Books

Aren't We The Ultimate People of the Book?

T. SHER SINGH

 

So much has happened in so little time, during the course of our lives. Things that were considered ground-breaking or revolutionary, even life-transforming, only the other day, now appear to be ordinary and routine.

And you don't have to be in your sixties, like I am, to qualify to talk of the "good ol' days". My daughter can rattle off a dozen such examples off the top of her head ... and she's only in her thirties!

TV remote control. Computers, both desk and laptop. Walkman. X-box. CD player.  Cell phone. DVD. Digital camera. Text message. Home theatre. BlackBerry. Bluetooth. iPod. MP3 ...

MP3s? What are they? Much of it is already too R2D2 for me. 

I turn around and look at the bookshelves behind me and some of the authors that adorn them today, and it instantly takes me back to a time ... long, long ago ... when it was indeed a different era, a different world, a different mindset altogether.

1982, to be exact. The Christmas season, it was, I recall distinctly. I'd taken a much-needed break from law school, and was in a mall in suburban Toronto, helping out a friend with her shopping.

At one point, she stopped in a bookstore and within a few minutes, in quick succession, pulled off a dozen books from the shelves and headed for the cashier.

"These are all hardcovers", I pointed out to her, as we waited in line.

She stared back at me, with a silent "So?"

"They're expensive. Why don't you get the paperbacks? I just saw the cheaper edition of this Margaret Atwood book right there ..." and I pointed to the table where they were stacked waist-high. Half of the pile in her arms were copies of this same novel, I had already noticed.

She nodded her head, and then simply went ahead and paid for her stack at the cashier's. Either she has too much money or she's too dense, I said to myself, as I rolled my eyes and loitered in the background.

Surely, I hadn't made myself clear, I thought. And raised the issue again as we drove away.

Here's what she explained:

Women writers  -  good, world-class women writers  -  were experiencing an uphill battle in trying to increase their book-sales figures. For some reason, no matter how good they were  ... and there were many: Margaret Atwood, of course; and Alice Munro, Carol Shields, Margaret Laurence, all household names  ... their books didn't sell as well as some books by "lesser" authors who just happened to be male.

No conspiracy. Only, there appeared to be a built-in bias in society against female writers. When they deserved it, they were indeed acclaimed and honoured and written about, but still ... it did not translate into big sales numbers!

Which, in turn, meant that young women were either discouraged from going into writing full-time, simply because chances were that you couldn't make a living out of it as a woman, or you failed if you did venture into it bravely and rashly. And, it had a further ripple effect: if you were a woman and did write a book, it was far tougher to convince a publisher to agree to publish it!

So, some women had come up with a novel idea: a campaign was started and quickly spread like wild fire through women's circles across North America. And here was the message:

Support women writers. Read their books. Buy their books. Gift their books.

And, the campaign noted, publishers measured the success of a publication by its hardcover sales: that's where they made their money and that's how they determined whether or not they ought to risk publishing an author's next manuscript. This bottleneck was what was keeping women writers away and their numbers in check.

So, said the campaign, help women everywhere by encouraging and supporting women writers. If you're looking for a good read, and you have a choice of several tempting books and writers, opt for the one by a woman. Don't lower your standards  ... you don't need to, because there is no dearth of top-notch women writers. There never has been .... remember Jane Austen, the Brontes, George Eliot (yes, George was a woman), Virginia Woolf ...?

And, go a step further. Dish out a few extra dollars and purchase a hardcover edition, even when a cheaper edition is available. It's an investment ... an investment that will pay dividends to your daughters and grand-daughters, and to the rest of society, as well!

You give birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, wedding gifts? Buy books and give them away ... do anything and everything to boost the sales of good writers who truly deserve your support.

The idea caught on.

So, Suzanne, my friend ... like tens of thousands of others across the continent ... decided to join this invisible army of supporters. Every time Margaret Atwood came out with a new novel, Suzanne bought a hardcover right away. And, next time she needed to give a gift, she bought another copy ... and another, and another!

I sat there stunned ... moved by this simple act of love. How else would you describe it? It was private, never recorded, never applauded, never proclaimed as a contribution or a sacrifice. Just a quiet, local, unknown act that, along with umpteen others like it, changed the tide of history.

Today, little more than two decades later, it is not an issue any more. No more campaigns are needed.  In that time, the women of North America who participated in this extraordinary cabal, brought about a quiet revolution which involved no marches, no financiers, no elections, no violence, no painful sacrifices ... only small, thoughtful, meaningful gestures, and a few dollars from the kitty every time one went out shopping.

I have never forgotten that seminal conversation I had with Suzanne in the pre-Christmas days of 1982.

Since then, here's what I do:

Since I feel we need more and better books for our children, we want our children to grow up and write good books about Sikhs and Sikhi, and we want others  ... those outside the community ... to write about us and tell our stories, fairly and accurately, I have charted out for myself the following action plan ... unabashedly modeled on Suzanne's personal mission two- and-a-half decades ago.

I try and buy every book and magazine that appears on the scene, as long as it is at least a half-decent and honest attempt to cover the subject, as long as the subject relates to Sikhs and Sikhi. Many I won't get around to reading, many I know I'll never read, most I know I'll find useful at some time or the other as reference fodder  -  and many I'll invariably give away as gifts and resource material.

I hope and pray that if we can all, each Sikh family in the diaspora, buy, say, one "Sikh" book every month, at the full price, and consider the act as community service  -  the rest, whatever we get from the book (pleasure, information, inspiration, thought-provoking ideas, sparks ) is a bonus  -  we, too, will bring about a quiet revolution.

The book doesn't have to be by a Sikh. It can be by, for or about Sikhs.

[And, I am not propagating that all we buy is Sikh books. Simply add this to your existing repertoire ... or, if you are not doing any reading at all, this may be a good place to begin.]

Just think about it. Five thousand copies of each book, magazine, calendar, etc. sold, instantly turns the publication into a financially viable project for all the parties involved ... author, publisher, distributor, bookseller.

We've all griped over the fact that our local bookstores seldom, if ever, carry good or enough books on Sikhs and Sikhism. Well, it's a problem that is simple to solve, if we follow Suzanne's model.   

If a handful of us go to our neighbourhood bookstore  ...  Borders, Chapters, whatever ... and order specific titles, it'll take them no more than a week to get what we need. If enough of us will start doing it and if we do it frequently enough, their computer will automatically order extra copies for display on their shelves.

It's easy as that. And all it needs is a few dollars of investment on the part of each of us every month, an investment that pays back in oodles, over and over again, all our lives and through the course of future generations, too.

Think about it. And, let's all do our bit. It'll make a world of a difference ... and we'll be able to gauge the results within weeks.

And remember, we are, more so than any other peoples on Earth, truly People of the Book!

*  *  *  *  *

Elsewhere on this page, you'll see a review of an extraordinary book which has been a long time coming: Jaspreet Singh's HELIUM. Have you bought your copy yet?

We're getting into the gift-giving season shortly. You can't do better than gift this important novel to friends and loved ones, colleagues and neighbours.

If I could, I would offer you a money-back-guarantee. But trust me, you don't need one! 

And ... if you're looking for good children's books, you can't go wrong with these:

 

 

[This piece was first published on sikhchic.com in August 2007. It's being re-published in a slightly updated form.] 

September 5, 2013

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