Below, a few question and answers about my book. Here's the book's Home Page. The book's chapters are here: Rear View and Foresight. Visit the book's Facebook page and YouTube channel.
1. What’s this book about?
This book is a collection of stories. The stories offer a lighthearted look at the absurd, stupid, strange, occasionally senseless, often funny, mostly illogical acts, behaviors, and ways of life growing up in Kerala, India, told from the perspective of a Malayali emigrant to the United States—yeah, reason right there to be suspect about what follows.
2. What are those doodles made out of semicircles, hooks, and parenthesis in some of your stories?
Very perceptive. Those are words written in Malayalam, the language spoken in Kerala. Although I try to provide English equivalents, often there aren't any that convey the true essence of the Malayalam words.
3. What’s "badayi"?
With apologies to the book's followers from Indonesia (where the word appears to mean storm) and from the mideast (where the word appears to be a surname):
Badayi (sometimes spelled badai): Noun, meaning “an exaggerated account,” “hot air,” “fabrication,” or “lighthearted conversation,” often spoken with a humorous intent and not to be taken seriously. The online dictionary Mashithantu defines it as “exaggeration” and “bragging.” In my experience, the word was in use when I was growing up and then disappeared from popular use. Someone mentioned reading it in Malayalam author V.K.N.’s works. It recently (2014) has had a revival as the title of a Malayalam T.V. show.
Badayi (sometimes spelled badai): Noun, meaning “an exaggerated account,” “hot air,” “fabrication,” or “lighthearted conversation,” often spoken with a humorous intent and not to be taken seriously. The online dictionary Mashithantu defines it as “exaggeration” and “bragging.” In my experience, the word was in use when I was growing up and then disappeared from popular use. Someone mentioned reading it in Malayalam author V.K.N.’s works. It recently (2014) has had a revival as the title of a Malayalam T.V. show.
If you recall, by 1974 the Apollo missions had wound down and a dozen men had walked on the moon. But achamma had little regard for these giant leaps of mankind. Badayi! she would say dismissively. How could you ever land on the moon she asked, for approaching the moon would see you burst into flames faster than a bone-dry konjatta (coconut sheath) thrown into a raging pit fire.
4. Why’s the book named "badayi"?
Because the stuff of the book is offered as a lighthearted look at life’s follies and foibles, often spiked with an unspecified degree of exaggeration.
There is great pleasure to be had in recognizing and laughing at the absurd, irrational, and plain stupid things we do. I have witnessed and liberally participated in many such acts. Recounting them was a dinner time tradition at our house while growing up. I have parlayed this tradition into a pastime with the hope that reading about them brings you as much pleasure as I had writing about them.Here’s a Seinfeldian moment from someone else's account that gets right to the heart of the idea. I once read a review of a travelogue by a Western author about his journeys in India. After a harrowing night in a dingy hotel in some south Indian town, he woke up in the wee dawn hours and wandered into the kitchen. In the faint light filtering in through the broken windows, he saw dirty pots and pans leftover from the previous night strewn around a washing tub. In the tub sat a fellow, who was washing himself with a rag. Not much was visible, but upon seeing the intruder, the bather smiled, his yellow teeth glistening through the darkness.
Events and characters like these were part of our everyday life while growing up in the Kerala hinterlands. Through these stories, I offer a window into that life, from the vantage point of a different but equally hilarious life in the United States.
5. Why aren’t you writing in your mother tongue Malayalam?
I am phorin and vain—writing in the local tongue makes me look unsophisticated (for more about this attitude, see my English-Minglish). Be that as it may, there is a story behind it. After I had barely scraped my way into the fifth grade and gotten into an English medium school, a language I knew nothing about, I faced another curriculum challenge: take Malayalam or Sanskrit as the secondary language. Most kids from Malayalam medium schools chose to continue with Malayalam. The sensible thing for me would have been to do the same. Instead, this no-brainer of a choice was put up in front of the kudumbha sabha (family gathering). A wise uncle suggested Sanskrit as it was “easier to get higher scores.” Maybe so, but he was assuming I would put in the required effort. Bad assumption. I took Sanskrit, did little to learn, and ended up lacking proficiency in Sanskrit and Malayalam. I didn’t do better in English either, at least while in school. Entering college, I added reading English newspapers and books and listening to the Voice of America and the BBC as extracurricular activities. These helped—hey, I passed TOEFL. So, now, you be the judge. I have been hardly working to improve my writing but feel free to spot bloopers, call them out, and relish in my embarrassment. In other words, keep up the Malayali spirit.
6. Why don't you post more frequently?
The direct answer is I lack the facility to write quickly at the level of quality I wish to see in the end product. An artful answer is, writing these stories is similar to drinking fine Scotch. You take your time. I start by composing an outline, think about the related events, and mix and match to develop the story. Sometimes I get a title that captures the essence of what I want to say right up front, sometimes not. Often I get stuck because I don't like what I wrote and the piece just sits there. Other times, I get lost in the memories and writing comes easy; this is the joyful part of writing. After a first draft is done, I tweak the wording over a period of weeks, rewriting, chopping redundancies, and applying lessons from my dog-eared copy of the Elements of Style. Yet, plenty of errors remain—wrong spelling, incorrect usage, poor style, wordiness.
Good question. The length of the articles does pose a dilemma for this writer. Write short pieces with the hope of attracting busy readers who have many options to choose from or write longer articles that provide enough background and context to enable readers to relate to the experience being shared but risk losing them before they roll the mouse. The length dilemma also reflects the possibly conflicting objectives of writing this book: one, to put the stories into words in a cohesive, compelling, and pleasing narrative and derive satisfaction therefrom, and two, to attract readership. Aside from following advice like “The top 10 ways to attract readers to your book: #3 Use a top ten list,” if there is a formula balancing these two ends, I haven’t figured it out.
8. His &$!¥#%g book.
That's a statement, not a question. But, okay, fine—it's a worthless waste of your time, or worse. Here’s the larger question though: Why do we spend so much time on worthless activities? And, from a $!¥#%g book point of view, how can I make you waste time on my book? These questions aren't new. They are questions that the wizards of Silicon Valley ask when they wake up every morning. Like the purveyors of junk food before them, they seem to have figured it out, which is the basis of my story Trash Time.
7. Why don’t you write shorter articles?
[From “The only negative comment I have is --it too long and people see the lengthy article and not attempt to read it or lose interest [sic].”]
Good question. The length of the articles does pose a dilemma for this writer. Write short pieces with the hope of attracting busy readers who have many options to choose from or write longer articles that provide enough background and context to enable readers to relate to the experience being shared but risk losing them before they roll the mouse. The length dilemma also reflects the possibly conflicting objectives of writing this book: one, to put the stories into words in a cohesive, compelling, and pleasing narrative and derive satisfaction therefrom, and two, to attract readership. Aside from following advice like “The top 10 ways to attract readers to your book: #3 Use a top ten list,” if there is a formula balancing these two ends, I haven’t figured it out.
8. His &$!¥#%g book.
