Given that I started as a short-story writer, one of the most difficult projects I’ve worked on is writing a full novel. The Renunciants is a manuscript that extracted a lot from me – it tested my ability to work on a large scale narrative, challenged me to balance multiple characters while giving them all a true and significant storyline. It taught me to reveal and conceal drama like a kite-flyer controls the string.
Like Cosmic Ballot (my unpublished comic sci-fi-satire novella) this is an unpublished manuscript and it is my hope that someday it might find the right publisher who can see it for what it is and want to bring it out in print. Until then, here’s an excerpt.
At first, when he woke up, he couldn’t even recognise his own room. His body was utterly dehydrated and not rested in the least. Slowly, as his brain began to function, he read the clock and yelped. He was terribly late for work.
As he rushed to get dressed, he remembered, once again, all that had transpired the previous night, right up to the late night writing session. He couldn’t remember what he had written, but there was no time to dwell on it. For the time being, he emailed the file to himself before rushing off to work.
“Who are you running from, Ravikant babu,” Kartar Singh teased as Ravikant ran into the office. He couldn’t stop to argue with someone who was hell-bent on making him out to be love-struck. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Kartario,” he would have grandly retorted, but he didn’t have the time.
Everyone was already at their desks so he tried to sneak in unnoticed, but it was not to be. “Did you hear something scampering around?” Sawant said loudly to no one in particular. He hadn’t even looked up from his computer.
Once he was in his seat, Ravikant relaxed. He checked his email and saw his own story right at the top. For the next fifteen minutes he had to use every ounce of restraint to side-line the story while he responded to work messages. As soon as he was done with the urgent ones, he opened his night’s work.
And, just like that, the story came rushing back to him.
A village that was sinking slowly under rising seawater; villagers who were trying to support each other even as the ground under them disintegrated; children who were too young to understand, but would have to live with the consequences for their entire life; and the old woman, too old to be left on her own, but also too old to care about death. They were all there, from that photograph to his story. What he had meant to write for The Qualm, he had written instead for himself.
He couldn’t enjoy his success for too long. “The boss wants to meet you.” It was Mrs Braganza and she’d just gotten off the phone.
“Now?”
“Now.”
He wasn’t ready to meet Akhbaarwala, not when he had finally done something productive. The man would suck the joy out of him, and if he was asked any questions Ravikant’s mind would desert him. But he had no choice so he picked up his notebook, praying it contained answers, and made the walk down the corridor.
“Good morning, sir. You called for me?”
Akhbaarwala nodded. Ravikant entered and took a seat.
“I have a critical task for you. By tomorrow-end please prepare a two-page company profile of The Qualm, starting from the founding. It needs to cover the history, major milestones, peak circulation figures, industry awards, as well as our readership profile segmented by age, income, and city. Do you want to write all that down?”
Ravikant was sitting there with his mouth open, struggling to make sense of the words thrown at him. “Oh, yes, of course.” He hastily scribbled down what he remembered. “Company profile with circulation, plus industry, and groups of ages.”
Akhbaarwala stopped and repeated everything he had said. “Got it now?”
“Yes, got it. But, a quick question, where will I find all this information?” It wouldn’t have looked good, he thought, to have to ask.
But Akhbaarwala didn’t seem to mind and answered him. “We had prepared a commemorative book for one of our jubilee issues which Mrs Braganza can pull out for you. That contains a lot of the history. For the rest, you can go through our archives for annual reports and commissioned surveys. I’m counting on you to piece it all together with some panache.”
“That I can surely do.” Ravikant felt pleased to have been entrusted with such a task. “Are we doing an anniversary special?” There was hope of finally getting his first article published.
“It’s for a meeting I have on Friday. I’ll need to add it to a folder with some other material I’m preparing.”
So this was not any shot at glory. Rather, it was clerical work for some stupid meeting, probably with an accountant or a bank loan officer. This was how little importance was being given to Ravikant’s abilities. Nobody was sparing the least amount of thought to giving him a chance, while sadistic hacks like Sawant could strut around because they were once at the right place at the right time.
“Pardon me, sir.” Ravikant said with some annoyance.
“Yes?”
“Have you had a chance to look at the outline I’d sent you?” He couldn’t help sounding cold.
“Outline? Oh yes, the fisheries article.”
“Climate change article,” he corrected.
“It was fine. I’ll keep it in reserve for when we may come up a few pages short of a full issue.”
“But, sir, it’s an urgent piece. I noted that two months from now we are running a piece on water shortage in Chennai. This would be a great companion feature with that.”
“Ravikant, I understand your optimism, but the next three issues have been planned. Moreover, you are not ready for a headline article.”
“I don’t need the headline; any by-line will do.”
“That’s not how it works. There are seven writers on payroll, along with all the freelancers. Everybody gets a turn. I’m sorry but there’s a system in place for a reason.”
“Damn you and your system,” was what Ravikant wanted to say. What was there for talent if everybody had to wait their turn? Wasn’t a person of extraordinary skill supposed to be rewarded? Forget about rewards, Ravikant was being robbed of his due.
He tried a different tack. “What about a fiction piece? I had also suggested that a fiction piece accompanying every cover story would be a ground-breaking way to drive home the relevance of every issue. You had agreed with me on that.”
“Yes, that is a good idea. But, again, you’ll need to wait. There are certain things in the works that need to fall in place before I can consider a change like that.”
There was no convincing Akhbaarwala. But, then again, there was no convincing Ravikant. They matched each other’s obstinacy.
“Like what?” Ravikant realised that sounded rude but he didn’t care. “If I may ask.”
Akhbaarwala, on his part, was trying extremely hard not to spank the new kid. “You need to wait a bit, Ravikant. A little patience never hurt anyone.”
A little patience was taking a lot out of Ravikant’s days. He was surviving on a leased lifeline that would expire if he couldn’t convince his parents that he was doing sufficiently well in Mumbai. He had risked everything by living in a home he couldn’t invite them to, so now he had to get his name in print.
“I think you have a big task ahead of you that will keep you busy for these two days,” Akhbaarwala tried to reason with him. “You should get started on that, don’t you think?”
Ravikant was seething with resentment when he returned to his seat. Clearly this office maintained the energy of a sloth and the career track of a revolving door. There was almost a studied approach to avoiding talent and opportunity that would have been hard to believe if he wasn’t the victim of it.
Under dark clouds of rage, he wished he could throw away the assignment and go home. For consolation, he decided to re-read his story to feel a little better. In fact, he would print it out at the company’s expense. A rebellious fist-shake to protest the company’s mistreatment of him.
The story tasted even sweeter after the bitter exchange with the boss. It appeared that for all these years, subconsciously, he had been sharpening his tools, for without even realising he had written a small masterpiece. More mature and effortless than anything he had composed before; when he finished, he was convinced of his dues.
“A little patience never hurt anyone,” he mocked Akhbaarwala. He looked around to make sure no one was watching and then continued, “What would you know, you feckless fool? Maybe if you hadn’t been so patient you could have done something with your life instead of waiting for daddy to pull your thumb out of your mouth.”
Venting helped. Some of the bile was exorcised. He was feeling a little better until he realised Mrs Braganza, who was hidden behind her computer screen till then, had an eye on him.
That was the cherry pit on the shit cake of the day. The one person inside the office who was kind to him would now think he was a vulgar and irreverent ass. Somehow, he dragged his mind back to the task, while reminding himself he could return to the embracing darkness of Yamini’s room after work. He could show her the story. Who knew, it might raise him in her estimation, if not in Akhbaarwala’s.
Even when Ravikant needed her help, he avoided Mrs Braganza for the rest of the day. He even stayed back an hour longer, that way he could go directly to Yamini.
Business faces were on by the time he got there and he could hear the melody from the music room. Things felt almost festive; like a theatre troupe getting ready for performance. The fear he had felt the first couple of times had disappeared entirely. Here he was, a pucca regular, carrying a printout for good measure.
Ravikant could never have predicted his life would take this fantastical turn, where he would be repudiated professionally, and solace would be found amongst the renounced.
He had been knocking at Yamini’s door for a while, before one of the other women came out of her room and said, “She’s not here. She’s gone with some other girls for a party.”
“For a party?” Ravikant asked with disbelief. “Like a birthday?”
The woman laughed, “We don’t usually get birthday invites. More like a bachelor’s party.”
What more was there to ask? Ravikant had been foolish to think anything was going to work out that day. For all he knew, Yamini had asked him to come late to avoid meeting him. All the pretence of being a welcome conversationalist went in a snap. It was probably a bit of a lark for Yamini before the next party.
The urge to tear up his story was strong, but Ravikant resisted. Something precious was in his bag and it was too good to sacrifice for a tantrum. He slipped it under her door. “The first thing she’ll do is probably step on it,” he thought and smirked at his own pain.
Not wanting to go home empty-handed, Ravikant decided to make a visit to the music room. There were more delights to savour than one fickle female. An evening of thumri and kathak would make up for the fact that he hadn’t visited the Opera House yet.
After he paid and shoved his way through the overweight and bald men and finally into the music room, he was met with yet another disappointment. There was no live music, it was a recording playing on a speaker. And there was no dancer either, only a woman swaying mournfully while a man grinded himself against her and tried shoving his gajra on her face as if that were the ultimate move of seduction. There was a table with some cheap alcohol, and cigarettes. This was apparently the place for those who didn’t want to go as far as sex or conversation, just some dirty dancing and imbecile mumbling.
Ravikant went home and willed himself to sleep so the disastrous day would end.