Everyone has an opinion and these days, opinions find an outlet in blogs. After ranting, raving, reminiscing and pretty much analysing life in a metro in their respective blogs, three Bangalore-based writers — Christina Daniels, Nirmala Govindarajan, and Zahid H Javali — have come together with a book, Mind Blogs 1.0.
A compilation of their select blog entries, the topics in the book range from the humorous to the tragic, and the mundane to the surprising. A refreshing take on what makes Bangalore the city that it is, the book is also an overview of the bustling city life from the individual viewpoints of the writers. And there are little snippets on the authors’ personal experiences — their difficulties and how they overcame them, along with suggestions on how to mitigate the reader’s own travails in today’s frenetic lifestyle.
According to the blurb, ‘three Bangalore writers go off-track and find themselves’. The unusual format of the book, with its newspaper clippings and excerpts from literary works, serve as preludes to the pieces. It brings out a certain candidness of expression that reaches out to the readers.
How they did it
Says Daniels, a 34-year-old marketing communications professional at Dell, Bangalore, “The book resembles a blog. All my pieces were initially blog posts. They weren’t written with an idea of going into a book.” A compilation of relevant contemporary conversations that would engage the attention of GenNext was the focus of the book.
“Three of us sat together, and edited each of our blogs to see how things look different on screen and on paper,” says Javali, who launched his publishing firm, Write Wing Media with Mind Blogs 1.0.
Since each had a distinct style, they edited their individual blogs first. “I didn’t want my style to cramp on her style while editing her piece. First, we see if the blogs should go into the book. The selected ones were first edited by the writer. Then we saw each other’s pieces and marked the sentences that needed to be rewritten. And to clarify and collate what was written we sat together at Koshy’s (a restaurant) with the printouts,” says Govindarajan, a senior copy editor with a national newspaper in Bangalore.
Write for your audience
Language in the book is simple and easy to read. Was it a conscious decision to keep it that way? “Whether it is in a blog or book, it is about being very candid. We’re writers, so we craft our words. Language has to be presented in a certain way,” explains Govindarajan.
Daniels concurs and adds that there are two ways to write. “One is simple writing — it’s more about communicating the message. Then there’s the writing that kind of gets carried away in the writing itself — the use of language, the floweriness…and you get lost in the medium.”
Reaching out to the readers was
important, and Govindarajan stresses, “Any creative person, when you start out, wants to start with flowery words. But along the way, we’ve all evolved.”
When three writers work together, there are bound to be complexities. “The challenge is to accept and understand that you’re part of a larger group and to integrate it and come out as a whole; diverse personalities coming together as one,” says the 34-year-old Govindarajan. All three writers agreed to self-publish due “to the desire to preserve the format of the book without compromising on the idea,” says Daniels.
“And,” adds Javali, “publicity was an issue. It cost us `54,000 to print 1,000 copies. This is very less, as the editing, proofing and design was done in-house. Else, the cost would have doubled.” A sequel (or two) of the book is in the pipeline. His company, he says would be a platform for “new, young bloggers to become published authors. Besides, we will launch other books — fiction and nonfiction, photography, short stories and so on — by famous and the not-so-famous authors.”
Different styles tell different tales
Govindarajan’s writing style is unpretentious as she recounts anecdotes — interesting ones — from her past, each tale ending with a slight twist. Luv Ya Guys tactfully broaches the subject of ageing and how resourcefully some people have learned to cope, while Give me heaven attempts to spread the word of tolerance and peace. If it weren’t for horns, life wouldn’t be worth it portrays, humorously, the perils of driving in the traffic–ridden Garden City. “I wanted to reach out to GenNow about the small little things in life that make it worth living,” she says. “It’s about anecdotal experiences. I think we Indians are phenomenal people. We survive all the chaos.”
Javali’s personal experiences of reality shows and Bollywood talent shows are amusing. Young readers are sure to relate to them. Little tips on life’s lessons in What I’ve learned, and the entertaining The before-after man, and the strange story in This is no Irish joke, are eminently readable. “The idea of Mind Blogs was to appeal to the masses and not to a particular variety of reader,” asserts Javali. “That, I feel, should be the essence of any writer, unless they’re a specialist writer.”
Daniels’ wistful reflections are sweet, as in Mum is 60, a well-written tribute to her mother, and the poem, Whose fault is it anyway? that attempts to portray the state of affairs in India when a tragedy occurs. Being alone tries to capture the emotions of the individual soul, while The Tigress of Panchgani remembers a strict yet remarkable teacher on the lives of her students.
Isn’t poetry better suited for some topics? “I think that both have their place. It just depends on that particular event, and the form that comes to you,” says Daniels. “There are times when you get up in the morning and don’t feel like writing. There is some discipline involved.”
Just keep writing
Javali believes that writers should not think of money when they start out.
“People should just write for the sake of writing. And not worry about finding a publisher or a newspaper. They should just write. Because I feel that if your writing is really good, it will find an audience sooner or later,” says the 36-year-old CEO.
He adds that writing is a craft and doesn’t have to be an inborn talent. “It’s not really so much in the genes. A writer should strive for not the right way or wrong way, just his way. If there are people who want to write, just read, read and read.”
Govindarajan says that a writer must always peg an audience. “Reading is imperative. There’s an ego in us that wants to be read or to be seen. When people read what you’ve written, they should feel it.”
She adds that writers should read a lot on advertising. “For an aspiring writer, if what you write doesn’t give you a high, you’re not on the right track. Always be open to comments and criticisms.”
It’s all about a city
Mind Blogs 1.0 does not claim to be a literary masterpiece. The tone and tenor sometimes seem simplistic and, as the back cover suggests, the book is ‘…a collection of heartfelt ramblings from Bangalore’. The concept of introducing news clippings before each piece, say the authors, was to use a news item that captured a thread of universal feeling which would be elaborated in the piece itself.
Not all the blogs were written when the news appeared. While the plethora of topics that have been written about, display laudable intentions of social reform, some could have been expressed with a little more tact that does not necessarily seem obvious.
In essence, the book is a unique idea that captures the candidness and versatility of life in Bangalore, where the chaotic is imbued with the sophisticated, complicated life is tinged with the simplicity of yore. The careful choice of humour in some pieces and poetry in the others help present a myriad of ideas in different forms. The news clippings, in particular, lay bare the essence of emotion the pieces following them attempt to capture.
Mind Blogs 1.0 is an exploration of a new format and the enthusiastic representation of a popular medium, that of the blog, in print. For writers wishing to express themselves and present their ideas, the authors encourage submissions at www.Mind Blogs1.wordpress.com.
suryakantham3@yahoo.com