A COXCOMB AND A COPYCAT

(Meeting famous writers)




I had a friend who was very fond of cultivating the acquaintance of famous writers and artists. He sometimes brought them to my house, or we met in a club or a hotel.

On one such occasion a well known writer was brought to meet some friends. We noticed that the writer was rather vain about his achievements, and talked as though whatever he said should be the last word. The topic turned to drama, and I made some comments on what drama should be. The writer sneeringly said, “What do you know about drama.” This incensed some young men present who had worked with me in a series of dramatic productions, and they started yelling at the writer and making threatening moves. My friend and I pacified them and made them take their seats. The writer then said, “We are all friends here, OK? Friends, right?” And then he shook hands with the angry young men, and started talking about other things.

A bloated ego

A few months later my friend and I went to Madras on some business. As soon as we booked into a hotel room, my friend rang up the writer who said he would be visiting us sometime that morning.

After about half an hour we heard a commotion downstairs with the voice of the writer raised high. We rushed down to find him having an altercation with the clerk at the reception desk. “This man tried to stop me from coming to your room” the author shouted. “I just asked whom he wanted to see” said the clerk. “That’s my job.” “All right, All right” said my friend. “Come, let’s go up.”

But just as we were about to climb the stairs, the writer rushed back to the clerk yelling, “I am the greatest writer in India now, and you pretend you don’t know me!” “I don’t know you, Sir” said the desk clerk. “How dare you say that?” the author screamed. “The whole country knows me. I am the greatest writer alive.” “I don’t know you, Sir” said the clerk. “I don’t read books.” By then my friend and I managed to pull the great writer away from there. But as we went up the stairs the author continued to bellow, “I am the greatest, you bloody illiterate!” It took us some time to calm him down.

Once he had calmed down the author said, “I think I behaved very badly there.” “Yes” said my friend. The author rose from his chair saying “I think I’ll go and apologize to him.” But we prevented him from going down, since we knew that instead of an apology there may be another shouting match.

Some years later the writer mellowed down, and started moving with people in a more friendly manner.

Prize-winning plagiarism

When I first went to Madras to do my MA course in Madras Christian College, some friends and I made it a point to explore the various areas of the city and get acquainted with them. On one such outing, we were going through a narrow lane when we saw a nameplate bearing the name of a famous author. This person had shared the first prize of Rs.10,000 (a big amount those days) with another for his novel published as a serial in a popular magazine. I had read the novel and so was keen on meeting the writer.

We entered the compound and went up a couple of steps onto a verandah when I saw through the corner of my eye a man sitting on the verandah and writing. As soon as he saw us, he quickly took a magazine from the table and threw it underneath. I managed to catch a quick glimpse of the magazine, which happened to be ‘Collier’s’, a popular American journal, and I noted the cover picture. The writer talked to us for about half an hour, mostly boasting about his great originality and expertise as a novelist.

As soon as we left his house we went straight to the Moore Market where in a second- hand book shop we found the ‘Collier’s’ magazine that the author had tried to hide. It contained five stories. I read them all and then waited.

After a few weeks a popular Tamil magazine carried a story by the prize-winning writer which was a blatant copy of the ‘Collier’s’ story. I wrote to the magazine enclosing a cutting of the original story. But nothing happened.

Perhaps the prize-winning novel too was plagiarized stuff. What a disillusionment !




J.VASANTHAN