Haasu Hokku

I think it was somewhere in 1997. I read an article in The Week magazine. It was a sex crime article. The incident had taken place in Surat, Gujarat State.

A constable had killed a woman in the Court in front of thousands of witnesses. He was shouting that she swindled him of his happiness.

It was not that straight forward a case. There were many twists and turns. The twists were so much that the writer of the article had given a sketch which read something like this.

There were six boxes. Each was depicted with A, B, C, D, E, F.  There were arrow marks. They read like this. A was in love with B. A was married to C. D is in relation with B. E had an eye on C. F was lusting B... oh, it was so confusing; but it was fascinating as well.

The writer in me urged me to write a short story. But the format was not too small for such a level of convolutions in the story.

So, I decided to write a novel.

The first and foremost doubt was whether I will be able to justify the theme. The idea was good. But the undercurrent sex was very critical to handle.

I should write about sex, but it should not make the reader cringe.  Well, my first reader for myself. If I feel I have gone overboard, I could change the words. With this decision, I started writing.

How to start?

Basically the first scene has to be interesting for reader to continue reading and complete the novel.

I have read many Agatha Christie’s detective novels. When a murder scene is set in a big hotel with too many guests, it is a marvel how Ms. Christie explains the numerous characters without making the reader get confused.

I decided to take the best route. I started the story with the murder of a woman and a man being reported.

Then I went back to the flashback.

There is this married woman who is having an eye on a handsome younger man. That man is also being loved by a unmarried girl. The man is a flirt. He plays with both the women and gets what he wants.

The married woman also plots well to get the younger man nearer to her.

There is another track. The married woman is the second wife of her husband. The husband has a son Chinnu who is a very timid boy.  The husband conveniently ‘forgets’ to mention that he has a son from the first marriage. The wife ensures that her husband catches his young son in a compromising situation with her. The boy Chinnu is thrown out of the house.

Now, the present. The married woman is bored of her husband. She cleverly poisons him and disposes his body.

The story goes further with many more twists and turns. The Police Inspector is behind the real culprit.

Ultimately when the married woman is being produced in the Court on the accusation of killing her husband, a police constable shoots and kills her.

The biggest twist in the story is that the police constable is Chinnu who  was thrown out of the house by the same woman.

The story came out well. With the usual enthusiasm I sent it to a weekly magazine where my mentor was the editor.

When I called him after a few weeks, he asked me to meet with him.

He was very polite. But I knew something was wrong. He said, “Yathiraj, the story is good. But there are eight sex scenes. I can’t put it in front of my readers. Sorry!”

I was stunned. As far as I remember I have not written even one word which makes the reader feel uncomfortable. Of course, I had to symbolically mention that there is sex happening between people, because it was the crux of the whole story.

I took it back and gave it to a new weekly magazine. It was in cold storage for some time and again was returned politely.

This time I took it to Kannada Prabha newspaper. They had already published many of my novels as daily serials. So, I was a sort of well-known thereJ

I met the then editor Mr. Sadashiva. While handing over the manuscript I mentioned that the novel has been rejected by two magazines.

He asked me what was the subject. I said “The story is about sex”.

He looked at me for a moment and asked “will the readers die with a heart failure by reading your novel?”

I smiled and said No sir.

He accepted the novel and it was published as a daily serial in Kannada Prabha.

The novel got rave reviews by the readers. “Mature writing”, “Good study of human psychology” etc.,

The novel I am writing about is called Haasu Hokku meaning ebb and tide in a cloth. I say that the love and sex are like ebb and tide of a cloth. Only the mix has to be proper!