All my life I have had one enemy… Me

Ruby Iyer Diaries 3

Thwack! The ball hit the bat, and Sid batted it away, before running like crazy between the wickets. One run, two… Three runs! Wow! How cool was that anyway? Not that he deserved it of course. He and that Tania— what kind of a name was Tania anyway? — were now going steady too.

Tania cheered from the sidelines on the opposite side of the cricket pitch. I tried to be envious of her and failed. Truth be told, I was actually more resentful of her boyfriend. Not about the fact that he was her boyfriend: more that he was able to run like the wind, with complete abandon; and jump and play like there was no tomorrow.

Oh! I wanted to be down there with them. To once more feel that sweet shudder running through my hands when the ball was hit away for a four. That was the sensation I lived for; which woke me up every day and had me racing through school. So I could run home, finish my homework and be down at the playground by 4pm: the first person at the pitch on Oval Maidan. The smell of the freshly cut grass, the feel of the sun warming my skin, the thud of my sneakers as they hit the ground, the dust flying in my wake as I ran towards the crease to score a run. If there was a life to live. It was this… Until, just a few months ago.

I could if I wanted to still go down and join them.

I really did want to more than anything in the world.

But, there was a part holding itself back now. I didn’t want to not go, know what I mean? I actually very much wanted everything to be as it was. Yet, this new emotion budding inside me: it was something so delicate I could not yet put a finger to it. It was there though. Could not ignore it. It was for real. Like a stone, which had entered an oyster shell, and now could not be cast out? So that you simply had to make peace with it, until finally with time it would transform it into a pearl.

Not that I am an oyster, far from it.

But you get what I mean. It’s the first time I felt hesitant about anything. Till then, life had been like a super fast train. I had been right along hurtling at top speed; refusing to stop for any stations, chortling gleefully as I left the passengers on the stations stranded far behind. Pushing aside any barricades, which came my way. And, then I had come up against the most unexpected of barriers; myself.

I looked down at myself.

Under my long sleeved shirt, I now wore a second shirt, and below that, a third skinny, sleeveless vest. The layers almost smoothed out the ripples. From a certain angle, I could almost pretend my chest was as it used to be. Flat.

If I closed my eyes as I ran, I would once more be that straight sharp line, cutting through the wind, euphoric in my single-mindedness. There was nothing more to worry about than reaching that point I was hell bent upon crossing.

Yet something had shifted within. Even then I knew it was monumental. It was that emotion, which was making me hide on the side, burning up with frustration, while the thirst to be out there with them was consuming me. Yet, here I was chained, pulled back.

I mean if I wanted to run, why didn’t I just jump in and join them regardless of how I thought I would look. Conflicting isn’t it? Now imagine multiplying that by a thousand times through the years. You get where I am now right?

The ball appeared in front of me and involuntarily I put out my hand; grasping it.

“Catch!” Screamed the bowler

“Catch?” Sid scowled

“Howzzat!” Smirked the umpire, holding up his hands, bouncing on his heels as if a parody of a bird flapping in joy.

“What? How can that be howzzat, I am not playing, I am just watching” I protested, my heart sinking, at the look on Sid’s face.

“We know you, so you are part of the team, so you count as a fielder, so Sid is out.” The bowler was now almost turning cartwheels in joy.

“Howzzat! Howzat!” The fielders chanted.

“Ha! Your girlfriend got you out,” the umpire sneered, to my mortification.

Sid walked up to him and holding his bat hit him on the head. Forgetting my promise to myself to not run, I broke into a sprint towards him, hoping to console, the various parts of me bouncing in that much hated way reminding me why I had decided to stand aside in the first place. I stopped, so suddenly the fielder behind me crashed into the ground.

“Ruby!” I looked up from my perch on the muddy ground, the other boy sprawled on top of me. It was ma. Dressed in her silk-kanjeevaram saree on her way to another party. She looked like a goddess. The others thought so too obviously as the rest of the team descended into silence.

“Too busy being a boy. When you finally want to be a girl, no-one is going to want to look at you.” Pausing to brush a piece of lint from her shoulder, she moved on, leaving behind the remains of me.
That was the day I realized, I never wanted to become her.

Ruby Iyer, the novel is out November. Meanwhile, stay tuned for an occasional, sneak peak into Ruby’s innermost thoughts, as we raid her diary to take you inside the mind of this brash, bold, new heroine from Bombay. Sign up here to find out about the book release. Follow @RubyIyer on twitter.

The Ruby Iyer Diaries – 2 : Dare You!

I have always been addicted… To adrenaline.

It was right in the middle of my summer holidays. The sun rippled through the fronds of the coconut tree. Placing my hands on the low wall, which separated my apartment block from the one next door, I heaved one leg onto the top; the other still dangling down. Balancing my full weight onto my arms, my skinny biceps vibrating with the tension of having to hold up my entire body I pulled up my other leg; scraping it against the rough edges of the wall in the process. Heedless of the thin stream of blood, which trickled down my left knee, I surveyed the scene from my now-superior height of four feet nine inches, plus another five feet added by the wall. I looked down at the scattered boys and one girl assembled below.

“Dare you,” pouted Sid.

“Ha!” I sniggered back. I was taller than him, for now and was going to prove just how much braver I was. I stuck out my tongue; and was instantly rewarded by him rolling both eyes towards his nose and sticking his tongue right back at me. Yah! Whatever. I’ll show you now! As light as a ballerina on a tight rope, I walked across the narrow surface of the wall towards the adjoining coconut palm. One of its long, fan like leaves hung suspended. I tugged on it, satisfied that it was still firmly attached to the tree trunk. The leaf was just a little bit older than its mates, which still stood upright, their heads raised in worship to the sun. Then holding onto my hands I raised myself to the tips of my feet.

Raising my head towards the sky, I let the sun-rays warm my face and neck, enjoying the little rise in my pulse beat, skipping its way up towards my chest. Then, as my heartbeat sped up to tango with the blood now pumping through my veins I jumped. “Kreegah Tarzan Bundolo,” I screamed at the top of my voice, sailing through the air, over the heads of my friends.

 

I looked down at Sid as I cut through the air near his nose. He raised his hand pointing towards something behind me. Yah! Right, no way I was falling for that trick now.

The ground rushed up to meet me:  I headed straight for the pebbled mud just past where the group was standing, and hit the ground with such force that my nose slammed into the dirt. Something hit me on the back of my head. Sid! How dare he? I shimmied up to my feet, my hands still grasping the palm frond; to find them laughing at me. One of them was laughing so hard, he was literally rolling on the ground holding his side. The large leaf had come loose in my hand; it now dragged behind me as if a large cape.

“Ha! If you are so strong, why don’t you wear your underwear over your pants like Superman?” One of the boys burst out between his guffaws.

“But you are a girl. So, how can you be Tarzan? You should be Jane,” burst out the only other girl in the group. I walked up to her, more distraught than I cared to admit. I don’t know why, but it seemed terribly important to clarify this: “I am Tarzan.”

“No, you are not!” The girl pushed her face right back at me, so we were nose to nose. Losing patience I lifted my hand and slapped her. Thwack!

To see her features crumple, you would have thought I had socked her hard. For all that, it was just a measly little slap. She burst into tears. Can you believe that?

Sid—who I thought was my friend, came up to put an around her. “You really shouldn’t have Ruby.” He looked at me sadly. As they walked away, Sid still holding her—as if she was going to die any moment—the girl looked back at me and stuck out her tongue. Then turning around, she placed her head on Sid’s shoulder and continued her incessant crying; holding her hand to her cheek for good measure.

So much for female solidarity; guess I learnt that lesson quite early in life.

Ruby Iyer, the novel is out November. Meanwhile, stay tuned for an occasional, sneak peak into Ruby’s innermost thoughts, as we raid her diary to take you inside the mind of this brash, bold, new heroine from Bombay. Sign up here to find out about the book release. Follow @RubyIyer on twitter.

 

 

 

Ten Point Strategy for Indie Authors

My writing straddles too many genres to be categorised. So I turned Indie. However, when my self-published, first novel made it to the Amazon bestseller list, I realised I had a niche: a group of readers around the world who liked what I wrote. They wanted to know what it meant to come of age in a complex environment like India.

So, my second novel Ruby Iyer, is about a teen protagonist coming of age in Bombay: a city already so post-apocalyptic in the today that I didn’t need to look further for dystopian settings. Its action-oriented plotline is inspired by the history, and events in the timeline of the city.

As I embark on the last mile with Ruby Iyer, I revisited a little of what I have picked up on the way. Here it is then, as a ten point strategy for aspiring Indie authors:

1. Identify your target audience: Like me, you may not write within a conventional genre, but you must have a niche. Find it. That is the starting point.

2. Once you know your niche, you must target your audience. Write for them. Let their needs overrule your preferences.

3. It still is all about the quality of what you write: perfect your craft, keep at it, spend time with your characters, learn how to plot. Put your time and money behind actually learning how to write.

4. Write the damn book. Just do it. I use SelfControl to block out social media and get the words out.

5. Once the book is complete, invest behind editing and the packaging. It will pay off, in loads.

6. Get the pricing right. Pricing is still the number one factor that influences discoverability for an author.

7. Now, let the social networks in. Be professional in your marketing, appeal to your target audience groups: identify their passion points online, go to where they are. Get the book in front of them.

8. SEO aids discoverability, if you can use it to help you, nothing like it. I have to admit I haven’t managed to master this one completely yet.

9. Write the next book: you need the bandwidth to see the income.

10. The long tail is important. Don’t ignore your audience between books. Personally, myblog and Facebook page have been invaluable in staying in touch with my readers. This is my tribe after all: where I really belong. And it’s not always about the writing. I try to share a little of what I am thinking, what I see everyday. It’s a more genuine way of keeping in touch.

Laxmi Hariharan is a kindle bestselling author and the creator of Ruby Iyer. Find her@laxmi or on Facebook

 

 

The Ruby Iyer Diaries 27/ 05 /14

Sometimes it feels as if I have been scared all my life… Tried very hard to belong, know what I mean?

I once brought my friend Tanya home for lunch. I was about seven – I think. The cook had just served up steaming, hot dosas, and there was Amma in her fashionable cotton-kanjeevaram silk blended saree, which was all the rage at that time, by-the-way, and sporting this big, red pottu on her forehead. She was quite a sight to look at my ma. Regal, with that big bouffant she liked to wear, even though it was longer in vogue. She sat at the head of our antique dining table, gin & tonic in one hand, a cigarette in the other, not quite paying attention to our excited chatter, until Tania turns to me and goes: “Oh! You are Madrassi?”

I mean seriously, whoever says Madrassi anymore? Even in those days, which not that long ago, by the way, for I am just gonna turn eighteen in a few months`— it really was such an outdated concept. You’d think at least in Bombay, which is a bit more educated and cosmopolitan than the rest of India, people would have moved beyond that? But sadly not. So, anyway my darling ma, turns to Tania, and fixes her with this baleful smile.

I think she was trying to tone down the nastiness, but it didn’t really work. Quite the opposite, it made her look pretty scary. “There is no such thing as a Madrassi,” she snarls at her, breathing alcohol fumes down poor Tania’s face.  It didn’t help that I giggled right then, seeing Tania’s terrified look. It was quite shocking, yet kinda funny. Poor Tania, bet she thought this was the lunch from hell.

She promptly burst into tears and had to be carted off by her faithful maid; who by-the-way never really told Tania’s mum what had really happened. The maid was as it turned out later, a drinking buddy of ma’s. She loved to bring Tania by our place mostly in the hope of getting the odd peg or two of  G&T from my ma, who, btw wasn’t above sneaking a pint or two of beer to her too, on really hot afternoons. So it all remained our happy little secret. I don’t know what traumatized me more.

Having my best friend call me a Madrassi or losing a best friend thanks to my Ma’s outburst, which now that I am grown up seems quite justified.

Ruby Iyer the novel is out soon. Meanwhile, stay tuned for an occasional, sneak peak into Ruby’s innermost thoughts, as we raid her diary to take you inside the mind of this brash, bold, new heroine from Bombay. Sign up here to find out about the book release. Follow @RubyIyer on twitter.

Rise of the Brave New Female Superhero

The divine feminine: the cosmic energy worshipped in many cultures has come full circle, with the rise of a brave new breed of female superheroes, who have burst on the scene fully formed.

Take Ruby Iyer – one Monday morning, en route her place of work in Bombay city, she is groped and pushed in the path of a local train. Recovering from the accident, she finds she has been granted super-powers and becomes Bombay Vigilante: sworn to protect women from the daily harassment they face on the streets of this megalopolis. She is not Superwoman. But, when really angry, the adrenaline rush grants her the power of an on screen Bollywood hero: she can take on a dozen bad guys simultaneously, and defeat them, in real life.

Ruby Iyer aka Bombay Vigilante

Bombay Vigilante is the kind hero every victim wants to be: to take revenge on those who have abused her. A kind of wish fulfilment, you could say: about moving from being the object of target practice to the being the one who actually wields the bow and arrow. She is the epitome of the one holding the rein. After all, abuse often boils down to one thing: power. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world; and the one that welds the smoking gun, destroys the fragile ecosystem of the psyche, all too soon.

My daily commute to university on the over-crowded, notorious local trains of Bombay, equalled a daily brush with assorted body parts of the opposite sex. A grope, it seems can mark you for life: for here I am decades later, trying to right the balance.

The Burkha Avenger leads a different fight: to combat the Taliban’s intense opposition to educating girls. The brainchild of pop star Aaron Haroon Rashid, Jiya is a school-teacher by day; by night she dons a special burqa and fights with books and pens, fighting those trying to shut down girls’ schools.

Meanwhile Kamala Khan aka. Ms. Marvel is trying to overcome that perennial teen nightmare of coming-of-age in New Jersey. According to writer, G. Willow Wilson, Kamala’s story is one of being isolated, yet wanting to fit in (courtesy the NY Times ) It just so happens her story is told through the eyes of being a Muslim-American woman with superpowers.

It’s not a coincidence that all these superheroes are women: the time is now for the emergence of the female superhero: for the resurgence of that supreme power revered in mythology.

From Katniss Everdeen/ Jennifer Lawrence to Michelle Obama, the strong, sexy, independent, woman who knows her mind, speaks it and leads by example is enthralling. A super power tempered by sensitivity: a perfect balance of Yin and Yang, who packs a real punch. No wonder then, while I love Hell Boy, the concept of Hell Girl is irresistible. Don’t you think?

More @RubyIyer here.  Follow @laxmi on Facebook

I first wrote this post for bitch.online