Professor Meenakshi Mukherjee, who passed away in Hyderabad on September 16, was one of the most innovative, inspiring and widely honoured professors of English of her generation in the country. Each one of her major books charted out a fresh field and flung open new doors of academic enquiry — The Twice-Born Fiction: Themes and Techniques of the Indian Novel in English (1971), Realism and Reality: the Novel and Society in India (1985) and The Perishable Empire (2000).

For the last-named book, she was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Prize for the best book of the year in English, thus becoming one of the four or five literary critics to have won it in the last 50 years. Her latest book, an intellectual biography of Romesh Chunder Dutt (1848-1909), was launched in Delhi on Wednesday, as fate would have it, the day after she died.

Mukherjee began her teaching career in Patna where she had been a student and where she met and married Sujit Mukherjee, one of her professors who distinguished himself no less as a scholar, translator and later academic publisher. The two were perfectly matched in temperament as well as academic inclinations and wherever they lived, their home became a warm and welcoming social and intellectual adda.

Mukherjee taught successively at the University of Poona, Lady Shriram College, New Delhi, the newly-founded University of Hyderabad, and then back in Delhi as a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. In between she was also a visiting professor at Chicago, California and Texas. A whole legion of her devoted former students and colleagues are to be found all over the country as well as abroad.

Not only did her own work contribute to giving a new orientation to the discipline but she also helped build up institutions that would bring together senior and younger scholars and enable them to present their work and share ideas. For 12 years, between 1993 and 2005, she was the Chairperson of the Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (IACLALS), which under her leadership went from strength to strength, increasing its membership from under 50 to over 400.

Of the major international conferences she was instrumental in organising during this period, one was held in Shimla in 1994 and resulted in a book which she and I co-edited, Interrogating Postcolonialism (1996). The other was a grander conference in Hyderabad in 2004, in which some of the most distinguished literary scholars and theorists in the world, including Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Homi Bhabha,  participated, and which led to the publication of as many as three books.

A defining characteristic of Meenakshi Mukherjee both as a person and as a scholar was her simplicity. In an age of increasing scholarly jargonisation and even obfuscation, no one ever had any difficulty in following whatever she spoke or wrote. But such simplicity always went hand in hand with solid and substantial scholarship and a degree of persuasiveness that more complex ways of formulation would often have failed to achieve. She said the kind of acute things that clever people do not say.

As in her work so in her life, she was the most genial and forthcoming of human beings. Her modesty, affability and quiet charm were most in evidence when she was with young researchers and teachers who had most reason to be in awe of her. She could instantly establish a rapport with them which often turned into life-long friendships. She was a rare scholar and a rarer human being.

Harish Trivedi, the author of this piece, is Professor of English, Delhi University, and is the current Chairperson, Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (IACLALS)

The views expressed by the author are personal

Books are her comfort zone. So when software engineer Vani Mahesh, who worked with IBM for seven years in the US and now settled in Bangalore, decided to quit being a techie after stepping into motherhood, she decided to go back to her first love.

“It was at the same time that we decided to relocate to India. I am very fascinated about software programming and when I left my job, it felt a little awkward. I tried talking to people to do freelance work on building websites and that kind of stuff, but I am not the type who can do self-promotion, so after a few rejections, I wasn’t too keen on that. I have always been passionate about books and found a big difference between the libraries abroad and how things were here,” says the mother of two.

That’s when Vani decided to wed e-commerce with books. And EasyLib.com, an online library was launched — Vani’s passion for books saw her collecting and acquiring books of various genres and what started as a labour of love with 100 members and 3,000 books has now grown to 2,000 members, both online and offline, and 10,000 books in her lending library in Koramangala.

“In the beginning, it was mostly techies who were familiar with the use of the Net who would log on to the website and ask for books. But now, with technology really catching on, everyone has got hooked, including children, youngsters, housewives and professionals. They like it because the website has an easy-to-use interface that makes it simple and user-friendly,” says Vani.

There are those who really like the idea of not having to go to the library to pick up the book and have it delivered and collected at their doorstep; and then there are those who love to touch and smell the books before they borrow one. “I have both kinds of customers and some of them have been loyal from the very beginning,” says Vani.

She has engaged six persons who do the delivery and collection work. The thing about the website that a lot of customers find convenient is that they can find out online what books are available, where they stand on the waiting list for a particular book that’s in demand and when exactly they can borrow a book.

The website also tells them if they are overdue and even prompts them if they pick up a book they have already used. “One of the unique features of the website is that a member can get the whole history of the books that she/he has borrowed since the time of enrolment and if you pick up a book you have already read, the system will inform you,” says Vani.

She adds that even people who want to become members needn’t come to the library the first time, if they don’t want to. “They have to just go to the website and indicate the books they are interested in reading. We will give them a call to find out if they want to become members and then send the books to them, when they can also pay the subscription amount.”

As the popularity of EasyLib.com grew, there were more and more patrons, among them well-known names in Bangalore. Writers Anita Nair and Shiny Anthony are members and borrow regularly, while theatre personality Vivek Jethmalani and author Shashi Deshpande have dropped in to check out the books.

Vani also holds literary meets where both noted and upcoming authors get together to discuss issues related to writing and literature. Children and young adults make up a big chunk of borrowers, for whom there are regular story-telling sessions and sessions to initiate them to a particular author or genre.

Born and raised in New York City, it was love and a passion for publishing that prompted her decision to move to California. In January 1965, a month before her 24th birthday, she founded SAGE Publications Inc in New York with the encouragement of former colleague and mentor George D. McCune.

They chose the name SAGE with the SA coming from Sara and GE from George. Thus began their journey of growing the fledgling company into an international scholarly publishing house; a journey, Sara says, that was based on “a shared enthusiasm for learning and community work that became the cornerstones of our work in both scholarly publishing and philanthropy.”

Indeed, philanthropy is at the core of their work. It is woven into what they do, how they connect with people and how they expand their human network. The University of California at Santa Barbara, for example, recently received $500,000 from SAGE to establish an endowed chair for dean of social sciences in College of Letters and Science. Then there are SAGE scholarships and fellowships offered to various universities in the UK. A similar initiative is being planned for India too.

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Nishad Deshmukh of Nashik has been selected as the Indian finalist for Indian Young Publishing Entrepreneur 2009 Award of British Council, United Kindom.

The award is part of British Council’s worldwide work in promoting the creative industries, of which publishing is an integral part. The award has an association with Oxford Bookstores, a release here today said. 

“There was no previous history of entrepreneurship in my family but today I can proudly say that there is no handicap associated with being a first generation entrepreneur,” Nishad says about his journey as an entrepreneur.

A graduate from Pune University, Nishad worked in marketing for a few years before he quit to become an entrepreneur. In 2000, Nishad set up a publishing house Career Publications in an office space of less than 80 sq ft in Nashik and without any assistance. Today, they operate with 42 employees and a turn-over of around Rs 60 lakh with head office in the city and branch office at Pune.

The publishing house has published around 45 books, mostly on Pharmacy till date. Alongwith nationwide distribution of these books, in 2008 they exported books to Nigeria and Nepal also. A regular participant at the World Book Fair, the company also participated in the Frankfurt Book Fair, biggest book fair in the world as trade visitors in 2006-07, 2007-08. The company has tie-ups with US publishing houses such as Lexicom and Springer and have rights for the Indian reprint of their publications.

The winner of the Indian award would get an all-expenses paid 10-day trip to the UK in April 2009, to compete for the title of the International Young Publishing Entrepreneur Award 2009, which includes a cash prize of 5000 pounds towards the publishing proposition approved by the panel and a free stall at the London Book Fair 2010, in addition to the opportunity for networking with the UK publishers. 

Nishad will have to compete with contestants from eight countries -Argentina, Columbia, Lebanon, Russia, South Africa, Solvenia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. For becoming the Indian winner, he competed with five others – two from West Bengal, two from Hyderabad and one from New Delhi. 

The presentation for the finals will be held in London, on April 18 and 22. The winner of the awards will be announced on April 22 and the winner will be presented the honour on the same evening.

Writers Workshop is now a part of modern Indian literary history. Many writers who are ‘big’ names today got their first breaks with WW decades back. Well-known academic and literary critic Meenakshi Mukherjee takes a look at the evolution of an enterprise that has been kept going by the efforts of a single man, Purushottama Lal.

P. Lal nurtured two generations of writers, offering timely words of encouragement and keeping up a personal correspondence with each person. Shashi Deshpande told me, “He was the first literary figure to give me a sense that my work mattered.” When there was a bad review, Lal sent it to her saying, “Forgive him. He does not understand.” Yet, Lal has many detractors as well, and some of them are people who had benefited from his generosity. Pritish Nandy, in a touching tribute to P. Lal which appears on the Writers Workshop website, says, “We were, of course, almost uniformly ungrateful to him. For, we never respect those who give us a leg up. It embarrasses us.”

It is possible that people who have discovered Writers Workshop late will have a better perspective on this extraordinary enterprise. Already, Rubana Huq, a young researcher from Dhaka, has begun working in the archives of WW — sheaves of letters and pages boxed in a steel cabinet — and has published a 408-page Golden Treasury of Writers Workshop Poetry in 2008. A young IT whiz-kid — Arunabha Sengupta, now in Amsterdom, created a website for WW three years ago ( http://www.writersworkshopindia.com/ ) and another young man, Jed Bickman, from Brown University, is updating it from time to time . Perhaps one needs some distance and a sense of history to appreciate the value of this extra-ordinary man who has sustained an alternative publishing venture for so long.

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He spent a lifetime serving the written word

In a world where the cozy neighbourhood bookstore has been displaced by massive book chains peddling brownies alongside Brecht, Strand
Book Stall always stood in splendid isolation. Strand’s founder-owner T N Shanbhag died peacefully last Friday morning (27th Feb) at his Pedder Road residence. He was 84.

Book-lovers-specially those who are tired of dim salespersons staring blankly at them when they ask for an Ian McEwan or pointing them to the cookery section if they’re looking for Ramchandra Gandhi’s Sita’s Kitchen (which is about Babri Masjid)-say that Shanbhag’s passing marks the end of an era in the city’s literary landscape.

Recently, a former manager of a popular bookchain pronounced at a panel discussion that the way to sell more books was by slashing the price. This is precisely the strategy that Shanbhag chose 61 years ago when, as a young migrant in Mumbai, he started a book kiosk in the foyer of the erstwhile Strand Cinema. By offering the deepest discounts on books, he managed to generate impressive volumes and also captured a market of loyal buyers who continued to come back for more. “I cut to the bone,” the bookseller once told The Times of India, summing up his pricing strategy. “I want to ensure that no young person walks out of my store without a book in their hand.” He would always remember how, as an impoverished student, he was not able to afford even 75 paise to buy a Pelican paperback.

Shanbhag’s other winning strategy was his indefatigable customer service. He was always standing in his store, wearing his trademark suit and cherubic smile, offering that “very special price” which drew so many bibliophiles back. There was a time when the senior editors of The Times of India would go to Strand after lunch, browse and catch up with Shanbhag, and then stroll back through the arched arcades of D N Road, as part of their daily constitutional. “Sham Lal’s wife hated me because he spent all his time and money on books,” Mr Shanbhag used to joke about the former Times editor. The writer Khushwant Singh once declared, on a BBC show, that Strand was the only `personal bookshop’ in India. It was hardly surprising that, when Shanbhag’s daughter, Vidya Virkar, celebrated his 75th birthday in Bangalore, the party guests included regular customers like N R Narayanamurthy, Nandan Nilekani, Azim Premji, Mahesh Dattani, Arun Jaitley and Soli Sorabjee.

Despite the emerging competition, Shanbhag never succumbed to the pressures of the marketplace and refused to stock even a greeting card, let alone a soft toy. The only thing I have made, in all these years, is goodwill,” he told TOI when Strand turned 50. “I firmly believe, as a bookseller, that the moment you divert money into anything other than books, you are insulting Saraswati.”

Shanbhag was awarded the Padma Shri in 2003. Ever since he fell ill some years ago, the store has not been quite the same.

Some suggest that there are more `how to’ and coffee-table books, but the personalised customer service-whether from the ever-resourceful duo of Mr Shenvi and Jagat promising to get you the book of your choice-remains intact.

Writer Nisha da Cunha says, “I always thought that as long as we were reading, he would be alive. He really loved books. He really cared.” To quote his own signature farewell line: “Come visit the store again. You’re good for my morale.” Without a doubt, he was good for ours.

namita.devidayal @timesgroup.com