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3May-Jun 2013 Vol 3 Issue 3
short fiction essays verse reviews
Reading HourEditorial
What a summer is upon us this year! Blank white dawns, glaring noons, and stifling sunsets gaudy with colour. Indeed, too hot the eye of heaven shines down this May. Surely then, it could be respectable to be a little lazy. To hold off on dashing around getting things done, if one can. To curl up instead with a glass of cold sugarcane juice and lose oneself in engrossing stories.
Saranyan B V’s What to do with Fatik Ruidas? will transport you to the noisy, overheated, smoke filled platforms of a steelworks and the close camaraderie among its crew. Aditya Sudarshan’s Left Side of the Face explores the love-hate relationship a man has with himself and the impact it has on his life. Janaki Venkataraman’s Of Facts and Figures is a whodunit that is solved by an unlikely detective. Deepa Kylasam Iyer’s Missed Call is about the difficult relationships between fathers and sons. N S Vishwanath tells a beautifully detailed story Jasmine in the Mist, about a small family dealing with dementia.
Earlier this year Sreelata Menon travelled to Dhaka and she reports on her experiences there. Galapagos, where Charles Darwin collected material for his research, is covered in a short essay by Sarah Rand, with some beautiful photographs of the local fauna.
We profile young entrepreneur Rajeev Kher, whose social enterprise 3S Shramik is a pioneer in the field of portable sanitation and liquid waste management.
Mridula Koshy, whose debut novel Not Only The Things That Have Happened was very well received, chats about her books and her writing with Suneetha Balakrishnan.
If you enjoy this issue do recommend Reading Hour to a friend or two. Happy reading.
Editors
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Disclaimer: Matter published in Reading Hour magazine is the work of individual writers who guarantee it to be entirely their own, and original work. Contributions to Reading Hour are largely creative, while certain articles are the writer’s own experiences or observations. The publishers accept no liability for them. Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily represent the policies or positions of the publisher. The publishers intend no factual miscommunication, disrespect to, or incitement of any individual, community or enterprise through this publication.
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May-Jun 2013Vol 3 Issue 360 pages
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4 Reading Hour
Fiction 3 What To Do With Fatik Ruidas? saranyan b v
9 hum lance manion
14 Missed Call deepa kylasam iyer
34 Eyes smitha bhat
35 Left Side of the Face aditya sudarshan
45 An Economy of Her Own nidhin shobhana
49 Jasmine in the Mist n s vishwanath
54 O f Facts and Figures janaki venkataraman
58 A Piece of Advice chaturvedi divi
Interview 22 Mridula Koshy suneetha balakrishnan
Essays11 Dhaka sreelata menon
29 Walking in Wonderland sarah rand
Contents
Poetry10 Those Questions and an Endless Night tanaya singh
18 The Barber Came At Dawn malini seshadri
21 To Reach You abha iyengar
28 Abdul mohammed junaid ansari
33 So on and so forth abby jay
33 The Road abby jay
59 In the Waiting Room s aruna
First Person19 Days of Being Wild siddhartha lal
27 Light Stuff
Profile42 Social Enterprise: 3S Shramik
47 Are you reading this?
60 Last Page
Get Reading Hour at your doorstep!Subscribe using the form on page 27
or visit http://readinghour.in.
Cover by Sandhya Prabhat (sandhyaprabhat.com), Freelance Animator/Illustrator with an MFA degree from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Asia.
Inside cover photograph by Sarah Rand: The most photographed spot on Galapagos Islands
5May-Jun 2013 Vol 3 Issue 3
The red-hot plume dotted black here and there, but mostly red and
rich, strikes the side of my face. The smell of burnt metal irritates
the inside of my nostrils; I snort due to the desiccation. The hapless air-
conditioner struggles noisily to cool the cabin; yet, the sweat from my palms
makes the pen slip in my fingers as I make entries in the log book.
Generous smoke billows through the broken windowpane. Shift engineers
ingenuously keep one of the panes broken. The break grants a view of the
teeming platform below, and is an insidious way of keeping track of the
preparedness; it is a lot easier than walking to the door every now and then.
No matter how many
times we change
them, the glasses
turn opaque due to
the dirt raised in the
span of a single shift.
…
Fiction
What To Do With Fatik Ruidas?saranyan b v Saranyan is a poet and short story writer. He is
currently working on the Sincere Anthology of not so Obese-poems.
6May-Jun 2013 Vol 3 Issue 3
A wise man once told me that a ladder is not an upside down hole...
so you can see why I am leery of advice. He really was a wise man
but I can’t help thinking that on that particular day he was a bit off his game.
Thinking back, he might have been the man who started me on the whole
“either/or” path that has been part of my life since I was little. This way of
dealing with bad things started innocently enough. If I dropped my ice cream
I would think to myself that I would rather have dropped it than maintained
control and been hit by a car an hour later. Using this little ploy I always felt
that things turned out for the best. As I got older this very simplistic way of
looking at things continued. Anything bad that happened was immediately
made better by the idea that something much worse could have happened had
the original bad thing not transpired. I was never going to win the lottery but
I was also not going to contract some deadly rotting disease and this made my
very ordinary life seem ok …
Fiction
humlance manion Lance has recently released his third short fiction anthology
The Ball Washer. He has contributed to several online fiction sites as well as short story anthologies.
7 Reading Hour
Poetry
Those Questions and an Endless Night Tanaya works as the Executive
Editor at Youth Ki Awaaz. Poetry for her, is the most beautiful form
of expression and art. tanaya singh
The Barber Came At Dawnmalini seshadri
Malini is a freelance writer, editor, and former columnist based in Chennai. She has authored a book for children
and co-authored value education textbooks.
To Reach Youabha iyengar
Abha is an internationally published poet, author and creative writing mentor. She has authored
‘Yearnings’ (poetry), ‘Flash Bites’ (flash fiction) and ‘Shrayan’ (a fantasy novel).
Abdul Mohammed studied Literature and Journalism. He writes short stories, poems and plays.
mohammed junaid ansari
Poetry Abby is a nineteen year old pre-med student and aspiring poet who lives in Saudi Arabia.abby jay
Aruna is an engineering student who wants a library and two cats.
s arunaIn the Waiting Room
8May-Jun 2013 Vol 3 Issue 3
A cacophony of sound hit us as we walked out of the Hazrat
Shah Jalal International Airport. The colossal din, which
would put any Indian bus terminus to shame, assaulted our ears. It was
the buzz of people waiting to receive disgorging arrivals, competing
with shrill police whistles
and a continuous stream
of blaring cars and battered
SUVs manoeuvring to
make a quick getaway.
With trolleys packed to
the hilt narrowly missing
unsuspecting toes, the
chaos was unimaginable.
But the sudden sense of
déjà vu that assailed us hinted that we were in familiar territory,
perhaps in an India of a few decades ago. So, welcome to Dhaka. A
city as famous for its Dhakai muslins as it is for the proud Bengali
heritage it shares with us …
essay
DhakaSreelata is a widely travelled freelance writer
who has published with Penguin / Puffin among others.
sreelata menon
Lal Bagh Fort
9 Reading Hour
“Take careto fly a middle course, lest if you sinktoo low the waves may weigh your feathers; iftoo high, the heat may burn them.Fly half-way between the two.”
Said Dedalus to Icarus1.
Father to son. The
mighty Dedalus, desperate and
compromised, tailoring a fragile
future for his young son. With
wax wings. To fly neither too high,
nor too low. The affordable ideals
of the middle path. The aspiration
to fly just above the waters and way below the skies, to crawl out and escape silently
and go across the seas and make a future in a strange land. The distance would
inspire lofty dreams that had no place on terra firma. “I know how men in exile feed
on dreams; I know how men feed alien dreams to their own sons.”
Expensive wings to make impossible dreams come true. The things that fathers do!
…
fiction
Missed CallDeepa studied in India and France. She has published with
the British Council, Voices Israel, Sampad; and in several magazines. Her play Metaphor was long listed for The
Hindu MetroPlus Playwright Award 2012
deepa kylasam iyer
10May-Jun 2013 Vol 3 Issue 3
Days of Being Wildsiddhartha lal Siddhartha is a student and a writer. His work has appeared
in Helter Skelter (an online journal), Urban Shots – The Love Collection, The Traversal of Lines, Papercuts, and Talk.
Yes, this isA noon for wild men, wild thoughts, wild love.- Hot Noon in Malabar, Kamala Das
Here, summer is the season of dreams. As the languid
afternoon shudders to a halt before the sweltering heat of
the grey evenings takes over, time slows to near stillness and one
cannot but dream with open eyes. Dreams lingering on the border
between reality and illusion. Dreams shimmering in the distance
like mirages, luring unsuspecting victims. Dreams that seem
to be the illegitimate offspring of nostalgia, depriving
you of your peace of mind at the
slightest hint of weakness. And just
like that, reminiscent of little children
colouring outside the lines in their
drawing books, these dreams visit often,
to dislodge the stagnant reality of the
summers here …
first person
11 Reading Hour
interview
Mridula Koshy
in conversation withsuneetha balakrishnan
Mridula Koshy is a writer with a respectable repertoire: a well-appreciated debut anthology (If It Is Sweet), an award, and now a novel (Not Only The Things That Have Happened) that she places in the two worlds she has occupied in the four decades of her life. Here, she chats with Suneetha Balakrishnan about her books, writing, its reasons and more.
SB: Publishers in India often discourage authors from short-story collections being their first published work. Tell us a bit about how your first book If It Is Sweet came about, and the challenges you faced if any.MK: I think publishers everywhere steer away from short story collections. Apparently they are not as easily marketable; readers are convinced the novel is more bang for the buck. And perhaps a short story is something you should be able to read for free in a magazine while waiting in the doctor’s office. Perhaps a short story is a lesser form, engaged in by lesser writers who haven’t the ability to write novels.
I was lucky to run into Nilanjana Roy when I did. I was reading one of my stories to a group of people and she liked it and asked if I had any more to show her. She had been recently appointed at Westland’s new literary imprint Tranquebar. All of which was lucky for me: they did not have a huge line up of writers and manuscripts at that point. They were looking for manuscripts. But to my credit I would say I was ready to take advantage of this bit of luck. I did have more stories – some two dozen – that I had been working on for the previous two years, in a disciplined fashion
…
Photograph: Santanu Ganguly
12May-Jun 2013 Vol 3 Issue 3
essay
Walking in Wonderlandsarah rand Sarah is a psychiatrist who celebrates her
love for people and nature through her writing and photography.
The dream was to walk the
paths traversed by Charles
Darwin as a young naturalist in 1835.
Darwin stayed at the Galapagos
Islands for just 5 weeks and visited
San Cristobal, Floreanna, Santa Cruz
and finally Isabella Island, 4 islands in
all, collecting and documenting rocks,
minerals, fossils, birds, and animals.
He sent the lot back to Cambridge,
to the professors and scientists there.
Upon his return he laid the foundation
blocks for his Theory of Evolution. I was going to feel that same sand beneath
my feet, breathe in the same air, hear the same oceans lap ceaselessly at the
same beaches, and see if I could feel his spirit, and his genius lingering in these
remote little islands in the Pacific Ocean 600 miles west of the coast of Ecuador.
…
Sea lion at Floreanna Island
13 Reading Hour
Fiction
Eyes
smitha bhat Smitha spends her days treating patients and teaching students. Her travelogues and short stories
have been published in various papers.
Some days in the hospital, I reflect that they should have
taught us to spend more time looking into eyes. Eyes tell
a doctor so much. I’m not talking about things like jaundice
and anaemia, though these are doubtless important too. I’m
talking about those things that are difficult to voice, about the
words that remain unspoken.
Eyes do not lie, to a sensitive doctor …
14May-Jun 2013 Vol 3 Issue 3
fiction
Left Side of the Face
aditya sudarshan Aditya is a novelist and playwright living in Mumbai.
The lift wasn’t working, so he walked down three flights of stairs and the short,
shaded distance into the open streets. A speeding car just missed hitting him.
He continued his march across the road divider.
On the other side, an auto slowed at his signal and he climbed in before it had quite
stopped, announcing
his destination as
it picked up pace
again. To be on one’s
way without waiting
or haggling was a
relief. But soon the
traffic thickened, and
frustratingly so, for
this was the weekend.
The more the vehicle
stopped and started,
the more the horns sounded and the beggars came pawing, the wilder he swam in his
thoughts.
…
15 Reading Hour
profile
Social Enterprise: 3S Shramik
In 1997, Rajeev Kher was in Canada as a business management
intern, selling financial plans for an investment firm. While there, he
chanced upon a portable toilet. It was the first time he had seen one, and
he remembers wondering if it was a telephone booth, Canadian-style! The
chance encounter with a ‘portaloo’ ended up being something of a turning
point in young Rajeev’s life.
Even if you belong to the
privileged minority in India that
does not have to resort to it, you
cannot help but be aware of open
defecation; the scourge of our
country, a practice that impacts
not only our environment and
health, but also the dignity of
millions, especially girls and
women. Yet, most of us do little
or nothing about it. Rajeev,
however, looked at the portable
toilet and realized he was looking at something he could do …
The 3 founders with the CNN-IBN India Positive Award
16May-Jun 2013 Vol 3 Issue 3
fiction
An Economy of Her Ownnidhin shobhana Nidhin’s interests include urban studies, oral histories,
women’s studies, informal economy and Dalit studies. Writing diverts his restlessness.
“Yeh paisa leneka kaunsa slip aae?”
“Kya? What?”
“Cash lenekaye...”
“Withdrawal? White slip, safed colour ka slip.”
“Thaankyu!”
Sujata was momentarily bewildered at the sight of so
many coloured slips. White, green, pink and yellow.
She was not visiting the bank for the first time. But
in all her previous visits, she had never really filled a
withdrawal slip.
Donald would do the filling-up. Each time he would
repeat his usual instructions.
“You go to counter 1. Just give them this slip along
with the pass book. They will do the rest!”
…
17May-Jun 2013 Vol 3 Issue 3
fiction
Jasmine in the Mistn s vishwanath After a career in technology development and marketing at
GE, MIT, and Bell Labs, Dr. Vishwanath is now a freelance writer ‘dedicated to the fine art of vagabonding’.
He lives in the US and in India.
Mr. Sreenivasan sauntered over to the large circular window and luxuriated
in the symphonic splendour of the dawn. Through the diaphanous mist
that enveloped the world below, he watched
early risers make their way around a walking
trail. At the far end of the trail, workers at
a neighbourhood teashop bustled about,
getting ready for the day’s business while
a decoction of watered down milk and tea
leaves boiled steadily in a large cauldron in
the background. Mr. Sreenivasan observed all
this from his ninth floor vantage point and
smiled contentedly. The mist, the walkers,
and the steam rising from the teashop were
serene images, symbols of order that briefly
anchored him to a good place each morning.
Shortly thereafter, sunlight scattered across vagabond clouds causing carmine blotches
to appear in the sky. This made the ninety-year-old retired judge wince, as though
someone had upset the heretofore orderly proceedings in his court.
…
18 Reading Hour
fiction
Of Facts and Figuresjanaki venkataraman Janaki lives in Chennai. She is a freelance writer who
loves the short story format.
Do you keep notes of your daily expenses? I don’t.
As far as I can tell, none of my friends does either.
In this age of plastic, our banks are more concerned about
our expenses than we ourselves. My grandmother Neela,
was different. She liked to know, to the last detail, where
her money went. To facilitate this she developed the
practice of writing household accounts into a fine art.
Neela died some years ago. When the family gathered
in our ancestral home to commemorate her first death
anniversary, many of her possessions were distributed
among her grandchildren as keepsakes. I requested for and
received a few of her account books. When I was asked,
curiously, why I wanted them, I replied, “They contain a lot
of information that might be useful to my writing.” What I
left unsaid was more complex: something of my dear Paati1
was trapped forever in those pages. When I read them I felt
close to her …
19 Reading Hour
Fiction
If you want to enjoy a better view, you should walk down half a
kilometre. This café will be crowded in a few minutes with visitors,
for their morning coffee,” she said.
“Oh, I didn’t notice you!” Rakesh was startled. “Are you... are you
from one of the massage centres in the neighbourhood?”
She laughed. “It’s true, the massage centres mushrooming around
Kovalam woo tourists with lady masseurs! I assure you I don’t belong
to that tribe.” She laughed again.
“I’m sorry,” ventured Rakesh.
“It’s okay. You are cautious. I like that. Not many young men are so
cautious.”
“You mentioned a better view...?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll walk with you. I’m Sheila, a garment designer,” she
offered, smiling.
…
Chaturvedi lives in Prasanthi Nilayam with his wife Dr. Sai Mangala and they are associated with
Sri Sathya Sai Mission.
chaturvedi diviA Piece of Advice
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