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Stories from the Out of Print workshop at Lekhana 2013

Stories from the Out of Print workshop at Lekhana

On Saturday, January 19, 2013, Outof Print held a short fiction workshop at the Lekhana Literary gathering that took place at Jagriti Theatre in Bangalore. The workshop was aimed at writers with some experience, and the focus, in keeping with Lekhana’s theme of ‘Writing the Spoken Word’ and the theme of the Out of Print afternoon at Lekhana, ‘Dialogue in Short Fiction’, was on writing dialogue.

We were lucky to have Rebecca Lloyd visiting from the UK. Rebecca is an award winning short story writer, a novelist, a creative writing tutor and an editor. She and I worked together on putting together the anthology Pangea, Thames River Press, 2012, and are currently starting work on the next one. We asked her if she would conduct the workshop for us.

Writers had to develop a short piece to a prompt, and examine the impact of dialogue on the story. The prompt, a news story about shoes, is quite an extraordinary one. The stories that emerged were varied, imaginative, personal and individual – stories of love, loneliness, the spiritual, the commercial and the creepy. We were so taken with the quality and diversity, and the different ways in which dialogue was used, that we decided to offer the writers the possibility of having Rebecca and myself edit the story once and post it on the blog associated with Out of Print.

Two writers sent in their work. I think both stories are remarkable in the way they use dialogue. Sonali Bhatia’s Clown Shoes and a Couple of Cats is written entirely in dialogue. The piece is energetic and funny and reveals an instinct and understanding of how to carry a story forward, how to unfold it, using speech. Ayesha Aleem’s Shoes, on the other hand, uses dialogue sparsely. A story that addresses loneliness and cultural contrasts, the dialogue occurs halfway at a pivotal point in the story, drawing attention to all that the story rests on.

The workshop and the stories that emerged from it vindicate having literary gatherings that are for writers, for literary practitioners, and which allow for discussion and the generation of ideas. It seems that our workshop group found the process valuable enough that they are going to try and meet regularly to critique one another’s writing, a matter of great pleasure and pride!

When Rebecca and I first discussed the prompt, she felt it was essentially about finding out who was leaving the shoes there, and why. Whereas I thought of sacred places, places where you leave your shoes off before entering, which meant the story could well be about why the shoes were not reclaimed. 

Rebecca ended her visit to India at the caves in Ajanta and Ellora, at many of which she left her shoes off when entering. In her note to a short story group she mentors, she writes of the experience:  ‘Towards the end of my stay, we went to Aurangabad where there are really astonishing monasteries created out of caves of sometimes very black volcanic rock …

Already, since being back in England, I've revisited a good few of the monasteries in my memory, and the experience remains just as physical as it did in real life, one of the most delicious things about it being to walk bare-foot over the dark smooth cool floors of those temples, often towards an image of Buddha in the depths of the cave's or monastery's shadows.’

Stories from the Out of Print workshop at Lekhana: Ayesha Aleem

Shoes

Ayesha Aleem

In this country, people don’t take their shoes off before they enter someone’s home. Or even a place of worship, like church. They keep their shoes on all the time. Sometimes I think they keep them on even when they sleep. But every now and then, this strange lot does the unthinkable. They remove their shoes. Maybe to feel the grass beneath their feet at a park or before getting into a swimming pool. The best place for nicking them, of course, is shoe shops, where I have the option of brand new shoes as well as an older pair that an unsuspecting customer may have taken off to try on a new one. 

I have to work very hard. Be very quick. Through the day, through the night. I have to keep going if I want to meet my goal of collecting more shoes than I did the previous time. Then I empty the load at the same spot that is quickly becoming famous. People come from all over to gawk at the place that they thought shoes were being dumped. I enjoy the bewildered looks on their faces. Kind of like my own private joke. 

Two years ago, my beautiful wife died. I had always prayed that I go first so that I wouldn’t have to live without her. But she left me and suddenly I found myself splashing around in the deep end without a paddle. Pavi and I had lived together in the same village that we were originally from, for forty-three years. We had children but our world was too stifling, too limiting for them. Our son left to study in Delhi and his sister followed soon after. They are bright kids who soon got jobs and moved to the United States. 

When Pavi died, our daughter Suri, had been visiting. She had sat by her mother’s bedside and later arranged the funeral. When the last rites were finished, it was dark outside. We had sat down to dinner without appetites. Her husband and children had gone to bed several hours before that. ‘Would you like some dal dad,’ she said. I nodded, barely. She spooned some of the yellow liquid into my plate and then gave me two chapattis to go with it. She served herself as well and we sat picking at our foods for a long time, in complete silence. 

‘Dad, I want you to come live with me. In America. I can’t leave you here by yourself.’ We had had this conversation before. My English had never been very good and I hadn’t spent much time outside my rural home. I hadn’t spent much time outside a life with Pavi. The kids had always spoken to us in English hoping that we would learn some. A few years ago, Suri bought her mother and I a laptop and taught us how to use the Internet. 

‘Suri … you have your family … and…,’ I said in my native language. 

‘Yes, I do. But you are also my family and I want you to come live with me.’

A few months later, Suri visited again, this time on her own. She helped me pack and move. With her. To her. Away from Pavi. 

Every year, just before the monsoons, there used to be padh yatra, a pilgrimage on foot, which ended at a temple not far from where we lived. Devotees from all across the country would abandon their shoes along the sides of the national highway to walk barefoot toward the deity. They came from within the state and Kolkata and places as far away as Mumbai and Gujarat. They walked for miles and miles hoping that the deity that was their destination, would be pleased with them and bless them. 

Pavi and I had loved this time of year. We loved the sight of piles of shoes and the throngs of people that would pass by our home. We looked forward to the event every year. There was something familiar and comforting about it but it still felt new and exotic each time. It was Pavi’s idea to set up a stall outside our home that travellers could stop at for water and snacks. We also offered first aid for cracked heels, calluses and minor injuries. When she died, so did our annual ritual, and much of the life that we had created together. Collecting the shoes and creating the pile was my way of holding on to my Pavi. Of clinging to her memory in this foreign land where people did not remove their shoes before entering someone’s house or before they went in to a place of worship. 

Stories from the Out of Print workshop at Lekhana: Sonali Bhatia

Clown Shoes and a Couple of Cats

Sonali Bhatia

BHASKAR: Damn it! You nearly gave me a heart attack. What the heck is the matter with you?

ABHIJEET: Let me come in, at least.

BHASKAR: You had an accident or something? You drunk?

ABHIJEET: No and no. Your Mom’s asleep, right?

BHASKAR: Yeah. She sleeps soundly. It’s Jinky and Winky we have to worry about.

ABHIJEET: I still don’t understand what sort of idiot names his cats Jinky and Winky.

BHASKAR: And I still don’t understand what sort of madman knocks on a friend’s door at four o’clock in the morning unless he is drunk or has had an accident or something.

ABHIJEET: I’m not mad, I’m not drunk and I haven’t had an accident.

BHASKAR: Then what are you doing here?

ABHIJEET: I had to hide from the beat policeman.

BHASKAR: What have you done, man?

ABHIJEET: Shhhhhh. Don’t wake Jinky and Winky.

BHASKAR: To hell with with the cats. Why are you hiding from beat policemen at four A.M. in the morning?

ABHIJEET: Not beat policemen. This city does not put two policemen on one beat. A beat policeman.

BHASKAR: I don’t care if there are a hundred blinking policemen.  Why are you hiding from them? You’re not mad, you’re not drunk, you haven’t had an accident, you’re hiding from one solitary beat policeman at four A.M. in the morning and you’re refusing to tell me what’s going on?

ABHIJEET: You have any pizza? I’m hungry.

BHASKAR: Never mind pizza!

ABHIJEET: Rice and rasam then? Some fruit? C’mon, man, I’m hungry!

BHASKAR: I’m not giving you anything until you tell me why you were hiding from the beat policeman

ABHIJEET: So that he wouldn’t see me.

BHASKAR: Listen, that’s why someone hides from someone else. So that the someone else don’t see them.

ABHIJEET: Doesn’t. So that the someone else doesn’t see them.

BHASKAR: Will you stop correcting my grammar?

ABHIJEET: Will you give me something to eat?

BHASKAR: No.

ABHIJEET: We’ve been friends for twelve years and you would let me starve?

BHASKAR: You’re not starving. You’re either mad or you’ve committed some horrendous crime.

ABHIJEET: Mad people and criminals get hungry too, you know.

BHASKAR: Tell me what you’re doing here, for crying out loud.

ABHIJEET: Okay. Okay. But you must promise me you won’t freak out.

BHASKAR: I’m already freaked out, in case you didn’t notice. Have you stolen something? Have you k-k-  m-m-

ABHIJEET: I haven’t done anything wrong.

BHASKAR: Then what have you done?

ABHIJEET: No freaking out, no telling anyone.

BHASKAR: All right, all right.

ABHIJEET: I was putting clown shoes on the shoe pile.

BHASKAR: What?!

ABHIJEET: Clown shoes. You know, shoes worn by clowns.

BHASKAR: I know that clown shoes are worn by clowns. What the hell were you doing with them?

ABHIJEET: You know the pile of shoes that’s been seen on your street corner?

BHASKAR: Yeah. Kind of hard to miss it. It’s there, and every time the municipal cart comes and takes the shoes away, the pile appears again. Blinking great crowds coming around to gape at a pile of shoes. Old shoes, new shoes, pretty pink and blue shoes ... why the hell am I reciting a rhyme I learnt twenty-seven years ago? Now the media has got hold of this shoe pile story. TV cameras and newspaper reporters interviewing every shopkeeper and passer by

ABHIJEET: I made it, Bhaskar. I’m the shoe piler.

BHASKAR: YOU?

ABHIJEET: Shhhhhh. Don’t wake Jinky and Winky. If they wake up, they’ll meow and wake your neighbours up and maybe even wake your Mom up, and then we’ll be in trouble.

BHASKAR: We – YOU – are already in trouble, I think.

ABHIJEET: Not unless you blab. Actually, I’m brilliant.

BHASKAR: Yeah, yeah, right. My friend the shoe piler. Other people’s friends write poetry, or make scientific discoveries, or sell candy in the mall. Some people’s friends are painters, some people’s friends are architects. My friend piles shoes and hides from one beat policeman at four A.M. in the morning.

ABHIJEET: No. Your friend has landed a job as copywriter.

BHASKAR: At four A.M. in the morning? Someone gave you a job at this time? Are they mad or drunk or have they had an accident or something?

ABHIJEET: Listen.

BHASKAR: I’m trying to listen, if you’ll talk.

ABHIJEET: The Amazing Advertising Agency, they have one big client, right.

BHASKAR: So?

ABHIJEET: Their big client is the Super Shoe Shop. I know that’s a tongue twister, but heck, that’s our biggest client’s brand name and one part of my campaign is to actually get kids to say it five times fast and they get a discount on a pair of shoes.

BHASKAR: Never mind all that. Get to the point will you, man?

ABHIJEET: So listen, I got shoes. I bought a few, I took a few from my sister’s closet, she has so many shoes, she hasn’t yet noticed the missing pairs.

BHASKAR: A few? Blinking great piles of shoes those were.

ABHIJEET: No. It was cleverly stacked newspaper with just a few shoes on top. I told you I’m brilliant.

BHASKAR: Are you going to tell me WHY, sometime this century?

ABHIJEET: So that everyone’s talking about shoes. It’s already happening. Look at all the free publicity. You said it yourself. Crowds, cameras, reporters ... it’s the teaser campaign that’ll win all the awards there are to win.

BHASKAR: What’s it teasing toward?

ABHIJEET: Well, I haven’t yet thought it through, but something like a slogan on the wall behind the shoes – available at Super Shoe Shop or something.

BHASKAR: You’ve gone through all this for something you haven’t even thought through yet? My goodness, you are mad. My friend, the mad shoe piler.

ABHIJEET: The client wants the campaign only day after tomorrow. By that time I’ll have cracked something and can present it to him. I had to get the buzz about shoes started, though. Couldn’t wait for the exact campaign headline to hit me.

BHASKAR: Have you got the concept approved by the client?

ABHIJEET: Not yet.

BHASKAR: Okay, your copy supervisor, or visualiser, or creative director or someone? Anyone who isn’t mad, have they approved of this?

ABHIJEET: You have to be mad to be in advertising. It doesn’t work otherwise. It’s one of the things they look for on your CV.

BHASKAR: I can’t really dispute that. But anyway, do you have – well, an accessory, so to speak, who knows you are doing this and has let you?

ABHIJEET: No. Well, you, now.

BHASKAR: Not me, not me.

ABHIJEET: You know I’m doing this.

BHASKAR: I know I’m hiding you from a beat policeman. I still don’t know why you had to hide, though. Did you have the clown shoes in your hand, or something?

ABHIJEET: No, I’d already piled them, but if he caught me skulking around at this time, especially in this shady neighbourhood –

BHASKAR: Hey watch it. My Mom and I happen to live here.

ABHIJEET: And Jinky and Winky. Anyway, if he caught me, he’d ask why I was there. And he’d torture it out of me. And the TV channels and reporters would appear, and everyone would know. And ka-boom, my whole brilliant campaign would be busted.

BHASKAR: Phew. I don’t know what to say.

ABHIJEET: Say that you have some pizza in the fridge, or some rice and rasam, or even a bit of fruit. I’m hungry, man. Shoe piling is not an easy job.

BHASKAR: Okay, I’ll get you something to eat. There is some leftover pasta in the fridge.

ABHIJEET: Sounds good. I’ll help myself.

BHASKAR: No, I’ll bring it. I know my way around the kitchen in the dark. I can’t put on the light there. My Dad used to sneak food at night, and Mom sleeps through a thunderstorm otherwise, but the minute the kitchen light switch comes on, she wakes up.

ABHIJEET: Oh, I never knew why your Mom walked out on your Dad. Was that the reason?

BHASKAR: It’s past four A.M. in the morning. Can we not be discussing my parents’ marital problems?

ABHIJEET: Yeah, let’s not. Be a good man and get me the pasta.

BHASKAR: Ooooooooo! Damn cats! When did you start sleeping on the kitchen floor?

JINKY AND WINKY (off, loud): Mweeerrrrrr mewoofrrrrrrr mfowwrrrrooofffrrrrooo

NEIGHBOURS (off): Will you shut those damn cats up? We’re coming there right now to get them!

Lekhana 2013

Out of Print is proud to partner Lekhana 2013. Our afternoon on 'dialogue in short fiction' includes a panel of writers examining the impact of dialogue on a short stories, a forum discussion on the transfer of regional and colloquial speak on writing. Serious writers may apply for our workshop that will take place Saturday 19, January at 1 pm.

Below, what Lekhana is all about:

Lekhana 2013 follows Lekhana 2012 as a special space and time where Bangalore's writers interact with each other and with readers.

The theme for this year is 'Writing the Spoken Word' with an emphasis on poetry, drama, oral histories and dialogue in fiction and film.

Join us at Jagriti in Whitefield for three days of readings, conversations about literature, performances and workshops, including workshops for children.

Entirely free and open to all.

Lekhana 2013 is brought to you by Bhoomija, Sangam House, Out of Print Magazine, booksTALK and Jagriti.

The Out of Print workshop at Lekhana

The Out of Print workshop at Lekhana 2013

Up to ten writers in for a short intense master class on crafting dialogue in short fiction

Conducted by creative writing expert, Rebecca Lloyd, http://www.beccalloyd.co.uk

Saturday, 19 January, 2013, starting at noon. Panel and forum that follow will begin at 3 pm

Writers with experience, please send 500-1000 word sample to outofprintmagazine@gmail.com

Subject line: Out of Print-Lekhana workshop

Cut and paste the sample into the body of the email please

For more on Out of Print at Lekhana, click on -->

Out of Print at Lekhana 2013: Dialogue in Short Fiction

Excited to report that Out of Print is partnering Bangalore’s 2013 literary gathering, Lekhana. The event takes place on January 18^th , 19^th , and 20^th .

Organised by Sangam House, Lekhana 2012 brought a wonderful, committed gathering of Bangalore residents interested in literature to the NGMA premises. Readings, discussions, presentations, theatre in a warm and genuine atmosphere of love for literature was what set the gathering apart.

This year, Lekhana will be on the grounds of Jagriti Theatre and the theme is ‘writing the spoken word’. Out of Print has been involved with the marvellous Arshia Sattar in some of the discussions on oral histories. But the thrust of our engagement is on 'dialogue in short fiction'.

The impact and the crafting of dialogue in short fiction will be examined via a panel discussion and a forum. Also, there will be the amazing opportunity of a workshop conducted by Rebecca Lloyd, one of the most interesting and sensitive writing mentors in the business. Writer and editor, Rebecca Lloyd who is in India during Lekhana, will lead ten participants through a master class on working with dialogue. Do grab the chance if you are in Bangalore on the afternoon of Saturday, January 19^th.

Keep an eye on our facebook page for more.