In the beginning there was Rudyard Kipling.
Every child who struggled through an English reader in school, right from the 1950s, had to study his turgid prose. There was also Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and, of course, the one poem that every ten-year-old could recite with dead-pan precision – William Wordsworth’s Daffodils.
Did the editors of those textbooks think we liked reading Rudyard when we couldn’t even pronounce his name? And I could never spot a “lonely cloud” because the monsoon cumulonimbus looks busy and happy to me.
As you can make out, these are all the works of writers from a faraway land, where they had strange flowers called daffodils and no marigolds or jasmines. Where they ate something called Yorkshire pudding which was in fact bread and had never heard of the pakoda. Also, none of the English textbooks had Roald Dahl, Judy Blume or even stodgy Enid Blyton, whose books we all read – because the important factor for our textbook publishers was that Kipling and brethren were all long dead and so wouldn’t ask to be paid.
Same old, same old
What puzzled me was why this syllabus did not change even in the 1990s, when quality children’s books began to be published in India, both in English and regional languages. I looked in vain for a translation of a Feluda mystery by Satyajit Ray from Bengali or a Faster Fenay by B.R. Bhagwat in Marathi. Some editors reluctantly included Ruskin Bond because he was so hard to ignore but with him their job of including Indian writing was done. As a token presence in the contents page below the great moustached Rudyard, he was a very lonely living writer.
Even today children find our English readers difficult to understand and teachers and parents struggle to explain lessons that they themselves find both complex and boring. So they began to protest.
That’s when editors woke up and discovered there were Indian books written in vibrant prose about things that children can relate to. Like the Kashmir conflict in the books of Paro Anand, fantasy by Payal Dhar, the historical fiction that Devika Rangachari and I do, while the books of Ranjit Lal, Deepa Agarwal and Asha Nehemiah have a devoted following.
At this juncture the textbook publishers’ game began: what I call the “Be patriotic, give your story for free” offer.
The payment game
Don’t forget, everyone earns from textbooks that have a minimum print run of about 25,000 copies – the publisher, editor, illustrator, proofreader, printer, paper supplier, and, for all I know, even the peon who does the photo copies. Only the writer is supposed to sacrifice herself for the good of the nation and give her work for free.
It begins with a very superior, “this is god calling” style mail from a big-name publisher saying in glacial tones how they would be “pleased to include your story”. And it never, ever, ever mentions a fee. The message being that we are doing you a mighty big favour, so obey us. The writer is supposed to faint in gratitude and immediately give her permission.
The problem starts when a shameless, thick skinned dinosaur like me asks about payment and I am told that they can’t pay as the textbook is to be “economically priced”. When I dig in and refuse, they very reluctantly offer a princely sum of a thousand bucks while also wanting the digital and animation rights; that is, basically buying your story forever.
That is when I begin enjoying myself. I promptly raise my rate to ten times what they offered for a one time use only and watch them get a panic attack. Oh joy! The mails that follow have at times made me laugh aloud and they really cheer up my mornings.
I often wonder why children’s writers are treated with such superior disdain by textbook-publishers. Is it because most of us are women and so must be clueless amateurs who’ll agree to any amount just for the “honour” of being part of a book?
Incidentally, I am often “honoured” but they get awfully jittery when I request to be treated like a professional. Are we sort of intellectually challenged because we choose to write for children?
Maybe I should ask Ruskin Bond and Ranjit Lal about it because, for some strange reason, these two grown men and one with a moustache just like you- know-who, chose to write for young people.
Subhadra Sen Gupta writes mostly for children and enjoys writing on history.
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
Every child who struggled through an English reader in school, right from the 1950s, had to study his turgid prose. There was also Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and, of course, the one poem that every ten-year-old could recite with dead-pan precision – William Wordsworth’s Daffodils.
Did the editors of those textbooks think we liked reading Rudyard when we couldn’t even pronounce his name? And I could never spot a “lonely cloud” because the monsoon cumulonimbus looks busy and happy to me.
As you can make out, these are all the works of writers from a faraway land, where they had strange flowers called daffodils and no marigolds or jasmines. Where they ate something called Yorkshire pudding which was in fact bread and had never heard of the pakoda. Also, none of the English textbooks had Roald Dahl, Judy Blume or even stodgy Enid Blyton, whose books we all read – because the important factor for our textbook publishers was that Kipling and brethren were all long dead and so wouldn’t ask to be paid.
Same old, same old
What puzzled me was why this syllabus did not change even in the 1990s, when quality children’s books began to be published in India, both in English and regional languages. I looked in vain for a translation of a Feluda mystery by Satyajit Ray from Bengali or a Faster Fenay by B.R. Bhagwat in Marathi. Some editors reluctantly included Ruskin Bond because he was so hard to ignore but with him their job of including Indian writing was done. As a token presence in the contents page below the great moustached Rudyard, he was a very lonely living writer.
Even today children find our English readers difficult to understand and teachers and parents struggle to explain lessons that they themselves find both complex and boring. So they began to protest.
That’s when editors woke up and discovered there were Indian books written in vibrant prose about things that children can relate to. Like the Kashmir conflict in the books of Paro Anand, fantasy by Payal Dhar, the historical fiction that Devika Rangachari and I do, while the books of Ranjit Lal, Deepa Agarwal and Asha Nehemiah have a devoted following.
At this juncture the textbook publishers’ game began: what I call the “Be patriotic, give your story for free” offer.
The payment game
Don’t forget, everyone earns from textbooks that have a minimum print run of about 25,000 copies – the publisher, editor, illustrator, proofreader, printer, paper supplier, and, for all I know, even the peon who does the photo copies. Only the writer is supposed to sacrifice herself for the good of the nation and give her work for free.
It begins with a very superior, “this is god calling” style mail from a big-name publisher saying in glacial tones how they would be “pleased to include your story”. And it never, ever, ever mentions a fee. The message being that we are doing you a mighty big favour, so obey us. The writer is supposed to faint in gratitude and immediately give her permission.
The problem starts when a shameless, thick skinned dinosaur like me asks about payment and I am told that they can’t pay as the textbook is to be “economically priced”. When I dig in and refuse, they very reluctantly offer a princely sum of a thousand bucks while also wanting the digital and animation rights; that is, basically buying your story forever.
That is when I begin enjoying myself. I promptly raise my rate to ten times what they offered for a one time use only and watch them get a panic attack. Oh joy! The mails that follow have at times made me laugh aloud and they really cheer up my mornings.
I often wonder why children’s writers are treated with such superior disdain by textbook-publishers. Is it because most of us are women and so must be clueless amateurs who’ll agree to any amount just for the “honour” of being part of a book?
Incidentally, I am often “honoured” but they get awfully jittery when I request to be treated like a professional. Are we sort of intellectually challenged because we choose to write for children?
Maybe I should ask Ruskin Bond and Ranjit Lal about it because, for some strange reason, these two grown men and one with a moustache just like you- know-who, chose to write for young people.
Subhadra Sen Gupta writes mostly for children and enjoys writing on history.