Joyce Job's Blog, page 6
October 15, 2021
My First Book – The Blue Rabbit
My first book/ poetry collection in English, The Blue Rabbit was published by Writer’s Workshop, India in July 2021. The book is now available for sale on Amazon, India.
Here’s a teaser of the book.
Contents
51 poems spread over 3 sections: People, Love and Search
Teaser
Two Lives
Craving to write a simple “love” or “mirage”
in a piece of code.
Typing out of a desire
then deleting out of necessity;
“aroma” or “drizzle” or “rainbows”.
In an infinite maze of “ifs” and “elses”
I stand broken, my emotions wrecked.
Poetry lost in logical dilemmas,
stories buried in broken thoughts,
characters strangled to meet deadlines,
plots caught in the catastrophes of demands.
Here I am a lost writer,
writing programs for a living.
The same 26 letters of the English alphabet,
plus some numbers and symbols –
the narrow strait connecting my two lives.
Writers Workshop books are printed by Abhijit Nath, SJ Perfection Printing, Lake Gardens, Kolkata. The books are bound by the family of Aktarun Begum, Tulamiah Mohiuddin’s widow, in a village near Diamond Harbour, outside Kolkata. The books are covered by saree cloth, and the font on the cover uses calligraphy. Since they are hand-made, no two books are exactly the same.
Amazon link:https://www.amazon.in/Blue-Rabbit-Joyce-Job/dp/8194998514/
Alternatively, you can also buy the book directly from the publisher.
Please drop an email at: writersworkshopkolkata@gmail.com
Or please drop a message at: https://www.writersworkshopindia.com/contact-us/
Book link: https://www.writersworkshopindia.com/books/the-blue-rabbit/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58649315-the-blue-rabbit
Please read, review and share the book.
July 26, 2021
Poem: Rent & Revenge
Pain is the rent we pay to live in this world
Our only revenge is the lesson we learn from it.
July 12, 2021
Poem: Big Days
I hate the big days with fake smiles and photographs
Great food, bright clothes, crowds and social media updates
In the end, I just want to go back to my room
Shut my door to the world and sleep in peace
I like the quiet days when I get out of my head
I look at little things and catch myself smiling
I wonder why I can’t be like that every day
To just live, you know, not worrying about the ‘to be or not to be’s
July 5, 2021
Poem: Concrete Dreams
I sit on the bamboo chair in my room
and try to dream.
Bricks laid upon bricks,
mortar holding them in place;
houses on top of houses,
walls inside walls inside walls;
cacophony of car honks, modified bikes
screeching on nearby roads.
I shout,
and the concrete chew
my voice, my memories
and spit it right back
on my face.
The enchanting kingdom of wires and screens
lie scattered on my table;
have I ever been more disconnected?
Alexa, can you hear me?
Ask me something,
I haven’t talked for a while.
Or play me a song about love?
Or tell me what you think about life?
I have forgotten the way to my heart.
June 28, 2021
Poem: The Lizard on the Wall
The lizard on the wall
tongues the white switches,
tastes the black plug,
slurps the shadow wire
all the way to my screen.
Tail curling, eyes bulgy,
feet like autumn trees;
he waits beneath the CPU now.
You suddenly make me miss
the dinosaurs from my childhood shows!
It’s a lonely night, yet you seem so sure.
My fingers rest on the keyboard, watching you.
Do we really know what we are loo(ic)king for?
June 21, 2021
Poem: Jump
We sit on a bridge
My head on your shoulder
Fingers entangled
Feet touching
One quick jump
We could’ve swum with the fishes
Float with the algae
Drank from the river
Why didn’t we?
June 14, 2021
Poem: Keep At It, Writer
Searching for the right words to tell a tale since ages
But it’s not falling into place and I don’t know what to do
Do you know what the real issue is?
I’m not really sure if there is a story in me
Even if it exists, I don’t think I have the guts to write it
I don’t have the skills or experience to do it well
I should send the muses away to find a better writer
A good human being would have done that
But I’m not a good human, I’m a selfish one
I want to write that story even if it’s too good for me
I want to write it and claim it as mine forever
So I keep working, day after day, night after night
No assurances, no self-confidence, no progress
Someday it will all make sense to you
Until then just keep at it and don’t give up
If it goes bad, chuck it in the dustbin
If it comes out alright, frame it
If you grow old in the process, grow old with the story
If you grow up by then, grow up with the book
But don’t abandon, don’t abandon, don’t abandon, just yet
Keep at it, keep at it, keep at it, day and night
You don’t know where it will take you
To the gems or to the ruins, each has its own value…
June 8, 2021
Poem: Persist
There’s nothing to live with
There’s nothing to live for
Yet, I persist
March 9, 2021
Poem: Lover’s Hate
Memories
Like a cotton thread pulled out
Of an oozing wound…
Heart
Like a fumigated room
So dead, so sterile
Yet, past lingers
Like the after taste of a kiss
Bitter or sweet?
So unsure…
I long for you
Half-asleep
Half-mad
Your name on my lips, a hundred times,
Like an abuse
A slogan
A prayer
Oh! To smile
To hold your face
To disintegrate in your arms
Like smoke in the rain
Like dreams swallowed by pills…
Oh! To breathe
To have a minute delusion
Of zero hurt and regrets
Oh! To not remember you at all, for a day, forever…
If only I could hate, hate you…
Hate everything I once loved in you…
Hate everything… I once loved in you…
March 2, 2021
Blog : The Year of the Moustache #JLF2021
In my last post, I had started a series of blogs based on the sessions in Jaipur Literature Festival, 2021 conducted virtually from 19-28 Feb, 2021. This blog is based on the session – THE YEAR OF THE MOUSTACHE : S. Hareesh, Jayasree Kalathil in conversation with Aruni Kashyap, introduced by Tejaswini Niranjana conducted on 19 Feb, 2021.
Originally published in Malayalam as Meesha, S. Hareesh’s Moustache is a novel of epic dimensions and a contemporary classic mixing magic, myth and metaphor. The debut novel won the JCB Prize for Literature 2020 and is an extraordinary example of the importance of bringing India’s hidden corners to light through literature. In this session he and his award-winning translator Jayasree Kalathil speak with author and translator Aruni Kashyap about the work’s deep roots in the history, geography, politics and folklore of the Kuttanad region along with the process of translating this award winning novel.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by DC BOOKS (@dcbooks)
I haven’t read the book so I was very confused about attending this session initially. I was worried the session might be full of spoilers and difficult to comprehend. But to my big surprise, the speakers discussed about the book, the controversy surrounding it, casteism, writing under totalitarian governments etc without spoiling the book too much for the possible future readers. So I enjoyed it thoroughly. I also felt that this conversation deserves to be shared with more people. So here goes. Throughout this blog I will be adding excerpts and thoughts from the session, often paraphrased.
The following questions were asked in English by Aruni Kashyap, S. Hareesh replied in Malayalam and Jayasree translated it to English. Some questions were asked directly to Jayasree also.
Q. How did you start writing this novel? What was the inspiration?
Hareesh: I wanted to write a novel since a long time back. I wanted to write about my place Kuttanad, the life there, its flora and fauna. Vavacahan is a real person in my village. At one point, I learnt that Vavachan once acted in a play as a policeman and like his fictional counterpart refused to shave his moustache since then. When I learnt about this, I decided to write that as a novel.
Q. The novel was first serialized in Mathrubhumi magazine. Then it stopped due to the controversy. Did you read it then? How did you get to know about the novel? What made you to take up its English translation works?
Jayasree: Mathrubhumi magazine is an important place for aspiring writers to get published and be recognized. I had read the novel in its serialized version. I was in London when the controversy happened. I didn’t watch it very closely or anything. Then Harpercollins contacted me asking if I was interested in translating the book. I had read only the first two chapters. So I asked for the full book. Once I had read the whole book, there was no way I was going to turn down the opportunity to translate it.
Q. Caste is a major theme in this book, especially caste politics in Kerala. Is it possible to write a caste-blind book anymore? Or will it always seep into our literature and art?
Hareesh: I don’t know about whole India in detail since I have never lived there, I only know from the news, literature etc. But in Kerala where I live, caste-politics is always there even though we call ourselves progressive. Caste-politics is not very explicit in Kerala, but very internal and implicit. Caste is there even in people’s names as suffixes. It is expressive in how wedding or funeral rituals happen. We don’t think it is a contradiction if the same person is a leader in a communist party as well as the leader of a caste community. I don’t think caste can be avoided in our writings. It won’t be true if it is done so. It is a very dishonest way of writing.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Jaipur Literature Festival (@jaipurlitfest)
Q. Is there caste-politics in other Malayalam writings? Does Malayalam have a tradition of anti-caste, dalit writings?
Jayashree: Many popular mainstream writers are from upper-caste, some even write in a casteless way. Their language or narrative is often seen as standard, this is problematic. But we also have a lot of anti-caste, dalit writings in our literature. C. Ayappan‘s short stories, young writers like Renukumar etc are good examples for that. The recently published anthology ‘No Alphabet In Sight‘ is also an example.
Hareesh: Definitely, we have a good tradition of such writings. Pulikelappan who was a poet and revolutionary leader in Kerala, the poet Kumaranashan, writer C. Ayappan, Mukundan‘s work Pulayapattu etc are good examples. But the domination of uppercaste writings, standards etc are problematic.
Q. “Novels are free sovereign countries. We can’t take responsibilities for what our characters do.” This is an excerpt from the author notes of your book. There is a popular neo-liberal tendency where writers are accused of what their characters do, labeling it as glorification. That’s not how fiction works. What was your reason behind adding these lines? What are your thoughts about this argument?
Hareesh: The primary reason behind adding these lines were the controversies. A few lines of conversation between two characters in the novel spurred up the controversy. The whole book and the writer’s character is judged based on a few lines in the book. They don’t even have primary knowledge about fiction; they don’t know how to read fiction. I have quoted this many times, I will repeat it again. In Ramayana, a fisherman questions Sita’s chastity. But that is not Valmiki’s opinion. Saying so limit’s the writer’s creative possibilities and artistic freedom. In one of Llosa’s interviews he says: “how a labourer argues for fair wages, its in the same strain a writer argues for freedom.”
Q. In fiction, only trouble is interesting. Fiction is interesting before the happy endings happen. We need troubled people to create this trouble. Should we give “cautionary notes” about traumatizing events in the story? Is fiction a safe place, or as a view of the real world is it so traumatic and troubling?
Hareesh: Difficult question. No need. Writers themselves should think of writing or fiction as a safe place. It is a rescue place for the writer. Totalitarians are afraid of free speech. Storytelling is a fundamental part of our democratic process: to be interested in another person’s story. Recently, this is constantly threatened. Readers and writers have to hold on to it, demand it.
Q. In an interview of Margaret Atwood, one of her readers exclaimed that reading her books made readers sad. Atwood replied that it is a preparation for a real world. Quoting another writer she said, “Life should come with trigger warnings if novels should be a safe place. “
Hareesh: I agree. Life is full of mixed experiences. One such experience is happiness, it is not the only one. So fiction is also sad.
Q. Where do you think a storyteller and translator comes in, in the process of sustaining democratic tradition in 2021?
Hareesh: Covid was beyond all kinds of religion, boundaries and barriers; so was its solution. So should be democracy and storytelling. Storytelling should be unifying. I hope it continues to do so.
If you are someone like me, who hasn’t read the novel Meesha or its English translation The Moustache yet, I hope you will buy the book and read it soon. In fact, I’m waiting for my copy to arrive. Please share your thoughts about the novel in the comments. Happy reading 
You can know more about the author and buy the book using below links:
https://dcbookstore.com/authors/s-hareesh
