Categories
Read

‘Stop looking for love’

Rupa Gulab speaks about her latest book, why she prefers writing short stories and about telling it like it is.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

That Rupa Gulab is a very good writer is stating the obvious. The writer of three books – Girl Alone, Chip Of The Old Blockhead and The Great Depression Of The 40s: A Novel, and a columnist with a flair for the comic touch, Rupa is a revelation with her newest book, I Kissed A Frog.

In an interview with The Metrognome, the author talks about writing on love and friendship, how her most poignant tale in this story is an ode to her best friend, and why one must stop looking for love and let it come when it has to.

Why a book of irreverent short stories on love?

Why not? I enjoy telling it like it is! I must say that with I Kissed A Frog I discovered that writing short stories is so much more fun than writing a novel. You have so many different characters and situations to play with – it’s great entertainment for a writer. But I’d just like to point out that this book is not merely about love – friendship plays a huge role here. And friendship (to me) is just as important as love. I pointed that out in ‘Hell’s Angel’ (one of the stories in the book), where the heroine is gutted when her best friend moves to New York.

You mention in the book that some of the stories were published earlier in magazines and websites, and that you made changes to them before they went into I Kissed A Frog. What is it like, re-visiting something that is written and published?

What can I say? I get bored rather quickly. My first novel, Girl Alone, was based on a column called Dating Diary that ran in Cosmopolitan for two years. When I decided to adapt it to a novel, I made many changes. Like, for example, in the column whenever Arti (the heroine) goes through a spot of trauma, she glugs antacids. In the novel, I changed it to cough syrup because that gives it a more dangerous dimension. I have to refresh things to keep myself interested. Then there’s so much more freedom when you’re writing a book. You can use swear words liberally without worrying about nasty letters being sent to an editor. And there’s no word count limitation – you can write as much as you want.

That’s why I made a few changes to six of the stories in I Kissed A Frog that were published earlier in mags and websites.

Are any of the stories in I Kissed A Frog autobiographical?

Not at all. Girl Alone was the only novel in which I let a part of myself show.

Of all the stories in the book, ‘Au Revoir’ stands out for its very different tone. In fact, I was startled by how searing this particular story was, not what I was expecting after such funny ones as ‘Diet Wars’. What inspired this particular story?

When I was writing stories for the Friendship Diaries section of I Kissed A Frog, I decided to put in one about my best friend, Ranjona Banerji, too. See, Ranjona and I have always joked about the fact that she will outlive me because of my lousy lifestyle choices. Which means she’d be the person to contribute to my obituary, and I’d be off the hook for her obit, right?

So I decided to write her obit in advance – Au Revoir is just that. It’s a tribute to our long friendship that goes back to school days. Not surprisingly, the emotions flowed naturally, and dark humour set the tone. I sent her a cryptic text message while I was writing it, saying that I had just murdered her.  As far as I’m concerned, my job is done. And she owes me an obit, and I want it now! Hell, I’m longing to read nice things about myself before I die.

Have any of your family and friends featured as characters in any of the stories?

While there are shades of some members of my family (including my husband) in my earlier novels, I Kissed A Frog is free of family-based characters. And I bet they’re all heaving a sigh of relief! This book really is about different kinds of love and a celebration of friendship. And, as I mentioned before, the story ‘Au Revoir’ is based on and for my best friend.

Of all the stories, which one is your favourite? Why?

I have three favourites: ‘The Ex-Files’, ‘Au Revoir’ and ‘Rapper N. Zel’. I enjoyed writing ‘The Ex-Files’ because of the gradual changes in the heroine’s prickly relationship with her mother after she got dumped – exploring relationships is my thing! I loved writing ‘Rapper N. Zel’ because it’s all about how women have to struggle to break the glass ceiling and how bitter they become because of it – and in my mind, this story is dedicated to all my friends who’ve faced that problem. And as for ‘Au Revoir’, I’ve already told you why it’s special for me.

Of all the stories, which one is most likely to have played out in your own life?

Oh, ‘Hell’s Angel’ – definitely! I worked in the media (as a copywriter in advertising) for many years. The heroine’s lifestyle could have been mine.

What is the nicest compliment you’ve received for ‘I Kissed A Frog

A review by a male blogger who started out by saying how much he disliked chick lit, and ended up saying that I Kissed A Frog changed his mind about the genre. I seriously love this guy! (Read his review here)

What is your honest opinion on love and the various ways we go about looking for it? 

I’d say stop looking for it! Don’t waste your time. It will come when it has to. And if it doesn’t come, who cares? Look, you have friends you can rely on for companionship, FB and Twitter are great interaction spaces, and then you have work, books, music and movies to lose yourself in. Life’s crowded enough already. When I was in college, I’d put up a lovely paragraph from DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover on my bedroom wall. It says everything I believe about love. Here goes:

“It’s no good trying to get rid of your own aloneness. You’ve got to stick to it all your life. Only at times, at times, the gap will be filled in. At times! But you have to wait for the times.”

Not surprisingly, I put this quote in Girl Alone as well!

On the subject of your sister Kushalrani (aka Bunny), who you say is a ‘horror, and your worst critic’, how has having a writer sibling helped you when you write?

Well, most writers always show their first draft to family and/or close friends. I have a small core group: my sisters Roma Circar and Kushalrani Gulab (aka Bunny), my husband Salil Sadanandan and my friend Ranjona Banerji. The reason why I chose them is because we share the same sense of humour and irony. Incidentally, all of them are writers. While my husband is not a full time writer (he was cruelly shoved on the IIT, IIM path by his parents) he occasionally writes on eclectic subjects (humour, design and travel) for various publications.

When I share my first draft with them, my brief is very stern: “Do not waste my precious time by telling me what you like about it. Tell me what you hate about it. Be savage, rip it to shreds!” I must say that this is the only time they ever listen to me. I grade them on the ‘savagery’ index:

Roma is the gentlest of the lot. When she doesn’t like something, she informs me firmly but apologetically, starting her sentences with nervous “umms.”

Ranjona is tougher. No “umms” for her. It’s always a grim “hmm” which is followed by a bald statement. Our biggest arguments are over the placement of commas. We both have strong views on the subject.

Bunny and Salil are the most frightening – and frankly, I don’t know which one is worse. Let me start with Bunny. When she goes through my draft she ruthlessly deletes sentences/paragraphs that she believes interfere with the flow of the story, ignoring my howls of anguish. Hell, some of my funniest jokes have been killed by her and she’s always unrepentant. “The story comes first,” is her heartless mantra.

Clichés are bigger sins than murder according to her, and my God, if she happens to spot something like “as white as snow”, she hisses menacingly and explodes like an angry pressure cooker. I have, however, sneakily slipped in an “over the moon” in one of the stories in I Kissed A Frog. An act of defiance, just to prove to her that I have a backbone!

If Bunny does the pressure-cooker-exploding act to frightening perfection, Salil is like one of those raging Pamplona bulls you really don’t want to cross paths with. He gets furious, absolutely livid, if he comes across bits he doesn’t like. I am ordered (yes, ordered!) to rewrite bits of stories, change a character’s profession, change a tone of voice, et cetera. And though I’m complaining bitterly, I have to confess that his feedback on the draft of I Kissed A Frog was marvellous. Bunny’s softer when it comes to rewrites. She merely offers suggestions that I am free to ignore.

At the end of it all, I’m a quivering mess and I go with my gut. Sometimes I give in, sometimes I don’t. But I’m always thankful for the advice from all four of them because they are the critics I respect most.

What is the kind of writing you are most drawn to? Who are your favourite authors?

I grew up in a house that had more books than furniture because my parents were voracious readers. Humour was their preference and we had practically every single book written by PG Wodehouse, Richmal Compton, Anthony Buckeridge, Lewis Carroll, etc. As I grew older, I added a few more humour writers to my personal book shelves: Woody Allen, James Thurber, George Mikes, Richard Armour and Gerald Durrell, to name a few. At the same time, I have to confess that I sighed deeply over Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom Of The Opera, William Saroyan’s beautifully brilliant The Human Comedy, Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley (my dad’s favourite book), most of DH Lawrence, some of Thomas Hardy and other  books that do not fall into the humour category. And as for the girlie moments, I still fall back on my mum’s favourites: Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer and Jean Webster who wrote my absolutely favourite growing up book Daddy Long-legs. Oh, and I have finally learnt to appreciate Charles Dickens! My parents loved him so, and they were shocked that I hated his books when I was in school and college.

What are you working on next?

I can’t say yet. I’ve got two novels for drastically different target audiences in mind, but I really have no idea if and when I’ll get down to it. I’m not a disciplined writer anymore.  Take I Kissed A Frog. I suddenly decided to write it in April last year and finished it in three months flat. I’m pretty much worn out after that frenetic burst of activity.

Lastly, if you had to change the endings for any of these stories, which ones would you choose and how would you change them?

I wouldn’t change them at all.

 _________________________

About the book:

I Kissed A Frog is a collection of not-so-perfect love stories, dealing as they are with ex-boyfriends, current boyfriends hooking up with best friends, aiming for a man who doesn’t love one when another who does is right in front of one, friends and colleagues engaged in diet wars, and in a really funny vein, love and relationships through popular fairy tales set in contemporary times.

I particularly liked ‘Love in F Major’, where a girl starts seeing a married man and hopes he will make the ultimate choice, ‘Welcome to the Sisterhood’, which discusses sex change, ‘Wannabe mum’, in which a woman’s biological clock decides the course of her stable relationship, ‘Au revoir’, in which a dying girl says goodbye to her best friend, and all of the ‘Not-so-grim fairy tales for big, bad girls’.

Rupa keeps the tone conversational and sometimes flippant, bringing in different dimensions to love, romance, inter-office rivalry, personal insecurities, and of course, friendship. This is a book to be read by all women – those who have a gang of girls to hang out with, those who slink off home after work to watch TV and eat ice cream straight from the container, those who wonder why their mothers and best friends oppose everything they say and do, and especially those who feel that the world ended with their one great romance.

In fact, the book stands the very real danger of being picked up only by women – and all the stories are written from a woman’s perspective. Maybe Rupa’s next book of short stories could be about what men want.

Send us a love story to editor@themetrognome.in, and you could win a copy of Rupa Gulab’s I Kissed A Frog

Categories
Event

Raj Bhavan produces ‘King of roses’

A rose from the State Governor’s official residence, Raj Bhavan, was selected as the winner in flower show at VJTI.

Sure, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but it wouldn’t necessarily win first prize. Raj Bhavan Nagpur yesterday was adjudged the winner at the VJTI’s flower, fruit and vegetable show. The show is organised annually by the Friends of the Trees and had about 200 organisations plus individuals participating.

A rose grown at Nagpur Raj Bhavan’s Biodiversity Park was adjudged the winner by a committee of experts. Interestingly, another variety from Raj Bhavan had won the first prize at the All India Rose Flower Show at Jabalpur recently.

As per the organisers, “More than 500 varieties of different species of vegetables, fruit, flowers and shrubs, and trees are displayed under 100 different categories at the show. A large number of orchids, cactii, fern, medicinal, aromatic plants, hanging baskets, sunny and shady plants, landscapes and artistic display of fruit, flowers and vegetables can be seen at the show.” The show concludes tonight.

Organisations such as Raj Bhavan, Central Railway, Western Railway, Parks and Gardens and organisations from the private sector such as Godrej, Hiranandani, Tata Power, Raheja and Reliance participated in the show.

Categories
Watch

VIDEO: Painting his love for Madhubala

Artist, painter Ranjit Dahiya is hard at work on his Madhubala mural at Bandra. The painting will be complete tomorrow.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Ranjit Dahiya (slowly gaining fame for his much-feted ‘Bollywood Art Project’) is currently doing what he is best known for – painting huge murals of yesteryear Bollywood stars. He is currently painting eternal Queen of Hearts Madhubala right next to his last smash hit, a mural of the film Anarkali.

He started painting the mural two days ago, timing the activity to coincide with Madhubala’s birthday on February 14. “I was looking for a particular image of her, and I spent some time looking for it on the Internet,” he told The Metrognome. The harsh weather and long periods of standing on a shaky ladder are taking a toll on him, but Ranjit was still going strong on Day 3 today. “I’ll finish most of it tonight, and tomorrow after a few final touches, it will be complete,” he said.

If you’re in Bandra today and want to cheer Ranjit on or simply gawk at the big canvas he’s working on, head down Chapel Road and ask for the artist who painted Anarkali. Or head to the site tomorrow to view the completed work. With his track record, this one’s going to turn out well, for sure.

Watch Ranjit in action on Day 3:

 

 

(Featured image courtesy Ranjit Dahiya. Video by The Metrognome) 

Categories
Do

Want a better Mumbai? You have a week to do it

Volunteer for a Better India’s Mumbai week starts from tomorrow. Railway station cleanups, traffic management, and medical camps seek participation.

Starting tomorrow, you can quit cribbing about the deteriorating state of the city and actually do something about it. The Volunteer for a Better India initiative is starting its Mumbai week tomorrow onwards, and you can volunteer to clean up railway stations, learn and help in traffic management, participate in patriotic hour, or help at medical camps in slums. This is a social initiative by the Art of Living Foundation.

“Between February 10 and 20, several activities around the city will be initiated,” the organisers say. “A diversified choice is given to people, so that they can easily participate in the activities of their interest.”

If you want to participate, you can choose from these activities:

Western Railway clean up 

Sr.No

Station Date

Time

Contact

1

Goregaon 16-02-2013

9am-11am

Mamta- 9867697989

2

Kandivali 19-02-2013

9am-11am

Rakhee-9967661920

3

Borivali 17-02-2013

9am-11am

Satish -9987031401

 4

Bandra 19-02-2013

9am-11am

Vinita -981906408

5

Dadar 17-02-2013

6am-9am

Shibani-98212028854

6

Andheri 16-02-2013

9am-12pm

 Tejas-9867323388

Central Railway cleanup

Sr.No

Station Name

Clean Up Date

Clean up Time Contact

1

Ulhasnagar

18/02/13

8am-11am  Akshata -7738383930

2

Dombivili & Mulund

17/02/2013

8am-11am  Akshata -7738383930

3

Thane

16/02/13

8am-11am  Akshata -7738383930

4

Ghatkopar

16/02/13

8.30am-11am  Akshata -7738383930

5

Dadar

19/02/13

8am-10am Akshata -7738383930

Patriotic Hour

Patriotic songs, music and skits will be performed to revive the love for the country. During this hour, awareness campaigns for Railway safety rules will also be launched.

Sr.No

Station Name Date Time Contact

1

Goregaon 18-02-2013 5pm-8pm

Siddharth -8097080908

2

Kandivali 21-02-2013 5pm-8pm

Siddharth -8097080908

3

Borivali 20-02-2013 5pm-8pm

Siddharth -8097080908

4

Mira Road 19-02-2013 5pm-8pm

Siddharth -8097080908

5

Bandra  19-02-2013  5pm-8pm

Siddharth -8097080908

6

Dadar 19-02-2013 6pm-8pm  Shibani-98212028854

7

Andheri 18-02-2013 6.30-8.30pm  Tejas-9867323388

Medical camps in slums

To be held at Bhagat Singh Nagar, Goregaon (west) and in Motilal Nagar, Goregaon (west), on February 17, contact Sukeerti on 9987688005.

(Picture courtesy fusionview.co.uk) 

Categories
Do

Help out on V-Day: ‘Love’ this NGO

City-based Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA) hopes to win $5,000 Fetzer Institute prize in online contest for global NGOs.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

It’s the day to show some love! And while you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day, you might consider showing some love to a city-based NGO, which could stand a chance to win $5,000 if it receives enough ‘Love’ .

The NGO Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA) has entered an online competition run by the US-based Fetzer Institute on its website www.tellusworld.org, which invites voluntary organisations to share their stories on how they are promoting love and forgiveness in the communities they work for. MAVA, it may be known, is an organisation that works to fight violence against girls and women in India by involving men in their efforts.

Said Harish Sadani (in pic), Honorary Secretary of MAVA, “We hope we receive enough votes on the site. The organisers have liked our story and the concept behind our NGO.” Voting begins from today – all you have to do is hit the ‘Love’ button on this link. You can also peruse other entries and vote for the ones you like. You can vote only once per entry.

(Picture courtesy changemakers.org)

Categories
Do

Rise. Stop violence against women

One Billion Rising exhorts the city to raise a voice and fight for the women who are assaulted and raped.

We’re sure you have elaborate plans for Valentine’s Day, but this year, if you could take the time and head to the Bandra amphitheatre at 5.45 pm, you could help towards making a significant difference to women and society.

For, the One Billion Rising – an initiative by Change.org to end violence against women globally – will take place on V-Day, kickstarting a dialogue between society and helping to end, slowly but surely, this grim statistic: globally, one in three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. That’s a staggering one billion women across the globe.

Change.org says, “On February 14th, 2013, we are inviting one billion women and those who love them to walk out, DANCE, RISE UP, AND DEMAND an end to this violence. One Billion Rising is a promise that we will rise up with women and men worldwide to say, ‘Enough! The violence ends now.’ This day has been marked as ‘the global day of action’.

All you have to do is dance in solidarity for women worldwide.

Sitar player and actor Anoushka Shankar has endorsed the event and shot a promotional video for the movement.

 

You can sign the petition for One Billion Rising here. More to the point, be there at the event on Valentine’s Day.

The Metrognome supports ‘One Billion Rising’ and has signed the pledge. We urge you, if you are reading this, and regardless of where you are placed geographically, to sign the petition and help further the cause.

(Picture courtesy photo.net)

Exit mobile version