Call me old-fashioned but I like everyone’s roles to be clearly delineated.
For instance, I’d be profoundly disturbed if my boss suddenly became a writer of erotic fiction. At important meetings, I would find it impossible to concentrate. Images of rock-hard body parts doing god-knows-what to moistly juicy ones would fly about unstoppably in my head to a background score of Cerrone’s Love in C Minor.
The average mind like mine doesn’t accept miscasting. Or multicasting. It isn’t ready to see Nirupa Roy playing Mona Darling, Loin’s gun moll. Or A K Hangal playing Chhota Bheem, if you know what I mean.
This applies to writers, too.
In my head, the role of a writer requires the following very limited thespian abilities: writing, having your name on book covers and appearing suitably embarrassed if your photo appears in the newspapers.
A writer can’t go around judging dance shows. Or becoming a lingerie model for plus sized women, especially if he’s a man.
A couple of months ago, in a mega ad blitz that no one could have missed, not one, but two guys, did just that.
From writing bestselling fiction, a pair of literary heavyweights (I swear on my wife’s turmeric-coated mangalyam, I’m not punning) suddenly turned brand ambassadors for a reading-related product. They were paid a fat fee, too, no doubt. No puns there either, promise.
In this one-two knockout punch of a campaign, one writer spoke of the burden that his “crazy love for reading” added to his luggage: 8-10 kg for the 4-5 books he carried, making one wonder if his preferred reading material was old telephone directories. In the other, the second writer spoke of his large family library that set off his “tremendous love for reading” which may or may not have also been where the family stash of sweets was hidden.
It was all achingly beautiful, intimately touching, surprisingly poignant and lyrically audacious. Just like a book blurb.
I can kind of see how this beast came to be.
The mega-corporation that makes this product calls in its agency. “Buggers, sales are down! Do something, okay, varna...” or something like that says Head Honcho with appropriate suggestive hand gestures.
A crack team of company and ad agency execs repair to an exotic seaside location to brainstorm.
After much strenuous strategising in the spa and the infinity pool bar followed by auditioning local bikini beauties for various important roles in the ad, the highly paid execs return.
They make a PowerPoint presentation with pie charts. Several “low-hanging fruit” “open the kimono”s and “boil the frog”s are thrown in. Head Honcho is thoughtful. Scratches chin.
What an epic concept, says the guy who had come up with the idea while having an Ayurvedic colonic at the resort.
Imagine, says the guy whose head is most likely to roll, getting the glamour boys of Indian literature to plug your reading-related product! How can their readers (the sweaty masses who constitute roughly two-thirds of reading India) not follow kicking, screaming and shoving each other to be first in line to buy it?
Piece of cake says another. Cake, did anyone say cake? says the writer who’s been called in for the meeting, too.
It’ll be like stealing candy from a baby, says another exec. Did I hear candy says writer. He sulks because there was mention of pie earlier, albeit in a diagram, and it has shown no signs of appearing. No one takes notice.
Pre-emptive champagne is cracked. Cheerleaders jump out with pom-poms on cue.
Head honcho relaxes and signs very large cheque.
But just a couple of months later, the manufacturers have dropped this formerly mega-mind-blowingly-chakkas-bitchingly-super-awesome ad.
Today, the ad doing the rounds seems to have changed its brand ambassadors – to anonymous readers of all ages.
Now why would a mega-corporation change an ad produced at such huge cost so suddenly?
Could it be because the original ads didn’t work?
What? Who said that?
Okay, let’s say they didn’t. Then tell us, no, Mr Sourgrapes Smallfry Writer. Why didn’t they?
Here’s why, maybe.
(Readers at this point are asked to note that while I do have some experience in the advertising field, I worked as art director-cum-office boy for a now defunct Mallu agency called Kunjumon’s Kommunications and my oeuvre was mostly designing press ads for broad spectrum antifungal creams and non-stick cooking pans, both of which I also modelled for – the latter in drag – on account of the limited budgets.)
Coming back to my theory, yes, there are writers who sell in our country without trying. And, yes, these two guys are right at the top of that group. Ideally, their readers should have followed. But here’s the thing no one accounted for.
The folk who buy their books are not, really, how shall I put it, readers? Not in the conventional sense, at least. The only books they buy are by these guys. Just like the guys who read Fifty Shades of Grey buy only that, other than hand lotion and tissue, that is.
So, why would such a person need a product whose USP is that it holds hundreds of books by all kinds of boring writers they’ve never heard of?
Five hundred bucks is all they’ll ever need for their library.
Conversely, why would the serious reader, by which I mean anyone who has read more than ten writers, be too swayed by anything endorsed by these two writers?
Either that or my canny compatriots sold so many numbers of the product that they’re holding out for a larger share of the pie ... and cake, and maybe some whipped cream to go along with it.
Either way, I stand by my thesis. Writers should stick to writing. Like burglars should stick to burgling. Or burglarising, if they happen to be American. Play the role you signed up for. At least in public. In private, not that I do it, dressing up as a French maid and asking the wife to beat you with the feather duster to the rhythm of Munni badnaam hui is perfectly okay.
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli is the author of two novels, Ice Boys in Bell-Bottoms and Jump Cut, and a play, Dear Anita. He has played various Oscar-worthy roles in private.
For instance, I’d be profoundly disturbed if my boss suddenly became a writer of erotic fiction. At important meetings, I would find it impossible to concentrate. Images of rock-hard body parts doing god-knows-what to moistly juicy ones would fly about unstoppably in my head to a background score of Cerrone’s Love in C Minor.
The average mind like mine doesn’t accept miscasting. Or multicasting. It isn’t ready to see Nirupa Roy playing Mona Darling, Loin’s gun moll. Or A K Hangal playing Chhota Bheem, if you know what I mean.
This applies to writers, too.
In my head, the role of a writer requires the following very limited thespian abilities: writing, having your name on book covers and appearing suitably embarrassed if your photo appears in the newspapers.
A writer can’t go around judging dance shows. Or becoming a lingerie model for plus sized women, especially if he’s a man.
A couple of months ago, in a mega ad blitz that no one could have missed, not one, but two guys, did just that.
From writing bestselling fiction, a pair of literary heavyweights (I swear on my wife’s turmeric-coated mangalyam, I’m not punning) suddenly turned brand ambassadors for a reading-related product. They were paid a fat fee, too, no doubt. No puns there either, promise.
In this one-two knockout punch of a campaign, one writer spoke of the burden that his “crazy love for reading” added to his luggage: 8-10 kg for the 4-5 books he carried, making one wonder if his preferred reading material was old telephone directories. In the other, the second writer spoke of his large family library that set off his “tremendous love for reading” which may or may not have also been where the family stash of sweets was hidden.
It was all achingly beautiful, intimately touching, surprisingly poignant and lyrically audacious. Just like a book blurb.
I can kind of see how this beast came to be.
The mega-corporation that makes this product calls in its agency. “Buggers, sales are down! Do something, okay, varna...” or something like that says Head Honcho with appropriate suggestive hand gestures.
A crack team of company and ad agency execs repair to an exotic seaside location to brainstorm.
After much strenuous strategising in the spa and the infinity pool bar followed by auditioning local bikini beauties for various important roles in the ad, the highly paid execs return.
They make a PowerPoint presentation with pie charts. Several “low-hanging fruit” “open the kimono”s and “boil the frog”s are thrown in. Head Honcho is thoughtful. Scratches chin.
What an epic concept, says the guy who had come up with the idea while having an Ayurvedic colonic at the resort.
Imagine, says the guy whose head is most likely to roll, getting the glamour boys of Indian literature to plug your reading-related product! How can their readers (the sweaty masses who constitute roughly two-thirds of reading India) not follow kicking, screaming and shoving each other to be first in line to buy it?
Piece of cake says another. Cake, did anyone say cake? says the writer who’s been called in for the meeting, too.
It’ll be like stealing candy from a baby, says another exec. Did I hear candy says writer. He sulks because there was mention of pie earlier, albeit in a diagram, and it has shown no signs of appearing. No one takes notice.
Pre-emptive champagne is cracked. Cheerleaders jump out with pom-poms on cue.
Head honcho relaxes and signs very large cheque.
But just a couple of months later, the manufacturers have dropped this formerly mega-mind-blowingly-chakkas-bitchingly-super-awesome ad.
Today, the ad doing the rounds seems to have changed its brand ambassadors – to anonymous readers of all ages.
Now why would a mega-corporation change an ad produced at such huge cost so suddenly?
Could it be because the original ads didn’t work?
What? Who said that?
Okay, let’s say they didn’t. Then tell us, no, Mr Sourgrapes Smallfry Writer. Why didn’t they?
Here’s why, maybe.
(Readers at this point are asked to note that while I do have some experience in the advertising field, I worked as art director-cum-office boy for a now defunct Mallu agency called Kunjumon’s Kommunications and my oeuvre was mostly designing press ads for broad spectrum antifungal creams and non-stick cooking pans, both of which I also modelled for – the latter in drag – on account of the limited budgets.)
Coming back to my theory, yes, there are writers who sell in our country without trying. And, yes, these two guys are right at the top of that group. Ideally, their readers should have followed. But here’s the thing no one accounted for.
The folk who buy their books are not, really, how shall I put it, readers? Not in the conventional sense, at least. The only books they buy are by these guys. Just like the guys who read Fifty Shades of Grey buy only that, other than hand lotion and tissue, that is.
So, why would such a person need a product whose USP is that it holds hundreds of books by all kinds of boring writers they’ve never heard of?
Five hundred bucks is all they’ll ever need for their library.
Conversely, why would the serious reader, by which I mean anyone who has read more than ten writers, be too swayed by anything endorsed by these two writers?
Either that or my canny compatriots sold so many numbers of the product that they’re holding out for a larger share of the pie ... and cake, and maybe some whipped cream to go along with it.
Either way, I stand by my thesis. Writers should stick to writing. Like burglars should stick to burgling. Or burglarising, if they happen to be American. Play the role you signed up for. At least in public. In private, not that I do it, dressing up as a French maid and asking the wife to beat you with the feather duster to the rhythm of Munni badnaam hui is perfectly okay.
Krishna Shastri Devulapalli is the author of two novels, Ice Boys in Bell-Bottoms and Jump Cut, and a play, Dear Anita. He has played various Oscar-worthy roles in private.
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