It is a truth almost universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is a great writer. The world created by her in just six novels continues to regale generations of readers with tales of love, marriage and money, a sentiment which would be reiterated by substantial numbers of her fans all over the globe. We could well echo Evelyn Waugh on the comic writer P. G. Wodehouse: that his (Wodehouse’s) inimitable world could never grow stale….that he has made a world for us (readers) to live in and delight in…
Jane Austen(1775-1817) has acquired a kind of cult status in the last couple of centuries. Such is her reputation that it has helped birth a veritable Jane Austen industry, replete with museums, memorabilia and mementos. There have been numerous novels and films inspired by Pride and Prejudice and Emma and many films (and remakes and adaptations) based on her novels.
16 December 2025 marks her 250th birth anniversary. Many museums in the UK and the USA have showcased exhibits which give viewers delightful glimpses into her life and writing. Her novels, full of wit and satire, provide an insightful commentary on the social hierarchies, as well as the quirks and oddities of her milieu.Their plots and themes are woven around women and the necessity of marriage, money and the determining power of money.With considerable irony and subtlety, she turns the mirror on how manners are a function of morality and good sense and not just a matter of appearances. Rarely didactic or preachy(with Mansfield Park as the only exception), her novels convey in perfectly nuanced and measured prose, how difficult and crucial it is for women to find the right spouse and space.
As the youngest daughter of a poor clergyman, mostly educated at home, Jane Austen was well aware of the value of an independent income and a home of their own. After the death of her father, she, her sister Cassandra and mother, rather like the Dashwood women in her novel Sense and Sensibility, had to move around as they were dependant on the financial support of her brothers, especially her wealthy brother, Edward. The pain of this unequal fortune and frequent shifts, which Jane and her sister Cassandra may have experienced, is expressed by Elinor and Marianne in the novel where they have to practice small economies and learn to scale their expectations according to their situation.
Austen led a largely sheltered and sequestered existence, surrounded by her family, bound to family duties which “might have been the more expected of a dependent spinster aunt such as she was.”[1] Many intelligent women, like Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth Bennett’s friend in Pride and Prejudice are shown to accept inferior matches to escape from spinsterhood and the expectations of their natal families. The absence of livelihood opportunities for women in her day and the lack of any income of her own would have proved irksome to Austen and provided her with a further impetus to “write her way into some money,” as she wrote in a letter to her brother, Captain Francis Austen, in July 1813. Further, in another letter to her niece Fanny Knight, she writes that “single women have the propensity to be poor which is one very strong inducement for women to marry.”
Her novels often do not always reveal the full measure of Jane Austen’s remarkable achievement: how she, constrained by genteel poverty, “the lack of a room of her own”, and writing materials which had to be put away often to attend to obligatory family commitments, wrote her novels based on such close observation of, and acute insight into contemporary life. Her eye for detail is such that it invites frequent references to her own words: “A little bit of ivory, two inches wide, on which I work with a brush so fine as to produce little effect after much labour.” This modest disclaimer and “little effect” have, however, fascinated generations of readers and inspired hosts of writers.
That Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary is being celebrated and commemorated all over the English-speaking world perhaps comes as no surprise but it still leaves us with some questions. What is the relevance of her novels now? Are her novels relevant to present-day political realities, in addition to their astute observations on graded social hierarchies? Can we view her as a feminist? Does she merit inclusion and study in universities of the global south at a time when there is a strong drive to decolonise English, the language of the erstwhile colonial masters?
In her book Jane Austen: The Secret Radical, Helena Kelly writes of the subversive and radical potential and intent of Jane Austen’s novels. Kelly goes a step beyond Marilyn Butler’s 1987 Jane Austen and the War of Ideas that had suggested that Austen leaned on the conservative Burkean side when challenged by new-fangled Jacobinism with its ideas of equality and brotherhood, coming from France which disturbed hierarchies, ideas and values long held to be sacrosanct in traditional English society. Kelly suggests that far from being conservative, insulated from contemporary political concerns, Jane Austen held radical and possibly subversive views which she did not express openly but which are clearly configured in the world of her novels. In doing so, she made the novel a meaningful art-form and a vehicle for the expression of ideas around love, marriage and additionally also of debates on slavery, female education and emancipation.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in the want of a wife.”[2] This famous ironic opening sentence of Austen’s has captured attention and elicited many critical commentaries. It’s a brilliant masterstroke where Austen underlines the mindset of young women and their anxious mothers on the lookout for eligible bachelors. Articulated like a truism, it seeks to facetiously universalise a partial truth. The omniscient authorial tone and tenor encompasses the dominant themes of Pride and Prejudice in the opening statement itself. Marriage, women’s responses, men’s reactions, social rank and wealth — all the principal subjects of Austen’s writing are near universal themes. In her novels, Austen communicates the constraints within which women function and the limited or literally the only ‘choice’ available to them. Having experienced financial instability and economic dependence, she had a clear understanding of the constraints experienced by women in early nineteenth-century England.
The happy ending that we see where Elizabeth Benett indeed becomes “mistress of Pemberley” symbolises the moment when some women, having acquired a certain status, become custodians of the home and the private sphere. Some feminist historians like Gerda Lerner, however, have pin-pointed this moment as one where the economic marginalisation of women is complete, in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, and they are pushed back from the public sphere.
Even as women were participating in print culture and taking their place as readers and writers, they were increasingly relegated to the private sphere. The tendency to relegate women to the private sphere and making them responsible for the entire range of domestic tasks of nurturing and care-giving and thereby sustaining the edifice of domestic life is something that persists even now. The fact is that women’s participation in the paid economy and public sphere has added to their ‘double’ burden in the 21st century.
Many critical voices have pointed out that Jane Austen’s writings do not directly mention the political situation, philosophical debates or religious discourses of the day centering on questions of social equality, justice, economic questions or the rights of man. Yet her fine crafted depiction of socio-economic relations, the dynamics of human relationships shaped and moulded by the struggle for wealth or power or status exposes the political reality, social hierarchy and the economic structure in society which shaped and informed all social transactions.
While the position of women may have improved in some spheres, there are still glaring gaps when it comes to women’s access to equality or justice. Changes in the last two centuries have gone beyond superficial tokenism. There are still miles to go in our march towards equality. It is in this larger context where there is a grudging acceptance or disavowal of women’s rights that the Jane Austen heroine’s negotiations with patriarchy remain relevant.
They demonstrate a mode of assertion, of agency in the face of inequality and in socially disadvantaged situations, which sustain an illusion of female empowerment and wish-fulfilment. It is this vision of romance, which, informed by a comic and somewhat ironical view of life, consolidates the exercise of female agency and makes the reading and re-reading of Jane Austen’s novels a rewarding and enriching experience. Her astute delineation of human delusion and human folly holds up a mirror to her society that often impels recognition on our part and remains forever relevant. Her perceptive analysis of the warp and weft of her society remains almost unmatched.
…yet he (Byron) cannot match the shock she (Austen) gives me; Beside her, Joyce is as innocent as young grass. I feel truly uneasy, my mind unsettled, Watching the English middle-class spinster describe the power of money to attract love, so plainly and soberly revealing the economic foundations that sustain human society.
W.H.Auden’s lines on Jane Austen and the unlikely comparison with the prince of notoriety, Lord George Byron, never fails to instruct or entertain us. Such is the mark of great literature which leaves its imprint decades and centuries after its inception.
Meenakshi Malhotra is Professor of English Literature at Hansraj College, University of Delhi, and has been involved in teaching and curriculum development in several universities. She has edited two books on Women and Lifewriting, Representing the Self and Claiming the I, in addition to numerous published articles on gender, literature and feminist theory. Her most recent publication is The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle.
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Keith Lyons in conversation with Harry Ricketts, a writer and mentor who found himself across continents and oceans
Harry Ricketts has authored thirty books and mentored many writers, including Keith Lyons. Photo Courtesy: Robert Cross
Harry Ricketts is a New Zealand poet, essayist, and literary biographer whose work has gained recognition for its wit, lyricism, and insight into memory, identity, and everyday life. He has published widely across poetry, biography, and literary criticism, and his writing blends formal elegance with accessibility. After studying at Oxford University, he taught in the UK and Hong Kong before moving to New Zealand in the early 1980s. A respected teacher and mentor, Ricketts has shaped both the literary culture of New Zealand and the broader English-language literary world through his poetry, essays, and guidance to emerging writers. His works include a major biography of the British India-born journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer Rudyard Kipling, The Unforgiving Minute, Strange Meetings: The Poets of the Great War, and his most recent books, the memoir First Things, and the poetry collection Bonfires on the Ice. His How to Live Elsewhere (2004) is one of twelve titles in the Montana Estates essay series published by Four Winds Press. The press was established by Lloyd Jones to encourage and develop the essay genre in New Zealand. In his essay, Ricketts reflects on his move from England to New Zealand. In this interview, he brings to us not only on his writerly life but also his journey as a mentor for other writers.
KL: Tell us about your early life?
HR: My father was a British army officer, and we moved every two years till I was ten: England, Malaysia, two different parts of England, Hong Kong, England. My first words were probably Malay. From eight to eighteen, I went to boarding schools in England; apart from the cricket and one or two teachers, this was not a positive experience.
KL: How do you think moving around affected you, and your sense of self and being in the world? Does that transience shape your perspective and writing now?
HR: I think constantly moving around gave me a very equivocal sense of belonging anywhere and also a strong sense of needing to adapt (up to a point) to wherever I found myself. I was an only child, and friendship became and remains incredibly important to me. Perhaps this hard-wired sense of temporariness has contributed to my trying to produce as many different kinds of books as possible, but eventually you discover what you can and can’t do: I can’t write novels.
KL: How has your sense of ‘home’ evolved in your work over the years?
HR: As above, but I’ve lived in New Zealand for more than forty years, so that must count for something. My second wife, Belinda, was a Kiwi; for thirty years, she was a lovely person to share the world with. I’d say I like to live slightly at an angle to whatever community I’m in.
KL: How did books and poems come into your life, and what do you think have been influences on your later work?
HR: My mother was a great reader and read me Beatrix Potter, A.A. Milne etc as a child. When I was seven, I had measles and had to stay in bed for a fortnight. I read Arthur Ransome’s Peter Duck and then I couldn’t stop. Books were a protection and a passion at boarding school. As for poetry, at school we had to learn poems by heart which I enjoyed and later recited them in class which was nerve-wracking. When I was fifteen – like many others – I fell in love with Keats, then a few years later it was Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, C.P. Cavafy ….. I was also listening to a lot of music, particularly singer songwriters like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Richard Thompson, Joni Mitchell.
Everything you read and listen to is an influence. My mind is a lumber-room of things I’ve read and listened to, things other people have said, things that have happened to me and to others, places I’ve been, love and friendship – and all that crops up in my poems in one way or another. Plath and Hughes were a wrong trail. It took me a while to work that out. Well into my twenties, I couldn’t stand Philip Larkin, but not now. I like witty, melancholy poets.
KL: Your first book, People Like Us: Sketches of Hong Kong was published when you were 27. How did that come about.? What satisfaction did you get from seeing your name in print?
HR: People Like Us is a mixture of short stories and song lyrics. Hong Kong, as I experienced it in the 1970s, (still very much a British colony) was a heterogeneous mishmash of styles, and I tried to mimic that mishmash in the pieces I wrote. I was pleased when it got published but it wasn’t much good.
KL: Can you describe your writing space?
HR: I have a small study, but since Belinda died two years ago, I’ve shifted to the kitchen table. She wouldn’t have approved, but the kitchen is light and airy and the stove-top coffee-maker close by.
KL: What is your writing process from start to finish?
HR: I do a lot of drafts. First thoughts can almost always be improved. A friend likes to say, ‘It’s not the writing; it’s the rewriting’, and I agree. But some poems have come quite quickly. When I’m writing prose, I often play music, but not when I’m working on a poem.
KL: What usually sparks a new poem for you: an image, a phrase, or a rhythm?
HR: It can be anything really. I’m usually doing something else entirely – writing an email or some piece of prose or just walking around – and something will interrupt me. It’s often a phrase which for some reason acts like a magnet, attracting another phrase or an images or an idea. It might be something I’m reading; this has happened with English poets like Edward Thomas, Philip Larkin, James Fenton, Hugo Williams and Wendy Cope and New Zealand poets like Bill Manhire, Fleur Adcock and Nick Ascroft. Occasionally, I’ve written a commissioned poem: for a friend’s wedding, say.
KL: How do you balance experimentation with accessibility in your work?
HR: I don’t think like that, but I do try not to repeat myself if I can help it. However, several poems of mine have had successors; so I wrote a poem in the mid-1980s about my six-year-old daughter Jessie called ‘Your Secret Life’, imagining her as a teenager and me waiting up late for her to return home, and my latest collection contains a ‘Your Secret Life 5’, written when she was forty. I’ve found myself writing a few poem-sequences recently, including one about an imaginary New Zealand woman poet. That was quite new for me.
KL: How do your roles as poet, biographer, and critic feed into each other?
HR: Constructively, I hope. I think you can always get prose out of yourself if you sit there long enough (fiction writers might disagree), but not poems. Some initial reverberation/interruption has to happen, some ‘spark’, as you put it. It’s all writing, of course, and writing is a habit. You have to keep doing it, otherwise that part of you switches itself off or attends to other things.
KL: Looking back across more than thirty books, what evolution do you see in your writing life, and what themes do you keep on coming back to?
HR: I think lots of writers (except the very vain ones) suffer from versions of ‘imposter syndrome’ and have problems with their personal myth — that they are a writer. I’ve got a bit more confident that I am a writer and in particular that I can write poems. Getting published helps a lot with the personal myth: something you’ve done is now out in the world. Once you publish a book, though, you lose any control you had over it. People may love it, hate or, worst of all, ignore it. But that’s just the deal.
I prefer the term preoccupations to themes. I’m preoccupied with people, places, trying to make sense of the past, happiness, the role of luck, life’s oddities, incongruities and ambiguities….
KL: You often talk about ‘gaps’, doubt, and ambiguity as central to your work. How do these function in your poetry today?
HR: To measure gaps, to be in doubt, to see the ambiguity in things: that just seems to me to be human. Poems can be acts of discovery or at least partial clarification. They can also simply preserve something: an experience, a moment, a realisation, some sense of those we love.
KL: You describe teaching as a kind of midwifery: helping writers bring out what is already within them. How did you arrive at that approach?
HR: Decades of teaching suggest to me that encouragement is more likely to help someone tell the stories they have it in them to tell rather than giving them a hard time. Writing can be a bit like giving birth and, for some, having support and encouragement is more helpful than trying to do it all on your own. Of course, in the end you do have to do most of it on your own.
KL: What advice did you find yourself giving students most often, and does it still hold true for you?
HR: I have taught poetry courses, but over the last twenty-five years I’ve mostly taught creative non-fiction. I often quote Lytton Strachey’s comment that ‘Discretion is not the better part of biography’ and then add: ‘Nor the better part of autobiography.’ I also suggest that mixed feelings are more interesting to write out of and about than clearcut ones. If you’re writing about someone else, pure admiration tends to produce hagiography, pure dislike a vindictive portrait – all warts, rather than warts and all. Serious doesn’t mean earnest; you can be serious and funny at the same time.
KL: What is the best advice you’ve received as a writer?
HR: The best advice it would have been helpful to be given (but no one did) would have been: ‘Don’t eat your heart out trying to be a kind of writer you aren’t (say, a novelist). Try to find out what kind of writer you are and pursue that as hard as you can.’ Chaucer knew: ‘The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.’
KL: Which authors do you most often recommend to students or emerging poets?
HR: I mostly suggest they should read as widely as they can and that they should read as a writer.
KL: What writers are you returning to most these days?
HR: I often go back to Montaigne’s essays and Orwell’s and Virginia Woolf’s. Poets I often reread include: Derek Mahon, Hugo Williams, Thomas Gray, Wendy Cope, Fleur Adcock, Edward Thomas, Andrew Marvell, Seamus Heaney, Lauris Edmond, Anne French, Robert Browning, Thomas Hardy, Philip Larkin …
KL: What responsibilities do reviewers have to writers, and what responsibilities do they have to readers?
HR: Reviewers have an obligation to be fair-minded towards their subject and to write something as worth reading (ie well-written and enjoyable) as any other piece of prose.
KL: How can reviewers give criticism that is honest yet constructive?
HR: They should try to understand what the writer was aiming at (rather than the thing they think the writer should have been aiming at) and judge the work accordingly. This is easier said than done. Writers rarely remember the positives reviewers say, and rarely forget the negatives. Reviewing is hard, if you’re trying to do a good job. In a small country like New Zealand, there’s only one-and-a-half degrees of separation, which makes puffing and pulling your punches a tempting prospect.
KL: What kind of legacy do you hope to leave through your poetry and teaching?
HR: Whatever legacy you might leave (and few writers or teachers in the scale of things leave any) is not up to you. But of course writers hope people will positively remember something they’ve written and that their work will continue to be read after their death. When I think of the teachers who have matter to me, I think of them with immense gratitude and I hope some of my pupils might feel something of that, too.
KL: Is there a question about your work that you wish people asked more often?
HR: Interesting question, but I don’t really have an answer. Perhaps ‘Why, given that you also write plenty of poems in free verse, do you still think that there are possibilities in fixed poetic forms like the sonnet, villanelle and triolet?’ I could talk about that for a long time.
KL: If your life was a movie, what would the audience be screaming out to you now?
HR: Keep going! Well, I’d like to think they might.
KL: What’s next for you? What are you working on now?
HR: I’m threequarters of the way through a second volume of memoirs and about to write about a particularly difficult part of my life. I want to finish that and then a third volume, if I can. And write more poems.
*This interview has been conducted through emails.
On the sidewalk of his existence, he signs a lease for his coming days. He earns a license of freedom that puts him above the king of kings.
He’s a drifter waiting for the tide to turn but happy if it never does cause what he feels is the envy of people, what he does not have is their fear. On the surface, they pity him. In the depths of their soul, they envy him.
Their expectation leads to disappointment. Their defeat sounds like confinement. His truth smells like liberation and his liberation provides him with freedom.
Fortunate are those who have very little, for they may not know that they own the world. Poor are those who have a lot, for they may not know that they own nothing.
He sits on the sidewalk lays back on his blanket, his pillow is deeper than the ocean. He watches the stars, wishes the kings could share his view, and wonders if the tide will ever turn.
Ramzi Albert Rihani is a Lebanese-American poet who resides in Maryland, USA. His poems have been published in the US, Canada, UK, and Ireland. He received the 2024 Polk Street Review first-place poetry award.
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Rose’s Odyssey:Tales of Love and Loss is a translation of ‘Gulafsangako Prem1’, a short story collection in Nepali by Sangita Swechcha. Jayant Sharma, the translator, has displayed his incredible skill transmitting the essence and the texture in his translation as they are in the original version.
Swechcha’s writing moves across geographies and emotional landscapes. In Rose’sOdyssey, we see the influence of her own journey: born and raised in Nepal, her time spent in Australia, and her life in the UK. Her experience of multiple cultures gives her work both depth and relatability. She writes not just as a woman, or a feminist, or a diasporic voice, but as a humanist. Her stories resonate because they are grounded in truth and told with generosity.
Several reviewers on Amazon have echoed the sentiments generated by the stories. Dr. Tamer Mikhail describes the experience as “mesmerising,” noting how vividly the characters come to life. Ketan Varia praises Swechcha’s exploration of how life unfolds and the unintended consequences of human choices, while Nirmala Karanjeet highlights the wit, humour, and deep perception of human emotions in every story. These voices of readers moved by the same qualities.
Among the twenty stories, a few stood out with particular force. The titular story, ‘Rose’s Odyssey’, reminded me in scope and ambition of Homer’s Odyssey. Yet this is no imitation. Swechcha’s tale of love, betrayal, vengeance, and repentance transcends a simple love story. It is a story within stories, a tapestry woven with dramatic shifts and psychological insight.
Another memorable piece is the final story, presented in diary format. The narrative offers a poignant glimpse into diasporic life, told in a male voice, which is an unusual and ambitious choice for a female writer. The story’s ability to inhabit male psychology with such authenticity is no small achievement.
The shortest story, ‘Ram Maya’, dealing with the issue of human trafficking, is devastating. In just a few pages, it trembles with urgency. Then there is ‘Shattered Dream’, a story I had previously read in its original Nepali and was eager to revisit in English. The translation, no easy feat, is executed beautifully, preserving cultural nuances while making the narrative accessible to a broader audience. In fact, I was reminded of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970), particularly in how Sweccha addresses themes of bodily autonomy, survival, and the commodification of womanhood.
What ties all these stories together is Swechcha’s ability to write about complex emotional terrain with elegance and restraint. Each story is deeply personal, yet universal. The immigrant experience, cultural duality, gender, longing, and resilience are all present without ever feeling heavy-handed. It is heartening to see readers on Amazon responding so positively. One reviewer calls it “an easy and interesting read,” while another from Holistic World notes how each tale is “captivating and alluring,” connected by “the thread of love.” This feedback is not only encouraging, it also affirms the book’s power to reach readers from all walks of life.
In addition to the warm reader responses and literary features, I also recall Shahd Mahanvi, author of White Shoes, at the launch event aptly described Rose’s Odyssey as “a powerful exploration of human emotions.” She added that it is “a compelling collection that delves into themes of control, mistrust, the impulse to hurt those we love, and the complex intersections of human relationships, provoking deep reflection.”
In the year since its release, Rose’s Odyssey has had a successful run, from warm reader responses to literary features, several book signings in the UK and Nepal, and community events. Its journey is far from over. The success of the book is not just a testament to Swechcha’s literary talent, but to her ability to connect across continents, cultures, and hearts.
Dr. Rupak Shrestha, a London-based Nepali poet from Pokhara, is acclaimed for diverse literary forms and translation. He also serves as Advisor to the International Nepali Literary Society (INLS) UK Chapter.
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Last week my name was Renfield Familiar to a cruel Muse who Visited according to his whim I scurried about in service To a master all-powerful Desperate for redemption For the key to sanity The key to unlock the poem
Yesterday my name was Ahab Searching the global seas For the Great White Word To start or finish a poem I paced my pitching desk In weather fair and foul But did not strike the words With my inked harpoon
Today my name is Vlad And my rage knows no Earthly bounds as I wait For the red blood of life To seep through my veins And into my maddened brain To create the words and lines And the cursed verses
Tomorrow my name will be Pablo And I will once again believe That I can be prolific In thought and deed Boldly setting pen to page With heart and soul Interred in every word Of a passionate poem
Gregg Norman lives in Manitoba, Canada. His work has been accepted by various international poetry publications in Canada, the USA, the UK, Australia, and Serbia.
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You're a novice that doesn't walk with any measure of style or grace, so fly off an icy mountain at seventy miles an hour on a pair on sticks,
olympic skiers get injured but you're exempt from such physical injury because you're a manager of a launderette,
ride a motorbike, it's the freest way to travel, free to leave the road and land on your head three fields away,
bungee jump! the ten second thrill is worth the trade off - whiplash and long term spinal damage,
fly on an aircraft as often as you can, you have more chance of getting struck by lightning than crashing in an airplane. Ignore the fact that unless the machine is in perfect working order you could nosedive from thirty thousand feet into an ocean bed that is so deep the creatures there have teeth shaped like tennis rackets,
undergo plastic surgery!
Put your blind faith in a bogus surgeon who may consequently render you with half a chin and no nostrils. Forget the post-op catastrophe, okay so you entrusted a surgeon with the credentials that extended to that of a pottery teacher -- he fled with your cash and now you breathe through your ears, but give it a go.
Ocean surf!
Take advice from the veteran surfers who lost all their limbs and torsos to numerous shark attacks. They can still roll their heads onto the surfboard. There is nothing more aesthetically pleasing than watching a human coconut surf on a giant pitta bread.
Get a tattoo!
The best way to pamper your soft, elegant, silky skin? -- deface it with ink! ink! A substance that if spilt over your coffee table would spark a major household crisis, but your precious velvety skin? -- screw it, you're good to go and vandalise yourself with tacky meaningless ink stains.
THE BIG LIGHT
She made a candlelit dinner, but without thinking he put the big light on so he could see what he was eating -- so she left him,
keeping her happy was like walking a tightrope for him, and the night he put the big light on, he fell screaming,
he hit the ground, unlike the falling leaf he caught when he placed it in her palm and asked her to make a wish,
he always forgave her, like a bird forgives another for stealing its bread,
and as he flew alongside her he wondered how passing clouds could find their way home,
he would talk about how the sun and the rain could make pretty rainbows - the colours of the flowers on the mountain he climbed to pick for her,
but without thinking he put the big light on so he could see what he was eating -- so she left him,
finished her meal,
blew out the candles and left him.
ANALOGY OF A POLITICIAN
Two schoolboys are summoned to the headmaster's office for stealing apples from a tree belonging to a resident next to the school field,
One of the boys admits to stealing an apple, but tells the headmaster that his friend didn't take one -- though both boys took an apple each,
one of the boys is given detention but the 'innocent' boy escapes unpunished,
the 'innocent' boy tells the headmaster he is profoundly remorseful for being present at the scene of the 'crime', and though regrettable he fully understands the decision to punish his friend as it isn't fair on the owner of the apple tree.
The 'innocent' boy is the politician.
StephenPhilip Druce is based in Shrewsbury UK. He is published in the USA, India, the UK and Canada. He’s written for theatre plays in London and BBC 4 Extra.
Contact: Instagram – @StephenPhilipDruce
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An introduction to Ratna Magotra’sWhispers of the Heart: Not Just a Surgeon (Konark Publishers) and a conversation with the doctor who took cardiac care to the underprivileged.
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy?”— Tagore, Whispers of the Heart: Not Just a Surgeonby Ratna Magotra
“There are at least five estimates of the number of poor people in India, which put the number of poor in India between 34 million (equivalent to the population to Kerala) to 373 million (more than four times the population of West Bengal). This puts the number of the poor between 2.5% of the population to 29.5%, based on different estimates between 2014 and 2022.”
How are the healthcare needs of the poverty stricken met in a country with a vast number who are unable to foot their daily food, housing, and potable water needs? This has been a question that confronts every doctor in cities where labourers who build housing for the middle class are themselves homeless just like the street side immigrants who beg. Even dwellers of shanties that spring up around colonies of the well-to-do to provide informal labour to the affluent are hardly any better off. Few in the medical profession move towards finding solutions to bridge this gap.
Dr Ratna Magotra, who moved from Jammu to find a career in healthcare in Mumbai, is one such person. Recently, she wrote an autobiography which has consolidated the work being done by cardiologists to bridge this gap. In her book, Whispers of the Heart: Not Just a Surgeon, while identifying this divide, she writes: “Poverty, inequality, deficient primary healthcare, unequal access, and the escalating commercialisation of medical care were causing an angst that I found difficult to make peace with. As medical practitioners, our expertise lies in providing treatment, but we often overlook the broader social factors underlying ill health. It might escape the attention of a surgeon performing intricate heart surgery that a child who survived a complex heart surgery could succumb to diarrhoea due to the lack of access to clean drinking water. Issues like malnutrition, skin infections, superstitious beliefs, and poverty may be the harsh realities in the patient’s actual living conditions beyond the confines of sanitised medical environment. /Medical training, regrettably, seldom includes the connection between poverty and disease.”
The land reforms laws that followed post-Partition[1] led to her family losing their wealth. But Magotra bears no ill-will or scars that have crippled her ability to contribute to a world that needs to heal — of taking healthcare to those who can’t afford it. She starts her biography with vignettes from her childhood: “I recall that the agricultural land we owned in our village in Jammu was considered very fertile with the best Basmati rice grown there. Though I was very young, I have faint memories of the house amidst lush paddy fields and a small stream that we had to cross to enter the village. It was very close to the international border between India and Pakistan. The way my mother was respected reflected the high esteem that villagers had for my father. Though their tenant status had changed to that of being landowners, the villagers visited the house as they did before and received generous gifts from her. /They would indulge us children with home-made sweets made of peanuts, jaggery and spices. Rolling in heaps of post-harvest grains piled up in open fields was great fun.”
She lost all that and her father. But with supportive family and friends, drawn to healthcare, she became a doctor in times when women doctors were rare. If they at all specialised, it was mainly in gynaecology. She chose cardiac surgery trained in UK and US. She made friends where she went and with a singular dedication, found solutions to access the underprivileged. She elaborates: “The quantum leap in India’s healthcare sector occurred during the 1990s following the economic reforms and the liberalisation of the economy. The end of the licence raj system facilitated the imports of advanced technology and medical equipment. Specialists, who had long settled abroad, began contemplating a return to India.”
While she attended an International Course in Cardiac Surgery at Sicily to update her skills, she tells us: “During our interactions, some German surgeons raised questions about the rationale behind a developing country like India engaging in an expensive speciality like cardiac surgery. I realised how biased opinions can be formed and spread, though rooted in ignorance. /By this point, however, I had grown accustomed to explaining the paradox — why it was essential for India to advance in specialised care alongside its priorities in basic healthcare and poverty alleviation.”
She cites multiple instances of cases that she dealt with from the needy rural population, for who to pay prohibitive costs would mean an end to their family’s meals. Magotra writes, “I had seen numerous poor heart patients who suffered not only from the ailment itself but also from financial burden of the treatment. The medical expenses incurred for a single family member affected the well-being of entire household, depleting their limited resources and savings. Unfortunately, medical education does not include health economics as a subject. As a result, doctors, especially specialists, trained in a reductionist approach to diseases tend to move away from a holistic perspective. They readily embrace new technological advances, often neglecting proven and cost-effective treatment options. This, in turn, drives up healthcare costs and makes it unaffordable for the common man.”
Living through a series of historical upheavals, she brings to light some interesting observations. She came in contact with Jinnah’s personal physician while looking for a placement in Mumbai. There she mentions that many wondered if the Partition of India could have been averted if this doctor had shared the information that Jinnah had limited life expectancy as he had advanced tuberculosis. She has lived through floods in Mumbai and riots and wondered: “I was staring at the blood on my clothes, which had come from multiple patients. In that quiet moment, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a ‘test’ to distinguish between a Hindu blood and a Muslim blood.” She joined the anti-corruption movement started by Anna Hazare and fasted! She has travelled and watched and collected her stories and she jotted these down during the pandemic to share her world and her concerns with all of us. In the process, recording changes in health care systems over the years… the historic passing of an era that documents the undocumented people’s needs.
Dr Ratna Magotra
An award-winning doctor for the efforts she has made to connect with people across all borders and use her experience, she talks to us in this interview about her journey and beliefs.
What made you write this book? Who were the readers you wanted to reach out to?
I had asked myself the same questions before I started and even while I was writing: Why and for whom?
Some younger friends and family members would find the anecdotes and stories, I would relate to them from time to time, interesting. They would often prod me to write about these. People, situations, my travels to places — not the usual popular tourist destinations, invoked further curiosity in them to know more about my life. As such I like to write my thoughts (usually for myself) and have been contributing small articles to newspapers, magazines, and Bhavan’s Journal for their special Issues. The pandemic provided me an opportunity to contemplate further when I seriously considered about writing an autobiographical narrative.
As I progressed with my account, I envisaged a wider readership outside the medical community as multiple facets emerged about places, people and events of varying interests.
What were the hurdles you faced while training as a doctor — in terms of gender and attitudes of others?
Fortunately, I can’t recall any specific hurdle or adverse experience because of my being a woman. Studying for MBBS degree at Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC), made it a normal affair as LHMC was an all-women medical college.
The struggle that I faced in getting PG admission in Bombay also had nothing to do with gender. The problem was being an outsider in Bombay when number of seats were limited. Students from local medical colleges and rest of Maharashtra had first preference for selection to PG courses. Anyone in my place would have had to go through a similar grind as I did.
Once PG admission was secured, it was smooth sailing through training and working alongside male colleagues! I asked for no concessions being a woman and worked as hard as they did or may be little more. We had a very close and harmonious working relationship with healthy mutual respect leading to lasting friendships.
What made you choose cardiac surgery over other areas of specialisation?
The decision to become a doctor and a surgeon was firmed very early in life. Interest in Cardiac surgery was acquired much later when I started working with Dr Dastur in Bombay. Seeing and touching a beating heart was fascinating and at the same time very challenging at that time. I was tempted to take it up for further specialisation. And yes, it was a very glamorous specialty at that time with names like Denton Cooley[2] and Christiaan Barnard [3]making waves in mainstream conversations!
Cardiac surgery was perceived by some as the forte of the rich, but you have shown how many villagers also had the need for the same specialised care. So, what was it that made you realise that? What could be seen as the incident that made you move towards closing social gaps in your horizon?
Heart disease affects the rich as also the poor. In fact, in earlier times when lifestyle diseases were not as common, it was the poor who suffered more from many afflictions including heart disease. Rheumatic heart disease was the bane of the underprivileged, living in overcrowded spaces with repeated streptococcal throat infections that eventually ravaged their heart valves. Congenital heart disease was common though not diagnosed as often. While the rich and affluent could afford to travel abroad to get treatment, in turn costing precious foreign exchange to the nation, others had to make do with whatever was available. Indian surgeons stretched their resources, skills and imagination to fill the gaps in the infrastructure.
Working in teaching hospitals, I saw the suffering and helplessness of the poor from very close. Inadequacies in healthcare stared at us every day. Moreover, those days cardiac surgery was being performed only in 4-5 teaching hospitals in the country.
I tried looking beyond the patient, connecting their illness with the social and economic environment they came from. Their personal courage, resilience and faith in overcoming difficult moments of life stirred something inside me. One such incidence involved a patient, Ahir Rao, from interiors of Maharashtra. His surgery at KEM and my subsequent visit to his home opens the chapter on ‘Reaching the Unreached’ in my book.
Ironically flip side of development and changing economic status, is that lifestyle diseases like hypertension, diabetes and heart disease are affecting less affluent even more. Lack of awareness about diet, and rapidly adopting urban fads have changed the rural-urban spectrum of heart disease.
The prejudices and biases of the developed countries influenced many in the country also to question a developing country like India from investing in super-specialty like cardiac surgery instead of focussing on providing basic amenities to the people.
It was amusing to see the BBC presenters asking the chronic questions as recently as the landing of Chandrayaan on moon in August 2023 — whether India should have space missions? Persistence of same mind set exposed their ignorance about the benefits the technology and the science bring to common man as also reluctance to accept the progress India has made!
How did your travels to other countries impact your own work and perspectives?
Traveling is a great education to broaden one’s horizon. My travels in India and to different countries contributed towards my personal growth by helping me connect to the geography, nature as also the people belonging to different cultures and sensibilities. Different foods, attires or attitudes but with one common underlying bond of humanity with similar aspirations.
Professionally, going to advanced centres exposed me to a work culture that was very different from ‘chalta hai’[4] attitude back home. Staying ahead with the best research, better working conditions, new technology were just the stimulants I needed in doing better for our patients.
There were many people you have mentioned who impacted you and your work. Who would you see as the persons/organisations who most inspired and led you to realise your goals?
I owe so much to so many people, whom I met at different stages of my life and who influenced my thinking, values and my work. It is difficult to pick one or two, however, if asked to narrow down to three or four most important individuals, these would be my mother and Prof Rameshwar in early years, and Dr K. N Dastur in my professional choice and career. However, biggest influence in my later life has been my Guru, Swami Ranganathananda — who imparted the wisdom of practical vedanta giving ultimate message of oneness and freedom of thought and action for universal good as propagated by Swami Vivekananda.
Why did you join Anna Hazare and his organisation? How did it impact you? What were your conclusions about such trysts?
I had heard of Anna Hazare as an anti-corruption crusader and had met him once at his village while accompanying Dr Antia. It was very admirable the way he had motivated the village people to participate voluntarily in the economic and social development making Ralegaon Siddhi a model village. This simple rustic person could stand up to the high and mighty and often made news in local newspapers; the politicians took his protests seriously at least in Maharashtra. When India Against Corruption (IAC) came into existence in 2011, I didn’t think twice before joining the unique coming together of civil society to fight corruption in the highest corridors of power. I was personally convinced that corruption had eroded and marred the dream of India keeping the common people poor and backward even as the corrupt flourished. As an individual, one could not do much beyond complaining and paying a price for a principled life. It required the civil society to stand up collectively to oppose the corrupt who were (are) actually very powerful!
There was nothing personal to gain by joining the protest but only lend my voice to the common objective of checking, if not eradicating, the menace of corruption.
The experience, highs and lows of the movement form a chapter in my book. The movement becoming political and losing the momentum of a countrywide movement was a big disappointment.
What would be the best way of closing the divides in healthcare?
There has been some forward movement in healthcare at grass root levels in last two decades or so. These gains need to be streamlined as at present we have islands of excellence with vast areas of dismal healthcare — the imbalance needs correction.
Increased spending by the State for healthcare, forward looking national health policy keeping in mind the diverse needs of such a vast country, rural urban realities are the way forward. Investment in medical and nursing education, primary health care, paramedics, rational use of appropriate technologies — all these need to be considered in totality and not in isolation.
Lot of the healthcare work is bridged by NGOS as per your book. Do you think a governmental intervention is necessary to bring healthcare to all its citizens?
My narrative belongs to the eighties and nineties when NGOs were vital in taking basic medical services to remote places where none existed. These organisations did a herculean task and several continue to be a significant provider even as the governments, both at the Centre and State level, have initiated many schemes that include healthcare besides general rural development. I personally think that the NGOs too need to retune their earlier approach of being stand-alone providers seeking funding from government and foreign donors to remain relevant. NGOs, though a vital link between the governments and the communities, have traditionally taken adversarial position to the governments. While keeping their independence of work, maybe they should strive to avoid duplication of services; provide authentic data, and create awareness. These along with constructive criticism and cooperation would benefit the communities and the stakeholders alike. Health education, women empowerment, strengthening the delivery of healthcare integrated with holistic rural development are best done by NGOs working at ground level.
What reform from the government would most help bridge these gaps and can these reforms be made a reality?
The question has been partially answered as above. Increase in budgetary allocation and intent are the prime requirement with focus on nutrition, clean drinking water, sanitation (end of open defecation, provision of toilets, is a major reform) and clean cooking fuel impact public health at grassroots substantially, especially that of women and children. These alone should reduce the load of common diseases and prevent 70 to 80 percent of maladies in a community. This is similar to what Dr Antia used to advocate — “People’s health in People’s hands”. No medical specialists are required, and community health workers would be fully capable of taking care of routine illness. The gains would need to be evaluated periodically to see the impact by way of reduced infant mortality, maternal health, reduction in school dropouts and increase in rural household incomes. Use of technology is an important tool to connect the masses with healthcare centres for more advanced care.
More thought is necessary for specialist oriented medical care. I am aware that we have some very wise and thinking people at the top deciding on national medical policy that should actually map the number of specialised centres and the doctors in each specialty and super specialities (SS) required over say next 10 years. The number of training programmes should be tailored accordingly. It is saddening to know that so many seats for post-doctoral training continue to remain vacant. It is specially so in surgical SS like cardiovascular, pediatric, and neurosurgery that are seeing less demand with interventional treatment making roads in treatment.
The change in the attitudes of administration as also the medical community is important. The benefits should be harvested with honest appraisals for course correction where needed for better planning in consultations with doctors, civil society, and the NGOs working in the rural areas.
Another idea close to my heart has been to motivate or even incentivise the senior medical practitioners to serve the rural areas for 2-3 years prior to their retirement from active service. They would carry experience and wisdom to manage medical needs even with limited resources as compared to enforced bonds for fresh graduates who are short of practical experience, anxious about their future and that of the families. Seniors on the other hand have fulfilled their responsibilities and may be really looking forward to satisfaction of giving back to the society. Having secured their future and relatively in good health, can be very useful human resource for the governments and the communities. This should be entirely out of volition and not under any pressure from the authorities.
Now that you have retired, what are your future plans?
Life is unpredictable at my age. I would, however, wish to remain in reasonable health to be able to be a useful citizen. I have no firm plans and will go where the life takes me like I have done so far.
I am aware that the age would no longer allow me to continue with specialised and highly technical profession I am trained for. Modern communication has narrowed the distances and made it possible to stay connected. I should be satisfied if I can provide any meaningful inputs, retain the attitude of service and remain contended in my personal being.
Is it appropriate to speak of transnational glee as a legitimate audience response to a film? If so, that might be a fitting label for the global spectator reaction to the blockbuster Indian film, Jailer, released worldwide on August 10, 2023. The film whose OTT rights were purchased by Amazon Prime is streaming online while simultaneously playing to packed theatres in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, China, the Middle East, Australia, Canada, the US, the UK, France, and other countries. In its first month of theatrical release, Jailer brought in an impressive 300 crores in India alone with over 600 crores and counting (just shy of 22 million US dollars) as its worldwide earnings. Many Indian blockbuster films have had a worldwide high-performance index recently with the likes of Ponniyin Selvan, Pathaan, Bahubali etc. thriving on an exoticised glamour of an India of kings and queens and palaces and freedom fighters and medieval breakdance routines, a sort of mystified enchanting India of the travel brochure version for viewers both inside and outside India. Even a mediocre film like RRR had a localised transnational success in the United States during the academy award season as well.
Unlike these historical and revisionist costume dramas, Jailer is a full-on pop culture phenomenon, a movie of the moment, a tale of its time; it is as au courant as cellphones and police corruption. It is full of attitude, and packed chockful of allusions and homages to both Indian and western movies in what is essentially a fun romp. Shot mostly in sumptuous wide shots and rhythmic cuts, it establishes an onscreen India, dry and dusty, with industrial warehouses running forgery, guns and knives, roadside ice cream vendors, fly-by beheadings, and struggling gardens along with elementary school YouTube influencers. Its real distinction is that people all over the world get it. But it is as Indian, specifically, it is as Tamil as a Tamil can be, and it puts a smile on the face of anyone anywhere who watches it. The international blockbuster with no pretensions to anything other than cinematic entertainment is back, thanks to Jailer and its vibrant young director Nelson Dilipkumar.
Jailer tells the story of two men, a hero and a villain, a retired police officer Tiger Muthuvel Pandian, the eponymous jailer, and a criminal mastermind Varman who runs an art forgery ring. They make counterfeit Indian statuary and sells them in the international market. Their encounter becomes complicated when the jailor’s son, a corrupt police officer, starts working for the villain, the male melodrama of father-son conflict being a favorite trope in Tamil cinema from older films like Thangappathakkam (The Golden Badge,1974) that starred an earlier era’s superstar Shivaji Ganesan. Jailer belongs to the same pedigree of male melodramatic films. The hero is played by the Tamil superstar Rajnikanth and the villain, the psychopathic leader of the forgers by Vinayakan from the nearby Malayalam film industry in Kerala.
Both Rajnikanth and Vinayakan belong to the highly successful world of mainstream, commercial Indian cinema with strong populist reception while also maintaining a certain level of middle-class entertainment sophistication. When compared to Rajnikanth, Vinayakan is relatively a newcomer, but one who has very quickly claimed his own space in Mollywood, Kerala’s film industry that produces Malayalam language-based films.
Vinayakan’s breakout performance as an underworld operative, an executioner and strongman, a complex character who is right, wrong and everything in between in Kammatti Padam[1] (2016) earned him a Kerala State Film Award for Best Actor. Jailer sees him as a criminal psychopath with unpredictable ticks like instructing his lackeys to dance for him, drowning his enemies in big vats of sulphuric acid, delivering his Tamil-Malayalam pidgin with menacing comic timing etc. The overall excesses of his character have the potential to turn him into a stereotypical villain, especially since the sulphuric acid dunking trope has a colourful cinematic legacy in Indian popular culture. (The “sulphuric acid joke” is an instantly recognisable film joke in Indian pop culture attributed to the persona of an outlandish villain played by the erstwhile Bollywood star Ajit who is credited with asking his henchman Raabert (Hindi pronunciation of Robert) the following purely apocryphal lines: “Raabert, is haraami ko liquid oxygen mein dal do; liquid ise jeene nahin dega, oxygen ise marna nahin dega” (Robert, drown him in Liquid Oxygen; the Liquid won’t let him live, and the Oxygen won’t let him die!”). Jailer abounds in many such recognisable “quotation marks” throughout the film, including an ear-slicing scene, an evident homage to Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs(1992), and “Stuck in the Middle with You”. These artfully placed allusions create an enjoyable self-reflexive layer in the film where Jailer talks to film materials that have provided evident inspiration. The self-conscious scripting and direction, and the sheer enjoyment and abandonment with which Vinayakan embraces the deranged psyche of Varman makes him a bonafide villain and not a caricature.
Rajnikanth who plays the title role of the jailer is the 72-year-old veteran superstar of Tamil cinema known to his massive adoring fan base as thalaivar (“Leader/Chief” in Tamil). Rajanikanth started his film career with the 1975 romantic drama Apoorva Ragangal (Rare Melodies), a far cry from the action crime thriller genre which would soon become synonymous with his name in the industry. With his trademark moustache, lopsided pursed lips, thick mop of straight black hair swiped across the forehead, lean frame, and long lanky legs, Rajnikanth from the 80s onwards played the righteous underdog on both sides of the law who took on the snobbish elite as well as the violent underworld players and won. He played orphans, rickshaw drivers, underworld consigliere, police officer, milkman, engineer, writer, grandfather, father, son, brother, husband, lover – he played the full spectrum of masculine roles in mainstream Indian cinema.
There is an underacknowledged colour line in Indian films where the relatively whiter-complexioned actors and actresses are considered stardom material. Rajnikanth with his dark-complexion and Midas touch at the box office demolished this industry practice and became the mirror for the ordinary darker Dravidian face on the Indian silver screen. Jailer sees him aged but fuller and lighter than his earlier years, though what has not changed are his instantly recognisable dance moves; underworld or the penthouse, underdog or the aggressor, Rajnikanth’s dance moves set the tone in his films. The standing jogs, the high kicks, the hip shake, the robotic arm movements and hand props like dark glasses and hand towels showed a new definition of “cool” to his fans. His tentative dance performance in Jailer is reminiscent of another accomplished dancer who exhibits a pretend stage fright; John Travolta in Pulp Fiction dancing with Uma Thurman to Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.”
Other significant performances include Vasanth Ravi as the jailor’s corrupt and clueless son, Ramya Krishnan as the jailer’s visibly irritated wife, along with hilarious cameos by Malayalam superstar, Mohanlal, Bollywood star, Jackie Shroff, and Kannada star, Shiva Rajkumar — all of them act as outlaws who help the jailer in his fight against Varman. An equally hilarious subplot involves a love triangle between the dancing beauty Kamna, her lecherous costar “Blast” Mohan, and her lover, the timid film director.
The film clocks an impressive two hours and fifty minutes on the strength of these men and their vivacious performances, smart, sharp, and funny dialogue, over-the-top violence, and a sizzling cameo dance sequence, popularly known in Indian film lingo as an “item number” by the alluring Bollywood actress Tamannah. The single “Kaavaala[2]” composed by the music director, Anirudh, is a proper earworm turned worldwide viral hit with the young and the old alike shaking their hips to its mood altering percussive rhythm, the latest being a Japanese version of the song. Perhaps as a testament to the song’s instant infectious popularity, the original dance features dancers of multiple ethnicities, a global potpourri as it were, with a set reminiscent of the production design of Raiders of the Lost Ark[3] (1981) as well as a flute intro that calls out to Andean musicians. If any song can bring the world together, “Kaavaala” can.
Indeed, the multiple references to Quentin Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are unavoidable while watching Jailer. As with Tarantino, director Nelson (as he is popularly known) too operates inside a similar vision of cinematic storytelling.
The proper subject of Jailer is cinema, cinemas of India, cinemas of the world. Tamil melodramas of the 1970s, the middle class Tamil comedies of the eighties and the nineties, Bollywood action flicks, Hollywood adventure films, the black crime comedies of Quentin Tarantino, the epic blood splatter of Robert Rodriguez, the bumbling and menacing sociopathic capers of Guy Ritchie films – Jailer tips its hat to all of these crime-as-entertainment influences through its multilayered dense scripting, the large cast of characters, and the no holds barred display of gory violence. It is a refreshingly confident film without any false notes though some of the repeated explosion scenes could be tightened.
Jailer tells an old story familiar to the Tamil audience, a story as old as Shivaji Ganesan in Thangappathakkam(1974)—the upright police officer father and the fallen corrupt son. The film chugs through its dense thicket of plot and counterplot towards an inevitable moral resolution to this impasse. This is where the power of the star system in Indian cinema, a status equal to that of gods, plays its trump card. With Rajnikanth playing the jailer father there can be only one moral resolution, son, or no son. It is a formula that never fails, and speaks of a justice perhaps unique to cinema.
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[1]Kammatti Paadam — is the name of a slum in Kochi, Kerala. It is a place name. Kammatti is a proper noun without any traceable etymology. Paadam means “field” in Malayalam. “The Slum Fields” of “The Slum” could be an appropriate translation.
[2]Kaavaalaya — A Telugu phrase, “I Want You, Man”
With its four-storey outlet in GK-2, Ajay Jain has made Kunzum the new happening place for book lovers in Delhi-NCR. He converses with Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri about his journey and about making brick and mortar stores viable in the era of Amazon as the writer browses through the different sections of the bookstore.
Book event with actor, Kabir BediBook event with Booker winner, Geetanjali ShreeIn Kunzum Bookstore. Photos provided by Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri
It is a bookstore unlike any I have been to, and that’s saying a lot. I visited it first sometime in December 2022, when it was still a work in progress, and even then it was stunning enough for me to get my aged parents, who need walking sticks, and my wife, who at the time was nursing a broken ankle, to visit this as a new year outing on 1 January 2023. Since then Kunzum at M Block Market, Greater Kailash 2, New Delhi, has grown to four floors spread over 10,000 square feet. The first floor is the regular bookstore, the second the Penguin bookstore. The third the ‘Theatre Kunzum’ – a 125-seater events hall – and the fourth an eighty-seater theatre, with plans for a café. There are other Kunzum bookstores which are a more modest 2500 square feet each. The original Kunzum Travel Café is approximately 500 square feet.
I enter it and am transported to a book lover’s paradise. Its very affable owner, Ajay Jain, and brilliant curator, Subir Dey – who generates in me a huge complex with his awareness of books and a hole in my pocket with his recommendations for the same – have time and again asked me to work out of the store. Which I would have gladly done, but for the fact that, one, it is impossible to get any work done once you enter its precincts (the only work it allows is browsing its shelves), and, two, I fear that I will end up spending all my salary at the store.
What makes it remarkable is that Ajay can visualise a store chain like this in this day and age where we hear a constant refrain of brick and mortar stores closing down. Of how difficult it is to sustain one in the age of Amazon. Most of the major bookstores across the country have devoted a large part of the space to stationery and toys. Ajay is determined not to do that. As far as he is concerned, a bookstore is a bookstore. And there will be no dilution of the space. As Ajay says, “I was very clear from day one. We will not sell teddy bears, stationary, croissants (chuckles). It might be a slightly steeper learning curve, but we want to learn how to sell more books. If I’m not selling enough books, why am I in this business? I could have invested this money somewhere else. For me, it’s a social mission to push more people to read. If everyone, every human being on this planet, reads books, it would be a much better place to live in. When we read books, we also challenge rampant consumerism – we are taking the money away from buying other stuff to buy books.”
Given the quite extraordinary range of books, including rare and collectors’ editions – I picked myself a mind-blowing one on iconic book covers, The Look of the Book, by Peter Mendelsund and David Alworth – Subir Dey, the curator, is the backroom star of the show. A quiet, self-effacing book lover, Subir says, “I have been doing this for myself, at home, before Ajay started the bookshops. One day, I just picked up the phone and asked him, how can I help? Then, there is the community angle. I talk to fellow bibliophiles both online and offline who point out all the amazing editions of great books. The curation team at Kunzum is indispensable. Everyone has their favourite genre and we all diligently keep track. The classics and graphic novels are an easy target because of their popularity. Then there are collected works and anniversary/commemorative editions that we try to keep track of. Publishers help us with that too. For example, the Dune series picked up when the new movie came out. There are so many beautiful editions of the book that it is hard to choose. There are graphic adaptations of long-form novels like 1984, Animal Farm, The Kite Runner that we tracked down and have in stock. These are great books for someone who is intimidated by the traditional long-form novel format. This could be their gateway drug into reading and Kunzum would love to get them addicted. Special editions are a brilliant gifting idea. Books are the best gift you can give to people. Most of us have friends who are avid readers. These special editions are a very thoughtful gift. We tell our customers to bring a book to a party full of people who are bringing bottles of wine. We all used to give and receive books as gifts, growing up. Those books shaped our worldview. We are rolling out ads on social media to highlight the special editions available with us and pretty soon you will see more of these titles highlighted not just online but in our stores too. There is a demand for it, we have seen an uptick in the interest among buyers who are looking for specific edition of their favourite books and our team is happy to track them down.”
The Beginnings
Ajay Jain: I have a background in engineering and management, so I worked in the IT industry for five years. Then I got into sports management, and did that for five years. At the age of 31, I dropped everything and moved to the UK to study journalism. I did my master’s in journalism there. I came back in 2002, worked for the Express group, started a youth newspaper, got into blogging and freelance writing – mostly business and tech writing – which I did till about 2006–07. I was one of the earliest professional bloggers in the world. As a journalist/blogger/ influencer (the word wasn’t there at the time), and as somebody who wanted to write books, I figured I wanted to do something where I could create more of a legacy.
Early Reading
Ajay Jain: Growing up, I read the usual staple. You had your Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Famous Five. Unlike my classmates, I never read Agatha Christie or PG Wodehouse, but I had read all of James Hadley Chase by the time I was in Class 8. My headmaster used to ask me why I was borrowing these books from the library. I did so because they were there! I read a whole mixed bag of books in middle school and high school, even in college. I read Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, Ayn Rand – a mixed bag. Anything that caught my fancy.
Travel Writing
Ajay Jain: Around 2007, at a personal and professional crossroads and unable to relocate from Delhi, I said to myself, ‘Okay, let me do the next best thing,’ and I became a travel writer. I’d done a few short road trips around India, and I was really enjoying travelling. Since I’d also learnt photography, I was doing a lot of that. I thought, why not make it a profession? So I hit the road.
I didn’t want to write a Lonely Planet kind of book, and I also didn’t want it to be a literary piece. I was thinking of my own format. The first trip I actually went on was to this place called Spiti in Himachal. I spent a night in Manali, and then headed for Spiti. I crossed the Rohtang Pass. Till then, it was fine because there were other people. I’d never done that kind of terrain ever. I drove for hours in a high-altitude desert area with no road signs, no mobile signals, nothing! Just a track where you followed earlier track marks. After a while I realised I was lost!
The Defining Moment – the Birth of Kunzum
Ajay Jain: I just kept driving, not coming across another human being for hours. Imagine not seeing another human being for hours in a country like India. Suddenly I came upon a plateau, upon a sign that said ‘Kaza’, which was where I was headed! That spot, where I stood, was the most astounding place. As I looked around, the only thing I saw was snow peaks, Buddhist flags flying, complete silence. It was breath-taking. I thought to myself, if this is what the planet is, if this is what India is, I want to be a travel writer. In that moment, not only did I find my direction to Kaza, I found my direction in life as well. The spot where I stood was Kunzum-La.
After I returned, I called my blog Kunzum.com. A little accident in technology worked in my favour. I had reserved the domain called traveltattoo.com as my travel blog. For some reason, the registrar didn’t inform me that my domain was up for renewal. It got taken by someone else. In losing traveltattoo.com, I got Kunzum.com. That’s how the name Kunzum came up.
Kunzum Gallery, Hauz Khas Village
Ajay Jain: I did a few shows for my photography at places like Habitat Centre and got a decent response. I was encouraged to open a place of my own and came across a place in Hauz Khas Village. I picked it up in 2009 and opened up a gallery there. On the first day I sold a print, and then for the next year or so I didn’t sell a single thing! So, I was just sitting there with some friends, mulling over what to do, and we realised that all the people who bought my prints in Habitat just happened to be passing by. They saw the prints, they liked it, and bought it on the spot because the prints weren’t very expensive. I decided to do something there (in the gallery in Hauz Khas) that would get people in. That’s when we decided to offer seating in the gallery- let people come in, enjoy free WiFi, etc.
We set up a small library so that people could borrow books, and decided to serve up tea, coffee and cookies. We thought we could pay for all of this. When we looked at the numbers (and crunched them), we realised that if we pay for everything and a certain number of people come, and nobody pays, we will be out of pocket by so much, but will have acquired some customers for that price of coffee and cookies and all.
Funding the Enterprise
Ajay Jain: I was still freelancing, and had been investing over the years with whatever I’d saved from my various ventures. I was just getting by. We decided to rebrand the place in Hauz Khas from Kunzum Gallery to Kunzum Travel Café. The place took a life of its own. A few days after we opened, someone came in asking if we could do a poetry reading, to which I agreed. Before we knew it, we had over 200 events happening in the café every year. There were all sorts of events – book launches, film screenings, poetry events, talks, etc.
We were clear about the financials. If you benefited commercially from it, you pay us. If there was nothing commercial, if you didn’t have the budget, okay, you could use the space anyway (if the event was suitable). We kept it flexible. My main motivation was to get people in, to see my photography and my books, which were sold at the café.
Bookstore Chain in the Time of Amazon
Ajay Jain: During the pandemic, I was reassessing a lot of things. I have always believed that just because we are doing something well, we should not be doing it all our lives. With the pandemic, I had to shut Kunzum Café for over two years, making do with a skeletal staff throughout. I wrote my first novel. I kept wondering: how do I find an audience for my books? No matter how big your publishers are, or how big you are as an author, you still need to find your own readership. Then I thought, why don’t I set up a book club? A national book club, something that would have many people. The response came in quickly as well. I enrolled a couple of thousand members.
That’s when I thought, why don’t I turn Kunzum Travel Café into a chain of reading rooms? Build a model where we create reading rooms across the country, where people come and sit and read. The numbers didn’t add up though. There was no model that would make this sustainable for me. Enough people wouldn’t pay enough money to make this a library-type of model. It wouldn’t work in this climate, especially when real-estate had become so expensive. I had learnt how to build a community, how to bring people together through Kunzum Travel Café, but I didn’t know how to monetise it.
People had asked me, will there be more Kunzum Travel Cafes? Will there be a Kunzum Travel Café franchise? For me, Kunzum Travel Café was more of an exercise in personal branding. For the external investor, there would be no ROI since the only one benefiting from Kunzum Café was one Ajay Jain. In the process, I started making money doing brand endorsements through Kunzum Travel Café. It was more like a PR agency, so the only guy benefiting would have been me.
That is when I realised I should open a chain of bookshops! The model would be Kunzum Travel Café, but with a bookshop added to it. I did some back-of-the-envelope market research. There were people buying books, publishers doing business. In absolute numbers, there were more books being sold than ever before. I went to the bookshops which had good business – like Bahrisons, Faqir Chand, Midlands, etc. They had a huge legacy and were located in prime locations. I figured that I’d learnt how to make Kunzum Café in Hauz Khas a destination, and that I’d make this new venture a destination also. I didn’t really feel too daunted by this, I knew we’d figure things out as we went along. If I started asking too many questions, I would have been dissuaded immediately, so I thought that I’d figure it out on the road.
We have five locations. The GK one has four floors, so you can consider them either four stores or just one. At the core, the business model is simple – sell books, and sell enough books to make a profit. It’s still early days for us, we are on the way as we speak. I know that trends are right, and within this year we will be operationally profitable, so I’m not too worried about that.
I did a bit of reading, given that stores were closing all over the world, and the rise of Amazon. If Amazon did not exist, or if Amazon did not offer such discounts, many more bookshops would be open today. People would still prefer to walk into a bookstore for the experience of buying a book over buying it online. Because Amazon offers such discounts, most people think books are easier to buy online. I blame publishers squarely for this, not Amazon.
The Irony of Publishers Killing Bookstores
Ajay Jain: If books and readership are being challenged by other forms of entertainment, and readers are distracted, one needs to look at this as something cultural. That’s why experiences become important. Experiences are connected to physical spaces. That’s how you expand readership. Unfortunately, when I started interacting with publishers, I noticed that they show little intent to expand readership in society. They are making enough money not to think about expanding readership. It’s not enough for publishers to tell me, “Hey, I love what you’re doing at Kunzum Café.” They need to plug the discounting at Amazon, and the piracy of books. More than piracy, I think the discounting is a problem, which publishers can solve partly through lobbying, and partly through curtailing supply, if they want to. They own the product, and if they say no, that can change things.
The publishers’ argument is that they give the books to distributors to be sold, and these distributors are not within their control. The fact is, everyone is traceable. Publishers know who is selling their books, and can plug supply. If a reseller picked up a book on Amazon to resell, the publisher could tell Amazon to stop them. It could get into a cat-and-mouse game but eventually, it would dissuade them so much that the incentive to play this game would go down.
France Shows the Way
Ajay Jain: Look at what happened in France. The government in France forbade Amazon from offering discounts of more than 5 per cent on books. The French government realised bookshops were a national cultural asset. Because of this, bookshops that were struggling are now flourishing, and new bookshops are opening. This change came through legislation.
In India, if publishers want, they can move the Competition Commission, and say that discounting on Amazon is an unfair trade practice. In a country like India, where you have the MRP [Maximum Retail Price], if you can’t sell above MRP, how can you sell below MRP? Especially because all governments in India have the same stated position on FDI [Foreign Direct Investment] in retail, which is to ‘protect the small trader’. So, Competition Commission could look at how these discounting practices are putting businesses in such a precarious situation. If the publishers make enough of a song-and-dance about it, if they lobbied, if they took legal recourse, I think this issue can be resolved. We have a precedent in France now.
Financial Viability
Ajay Jain: When I was doing research, I wasn’t researching into whether I could open bookshops or not. I was researching how to make it viable. I had already decided I was going to commit to this venture. I’d started acquiring the real estate for it. I read someplace, “Bookshops don’t fail. Bookshops run by lazy booksellers fail.” In today’s day and age, not just books, you have to sell every commodity as an experience. You could be selling shirts, shoes, books, anything, because everything you want is available online. But if you want people to come to the stores, shopping malls, markets, you need to create that experience for people.
The Four Cs of Bookshop Design and Marketing
Ajay Jain: I have formulated what I call ‘The Four Cs of Bookshop Design and Marketing’. First is Configuration, which is basically the way you design the stores. If you look around, we’ve designed them in a way that the shelves don’t overwhelm you. There is enough space to move around, to sit down, to go through the books. You have browsing space and you can maintain a distance between yourself and the shelves. Not only is the vibe inviting, the design also allows you to discover books which you may not have discovered in an overstocked bookstore. The whole mood of being inside a bookstore is extremely important.
The second C is Curation. The kind of titles we select, the way we display them, and the way we help customers discover new material. Finding books customers were not looking for makes for a delightful experience. That is what will bring them back. These customers will say, “Hey, you know what? I went to Kunzum and found this great book! I loved it. It was money well-spent and time well-spent.” This is where Subir and his team come in.
The third C is Community, which we were doing at Kunzum Travel Café. We wanted to build a community of not just readers, but creators – writers, artists, designers, editors, everyone involved in creating books. Again, like Kunzum Travel Café, look at it like a larger cultural thing. So, bring in musicians, film-makers, puppeteers! We wanted to bring these people together to create a community.
The fourth C, Convene, aims to bring these people together for events. Ever since we’ve been fully operational, we’ve already hosted over 500 authors. We’re adding many more events, more programming, more partnerships, so that people can come and use our spaces. We make sure that there is enough space for people at our events, and that people don’t have to push bookshelves in order to be able to participate. We have dedicated spaces for events.
Since many people in my team come from the book retail industry, when the first store opened, the first question they asked was, “Sir, haven’t you wasted a lot of space?” The event space is going to be your brand ambassadors, your marketing agents. People will want to come for these events. We built the whole model on these four Cs. The signs are positive. People will come and talk about you, and be here, and will want to buy books from you. It’s just a matter of time before enough people will buy these books.
The Penguin Floor and Other Initiatives
The Penguin floor
Ajay Jain: In GK 2 we had just one floor, the first floor, a general bookstore, to begin with. Then an opportunity came to acquire the rest of the building above. Because the terms were attractive, I agreed. Then I thought, why not have thematic floors? One thought was that half of the second floor could be a graphic comic and art store, and the other half would be for children’s books, with the rest of the spaces above being dedicated to events. I was in the Penguin office having a general talk about multiple things. I really loved their office, so I said, “Look, it’s like a bookstore in itself.” I proposed that we should have an exclusive Penguin store. Penguin is one publisher with such range and distribution in books, no other publisher has ever come close. Their international collection is only increasing, and they have so much to offer. I don’t think the exclusive floor in our bookshop would have worked with any other publisher, just because no other publisher can offer the range Penguin has. They have graphic novels and comics – an important genre for us.
Then we got an offer from the top management, and I got excited. Like everything else in life, I ran with the idea, and decided to work out the viability later. The idea is that our bookshop showcases the best Penguin has to offer, incentivising Penguin to bring in their best in terms of their programming, their authors, and their events. It technically becomes a Penguin showcase. For us, it’s an opportunity to work closer with the world’s biggest publishing house. A few weeks ago, the UK Penguin team confirmed to me that this (the floor of the bookshop) was the only exclusive Penguin store in the world.
As part of a community, we’ve actually taken a lot of initiatives. One of them is called Book Bees, which is a book club for children, for kids up to twelve. Our children’s book section is called Kunzum Book Bees now. We also have a general book club called the Kunzum Book Club. Anyone can become a member for free. If you become a member, you get priority invites to events, we will give you first access to signed editions, which are always in limited supply; we will give you a little discount on our books, stuff like that. That’s part of the community-building exercise.
We launched the Kunzum CEO Book Club, where we’re getting corporates to come on board to encourage the culture of reading. The proposition being that all leaders are readers. If you want to nurture leadership within your organisation, you need to promote readership. We’re reaching out to them, asking them to buy books on a structured basis to distribute them amongst their employees, and maybe go even beyond that, by distributing them amongst their vendors, their customers, to spread the culture of reading.
We launched this programme called ‘Kunzum Key’ which is open to everyone, but primarily for creators of all kinds. You could be an actor, a dancer, a film-maker, a producer, an event-manager, a musician, anything! We give a free membership card that allows them to create at Kunzum – keep their own sort-of-office as long as they follow a fair-use policy. These creators can come, sit here, do their work, hold meetings, have interactions, brainstorm, showcase their work in some way. They will be offered free WiFi, which we don’t offer our regular customers. Every time these creators come they will be given a no-questions-asked complimentary cup of coffee or tea, and the bookstore will give them a very hefty 20 per cent discount on all the books they buy at the store.
Then there are the lit-fests. We are reaching out to every possible event where there are likely to be people who will buy books. We are asking them to make us their official bookstore partner.
Reaching Out to the Underprivileged
There’s a limitation to how many bookstores we can set up and how much we can do in each store. We don’t want to expand our physical spaces indiscriminately because we want to stay true to the culture we are trying to create. If we expand too much, or thin ourselves out, even if we get funding, which comes with its own pressures, we don’t want to lose our essence.
Our idea of expansion is to take Kunzum to potential readers. The corporate sector is a very obvious one. We’ve started doing small book fairs and events at different localities to promote the culture of books and reading at your doorstep. Schools and colleges are important to us. The intent is there. We’ve already reached out to a few schools, some of the DAV schools, where we did some events. There’s around a thousand schools there. Each school in the DAV chain cuts across all segments of society. We’ve also been approached by a few universities and colleges. We have a limitation of manpower. We want to make sure our manpower can pay for itself. We want to reach out to schools to, again, promote this culture of reading. If schools start buying at an institutional level from us, they can make books available for students who are not able to afford books. That’s where, again, we go back to the whole ethos of ‘Curation’ we are trying to create. Don’t just buy books that you think everyone is reading for the sake of being like everyone else. We’ll help you select books that you may not have thought of. I have been thinking of a programme where enthusiastic readers who are unable to afford books can be matched with someone who could fund their books. Of course, we will have to do it in a slightly more structured way. When I meet anyone from above a certain economic stratum, I see how privileged they are because they can afford to buy books but they are not reading books. There are people out there who want to read books…
At an LGTBQIA event that we had done, a guest who loves books said she couldn’t read anymore because of an eyesight problem. There was another young person there who wanted to read books but could not afford to buy. They just got chatting, they’d never met each other, and the former bought the book for the latter. She said, “I can’t read, but you can, so here’s the book for you.” How do we kind of institutionalise this programme? We’ll have to figure it out.
Regional Language Library
There are a couple of issues here. We will have a space constraint – where do we store it? Number two, how would we curate it? Because every language would require a different curator. In a city like Delhi, there would be enough Telugu readers, Bengali readers. But then, Bengali readers may want something other than the popular titles we might store. They might be looking for a larger collection. A lot of vernacular readers invest a lot in their respective languages. We might not be able to build depth to cater to that audience, so that’s a challenging situation to be in.
Going Ahead
We want to be present in every community – corporates, residential neighbourhoods, schools and colleges, etc. In a small way, we are sending books to rural areas too. For that to pick up pace, we need to look at it slightly differently. For now, we’re doing it in our small capacity. The whole idea is, irrespective of how many stores we have, we just want to go out there and get more people to read. Whether they borrow books and read, or buy books from Kunzum or not, let that be secondary. It falls upon every book lover to spread the good word, and encourage other people to read. Once you overcome that inertia and start reading, you stay with it.
Ajay Jain in Kunzum Bookstore
(Published in multiple sites)
Shantanu Ray Chaudhuriis a film buff, editor, publisher, film critic and writer. Books commissioned and edited by him have won the National Award for Best Book on Cinema twice and the inaugural MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Images) Award for Best Writing on Cinema. In 2017, he was named Editor of the Year by the apex publishing body, Publishing Next. He has contributed to a number of magazines and websites like The Daily Eye, Cinemaazi, Film Companion, The Wire, Outlook, The Taj, and others. He is the author of two books: Whims – A Book of Poems(published by Writers Workshop) and Icons from Bollywood (published by Penguin/Puffin).
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