This is very rough. Sometimes writer’s block is actually editor’s block. So don’t hold back your thoughts
I was brought here. As opposed to the first time I was in India, when I came here, I thrust myself over this land as if to conquer it, I delayed my graduation so that I could do so. Before, I could form a complete Self in India, because I had left my Self in America behind, and so could focus on a narrower range of my mind. I could, perhaps, devote more of myself to India, because I had left more room for it within myself. But now. There is more passionate conflicting chaos, having packed a fuller backpack, an eleven month eternity that leaves less room for storage. . I have brought my whole self here, complete with all my disjunctions, ones that I unknowingly left behind before. But I brought only a mess of unsorted disjunctive desires connected to an unwieldy mass of idealisms.
And now I am here, again, for a longer time, even still a bit unsure how it happened. It was my dharma, my path through life, that gave me this time in Kolkata. I ought to be here, now. Funding was provided. A parting gift from my education that once was everything. Noble labor was provided, a Writers Workshop exists here that can exist no where else in the world, and it ought to be part of my life, so I am here.
Writers Workshop is a small utopia of publishing. I now know that it can exist, that it can be possible to Make Books from love, to treasure them in themselves as objects without concern for whether they can sell or whether they will accumulate in a warehouse. Writers Workshop exists out of a conviction that words written ought to be bound together on pages—well bound, by hand, not mass-produced—because they were written and therefore loved, written and therefore to be encouraged and preserved.
(more on WW and P. Lal)
And it’s really a simple thing, Writers Workshop. Its contained in a small part of one house in Lake Gardens where there’s a lot of other life going on. The four guys who staff the warehouse and the book shop work long hours, but it seems to be long hours of simple sitting. Books get published at a furious rate, about a hundred a year, but no one’s straining or stressing themselves to achieve this. Professor Lal somehow, gets enough time to do his own massive life’s work—not only the Mahabharata, but also poems, essays, autobiography, and a lot of reading and political engagement—while remaining the sole guiding force of the publishing operation. Books appear in print that I didn’t know were in the works. Occasionally I proofread some proofs, but the poetry just appears out of nonexistence with no fanfare or note.
Imagine the implications of this for a young child of capitalism. Imagine why a young child of capitalism (seeking escape, perhaps) would have gone so far out of his way to get exposure to this
But the only way I could imagine to be here was to introduce to it that—capitalism. To work with Writers Workshop, I had to create that work. Not only to get funding, but also to be a part of a thing that has existed fifty years without me easily, I had to invent a role for myself. I was funded through a postgraduate fellowship from my undergraduate university—meaning that it wasn’t a research grant (what kind of grant it is remains vague), so I wanted to find a way to contribute to the effort, to be a part of it. But it has been running fifty years fine without me, under the guidance of Professor Lal, who is himself Writers Workshop. There isn’t really editorial work to do, because Professor Lal trusts his authors to edit themselves (how can you change someone else’s creative work?). I certainly was never taught the actual skills of printing and binding books, nor is there any lack of devoted and expert labor in those areas. The only role I could imagine for myself was as a Capitalist and a cyber-modernist; I would use the Internet to try to help Professor Lal sell his books.
Writers Workshop uses no real system of distribution. Before the Internet, you could either show up at the Book Nook outside his house in Lake Gardens (a closet of books hidden in the bushes; impossible to find or give directions to), or you could write to him with prior knowledge of what book you need, and include a check. For fifty years this sustained itself; it sustained itself because the authors each loved their own books, and supported their publication both directly and through selling books.
And the only role I could imagine was to bring the values of my America to it—to try to get Professor Lal to sell his books. I’ve been cataloguing the books—endlessly typing as fast as my fingers will move, to enter into my laptop the titles, authors, excerpts, tables of contents, of all the books I can lay my hands on from the Book Nook, the only physical outlet for the sale of Writers Workshop books, outside the Lal house in Lake Gardens. And then, I take that material-cum-data and fling it online, on the Writers Workshop website and on the bookselling website, alibris.com. By the press of a button—or a lot of buttons—I’m taking books that have never left 162/92 and giving them a global reach, though I don’t hope to give them a big reach, to sell a lot of them. Just a few of them, to deserving readers.
Why am I here doing that? I’ll have to put some effort into explaining myself (even to myself). The Writers Workshop has been doing wonderful work for fifty years without me—I witnessed the fifty year anniversary celebrations as a newcomer. It’s been sustaining itself just fine; it doesn’t need to sell a lot of books to maintain the mechanical printing press, the family of binders, the guys who sit in The Book Nook and the warehouse of unsold books. Though he’s very open to the work I’m doing, Professor Lal has no pressing desire to sell more books. Personally, I have nothing to gain from the enterprise: I’m paid by my university fellowship, and have no financial connection to Writers Workshop.
The Jed of two years ago would’ve had deep and justified problems with this project. Aren’t I extending the reach of a global capitalism that I was loathe to represent? Aren’t I embodying the ideal of the Hungry Ghost—if it’s good, make it bigger!—and forcing a Western model of business on a local, Indian enterprise?
Just after I left to come here, the structures of American capitalism began to collapse, dramatically. It was both completely expected and absolutely surprising, obvious yet inexplicable. Everyone asked me about it, and I didn’t know what to say; it either came out too strong (“We’ve been spending money that never existed ever since WW II”) or bewildered. But it became clear to me that I need not worry so much about my complicity in American capitalism. As an unsustainable system, it will dramatically and tragically take care of itself. The real question is: what are we going to build in its place? A question too big for me to answer, I hope you won’t think that I am trying to do so. I’m just trying to guide my own actions.
For better or worse, the briefly dominant system of corporate capitalism created channels of global exchange unique to this historical moment. Ideas, capital, poems, films, TV shows, songs, images, can be transferred anywhere in the world instantly (or close enough) with a well-placed click. My body can be transferred anywhere in the world via a few hours in an uncomfortable metal box. I can come to India from Denver, Colorado, and never see the ocean. Though it’s easy to forget, these are new things, historically. Let’s not make the mistake of thinking that we’ve exhausted their potential under the corporate empire. We accepted predigested mass cultures, though we know somewhere that each society has more depth to offer.
In my roundabout way, I am trying to say that I dream of an international culture, or at least cultural exchange, created out of the rubble of the American empire (which hasn’t finished falling yet). We can make ourselves and our arts—as much of it as we want to—available to each other, to enjoy and learn from. We can, as we never could before, experience and treasure the immense diversity of thought and creation in all the cultures of the world that survived or escaped the notice of the rein of the suits. And we can create something new out of it, supportive communities that aren’t tied to the limitations of place. It sounds big, but I’m actually trying to think small. Lots of small connections, person-to-person connections that nurture individual understandings. Writers Workshop is small, and should stay small. A family can only bind so many books by hand, and the books should be hand-bound, because that labor brings a beauty impossible to find in the mechanized world. But it can be made available, in a small way, to individuals all over the world. Not everyone who will be inspired by Writers Workshop books lives in Kolkata. I am, and I live in America. So it’s about making the books available, about helping them transcend space. Which is something that was inconceivable in 1958 when P. Lal started Writers Workshop, and remained so until one of his authors, Arunha Sengupta, built the Writers Workshop website. Even though it’s international, it’s still a person-to-person exchange. I found the website in my research while applying for the grant, got in touch, and ended up on the Lal’s doorstep four months later.
I see a responsibility to myself to enact global community in my body, to let myself be a place of international connection, the meeting of all the discontinuous places I’ve been. Jaya—victory—will be when art here meets art there, or art here meets producer there, or artist here meets reader there, or any combination thereof.
If I include myself in those connections—which I do, then Jaya is every day. But to stop there would not satisfy.
And now I am here, again, for a longer time, even still a bit unsure how it happened. It was my dharma, my path through life, that gave me this time in Kolkata. I ought to be here, now. Funding was provided. A parting gift from my education that once was everything. Noble labor was provided, a Writers Workshop exists here that can exist no where else in the world, and it ought to be part of my life, so I am here.
Writers Workshop is a small utopia of publishing. I now know that it can exist, that it can be possible to Make Books from love, to treasure them in themselves as objects without concern for whether they can sell or whether they will accumulate in a warehouse. Writers Workshop exists out of a conviction that words written ought to be bound together on pages—well bound, by hand, not mass-produced—because they were written and therefore loved, written and therefore to be encouraged and preserved.
(more on WW and P. Lal)
And it’s really a simple thing, Writers Workshop. Its contained in a small part of one house in Lake Gardens where there’s a lot of other life going on. The four guys who staff the warehouse and the book shop work long hours, but it seems to be long hours of simple sitting. Books get published at a furious rate, about a hundred a year, but no one’s straining or stressing themselves to achieve this. Professor Lal somehow, gets enough time to do his own massive life’s work—not only the Mahabharata, but also poems, essays, autobiography, and a lot of reading and political engagement—while remaining the sole guiding force of the publishing operation. Books appear in print that I didn’t know were in the works. I don’t contribute anything to the process. Occasionally I proofread some proofs.
Imagine the implications of this for a young child of capitalism. Imagine why a young child of capitalism (seeking escape, perhaps) would have gone so far out of his way to get exposure to this
But the only way I could imagine to be here was to introduce to it that—capitalism. To work with Writers Workshop, I had to create that work. Not only to get funding, but also to be a part of a thing that has existed fifty years without me easily, I had to invent a role for myself. I was funded through a postgraduate fellowship from my undergraduate university—meaning that it wasn’t a research grant (what kind of grant it is remains vague), so I wanted to find a way to contribute to the effort, to be a part of it. But it has been running fifty years fine without me, under the guidance of Professor Lal, who is himself Writers Workshop. There isn’t really editorial work to do, because Professor Lal trusts his authors to edit themselves (how can you change someone else’s creative work?). I certainly was never taught the actual skills of printing and binding books, nor is there any lack of devoted and expert labor in those areas. The only role I could imagine for myself was as a Capitalist and a cyber-modernist; I would use the Internet to try to help Professor Lal sell his books.
Writers Workshop uses no real system of distribution. Before the Internet, you could either show up at the Book Nook outside his house in Lake Gardens (a closet of books hidden in the bushes; impossible to find or give directions to), or you could write to him with prior knowledge of what book you need, and include a check. For fifty years this sustained itself; it sustained itself because the authors each loved their own books, and supported their publication both directly and through selling books.
And the only role I could imagine was to bring the values of my America to it—to try to get Professor Lal to sell his books. I’ve been cataloguing the books—endlessly typing as fast as my fingers will move, to enter into my laptop the titles, authors, excerpts, tables of contents, of all the books I can lay my hands on from the Book Nook, the only physical outlet for the sale of Writers Workshop books, outside the Lal house in Lake Gardens. And then, I take that material-cum-data and fling it online, on the Writers Workshop website and on the bookselling website, alibris.com. By the press of a button—or a lot of buttons—I’m taking books that have never left 162/92 and giving them a global reach, though I don’t hope to give them a big reach, to sell a lot of them. Just a few of them, to deserving readers.
Why am I here doing that? I’ll have to put some effort into explaining myself (even to myself). The Writers Workshop has been doing wonderful work for fifty years without me—I witnessed the fifty year anniversary celebrations as a newcomer. It’s been sustaining itself just fine; it doesn’t need to sell a lot of books to maintain the mechanical printing press, the family of binders, the guys who sit in The Book Nook and the warehouse of unsold books. Though he’s very open to the work I’m doing, Professor Lal has no pressing desire to sell more books. Personally, I have nothing to gain from the enterprise: I’m paid by my university fellowship, and have no financial connection to Writers Workshop.
The Jed of two years ago would’ve had deep and justified problems with this project. Aren’t I extending the reach of a global capitalism that I was loathe to represent? Aren’t I embodying the ideal of the Hungry Ghost—if it’s good, make it bigger!—and forcing a Western model of business on a local, Indian enterprise?
Just after I left to come here, the structures of American capitalism began to collapse, dramatically. It was both completely expected and absolutely surprising, obvious yet inexplicable. Everyone asked me about it, and I didn’t know what to say; it either came out too strong (“We’ve been spending money that never existed ever since WW II”) or bewildered. But it became clear to me that I need not worry so much about my complicity in American capitalism. As an unsustainable system, it will dramatically and tragically take care of itself. The real question is: what are we going to build in its place? A question too big for me to answer, I hope you won’t think that I am trying to do so. I’m just trying to guide my own actions.
For better or worse, the briefly dominant system of corporate capitalism created channels of global exchange unique to this historical moment. Ideas, capital, poems, films, TV shows, songs, images, can be transferred anywhere in the world instantly (or close enough) with a well-placed click. My body can be transferred anywhere in the world via a few hours in an uncomfortable metal box. I can come to India from Denver, Colorado, and never see the ocean. Though it’s easy to forget, these are new things, historically. Let’s not make the mistake of thinking that we’ve exhausted their potential under the corporate empire. We accepted predigested mass cultures, though we know somewhere that each society has more depth to offer.
In my roundabout way, I am trying to say that I dream of an international culture, or at least cultural exchange, created out of the rubble of the American empire (which hasn’t finished falling yet). We can make ourselves and our arts—as much of it as we want to—available to each other, to enjoy and learn from. We can, as we never could before, experience and treasure the immense diversity of thought and creation in all the cultures of the world that survived or escaped the notice of the rein of the suits. And we can create something new out of it, supportive communities that aren’t tied to the limitations of place. It sounds big, but I’m actually trying to think small. Lots of small connections, person-to-person connections that nurture individual understandings. Writers Workshop is small, and should stay small. A family can only bind so many books by hand, and the books should be hand-bound, because that labor brings a beauty impossible to find in the mechanized world. But it can be made available, in a small way, to individuals all over the world. Not everyone who will be inspired by Writers Workshop books lives in Kolkata. I am, and I live in America. So it’s about making the books available, about helping them transcend space. Which is something that was inconceivable in 1958 when P. Lal started Writers Workshop, and remained so until one of his authors, Arunha Sengupta, built the Writers Workshop website. Even though it’s international, it’s still a person-to-person exchange. I found the website in my research while applying for the grant, got in touch, and ended up on the Lal’s doorstep four months later.
I see a responsibility to myself to enact global community in my body, to let myself be a place of international connection, the meeting of all the discontinuous places I’ve been. Jaya—victory—will be when art here meets art there, or art here meets producer there, or artist here meets reader there, or any combination thereof.
If I include myself in those connections—which I do, then Jaya is every day. But to stop there would not satisfy.