Tuesday 15 March 2016

Envious V/S scary: Life of western author V/S life of a Hindi author

What could be the life of an author who has a fan following of millions and same are his earnings.
He writes, what he feels and when he feels. He not too, preoccupied by the vagaries of life, especially the finances. He travels, he sits idle in his own world, he reads, he takes a pause and absorbs and enjoys every aspect of life. Isn’t this life envious?
Yes, of course it is. Imagine EL James was quoted in media reports last year to be worth 37 million pounds!
The book ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ is also an amazing erotica. But do you ever heard of Mastram, an Indian erotic writer of fifties. Yes, I think you have heard about thanks to director Abhishek Jaiswal for his movie on this erotic writer of India.
What would have been Mastram’s life. Struggling for a penny, going out of house everyday with a list of groceries and empty wallet.
Forget Mastram, our great literary genius Munshi Premchand too never had fulfilling life. There are numerous who struggle day and night. I know a noted writer who is a constable in police, has bagged several awards but has no savings.
I don’t want to paint a grey picture, thanks to the new age technologies and advent of online bookstores and online books.
Now, anyone can upload their books online and they will be directly available to larger audiences who can buy books online.
This is one of the major reasons, I am an ardent supporter of online books. I see the use of technology as a platform for the Indian talent. It is proving itself to be. Now, Indian writers are getting recognized globally, their works are being translated and they have also started to earn revenues. But still we have a far long way to go.
In our country, we actually don’t have bodies which actually provide platform to authors, promote and create awareness about our rich literature among masses.
This work is being done by the market oriented online bookstores. Anyways, things are changing fast, and it’s a matter of few years when we will see reports about our authors too, that they are worth millions!
Happy reading!

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