Copyright n why I write

I never could really zero in on why I write. Writing, the act of writing was more an addiction, an instinctual urge, I began indulging in when I was five years old. Hence, the ‘why’ of it mattered less than the fact that something within me grew restless, until it settled itself on paper. Perhaps I was more autistic than artistic. Whatever, I felt words form reform in mind, in the air before they concretized on paper. I felt them form through class hours, through dreams, through train journeys.

My first creative writing, To Mrs. Michael,<http://lifelineanusha.blogspot.com/2011/03/myfirst-creative-writing.html>taught me both the power of words and the power of the cane. Perhaps, it was the flogging which the initial creative outburst earned  that created in me a love hate relationship with the art of writing. I wrote of what I felt, what I saw in me, in those around me, but I hid most of my writing because the initial lesson I learnt was if I write, I could  be flogged.

I sensed writing could both ease pain and buy pain. Then, having nothing and nobody to lose, or lose myself into, I lost myself in the world of writers and books. And I discovered, books unlike people never questioned my ever chattering head.  I fell in love with goblins, imps and elves. I narrated a magic world of stories to my little friends who shouted with glee whenever a story appealed to them. When people pushed me away from what they saw as gluttony, I satiated myself in ravishing food descriptions in books. I took a bite of Blyton’s baked eggs when I was denied access to more than two at home.

 Though I never felt tired of fairy tale worlds, I found myself roving over whatever books I found at the home library. I loved the feel of books, the smell of them, old and new, I felt a comfort when I held them close, when I could see them in vicinity. Through them, I learnt to see a Don Quixote among random relatives, a Don Juan among my playmates, but it never struck me writing could be a very formal activity. Writing meant flogging initially, later, a release of restless energy but it never struck me there was something called copyright till something happened because of a short story I wrote titled “The Realization”.

 When I was younger, I was always the first to return home in the evenings. A few months after my thirteenth birthday, I found an envelope addressed to me from Blackie Books, Chennai. I was sure it was another letter from some editor expressing regret that my writing was not suitable for children’s magazine. Nevertheless, to my surprise I found a very formal form titled copyright, a term familiar in sound but yet unfamiliar in terms of its implications. The letter said that the publishers wanted to know if I would be interested in submitting my short story, which they had found, published in a short story monthly, “Galleon”. It said it was to be part of an anthology of short stories (A Surprise Gift and Other Stories) written by living Indian Authors, to be used as a classroom textbook for Junior High school students.  And the letter continued that if the offer is accepted and if I could sign the copyright form enclosed, I would be given a one-time payment of Rs. 500. To my thirteen-year-old glutton head, all that mattered was the last part. I felt an excitement over what it would mean to hold a self-earned 500-rupee note and lose myself on dollops of ice creams. I had already set my eyes on a mega family pack of ice-cream and the family refused to let the glutton in me eat it single. I felt their denial injustice in spite of having so much money and I had taken the resolve that one day I would make my own money and devour it single. As I signed away, sealed and walked up to the post-box near the ice cream parlour in the neighbourhood, all I felt was chocolate creams melting away.

So the rest at home knew of my signing away only when the response arrived from the publishers in the form of a 500-rupee cheque and a note, thanking me for my acceptance. Unfortunately, the response and the rest of my family arrived before I did. So when I walked in I knew from the eyes of my cousin and my elder sibling that I had broken some household rule again. My parents congratulated me, my dad all the time watching the way I stood silent through the asking why I had not informed or waited. I was not sure what I had done until I got a call from a family friend, a writer himself, “Why anusha, why did you not ask a word at least to me before you signed it…?" He continued his tirade," It is business, negotiation...” while I dreamily, singularly visualized the family pack.

However, dad knew me; he only asked gently through, “what made you do it without telling me?”

I hesitated and then said, “The family pack…” and before I completed he broke into a hearty laugh. I enjoyed my copyright more in that laugh and in the family pack he bought me.