The Ramgarh Literary Festival

By Vasudev Murthy

A set of struggling and rather inept writers are invited to their very first literary festival in the practically invisible town of Ramgarh. Success seems to be swiftly passing them by. But have they finally been recognized?With no food to be had, bed bugs for companions and mysterious sounds at night, the festival begins. On a huge campus with multiple venues, panel discussions rage on - with no one in the audience. Is there more to this than meets the eye? Could this be a gigantic plot to exploit struggling authors and make money at their expense, drawing attention to the sinister cartel of publishers? Are literary festivals actually fronts for organized crime, taking advantage of writers with an inferiority complex, and of innocent readers who feel they need to rub shoulders with the 'greats'?The Ramgarh Literary Festival is a hilarious commentary on the world of lit fests that we know so well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins India
• Release date: Feb 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9789353026981

Vasudev Murthy

Vasudev Murthy writes in multiple genres: classical music, management, crime and humour. He draws inspiration from the violin, yoga, animal rights and insane poets. His work has been translated into Japanese, Portuguese, Hindi and Kannada. He lives in Bangalore.

Book preview

Prologue

I write this with trembling fingers.

This is a tale of greed, incomprehensible romance, ambidextrous manipulation, unnecessary sex, complex cross-over business cartels, psychological bullying, phosphorescent underwear and so much more. In sum, pure evil.

I have just returned from the Ramgarh Literary Festival.

You say you have never heard of it?

I am surprised, but perhaps I should not be. Indeed, when I think about it, this is precisely what the Master Manipulators behind the ‘Festival’ think it should be: Some know about it, some do not. Everything is very comfortable. All of us have already been analyzed and marked. We will be told when ‘They’ think we need to know.

The Ramgarh Literary Festival. Yes. My eyes finally opened there. And this story is about what I discovered at the ‘Festival’.

So, you thought this would be a nice little tale, about the doings of gentle decent people going about their business. There are well-meaning publishers, you felt, who encourage struggling writers, polish their art, and present them to the world where they shall receive recognition and money. Then, you find that there were millions of adoring readers who thirst for good books since they wish to wander off into a make-believe world and feel enriched. You believed – and of this you were sure – that literary festivals are in vogue and popular because they bring writers, publishers, and readers together in a celebration of love, adulation, and deep thoughts.

To which I say the following: Ha, ha.

As you may have inferred, it is an expression of amusement.

Regrettably, there is nothing amusing about the matter.

I know the inner workings of this little universe. In this space, soul-destroying evil licks gently at our hearts and minds, hiding behind civil facades and frames of earnest human endeavour. Who could imagine that the washed and scrubbed faces of highly educated and often pretty editors, gleaming with zest and passion, are mere masks for an international commerce machine that crushes and casts aside those who do not ‘Make the Grade’, all the while pushing vulgar sums of money into the bank balances of a few.

And who knew that in all this, there are companies which are not even in the business of publishing, who work closely, behind closed doors in fact, with captive publishers to push their own agenda. And that is, quite specifically, to enhance the sales of their products. There is no innocence here, none. You, the reader, are just a pawn, a little row in a column in an Excel spreadsheet, your behavior thoroughly analyzed by professionals and data-mining software, manipulated to make you buy Things you don’t need. And you buy those Things indirectly by buying books which you think will improve your life. You do not know that you are being manipulated – you believe you have Free Will.

I am forced to again say: Ha, ha. This time with a touch of hysteria as I know exactly what is going on and I realize there is no hope whatsoever.

I see I now have your attention. Good. My exposé will shock and shake the comfortable world of publishers and ‘Others Who Cannot Be Named’. I myself am writing this anonymously, under the cover of darkness, wearing a purple wig and phosphorescent blue underwear. Some say my name is ‘Vasudev Murthy’. Others don’t. My life is in danger, but you must know. For knowledge makes all the difference. I appeal to you, gentle reader, to not aspire to be a writer. The suffering you will experience, the exploitation at the hands of big businesses – even though I am very old now and have seen almost everything, I still shudder. A good, decent person like you deserves to be happy. Become a gardener, a pathologist, a cocaine-addict, even – just not a writer.

But before I proceed further, I must tell you how this book is organized. I have been so hysterical that I have written as one possessed. There are many appalling vignettes which, if you piece together, will reveal the grim nature of a sordid conspiracy. There is no linear story. And why should there be? We are dealing with crooked people.

1

How they Trap Struggling Writers

In which I, the struggling author, begin my travels.

Perhaps you have heard of Ramgarh. There are quite a few Ramgarhs in India, but this particular one is some 800 kilometers from the city of New Delhi. Its exact location is a mystery. One goes south some 620 kms and then west for another 50, and then south again for the remainder. But if you look on a map, you will not find it. It is a highly secret village and for good reason – it is the epicenter of the evil I described earlier. Influential people can ensure that certain locations simply disappear from maps. Poof. But I must set the context a little better before I describe this village.

I am, as you are possibly aware, a rather mediocre writer. I am not pretty; I am very old. My books have been received with a stunned silence from the public. The publishers who published my books now wish they had not. In short, I am a failed writer, who failed to excite the masses and who failed to be recognized by anyone except his dogs. And who also failed to make money. This is a fact. Harsh, but true. But I have not given up.

I write and I write. I am driven by one ambition – the hunger to constantly be published. I need to see my name somewhere. I need to feel read and acclaimed and recognized. It is a primal need that cannot be explained very well.

As I said, I am now rather old. But I remember when that bug hit me. On a whim, while in high school, I decided to write a poem, since I had noticed that young boys who wrote poems often had a better chance of being seen favourably by young girls. It turned out to be true. I wrote a poem about love. It was rather bad, but since I obtained Certain Results, and many claimed they thought my poem was wonderful, I was carried away. I decided I was very talented and made it my life’s mission to ‘be published.’

Many pleaded with me.

‘Fool,’ said my father, with considerable passion. ‘You will die hungry if you pursue this stupid dream! Writers are lazy, good-for-nothing idiots. Parasites. Leeches. Hated by all. Be an engineer or mortician or a corrupt politician. But please! Not a writer or poet! Think of our family honour, fool! Who will marry your younger sisters?’

I did not appreciate my father’s perspective. Others too dissuaded me. And, given that I was a typical foolish young boy, quite clear that I knew best and that others were jealous of me, I decided to become a writer.

I locked myself up in my room, and wrote and wrote. I admired my beautifully expressed sentiments. I spoke about love, death, roses, friendships, the United Nations, sordid lust, spiritualism, tales of a village in Kerala, and so much more. All of which I knew really nothing about. But that is what writers do – write about things they know nothing about – as you are aware.

My mother threw food in through the windows thrice a day. ‘Dear son, please stop writing. I will get you a beautiful bride,’ she pleaded. I would have none of that. She often wept and brought in priests to conduct special poojas to ward off the evil spirits of dead poets who seemed bent on destroying a loving home. But to no avail. I had decided to be a famous writer and no one was going to stop me. They all resented my talent, I felt.

And so I submitted my gems to many newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses. For every hundred articles, I managed to get one published, usually in a newspaper that was desperate for an article on anything. That is the way it works. Unfortunately, this further convinced me that I was actually a Writer, and that fame was just around the corner. Some other ass told me that perseverance was very important and I should be humble and take rejection in my stride, and learn from the experience. This sounded very inspiring and I, inspired, continued grinding away with my pens and pencils.

Many years passed. My family fell apart, unable to handle the shame of their son being a writer. Some allege that I was actually married, but I have no specific recollection of that. I stayed in my room, emerging from time to time to send off my masterpieces, only to receive rejection after rejection. Every now and then, I would get a letter from the Bilaspur Chronicles or the Burdwan Times or the Dharwad News, accepting my bizarre claim that politicians in India were hand-in-glove with copper mine owners in Zambia or a short story on the love life of an English professor, both of them fictitious conspiracy theories, as we now know.

I have digressed somewhat, but bear with me. No detail is small.

I recall that morning when my world turned.

I woke up at 11 a.m., as all failed writers do. It is crucial for writers to take on bizarre affectations, and so I was up and about in my green pajamas, demanding six cups of coffee and a single jalebi (a notable sweet peculiar to North India), since it is important to be called eccentric and creative. Someone rudely slammed a lukewarm cup of tea and an old half-eaten samosa in front of me, and left without a further word.

A familiar knock. I leapt towards to the front door. I saw the retreating back of Ramakrishna, my faithful postman, who arrived every day with rejection letters. This time, he had left on the doorstep a standard envelope addressed to me in a rather elegant handwriting.

I examined the envelope. A rejection letter? Perhaps a cheque?

The return address said:

The Convener