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Journalism of Courage
Without P. Lal and his Writers Workshop, some of the best Indian writers in English would not have found their voice
In 1981, Vikram Seth was a 29-year-old collector of rejection slips, his first book of verses having cut no ice with publishers. That was till he walked up to a house in Lake Gardens, Kolkata. 8220;A very weary and disillusioned Vikram came to me that summer. He had been rejected by almost a dozen publishers. I went through it and told him that he was at least a decade ahead of his times,8221; says 79-year-old Professor Puroshottam Lal, the man behind Writers Workshop, the iconic literary publishing house which turns fifty this year. Mappings, a slim volume of Seth8217;s poetry, bound in an orange saree, was published that year.
Lal, who saw stirrings of greatness in the elegantly crafted poems, is somewhat of a legend in literary circles8212;that rare lover of literature who can spot beauty before glowing blurbs have been written about it, that rare publisher who doesn8217;t shudder at the thought of poetry. In the last five decades, he has published the first books of many authors8212;several of them poets8212;who went on to win fame8212;Asif Currimbhoy, Nissim Ezekiel, Jayanta Mahapatra, Ruskin Bond, Pritish Nandy, Chandrakant Bakshi and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. 8220;I have met all of them in this very room. They were seated on the chair you are sitting,8221; says Lal.
It8217;s a room that looks like it has seen a lot. Stacks of books line the wall and documents are strewn all over. It8217;s a room which saw the birth of Writers Workshop. 8220;It was in 1958. We were a group of writers who desperately wanted to write our kind of stuff. We would meet here and exchange ideas. We wanted to write about our everyday experiences in English. We wanted to creatively express ourselves in English, which in those days was not the thing to do. You didn8217;t creatively express yourself in English in a just independent India. The intellectuals of the country were all too ready to write this foreign language off,8221; he says.
Things started to fall in place. A small press in was found in a south Kolkata locality and a cheap deal struck. 8220;Kolkata had and still has a culture which most of us are not aware of. We have hundreds of small presses all around the city, which print material for pittance. We took full advantage of that,8221; he says.
But getting noticed was far more difficult. 8220;We sent our works to all the local newspapers. But no one would review a Writers Workshop book and why should they? We were nobodies. When was the last time you picked a book by a new, unknown writer?8221; he asks. So they began to review each other8217;s books. And encouraged other young writers to join the group. 8220;In those days, there were no big publishing houses that catered to Indian writers. We were the only recourse for Indian writers in English,8221; he says.
Slowly, people started to sit up and take notice. Writers like Ruskin Bond and Anita Desai contributed to the cause. 8220;We were winning the battle. People gradually started accepting Indian writing in English as a legitimate genre. And to think we were actually trying to throw this language out of this country,8221; he says.
Lal8217;s role in this change was not a modest one. He nurtured young writers, convinced there was a future in this language. 8220;Professor Lal was a guiding figure. He always encouraged me to write more,8221; recalls Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni of Mistress of Spices fame.
Today, Writers Workshop has a catalogue of 3,700 books and is also to be found on the net writersworkshopindia.com. 8220;We publish almost 100 new titles a year, which is quite a startling figure considering the fact that this is a one-man show,8221; he says. Professor Lal not only is the editor and publisher of Writer8217;s Workshop but also personally checks the manuscripts and proof checks each of the documents that are published. 8220;It8217;s a tough job, more so because we try and maintain a stringent quality control,8221; he says.
A quaint little bookshop stands outside the gates of Lal8217;s residence, which sells all the titles under Writers Workshop. 8220;We make do. There have been bad years when we had made a lot of losses but then there is always the satisfaction of doing what I always wanted to do. Most bookshops wont store our books; most newspapers wont review them because they are not lucrative propositions. Somehow we break even,8221; he says.
That8217;s probably because of Lal8217;s foolproof deal. 8220;We generally publish 350 copies of a book. The writer is gifted 35 copies as royalty and is expected to buy a 100 copies. The rest is for sale,8221; he says.
In these days of million-dollar book deals and professional agents, what kind of future does small institutions like his have? 8220;The attitude has not changed over the years. No one wants to touch new writers; poets are literary untouchables. But that doesn8217;t mean that they will not get chances to express themselves. There are plenty of small-time publishing houses like Kali, Stree and Katha which are doing good work,8221; he says.
And what kind of future does he see for Writers Workshop? 8220;I don8217;t think it will have a future beyond me,8221; he says breezily. 8220;Visions shouldn8217;t be institutionalised. I wouldn8217;t want Writers Workshop to be institutionalised. I only hope that others take the initiative to bring Indian writing to the forefront,8221; he says. The Seths in the making will say amen.
