Sheila Kumar is an independent writer and editor based in Bangalore. She worked for the Times of India Group in Bangalore and Delhi, then at Fermina, Delhi for over a dozen years before turning freelancer.
Her books include a collection of short stories Kith and Kin; Chronicles of a Clan, No Strings Attached and A Gluten-free Life (as co-author).
Interviews
Author Interview of Sheila Kumar
Hi Sheila Kumar, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little about yourself and your background. Please describe what the book is about.
Sheila : I’ve been a journalist for many years, in the process carving out a niche as travel writer, food writer and book reviewer. Now I write for a wide range of newspapers and magazines, on a wide range of topics. As many as ten of my short stories have appeared in anthologies; I have also contributed stories to three Chicken Soup for the Soul books.
My book Kith and Kin, Chronicles of a clan (Rupa Publications), is a collection of 19 short stories where all the characters are linked to one family, the Meerkats. They have their ancestral home in south Malabar, a house with the unlikely name of `Mon Repos.`
At the center of the book is the strong and beautiful matriarch called Ammine ammo; the other characters are her siblings, her children, their children and friends. These are people looking for love, people looking to run away from love, people trapped in the twin hells of old age and ill health, people in Kerala, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and abroad. Basically, people trying to deal with everything life throws their way.
Briefly, what led up to this book?
Sheila : Kith and Kin is just my way of setting down different takes on the human condition. I`ve been been observing this human condition up close for many years now. All the quirks in people that struck me as particularly interesting, I handed down to the Melaka clansmen and clanswomen in Kith and Kin!
What was the timeframe for writing this book?
Sheila : The stories, all nineteen of them, had a gestation period in my head for many months, almost a year, but the writing process itself took just about seven months. I was lucky, the transition from idea to story was a smooth one.
Where do your ideas come from?
Sheila : Basically, I wanted to show that people are shaped by the manner in which they handle all the ups and downs in their life. Some do it with grace, some rave and rant. Some go with the flow, and some drown under the pressure.
Kith and Kin`s characters strode into my head and pretty much wrote their stories themselves. I`d begin a story intending to conclude it in a specific way. Then, I`d find myself writing quite another ending, clearly impelled by the characters!
Do you think that the title and cover plays an important part in the buying process?
Sheila : Oh, absolutely. There`s a glut of books, of all genres, in the marketplace now. Your book needs to have that edge to get someone interested enough to just pick the book up. A snappy title and an eye-catching jacket could work that edge well.
Which writers inspire you?
Sheila : In all honesty, I cannot say I am inspired by writers. But yes, there are writers I really admire. That master wordsmith, William Shakespeare, is one. So many decades, so many generations later, the Bard`s relevance remains unchallenged.
What were your 1-2 biggest learning experience(s) or surprise(s) throughout the publishing process?
Sheila : Just one big lesson. I learned that after you write what you think is a good book, after you are fortunate enough to find a good publisher, after your book sees the light of day, that`s when the hard work begins.
As in, you need to hard sell the book, to flog it in virtually all possible public spaces, and to keep at it! This is not easy if you are of a modest disposition, but it seems to have become mandatory today. Of course, for it to continue to sell well, it will have to be that all-important thing: a good book.
Best piece(s) of writing advice we haven’t discussed?
Sheila : It`s polish, polish, polish. Your work ought to be quite simply, the best work you are capable of. Keep returning to your draft, to the keyboard, get a raft of Beta readers and an expert or two in, if you must. But do not submit average writing.
What’s next?
Sheila : Oh, all the usual stuff: writing articles, copy- editing, manuscript-editing. And if another book starts to make its presence felt, well, that too.
How can readers discover more about you and you work?
Sheila : Given that I`m a journalist, I can safely say I`m all over the place! However, readers can get to all my published works in my blog Comfortably Numb at: http://bindersfullawords.blogspot.in/. Kith and Kin has a blog page all of its own: themelekatbook.blogspot.com.
An excerpt from Story 11: The Lightness of Being
I’m new at being a ghost. Some of what it entails is nice, like the current buzz all around Wellington which is about me. So, I’m a buzz-maker. As for the rest, it’s a lonely life. A long and lonely life, for all I know, if you will pardon the usage of what is quite clearly the wrong word: life.
It’s early September and the start of the second season in the hills. The morning glory and lantana grow in a kind of gluttonous profusion, nesting bulbuls have taken over every bush in their characteristically bossy manner.
The Nilgiris rock pigeon regards me gravely; the intensity of its fixed gaze convinces me that it can see me. Overweight Jersey cows graze near the Appleby Restaurant but they don’t see me or else they don’t care to lock eyes with me. There are no horses around this part, wild or otherwise, so I cannot confirm whether the saying is true that horses shy away violently when they see ghosts.
I flit past the Supply Depot which supplies `freshly grinded wheat.` Back then, I used to fall into a fit of sneezing every time I passed the Depot, it’s such a relief to do so without any such thing happening to me now. Back then, inhale as much as I did, I never could sniff out the supposedly sharp fragrance of the eucalyptus leaves either; now, I don’t have to pretend I can smell what I can’t smell.
I found myself wandering down the road one evening and spooked myself, honestly I did. A thin mist had started to loop itself around the small hill which Appleby Road crests and suddenly from out of that vapor appeared a ghostly figure.
I nearly shrieked… or maybe I did, everything I do is silent now… and skittered to one side. It was an elderly man carrying a battered mud-colored valise. I don’t know what he was doing all alone at that hour, on such an ill- lit road besides. But he didn’t see me or sense me and off he went. I went back too, all shaky knees and skittery feet.
Did I say the man seemed calm? Seems he went down to Connor Bazaar, got himself drunk right and proper and kept babbling about ghosts on Appleby Road. Did his bit to propagate that rumor, the fellow did.
I didn’t mind being the core of the buzz. I hadn’t been the most retiring of sorts back then and did not intend to stay a self- effacing, hesitant kind of ghost now. I wasn’t going to go around haunting houses or scaring people and animals unless it happened inadvertently but I was going to get around, as it were. I just needed to know what it was that I was supposed to be doing. If there was something at all.
But here’s the thing. I’m obviously not cut out for haunting. What is it I must do, that I have to do? I need a sign of some sort, I really do…One rumor about the ghost of Appleby Road is that she is a woman who used to live in Providence Villa, and eventually died there.
Once someone said in my hearing that she was a poltergeist, not a regular ghost. That gave me an idea and I went to Providence Villa. No sign of any ghost there so I thought I would do whatever the resident poltergeist apparently did on a regular basis. Which is, pull all the washing down from the line.
And it was there to one side of the brown and neglected lawn, a clothesline full of wet clothes, all of them neatly pegged. I started to pull them down and then something weird happened. Mrs. Rosario, who now lives in Providence Villa with her brother Earnest, came charging out and started shouting at me.
Well not at me, precisely but shouting in my direction or where she clearly imagined me to be. She wasn’t too far off the mark either. So there I stood, a sopping wet yellow checkered tablecloth in my hand (suspended in mid-air to her, I later realized) while old Mrs. Rosario shrieked, “Oh no, you don’t. Not again. Not ever.
I’ve exorcised you, you wretch! Father Daniel told me you had gone away and would never return. Why are you back, you wicked woman? Give me that! “And then she darted forwards and tugged the tablecloth right out of my hand. Mortified, I fled the scene. Clearly poltergeist too, was not my thing
