How to sell a book?

"Narayana! Narayana!", sage Naradha chanted the name of Lord Vishnu when he entered sage Valmiki's hut. "How are you Valmiki, author of 'The Story of Ram'?", he asked.

"Good to see you sage Naradha," Valmiki welcomed Naradha into his Ashram. "To be honest, the book is not doing well! I'm worried about my royalty," Valmiki replied with a sad expression on his face.

"Alas! Several years ago, all the Devas, including Lord Indra, prayed to Lord Vishnu. They prayed to the supreme God to restore Dharma and bring in peace to the earthlings. That was the time I asked you to write a book on Lord Ram!"

"I remember that day very well sage Naradha! Back then, I was a bandit with no home or family to look after me. It was at that time that we met when you showed me an alternate way to live a life with dignity."

"True indeed!", replied Naradha. "Narayana! Narayana!", he chanted the name of Lord Vishnu again.

"With blessings from Lord Vishnu and you as my beacon, I went to Ayodhya and other places where Lord Ram had been to, interviewed a lot of people and wrote my first book. I even chose the title of my book as "The Story of Ram."

"Narayana! Narayana! I heard that the book had captured the life and messages of Lord Ram very well?"

"True, sage Naradha. The book had come out very well. I submitted a draft version to the publishers, and they felt pleased!"

"Then what is your problem sage Valmiki? What is the reason behind the sadness on your face?"

"The publisher sent me a pigeon yesterday with a message saying there is a steady decline in the demand for my book. They added that they have no choice but to stop the production until there is a demand enough to at least recover the production cost."

"Narayana! Narayana!", sage Naradha exclaimed in surprise!

Naradha walked out of sage Valmiki's hut, became oneness with nature and contemplated, "What is wrong with the people of Ayodhya? What made them decide that they no longer want to read or hear stories about the great hero who is the architect of Ayodhya and established Ram Rajya!".

"Narayana! Narayana!", sage Narayana chanted the name of Lord Vishnu as he entered into sage Valmiki's hut again. "I found a solution," he said, lighting up sage Valmiki's face with a smile for the first time.

"Sage Naradha, you are my savior! You first changed my life from a bandit to a writer, and now you have a solution to my problem in selling the book! I have no words to express my respect and gratitude towards you."

"Narayana! Narayana! Let all credits go to Lord Vishnu, the protector of all life", both sage Naradha and sage Valmiki meditated on Lord Vishnu for a minute.

"What should I do now, sage Naradha? I am waiting for your command,", sage Valmiki asked Naradha.

"To become a successful author, writing a good book alone is not enough! You should have a marketing strategy to popularise your book."

"I cannot see your point sage Naradha! Can you explain the marketing strategy further?"

"It's simple Valmiki! Introduce some controversial chapters at the end of your book, which will take care of popularizing it!"

"I see your point now, sage Naradha! The controversial chapters will make people talk about my book, and soon words will spread about it!"

"You got it! But there is a difficulty, which I will leave it up to you to face it", sage Naradha said with a meaningful smile on his face.

"I can see the difficulty myself, sage Naradha! People had accepted Lord Ram as the incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the true savior of every life on mother Earth. The controversial chapters may not appeal to the people, and so they may collectively decide to discard my book!"

"Shrewd!"

"I know how to deal with that problem sage Naradha! I will introduce a controversy in Ram Rajya by telling people that Lord Ram had accepted Goddess Sita after she spent a year with the evil Lord Ravanan."

"But sage Valmiki, did not Lord Ram asked Sita to prove her chastity by invoking Agni Pariksha?"

"Sure, he did. But Goddess Sita invoked the Agni Pariksha in Sri Lanka, which is far away from Ayodhya! I can use this point to separate Goddess Sita from Lord Ram."

"Narayana! Narayana! Sage Valmiki, I am afraid you are out of your mind!"

"I understand why you are saying so, sage Naradha. But with all due respect to Lord Ram, believe me, Naradha! This controversial chapter will only intensify the love between Lord Ram and Goddess Sita".

"How so, I wonder," said sage Naradha.

"Goddess Sita is pregnant now. The separation will allow Lord Ram to focus on administrating his country while Sita Devi will be looked after by Shri Hanuman and myself at my Ashram".

After contemplating on Valmiki's idea for a while, Naradha said: "But I still do not think that is enough to popularise your book."

"True Naradha! That's where the final chapter comes in."

"Please tell me about the final chapter as well sage Valmiki," said Naradha

"I will raise Goddess Sita's children and educate them with all that I had learned so far. When the time comes, I will teach them "The Story of Ram," and will ask them to sing and popularise it to the people of Ayodhya and other countries as well."

"Very shrewd! The controversial chapters will become more authentic because it would be sung and popularised by Lord Ram's children themselves! That's a clever strategy, Valmiki! My best wishes to you for becoming a successful writer."

"Please accept all my respects for you," sage Valmiki prostrated before sage Naradha and sought his blessings.

"I bless you that "The Story of Ram" will become a triumphant epic. Generations to come will sing and praise Lord Ram's life and his messages and may you live even after your life through your book", blessing sage Valmiki thus, sage Naradha chanted "Narayana! Narayana!" and let sage Valmiki finish the final chapters, the life of Ram after Ramayan.

Turning Points: Young Jammy Came Out of School in Flying Colors.

The year was 1999. One misty March morning, young Jammy, then a class XII student, was summoned by the newly joined Physics teacher to her room.

"Ma'am, you asked me to come and meet you", he said entering the teacher's office.

"Yes, come in", she said. She stopped evaluating the term test papers, kept the bundle aside and asked him, "How much do you think you'd have scored in the term test young boy?"

"I'm not sure Ma'am", he replied, his face lowered.

"I saw your report card. Your performance was consistently poor in all the tests conducted so far", the teacher said with a concern.

"Focus on MPC. That's what will get you into Engineering", young Jammy recollected what his brother said at the starting day of Class XII.

"But what is MPC brother?"

"Maths, Physics and Chemistry. It's enough if you score a pass mark on other subjects", his brother advised him.

"If you do not take your studies seriously, you are going to fail my dear boy", the teacher said, breaking his chain of thoughts.

Jammy looked out of the room through the window staring into the empty sky. The rising sun had made the mist disappear by then. "I'm saying this because I know that you are from the general quota, and you need to score well to get admission in a good college", the teacher said, trying to catch his attention. "At least, try not to fail in any of the subjects", she added in a dictating voice.

He thanked the teacher silently and left her office. After a few weeks, Jammy went again to meet the teacher, but this time without a summon. The exam results were announced by then. Seeing that she was busy with his classmates, he waited outside of her room. He could have entered inside, for she was congratulating only his classmates for their scores and suggesting them to apply in the best university. But he opted to wait so that he can meet her alone.

Though the teacher was aware of his presence outside of her room, she did not want to meet him. She thought she was not ready yet to hear the bad news when the other boys were telling her about their remarkable performances and how they are going to apply in some of the best universities towards their graduation.

After a while, when everyone left, she called Jammy in. "So, how many subjects did you fail?", she asked.

"None", he replied.

With a big expression on her face, she asked the next question, "How much did you score then?"

When she was expecting the score in 40 to 45% range, he replied "84%" silently and left her office.

I've moved!

317 cauvery, the place which was dear to my heart in real world for the past four years no longer homes me! I'm done with my Ph.D. and so have to move out in continuous quest for a better life.

But no! I have decided not to move from 317cauvery, the place which is also dear to my heart, but in cyber world! I'll continue to share my thoughts, register my ideas, chronicle my experiences, share my travel diaries, review books and films, publish short stories (Yes, I'm aware that I haven't finished some of the series!) and so on.

Way to go! So, do keep coming along :)

A man in uniform

There was a huge crowd at the Gandhi Mandapam bus stop when I reached. 21G, the Tambaram bound bus didn't arrive for the past half an hour, I gathered from a stranger who was waiting to board the same bus.

Knowing that the next few buses would be filled to the brim, I decided to wait and thought about various ways to kill my time. At a corner of the bus stop, I noticed a soup seller who was doing good business, thanks to the overwhelming crowd. I walked to the mobile soup shop and found a slate on which the soup seller had written the varieties that were on offer for that day.

"Vegetable soup, Plantain pith soup, Mushroom soup. Each for Rs. 10 only", the notice said. I ordered a plantain pith soup for myself and observed the seller. He appeared to be in his late thirties, with a thick mustache and curly hairs which had just started to gray. He took my order with a smile on his face, picked up a plastic cup, stirred the soup in a steel pot and filled the cup till it was nearly full. He then peppered the top and dressed it with corn flakes.

"Good evening Sir!", the soup seller addressed a man in uniform while he was serving my soup. "Plantain pith soup is on the menu, Sir. Would you like to have a cup today?", he asked. The man in uniform approved the offer with a nod.

By the time the man in uniform parked his bike nearby and walked to the mobile shop, the soup seller had kept the soup ready for him. "Parcel a cup of vegetable soup", he ordered while he was still savoring the plantain pith soup.

"Will men in uniform have a commanding voice even when they are off duty?", I wondered.

After having the soup, the man in uniform collected the parcel, took his bike and fled. When I was about to ask the soup maker "Did he pay his bill?", he muttered under his breath, "these type of people should be stoned to death in public", venting out his anger.

"Last week, he charged me Rs. 400 for skipping a signal! I even showed him all the documents I had, you know?", a stranger who had ordered a soup joined the row. The stranger finished his soup, threw the plastic cup in a fenced area, paid his bill and left. I overlooked the pile of used plastic cups to find a notice board that says "Thiyagigal Manimandapam", a memorial for freedom fighters.

I paid my bill and was about to leave when I asked the soup seller, "Why didn't you ask him to pay his bill?"

"He will ask me to leave this place", he said in a casual tone.

When I asked him why, he replied, "I don't have a permit to run my shop here!".

The Waiting Hall

The time was 10 P.M when I arrived at the Bengaluru city junction. The auto in which I came dropped me near the entrance leading to a staircase. With not much luggage to carry, I swiftly climbed the steps to reach the platform number 1. The Kaveri express in which I had made my booking was scheduled to arrive only at 11.45 P.M! After mentally noting down the platform number in which the Kaveri express would arrive, I walked towards the second class passengers waiting hall.

The second class passengers waiting-hall was a class below compared to a similar hall for the ones who had made their bookings to travel in air-conditioned coaches. While AC passengers waiting-hall was maintained nearly spotlessly clean, the second class passengers waiting-hall welcomed me with a pile of dirt! The pile, as the room keeper would explain to me later, was tossed by fellow passengers despite having a dustbin inside!

I entered my ticket details in a ledger maintained by the room keeper, walked into the room, managed to find a decent spot and had a seat. Behind me, a fellow passenger was sleeping by combining 3 chairs together that formed a bed-like arrangement.

As I sat down and started reading a book, a girl in her early twenties entered the waiting hall. She glanced around the hall trying to make a judgment whether to stay or leave. Not finding enough of female companions around, she turned to leave the place when she heard the room keeper saying "Please take the next room, madam. It's the waiting hall for women passengers". She thanked him and left the room.

Announcements were made for various trains that were either originating or passing through the city junction, which kept a steady flow of passengers in and out of the waiting hall. An elderly couple, who had made their booking in a train that would depart the next day morning made their way through the waiting-hall and found an empty spot behind the last row of chairs.

By the time they reached the spot, the old lady was tired that she was gasping to breathe. They must have walked a long distance, I thought, or maybe it was the staircase that worn them out!

The old man found an empty chair on the last row and sat, while the old lady was sweeping the floor with an old newspaper that she kept folded in her bag. Satisfied with sweeping, she spread the newspaper in the shape of a mattress, took out a folded blanket from her bag and laid on top of it. She then pulled out what seems like one of her own saree from the bag and placed it on top substituting for a pillow.

While I thought she was going to sleep on the bed she had just prepared, I heard a voice yelling at her, "Why are you taking so long to prepare a bed?"

"Its ready my dear", she replied softly, panting a little.

The elderly man got up from his seat, walked towards the comfortable bed his wife had just made, lied down and slept, all the while complaining about the delay in making it. The old lady sat next to him, fanned him for a while, got up and walked towards the chair that her husband occupied a while ago.

"Train number 16221, Mysore to Chennai via Bengaluru, Kaveri express will arrive shortly on platform number 5", the announcement said.