In the aftermath of Delhi University’s decision to ban A K Ramanujan’s essay discussing disparate versions of The Ramayana, Tara publisher V.Geetha reflects upon the many lives of the text, and in particular our recently published retelling of the great epic from the female point of view, Sita’s Ramayana.
'Sita's Ramayana'
Ganesh Jogi
Ganesh Jogi, musician and artist from Rajasthan-Gujarat, is no more. We met him and his wife Teju Behn in February 2010, and invited them to sing and draw for us.
Last month, Tara’s Maegan Dobson attended Publishing Next – India’s first conference on the future of publishing. There she spoke about social networking from the perspective of an independent publishing house, joining a conversation that touched upon subjects as diverse as technology, dissemination, class and language. Here Maegan discusses the experience, reflecting on some of the issues raised by Jennifer Abel in her ongoing series of posts on the social economics of both digital and printed publishing.
‘Social Publishing’ just about captures the nature of the Publishing Next conference held in Goa earlier this month. Chosen by Maya Hemant (of Pratham Books) as the title of the workshop we conducted together on social media marketing, I couldn’t help but feel that it had it wider application in summing up the conference as a whole.
Informal discussions between sessions (photo courtesy of Frederick Noronha)
In the first in a short series of posts, Tara’s North American representative Jennifer Abel takes on the fiery debate about the future of the printed book, addressing the issues of class and economics in the context of a reading community.
It’s a fiery conversation, the one about ebooks, digital publishing and the future of the printed book. It’s certainly an omnipresent topic; recent articles appear in The Guardian and The Washington Post , and The Millions has a featured section dedicated to the issue.
A Workshop Exploring Indian Floor Patterns
All over India, there are enduring traditions of women decorating the threshold of their homes with decorative patterns. Known by different names in various communities, they are called kolam in Tamil Nadu. Women create them every day with rice paste or powder, and by nightfall, they are usually gone. Once, while talking to the Gond artist Bhajju Shyam about the tradition of floor patterns in his community – known as Digna – we were astonished by his reverence for this ephemeral art. Bhajju felt that Gond art evolved from these patterns on the floors and walls – that they were, so to speak, the basic alphabet of folk art. Struck by this, we wanted to explore further, and decided to invite women from four different regions for a workshop on floor patterns.
Kolams from Tamil Nadu were represented by Selvi and Jayashree from Chennai. They were joined by Sunita from Rajasthan’s Meena tribe who created Mandanas. Sarla Devi from Madhubani in Bihar was an expert on Aripanas, while the Gond group from Madhya Pradesh – Deepa, Rupa, Sunita and Shakuntala – came up with Dignas.
Here Chennai-based performer, writer and activist Aniruddhan Vasudevan – who was part of workshop – shares his thoughts about this creative process:
The artists gathered together for the workshop
Recently, we were asked to write an article about our experience of gender in children’s books in the Indian context. It’s certainly a topical issue at the moment: a recent study in the US looking at almost 6,000 books published between 1990 and 2000 found that males are central characters in 57% of children’s books published each year, with just 31% having female central characters.
We were more than happy to oblige, and the resulting ‘Postcard from India’ was published on the Guardian children’s book website last week. Aside from our obvious pleasure in the interest shown in an issue that we hold dear, we were intrigued by how the request had come about: via social networking – twitter, to be more specific.
We have been consistently – and pleasantly – surprised by the opportunities afforded to a small press by social media, and feel that this article is an example of how new technologies often dismissed as trivial can be utilized to further aims and ideologies that are anything but.
Written by Tara’s Maegan Chadwick-Dobson, here is the article in full:
Neya & Maya reading about the Indian herione Jaya.
Why is it that conflict-torn lands often produce fiction that delves into deep human recesses? Does this writing have the power to influence the conflict itself?
Here writer and critic Miguel Fernandes Ceia, from the Asia House Festival of Literature, interviews author Daisy Hasan. Daisy’s debut novel ‘The To-Let House’ explores the often forgotten conflict in Shillong, North East India, and its impact on the lives of children growing up within it.
How do you live a whole life within a conflict? Do you think that people who have lived their whole lives within the same conflict are able to understand what it is like not being in one?
Samhita Arni wrote and illustrated Tara’s ‘The Mahabharatha: a Child’s View’ when she was just twelve. Fifteen years, almost 50,000 copies worldwide and seven language editions later, we have just released the fifth edition of the book in a single volume. To mark this milestone, Samhita returns to her childhood creation in a reflective frame of mind, examining the complex layers of meaning inherent in the Indian epics, and the relationship between questions and authority in our society.
Samhita back in 1996
And Samhita today ...
An ancient story features a boy with a penchant for asking questions. One day, the boy watches his father – a Brahmin teacher – perform a sacrifice, dedicating livestock to the Gods. A question occurs to him, and he asks his father – “to whom do you give me?”
Recently, one of the most difficult projects we’ve ever done came together in a deeply satisfying way. I See The Promised Land is a graphic novel on the life of Martin Luther King Jr.
The art is by Manu Chitrakar, a scroll painter from the Bengal Patua tradition, who speaks only Bengali, and some broken Hindi. This is the first book he’s ever done. When we told him Martin Luther King’s story during a visit to Tara, we were astonished by his deep reserves of understanding. Manu had never heard about the Civil Rights Movement, but he grasped the universal significance of it right away, and was excited about painting it for us. Working with him was a joy – we pulled out visual references, talked about what it all meant, and watched as he effortlessly converted the material into his own visual idiom.
The text came about later, serendipitously. We met the African American griot, writer and performer Arthur Flowers at the Jaipur Literary Festival, and were mesmerized by his performance. So from one performing tradition to another – why not Arthur team up with Manu – and write this story?
It was a long and happy year of mediating this unlikely collaboration, going back and forth between two brilliant individuals who have never met. Their duet has turned out to be contrapuntal, yet curiously harmonic, brought together by the young Italian designer Guglielmo Rossi. His was a difficult brief – to take good care of Arthur’s words and respect Manu’s art, while melding the two together into a contemporary graphic novel.
So much for the process. What we found ourselves holding, at the end of it all, was more than we could have hoped for: a rich and moving account of an extraordinary life. The book was a work of art, in the most authentic sense of the word – unaffectedly local, yet genuinely universal. It was also entirely collaborative, so rare today in any field except perhaps the music industry.
But that’s still not the end of the story. There is an afterword, and countless ripples: Manu has gone back to the book and painted a special scroll inspired by it, for Arthur to use when he reads and performs. We have also heard that the tale of Martin Luther King jr is spreading among the Bengal Patuas – artists are painting their own scrolls of his life, and creating songs to go with it…
This is our version of the story. Arthur had his own, so we asked him to write about it for us. This is what he sent:
“Hello Tara Bookworld,
So, Ive been working on my presentation for I See The Promised Land readings, and I realized as I was doing it that I was not only telling the story of Martin Luther King, but of African American struggle. I am also trying to sing it like the Patua folk do. Its taking me to a new ground as a writer and performer.
Which is kinda fitting, this project grew of performance. Couple of years ago I did this state dept tour of India, I was at the Jaipur Literary Festival doing my delta hoodoo performance thing and it went over well, folk treating me like I was some kind of literary guru, it was a most amazing experience.
When Gita of Tara Books approached me with idea of doing a collaborative work with Patua artist, Manu, on King, well I knew nothing of Patua Art at the time but King was my boy, me being from Memphis and all, me being a product of the Civilrights Movement, considering myself as I do a part of Kings legacy, being asked to do a work on King was like fulfilling a sacred obligation. Little did I realize just how much a blessing it would be. This also gave me a chance to play the multimedia games I think literature will have to play to retain primacy in a media world.
So, Tara sent me the initial graphics, and by now I got a rough idea of the tradition and Tara Books mission, and Im thinking if he can do his traditional storytelling thing I can do mine; I come from the Griotic school of Afroam lit, black writers who consider themselves heirs to two literary traditions, the western written and the African oral, and hope in the fusion to take them both to higher ground. So I got loose with my delta storyteller voice, I had a ball writing that book.
It was like I was freed up to do some things that were very dear to my literary heart, and Gita let me do whatever I wanted. Every once in awhile I would check with her, uh Gita, did I step over the line here, language a little too down home maybe, what about all this hoodoology, all this destinywork Im doing up in here, should I dial it back a notch. But Gita didnt play that, she encourage my wild side, talking about thats what we like, Art, go for it, Art, do your thing. We got your back.
So I was able to step on out there, tried some narrative licks I have wanted to try for years, I got loose on this one. Then when I got the product it was like, well, look at this. Isnt this satisfying. After all the creative theorizing, the marketing considerations and everything that goes into a book, you want the final product to be a true work of art. Whatever that is. I just love the international flavor of it, the cosmopolitan quality it append to my body of work.
And all along it was assumed I would perform this, so Gita, little publishers mind still percolating, asked me Art, what about we send you a scroll version for performances. I was like no thank you, Ima do my thing, not Patuas thing, but she kept insisting and finally I realize she is trying to give me a traditional scroll version of the novel, and I say why sure, and sure enough, she sends it and its so beautiful Im afraid to take it out of the case, much less tote it around, and she says Arthur, its for use, the Patua schlep it around, use it like you the artist of the road you claim to be.
Then she send me these links of how its done, so now, in honor of Gitas vision, Ima try to sing it like they do, which is a whole new thing for me. So Im thinking of all these ways I can work the scroll into the act, and how I will have to condense the story depending on the timeslot, and I realize that for the tighter timeframes of book signings Im going to concentrate on Kings death in Memphis, and on his legacy.
Cause I claim Martin Luther King was the most influential force in African American destiny in my lifetime, I grew up in the world that King challenged, the quasislavery of the pre-Civilrights South. Martin Luther King rocked our world. I say in Promiseland that the Civilwar may have freed the Blacks from slavery but it was Martin Luther King freed them from bondage. In doing so he become one of the great voices of humanities struggle to be. With this work I claim a role in shaping that legacy.
In that spirit, I want the folk who come to the performances to understand what Martin Luther King meant to us then and what he means us now. What he means to the world and all its generations. I want folk to leave my performances, or to get from reading/experiencing this book, that sense of being renewed, refreshed and regenerated in struggle. The struggle of life and achievement. The enhancement of the human condition. Confident in the victory of all that is good.
I want this work to be rest for the weary.
I once again thank Gita, Manu and Tara Books for the opportunity to be part of a collaborative work of which I am unduly proud.”
- Arthur Flowers
A Book Trail in Mexico
I was invited to the Guadalajara book fair, recently, on a publisher’s fellowship. Afterwards, my travels around Mexico took me to the state of Chiapas, to visit an extraordinary book making cooperative of Mayan women called Taller Lenateros, The Woodlanders’ Workshop.
Impossible to sum up otherwise, I decided to turn my experience into a small visual trail around the world of the book, populated by readers, publishers, book fairs, writers, libraries, artists, book stores, book makers and books in all forms.
Gita Wolf, Publisher, Tara Books