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Sylvia Khan

Hell hath no fury...

Thirty million!" my son exploded in green-tinged disbelief. "She got 30 million for writing one lousy book! Are you kidding?" We might have been, but the publishers who coughed up the money certainly were not.

"Hey, I could have written that book!" Riaz yelled.

"Yeah, but you didn't, did you?" his siblings swooped down.

"Sure, I could have. Hey, it's just a book!"

Years of existence in this charming environment told me that a crude display of "I can! You cannot! Can too! Cannot, cannot, cannot!" was about to hit the fan. What they needed was a mother's soothing touch.

"Relax, you guys! As you said, it's just a book, someone else's, and someone else's money too, for that matter. So why is everyone getting so worked up?"

"Mama, you are the last person on earth who would understand what we think!" What was this? A compliment? From that unlikely source, my offspring? And before 11 in the morning? No, that was someone else's movie or, in this case, someone else's book. "Try me," I said. "It's what I'm, well, not paid to do, but what I do anyway. I'm that kind of person."

"The whole thing is getting out of hand, Mama!" he said, frothing at the edges with excitement. "This chick, she just got 30 million rupees for writing this book. Okay?" I had heard that bit before, so it didn't really do that much for me. But I remained in my listener mode, bright-eyed, bursting with intelligent comment and supportive words.

"So, now, what's going to happen? Everyone who can string a couple of letters together is going to become a writer and we are going to be flooded with books!"

They were talking dream-come-true over here, so perhaps I botched up my expected reaction a bit by saying, "Yes, isn't that wonderful?" Wrong answer.

"Wonderful! Mama, what's wrong with you? Precious money will be diverted from other media, people will start funding the printed word rather than the moving picture. Doesn't that strike you as going backwards?"

Well, actually it didn't, but I'm too smart to show what's on my mind.

"You are probably thrilled to bits!" they said with searing scorn. "You read! Why, you've probably even read this 30 million scam!"

The truth will be out. Yes, I hung my head, I had read it. And yes, the awful part was that I had enjoyed the book. It was a wonderful book, a book that I would want to read again, a book that was musical, lyrical and all sorts of other nice words.

It was too much to admit to the mob. So I didn't.

"There! I told you she would have read it!" The inquisitors swiftly became accusers. "And I'm sure she's actually brought herself a copy!" Right again. These children really knew me, wasn't that sweet? Nope, it wasn't.

So there I was, dilemma time again. What was I to do? Gird up such loins as were immediately available and play David to their Goliath? Well, I guess it was worth a try. David did win, didn't he, in the movie? (Of course, it was a movie. Is anyone still naïve enough to believe that Hollywood would spare a book that has a retail offtake of millions?)

"Well, children mine," I said airily, "I did read the book and, yes, I thought it excellent." There! It was over and done with. I did some strenuous back patting (my own) to affirm my guts-for-glory approach with the mob. They were all worn out trying to give me their worst looks of complete contempt.

"Think about it," I said, bravely stepping into the line of fire. "It took the writer a few years of her life to write the book. Surely, that's worth something? Think opportunity cost,' I urged.

"What opportunities did you have in mind?" my children said, with a distressing display of crudity. "She's not Adnan Kashoggi, is she? These writers have an easy deal. They spend a couple of years doing what they love doing and then spend the rest of their lives shovelling in the moolah." My children were driven to bitterness at the sheer wastefulness of rewarding creativity and the artistic spirit. I wept for them, figuratively of course. The mother's touch wasn't quite doing what was expected, so I tried a different tack.

"Look at it this way - you are not just rewarding the writer's self-indulgent creativity, you are encouraging an entrepreneur. The writer takes the risk, he provides the input and then waits and reaps his (or her) just reward." There! That was simple enough.

The blank/disgusted looks continued. So did I.

"In fact, to put the whole thing into the kind of perspective you chaps would relate to, take a look at the kind of salaries marketing executives attract in a multinational company. Several of this lot earn millions pushing toothpaste and mouthwash. Surely a writer, especially one who has managed to put together an interesting style and a good story deserves at least as much as the guardians of our underarm and mouth odour?"

That surely would cause serious wounding, if not an actual fatality in the thought processes -- and I use the term loosely - of the mob.

"Don't be silly, Mama! See? This is what I mean. You simply can't see that toothpaste and mouthwash and all those other little things that you pour scorn on, are all useful things. They are the things that keep us clean and neat and all that you keep telling us to be. To listen to you, one would think that these poor guys were wasting their time."

"Well, to come to that, yes, I do happen to think that the chaps in multi-coloured suspenders, with not-so-much-of-serious-value between their ears, are a hopeless waste of time. I would buy a bottle named Mouthwash and would rather not spend any energy on someone trying to convince me that their brand of mouthwash is better than another simply because they make it. Hey, get real, I say, get a life!"

"That's what you think, and who cares what you think anyway!" they said. "At least, normal people can use toothpaste and mouthwash and deodorant. I want something I can use. That's where my money will go."

"Guys, a Chinese poet once said, 'If you have two pennies, spend one on a loaf of bread and one on a flower.' Think about it!" I said loftily, pleased to have introduced an element of the philosophical into an otherwise nonsense conversation.

"That's okay for the Chinese," I was quickly informed. "they'll eat anything. I want something I can use, for my money. Toothpaste and mouthwash I can use, what on earth do I do with a book?"

"Read it?" I asked, doing a quick flashback of my son's upbringing, to see where his parents had gone wrong.

Collage: Dominic Xavier