Story behind a book

The story behind my story book smile emoticon

I never thought I would be writing again, but here goes...

Some time back I published a Malayalam book with 3 of my short stories. Since I am no known writer, I had to pay for the entire publishing process. The idea behind it was two fold, one was to dedicate the book to my late mother who was a genius in every aspect, whether it be studies, sports or cultural activities. In spite of her very busy schedule, managing work and home, she found time to read books and also write articles in Hindi, English and Malayalam.She was also upto date on computers and was an oracle and c++ expert. So, as she loved books I wanted to publish a book with my very limited talent and dedicate it in her name. I was sure my Father and my family would be supportive on this too.
I had taken Hindi as second language in school and Malayalam was my third language. Later in life I realized the sad truth that my command over the language was really poor. This was something I really wanted to change and started to work hard on it, I believe I achieved what I wanted to also.

Coming back to the second point, I wanted to get some profit by selling the books so that I can donate some money as charity [I prefer not to go into the details].

Now, going into some of the incidents or rather surprising experiences that followed after the book was published -

I never expected an article to come up in 'The New Indian Express' about my book. My eyes almost popped out as I went through the article. Another article came in 'Technopark today'. I still go through these articles once in a while.

I was given 500 copies of the book by the publisher and even if I was able to sell the whole lot, there wont be any profit for the 'charity' I had planned. I choose to forget about giving the profit amount as charity, and decided to give away what ever money I could collect, by selling as many copies possible. Now came the hard part, selling it. I couldn't approach the book stores as they have their regular process going on and wont show any interest in selling my book. I decided to take the next step, selling the books to my near and dear. The only sad truth that I discovered was that all the 'near' weren't so 'dear'. Some of them commented on the price, which was Rs.50. Some took the book in one hand and as if weighing a gold chain, moved the hand up and down accompanied with comments like 'Rs.50 for this small book?'.

The pain was again two folded, they were insulting my precious creation on one side and I was running out of time for accumulating the money for the cause I had in mind. There were times when I regretted publishing the book, the whole idea of doubling the money looked stupid. I felt like one of those people who used to come in trains and buses trying to sell off some books for their livelyhood. My ego did slow down my marketing process, but I decided not to let it ruin the good intention I had in mind. I was back on track again trying to face all the comments with a smile, which to me was a challenge. I somehow managed to sell half the number of of books I had, rest of the money that I needed for the good cause went out of my bank account. No regrets!

I still get lot of humiliating comments on the stories, most of them ending with the sarcastic note 'when is the next one coming up?', believe me, I don't have an answer. I am no author, I just wanted to dedicate a book to my late mother and raise some fund for a good cause. I was, to some extend, successful in it by Gods grace and also because of some good people who took the risk of buying and even reading my book.

I still have at-least a 100 copies with me, which I have decided not to sell. My very dear friend DrManoj Narayanan had taken the pain to draw some cartoons for the stories and each time I open the book I covey my silent gratitude to him.I also feel proud that some of the well known writers in Malayalam literature had passed on some encouraging comments about the stories to me. It was their kindness to encourage or rather not discourage a person who had made an effort. My gratitude also goes to a handful of good friends who had always stood by me.

I take out a copy once in a while and randomly read a page or two, involuntarily a smile sweeps by my face then.
To me, the copies are precious, very precious and I feel proud to have made and attempt.