The Deadly Bouquet

In life there is so much detail. Once this idea was conceived, I did not want to walk on without nurturing it. That’s how I started a journal. Nine months later a book was born.

I was a novice in the cut throat field of publishing. Yet I was also not that naïve to expect any bidding wars or astronomical advances. Or hope that a David Godwin would lay his hands on my manuscript and I’d become a celebrity overnight. All mainstream publishers shied from it- citing excuses I am ashamed to admit as a writer. It was then I knew that to write a book it is not ‘what’ you know but ‘who’ you know that matters.

Finally Minerva, an International but joint publication firm, agreed to publish it. Among the writer’s circle, Minerva was more popularly known as the ‘Vanity Publishers’ but I agreed because I wanted my book in print. Not for fame but for posterity.

Fortunately the editors kept their red pen at bay and did not tamper with my literary voice. Unfortunately they did not make the writing stronger or structure it better or flesh out my characters or tweak and snip at my 560 page tome either.

When I first decided to name the book it had not been a very difficult job. The novel, being biographical in approach, simply had to be entitled ‘Daddy’. But not wanting to be termed a plagiarist by Mahesh Bhatt,I decided to elaborate on it by allowing room for further extension. Since it was also autobiographical by default, I decided to call it ‘Daddy- A Memoir’. But being a Gandhian and not wanting to give undue importance to anything foreign, except the language I wrote it in :-}I thought the ‘French’ bit should be altered. Hence ‘memoir’ became ‘memories’. But again, since the fragile memories could not manage to stand on their own, they had to be wrapped up into a ‘bouquet’. One that would ensure permanent bondage and eternal fragrance! Thus ‘Daddy- A Bouquet of Memories’ was born. A tribute called ‘Daddy’ had to be dedicated to who else but Mummy, thus trying to reimburse my eternal debt to the two people who brought me into this world.

When my husband and I held the book for the first time, we continued to lovingly gaze at it. It was like holding our third baby, one of which I gently reminded, that except for the support and the encouragement, he had no other major involvement in. The three glitzy launches followed and I even got to attend a few Page 3 parties. Unfortunately no socialites gushed over me because for the true success of a book there is nothing like a good controversy. Also since the popularity of the book depends on good marketing and my PR skills amounted to zilch, I began to wonder about the sales. However I pacified myself that I would judge my book not by the number of copies sold but by the number of people affected by it. A poor consolation maybe, but the only one that makes sense to any writer.


Since the christening had already been done, congratulatory messages for the new arrival started to pour in. One of my friends said that it was an apt title. I thought so too- until someone I hardly knew, dropped by. This man took a glance at the book, which happened to be lying on the table. He then picked it up carefully and ran his hands over the smooth cover. He was all praise for the overall effect- the feel, the design, the documentation and the quality. They were all marvelous, he commented. ‘They really do a good job nowadays.’ All the time he kept fondly caressing the book. Finally he turned it over. ‘Hmmmmm’, he said, shaking his head, ‘perfect, although the pricing is a bit too high. But then’, he immediately continued, ‘books don’t come by cheap nowadays.' By now I was in seventh heaven. And remained there. Until he read the title!

‘DADDY’, he pronounced loudly and articulately. I smiled, the smile of a proud daughter. Then he went on to read the rest- ‘A Bucket of Memories.’

WHAAAAAAAAAT? My smile vanished instantaneously. I was speechless. I looked at my husband, who now had an impish grin on his face. With one unpretentious expression, all my meticulous planning and style had been punctured. With one simple utterance, this man had given a whole new meaning to the entire book.

I had tried so hard to gather my thoughts and words into a bunch of memories so that all kinds of heady scents would find expression there- the gradual transformation of society, the political upheavals, the religious animosity, the homespun incidences and the ambiguities of life and death. But with one humble approach, the brilliance of a tribute to an illustrious father by a doting daughter had suddenly gone ‘pail’.

I looked up angrily. But I found nothing ignoble in the man’s expression. I felt terribly offended. But his face bore no marks of the offender. My husband continued to grin. ‘I think I’ll buy it’, the man said finally, with a genuine smile on his face. ‘It would be a lovely present to give to my daughter’.

‘Oh!’ I said, suddenly taken aback.

‘The name is so nice’, he continued in a simple manner, ‘I feel that every daughter who has a father should read this book called ‘Daddy’.’

I had heard somewhere that a frown was only a smile turned upside down. So I immediately decided to curve it upwards. It was that simple. ‘Yes’, I said, ‘and I think every father who has a daughter should also read it.’

‘Most certainly I will’, he assured me, getting up to go.

The proud father walked away with a dent in his pocket and a ‘bucket’ in his hands. And my husband and I both felt satisfied with the norm that Mr. Shakespeare had set. After all, what is in a name? That which we call a book by any other name would still be that. The chapters would still remain unaffected. The contents would still be black and white. As long as they were ‘read’! The only problem was that provided the people considered my book a harmless ‘bouquet’, there was nothing to worry about. But the moment anyone else even began to think otherwise, I would have to attach a statutory warning to it.

“DANGER- Handle with extreme caution. Readers, please do not leave it lying carelessly anywhere around. The author is not, in any way responsible, if someone accidentally kicks the ‘bucket’.”



Signing off................
Nargis :-}
Originally posted in Sulekha.com