynna,
Nga phah kylli pham treh,
Pha duh ei ka deng khoila,
Hoooi kiw! … Hoooi kiw!
(Sturdy grass, grass to bind,
Bound to a monolith,
I sent an offer, you turned it down,
To wear the earrings, you lost your chance.)

These are indeed cases of missed opportunities, and all because of what?
One day, an acquaintance told me at a funeral gathering, ‘I’m sorry, Bah Ap, please don’t mind! But I don’t like writers, especially famous writers…’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Swollen heads! Like jackfruits!’

Unfortunately, this seems to be true of 
some of the friends we have encountered. Our labour was sweetened, however, by the courteousness of some of the best-known writers from the region.
When we wrote to them, they were only too happy to contribute. They even said they were ‘honoured and delighted’ to be a part of the book. Theirs was the sweetness of oranges:
golden oranges
sweetness
to the pith.

We will remember them with gratefulness. The others, we will remember with great delight.

(Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih is a renowned poet, author and academician)

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