Bhawana Somaaya

A few days ago I received a book Shelter in the city by second time author Kishore D Shah through courier. It was only on opening the envelope I discovered that everything was unusual about the book. Published by Writers Workshop they have unusual titles for different subjects for instance Baby bird for the children section, Black bird for the serious comics, Green bird for fiction and Red bird for poetry.

Details of the Publishing house is inscribed with a Sheaffer Calligraphy pen on the inside pages. The gold embossed cover is hand stitched. Hand stitched, hand bound in handloom sari. Every Writers Workshop publication is a hand crafted artifact and therefore in limited edition.

Shelter in the city is the author’s second book after Home away from home and tells the story of Vishwas Rao who chooses freedom over security. Rao prefers to lead an independent life in an Old People’s home rather than be bound to the rules defined by his children. It is a moving story of changing India.

Somewhere in the early pages reserved for the copyright title is a dignified line that touched me deeply. It says- The author asserts his moral right to be identified as the owner of the intellectual property.

Only a publisher who truly believes in his writer can have the generosity to put that in writing. So many writers all over the world are constantly subjected to all kinds of injustice. Perhaps it is time for the Writers Workshop to take up a new cause- the copyright issue. I shall borrow the quotation inscribed below their emblem:

Two birds
Sit on the golden bough
Of a peepal tree
One eats
The sweet fruit
The other watches.
Both are happy.
One is happier.
Which?

Upanishada IV: 6

Bhawana Somaaya