I come from a long line of displeasers. My great-grandfather, one of the maternal ones, was a jailbird. Regularly did time because the guys in charge then thought he was being a nuisance. My grandfather, the paternal one, was no great public favourite either, roughed up by his kin and excommunicated from the village; he spent several years in a hut on the outskirts with his wife and kids. What he got for consorting with the wrong kind, the heretic. My father, god bless him, has to my knowledge never said yes to a lucrative assignment. And, oh, he’s never been to school. Not guys you’d hang out with, right?
The first one wrote the definitive history of the Indian National Congress, the second is a beloved Telugu poet whose impish, very recognisable face turns up those rare times my name is Googled (we share a name, unfortunately for him), and my old man is a cartoonist whose stock in trade is mockery: the spectral opposite of pleasing.
Therefore you can understand why, for me, writing and displeasing are pretty much inextricable.
When I was young, the art of displeasing came quite effortlessly to me. The first time I got thumped, it was at the hands of a cousin who beat me up enough to work off angst worth a lifetime. (He is currently in the running for the Nobel for Peace.) The beating wasn’t retaliation to a punch I’d thrown or anything. Just a reaction to something I said.
From then on, it became pretty ritual: my thoughts came out as words that induced a chemical reaction in the person before me resulting in his (sometimes her) forearm imitating a piston in the region of my face. But did I shut up and let the words stay mouth-bound till they dissolved in saliva and went down my food pipe? Hell, no. I figured the truth value of my words was directly proportional to the efficacy and duration of the beating. So, from age ten till my late twenties, as I discovered new and exciting ways to express myself, my face and body stopped fists of all makes and sizes.
I have been beaten by friends, bosses, old ladies, people who have never beaten anyone before or after, my future wife and mother-in-law working as a tag team, a facemask-wearing Jain monk and once even by a quadriplegic who signalled me to come close only to head-butt me.
So I became a writer.
Because that’s what writers are, aren’t they? They are displeasers, wart-magnifiers, manure-detectors, swim-against-the-tiders, the I-don’t-care-what-you-thinkers. The guys who stick a latex-gloved little finger up the world’s rectum to diddle it every time gas builds up.
Or, at least, that’s what they ought to be.
But it all seems to have changed.
Today’s writer is the literary equivalent of the thankless son-of-a-gun deputed by the bride’s side at a traditional banana leaf wedding bhojanam, the guy whose job is to ensure that meals being served are to the satisfaction of the impossible-to-please groom’s side guests.
Hands folded, head deferentially low, he goes from reader to reader. “Do you like the book?” he says. “Oh, you think there should have been more commas? Sure! Bearer, hot–hot commas, please, phata-phat.”
“What about the cover design? Oh, you like it but your wife doesn’t. Terribly sorry. Will change it in the next edition.”
“And you, madam? You didn’t think Surpanakha should have had her nose sliced off in my retelling? You think it’s sexist. No problem, madam. I will get in touch with Valmiki on WhatsApp and set that right.”
“What do you want my next book to be, young man? What? A medieval cookbook with futuristic recipes? Of course I can do it!”
“And you, dear sir, should I write about child abuse or marital rape? Which would you prefer? Maybe both, to be on the safe side? Do you think it should be a tragedy? Or you want a happy ending?”
How and when did this happen?
When did writers go from displeasing to pleasing to downright pleasuring? These jiggly, ingratiating middle-aged men/women, hurtling back and forth in cyberspace, competing with a generation that doesn’t know any better, so intent on satisfying the customer you’d think they all worked in massage parlours!
I’ve written two books. And I guess I’ve tried this whole pleasing routine, too. Fell right into it before I knew it – got my own FB page, did the book launches, the festival circuit, requisitioned reviews, got photographed looking like it was a cannon, not Canon, taken bullshit from my publishers and generally behaved in a manner that would have had the grandpappies tch-tch-ing.
My third book is ready to go to print. Or so I hear. (Then again, my publisher’s watchman’s sister-in-law’s memoir could take precedence over it.) Funnily – and with utmost relief, I must add – unlike in the case of my earlier books, I’m not getting all set to wriggle into my big-girl panties, slap on a smile that makes me look uncannily like V. Narayana Murthy, stick out my literary begging bowl (“You must, you must, Krishna, in today’s competitive scenario!”) and wave it about at street corners.
I wrote the book, didn’t I?
My job is done.
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli is a part-time writer and full-time displeaser.
The first one wrote the definitive history of the Indian National Congress, the second is a beloved Telugu poet whose impish, very recognisable face turns up those rare times my name is Googled (we share a name, unfortunately for him), and my old man is a cartoonist whose stock in trade is mockery: the spectral opposite of pleasing.
Therefore you can understand why, for me, writing and displeasing are pretty much inextricable.
When I was young, the art of displeasing came quite effortlessly to me. The first time I got thumped, it was at the hands of a cousin who beat me up enough to work off angst worth a lifetime. (He is currently in the running for the Nobel for Peace.) The beating wasn’t retaliation to a punch I’d thrown or anything. Just a reaction to something I said.
From then on, it became pretty ritual: my thoughts came out as words that induced a chemical reaction in the person before me resulting in his (sometimes her) forearm imitating a piston in the region of my face. But did I shut up and let the words stay mouth-bound till they dissolved in saliva and went down my food pipe? Hell, no. I figured the truth value of my words was directly proportional to the efficacy and duration of the beating. So, from age ten till my late twenties, as I discovered new and exciting ways to express myself, my face and body stopped fists of all makes and sizes.
I have been beaten by friends, bosses, old ladies, people who have never beaten anyone before or after, my future wife and mother-in-law working as a tag team, a facemask-wearing Jain monk and once even by a quadriplegic who signalled me to come close only to head-butt me.
So I became a writer.
Because that’s what writers are, aren’t they? They are displeasers, wart-magnifiers, manure-detectors, swim-against-the-tiders, the I-don’t-care-what-you-thinkers. The guys who stick a latex-gloved little finger up the world’s rectum to diddle it every time gas builds up.
Or, at least, that’s what they ought to be.
But it all seems to have changed.
Today’s writer is the literary equivalent of the thankless son-of-a-gun deputed by the bride’s side at a traditional banana leaf wedding bhojanam, the guy whose job is to ensure that meals being served are to the satisfaction of the impossible-to-please groom’s side guests.
Hands folded, head deferentially low, he goes from reader to reader. “Do you like the book?” he says. “Oh, you think there should have been more commas? Sure! Bearer, hot–hot commas, please, phata-phat.”
“What about the cover design? Oh, you like it but your wife doesn’t. Terribly sorry. Will change it in the next edition.”
“And you, madam? You didn’t think Surpanakha should have had her nose sliced off in my retelling? You think it’s sexist. No problem, madam. I will get in touch with Valmiki on WhatsApp and set that right.”
“What do you want my next book to be, young man? What? A medieval cookbook with futuristic recipes? Of course I can do it!”
“And you, dear sir, should I write about child abuse or marital rape? Which would you prefer? Maybe both, to be on the safe side? Do you think it should be a tragedy? Or you want a happy ending?”
How and when did this happen?
When did writers go from displeasing to pleasing to downright pleasuring? These jiggly, ingratiating middle-aged men/women, hurtling back and forth in cyberspace, competing with a generation that doesn’t know any better, so intent on satisfying the customer you’d think they all worked in massage parlours!
I’ve written two books. And I guess I’ve tried this whole pleasing routine, too. Fell right into it before I knew it – got my own FB page, did the book launches, the festival circuit, requisitioned reviews, got photographed looking like it was a cannon, not Canon, taken bullshit from my publishers and generally behaved in a manner that would have had the grandpappies tch-tch-ing.
My third book is ready to go to print. Or so I hear. (Then again, my publisher’s watchman’s sister-in-law’s memoir could take precedence over it.) Funnily – and with utmost relief, I must add – unlike in the case of my earlier books, I’m not getting all set to wriggle into my big-girl panties, slap on a smile that makes me look uncannily like V. Narayana Murthy, stick out my literary begging bowl (“You must, you must, Krishna, in today’s competitive scenario!”) and wave it about at street corners.
I wrote the book, didn’t I?
My job is done.
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli is a part-time writer and full-time displeaser.
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