By Devraj Singh Kalsi
Although I do not think I have the potential to write a controversial book that ends up hurting or offending the sentiments of readers or non-readers in any part of the world, the recent episode of a violent attack on an internationally acclaimed author has brought about a fundamental change. Now, I spend more time pondering over novel attacks and how to protect myself and my vital organs from fundamentalists and other hardliners stepping across the line to seek revenge and make the ground beneath my feet disappear. I do not dismiss the possibility of being attacked or hounded by a crazy fellow who does not like the colour of my skin or my hair or the aquiline shape of my nose or simply finds the entire set of features not aligned with his sensibilities. As a small-time writer who cannot afford a full-time, fully armed bodyguard shadowing me wherever I go, I must find other cost-effective ways to keep my creative head safe from bullets and pellets.
Whenever I go out for a walk during the day, I should wear a helmet even if pedestrians find it weird. I do not need to explain to them the hazardous profession I am part of, riskier even than that of a mining engineer. There are many themes and plots for stories and novels brewing in the cerebral pot, so I cannot risk a fatal hit. A broken leg can assure me of recovery, but a cracked-up skull will end my writing career before it could take flight. Some years ago, I remember being hit on my head by a super charged cricket ball that came at top speed. Just after this episode, my writing speed has suffered, and I suspect the neurological wiring suffered some irreversible damage.
As a precautionary move, I should also put an end to my flirtatious tendencies since the possibility of being attacked by a jealous lover haunts me these days. Attending marriage ceremonies, getting close to the bride, and wasting no time to put my hands around her slender waist for a joint photograph by edging out her obese husband from the frame is a risky act indeed. As waiters keep moving around with trays loaded with forks and knives, the offended husband could pick up a sharp one and jab one at me while hurling the most abusive words I fear to use for wily characters in my prose. Having identified this area of darkness, I should throw more light on my behavioural pattern and avoid building a huge female fan following that activates life-threatening impulses in men.
As a writer, my attempt should be to hammer harsh truths. But the sight of labourers and carpenters working with hammers and other heavy tools induces fear of another kind. Whenever I find myself close to such working class people, I feel an unexplained fear that the bitter truths have stopped flowing from my pen, and this has not gone down well with them. One of them running after me with a hammer to silence my voice, generates a fear that compels me to think of the need to get closer to the realities of life instead of being an escapist. I fail to convince them that the need to offer relief is far greater than reminding them of the depressing truths all the time.
Humour in my writing could also be the potential reason for disaster to strike me. This entertaining streak possibly offends some people who do not like a writer to be an entertainer but an eye opener. Cordoning myself from such a mindset is not easy. In the park, in the subway or in the market, such offended folks keep lurking and stalking. The scissors and blades at the barber’s shop generate a rising sense of fear as the most unlikely source of danger often shocks and silences you. The truth behind losing an eye[1] is an eye-opener in many ways and makes a lily-livered writer like me extra cautious when it relates to scribbling thoughts and ideas on the page.
Signing book copies and then being surrounded by a guy holding a knife near the throat is a scary possibility that has made me stay away from book launches forever. Losing the scope to interact with readers to build new bonds comes with the high risk of losing my bond with life. I do not know the reason why such a thing should happen to me, but the dire consequences of such a deadly attack compels me to stay away from the limelight and keep writing in anonymity.
My voracious appetite for humour could also provoke a person to serve me a lethal delight. The food delivery app guy who presses the doorbell and offers me a food packet with poisoned foodstuffs comes prepared to seek revenge for my attempt at making fun of food in my writing, calling it a violent act of mastication. As I imagine retribution, I should stop my writing contribution or funnel my sentiments through a different outlet. Survival of writers has always been challenging, but now it goes beyond the financial domain and includes his right to life.
More bubbles up my mind. An acid attack or any such violent attack truncates the life of a writer. Though the writer kills characters the way he likes, he does not know his end. Sitting in a café could bring on his sudden end as a biker enters and fires at point-blank range and leaves behind a note of apology.
My crime of poking fun and being satirical might trigger the dangerous sentiment. The offended fellow for whom life is no fun finds such humour unacceptable. And the writer must meet his end for making fun of his situation, for not focusing on serious issues, for the unlisted crime of offering light reads of little or no worth or value to readers who seek literary merit in words. Not being an ideal writer could be the reason for my premature end, with dollops of humour dying along with me.
[1] Salman Rushdie lost an eye in 2022: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-68739586#
Devraj Singh Kalsi works as a senior copywriter in Kolkata. His short stories and essays have been published in Deccan Herald, Tehelka, Kitaab, Earthen Lamp Journal, Assam Tribune, and The Statesman. Pal Motors is his first novel.
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