It was a Sunday morning, at home in Chennai. As I did every morning, I picked up the four newspapers we subscribed to, from just outside the main door. But that day, before making myself a cup of tea over which I browse through the news, I first checked the Sunday supplement of the paper which was to carry my travelogue on Kerala. 

This I had written, after my first blog on sulekha.com titled ‘Chennai a City of Contrasts’ did not get shortlisted for publication in the ongoing tie up with them and a reputed newspaper. I know even two decades later that it was well written, but I suppose it was too much of an outsider’s take, in a conservative city in 2006. 

This, even though I had been to Chennai,  several times for days at a time, with assignments from a few public limited companies I had worked with. In each of these companies, Chennai was rated highest on most professional parameters. This is how I even agreed to get married to a man from Chennai, and move there promptly. I knew the city would teach me a lot and enable a satisfying career progression. And I was right, it did, even if not in the way I had imagined.

Today, I’m a writer, one who takes my work so seriously akin to worship, only from my Chennai years. In effect, I’m a Chennai writer, whatever my ethnicity or background. This was after setting up a Crossword bookstore in Chennai as unit head of the Specialty division of Shopperstop. This assignment taught me the value of intellectual stimulation over slapstick nonsensical nonsense that sells in the name of literature, as if it were only written for the purpose of a Romcom(romantic comedy) film.

So this particular Sunday in 2008, when I picked up the newspapers from my front gate in Chennai, I first checked to see if my travelogue, ‘Mystic Kerala’ that was on Kovalam and Varkala, was there. It was to my immense satisfaction, after having asked a correspondent of the paper several times in two months, after it was shortlisted from sulekha.com – that he had confirmed it would be in this Sunday’s magazine. Looking at my name in print, I smiled to myself with pride, as I imagined my journalist husband’s shocked expression when I would break the news to him. I would in effect, I thought, serve him and his friends cynicism on my writing, back to him on a cold platter. Let me add here a pertinent point – this was in the national paper B was employed with back then, as assistant editor and a popular columnist of the Sunday magazine.  With a smug sense of self – we Bengali women are usually strongly feminist, I went about my tasks, awaiting the man of the house to awaken. However my satisfaction was smashed to the ground of patriarchy, shortly after. 

I was still walking back to our bedroom from the main door with the papers, to preempt how much longer it was, for the man of the house to arise, when my mobile phone rang sharply. It was my sister. I took the call excitedly to ask her to check the Sunday magazine for my writeup. As this newspaper had a good circulation in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Bangalore too, and she and her husband read the Sunday Magazine regularly; since I married one of their popular columnists, two years back in 2006. 

But before I could get a word out of my mouth in excitement, she blurted: “What utter nonsense, have you written… what kind of English is this – the Sisters from our school will turn in their graves to think this is what you learned…”

I felt a resounding slap on my face, and my eyes were smarting like back in school from  Sister Andrea’s spanking, even as I replied, “But why… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it…I thought it was rather well written”, then after a moment’s silence in utter humiliation as my sister a marketing professional, is rather good at English,  I added, “no one has ever trashed my writing, rather just the opposite… Sr. Andrea and Mrs Mandira Bose always supported my writing since junior school – even had my report writing in which I often got 19/20 and business letters 14/15 read out aloud to the class, as exemplary.” 

“Go read your writeup again…” Jayshree, my younger sister shot back rather rudely, “what an embarrassment…I even shared it with several colleagues as they subscribed to the paper and one of them pointed it out… before my reading it…”

So, I promptly disconnected the phone, then briskly pulled open the paper and read my own written piece. The original was still on my sulekha.com blog back then. To my horror, the one in the newspaper bore little semblance to my original piece. Worse than that, there were the weirdest of sentences and phrases like “the sun got rising and some such, several strange line constructs…”

With each line I read, I was livid…well that’s a gross understatement.  I contemplated waking up my husband and complaining to him that this unfairness was what had happened to me – with the hope that he would defend and fight for my cause and dignity. But this would only be a pipe dream I realised from experience of the last couple of years. So I decided to take the matter(weapon) in my own hands, just like Ma Durga, from the land of my birth, and let sleeping men sleep – while I fought my own demonic patriarchal battles.

I opened my laptop, searched for the email address of the editor in chief of the paper. Then I shot off a strongly worded email, copying a screenshot of my article ‘Mystic Kerala’, in the day’s paper, along with my original piece. The email also reminded him it was my first published article in a newspaper, that I admit I might not be a good writer. But how could such a reputed newspaper publish such a bad piece with horrifically bad language! Didn’t the paper worry about its reputation even if a guest writer’s public reputation is of no concern to the paper. What was the need to rewrite my entire piece in the name of copy editing or whatever they thought it was – they could have rejected the piece outright – I ended with this. 

At the time, I was a headhunter, a senior executive search consultant, with a top international HR company. Finding an email address, then writing to a CEO or an MD – was no big deal for me. I met and personally  interviewed people of such high stature every other day and then wrote their profile descriptions to send to my clients along with their CVs till negotiating their salaries and hand holding till their joining and induction. In fact I had visited the office of this paper’s Chairman and Managing Director(CMD) twice, just weeks before this, to discuss a proposed senior level placement. 

My husband awoke after I had already received a reply from the editor-in -chief, as I had written to him personally, on his official email address. From years of experience, I knew how to make him take notice – as I had pointed out his paper’s reputation being at stake most in the matter, over an unknown debut writer. I had met him at my place a couple of times with my husband’s other colleagues, but I did not remind him of this. Even though I was concerned about my professional image among my clients and candidates, who would come across my name with such a badly written, embarrassing writeup. 

I told B the whole story before offering him tea. He became angrier in learning I had written to his chief editor, more than I was angry at the situation meted out to me. But I stood my ground, reminding him that I had a professional image to maintain just as he had his, and that I’m not allowing anyone to trample over it on a whim. 

That afternoon, B was called for an impromptu meeting at the office, even though it was a Sunday. On the agenda was also my email to the chief editor – not as my husband but to discuss who had edited and allowed that piece to be published. After he returned home, B was acutely mad at me – much more than when I told him the story or before he left. 

I was soon to learn, that the man who had taken up the job of editing my debut travel piece, was none other than B’s friend S who had asked me over dinner at my place months back, to write the piece on ‘The Husband’. This I had written about in Part 1 of ‘The Making of a Book’ in the previous post. I was really upset, but most with B for supporting his friend who I was to learn from other sources later, almost lost his job over my complaint – he had been issued a severe warning.

Perhaps S deserved it I had thought, for choosing to be a journalist with inadequate writing skills. But it was not merely for rewriting a pathetic piece that I had thought he didn’t deserve his job. But for harassing his loyal friend’s recently married wife. I was to learn from B’s mother afterwards, that her son always supported and stood up for his junior colleague and friend S, who always hung around and flattered him as he wasn’t as prolific a writer, thus S banked on B’s support and could retain his job. Then I knew this to be true, when shortly B recommended him for a job, having done so once before when he had lost this job over an issue of arrogance with a woman senior boss. Then his wife left. Later he lost his job during the #Metoo.

You cannot gauge the intentions of your close friends over choices you make of your life. But yet we tend to trust those we know much longer. People like S with misogynistic attitudes are not usually one time, but serial offenders, as such attitudes are deep set. 

I was thus glad I had taken up the sword myself, to fight the demon of patriarchy and misogyny – as I have done all alone, ever since. The worst part of patriarchy is that it is mostly supported by women who lack conviction in themselves. And I do not subscribe to such pathetic attitudes. My fight has been through my work assignments, then everything I have written, including my 5 published books and the two manuscripts I have ready for publication. 

Charting your path with purpose, involves self-reflection, goal setting, skill development, and consistent effort. It’s about understanding your strengths, defining your aspirations, and taking deliberate steps to achieve them. This includes identifying your values, setting realistic goals, developing necessary skills, and adapting to challenges along the way. 

As I have said before, I make the most of what happens to me in life rather than curse my bad luck. We are an outcome of our attitudes, cut out of the rough stones of our life experiences. Thus it’s my experiences that goad my destiny and make me the person I am today – it charts my purpose in life, like cutting and chiseling in marking and building our road on the mountainous track of our life. 

PS: this post is continued from the previous post …

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