When in the end, Suresh wanted to know how he believed his rejected works were worth their effort, Rau said that it was a good question, and mulled over for an answer.
“If only you know,” said Rau, “why a hand-to-mouth someone, neglecting his means of survival, wrote ten hours a day for years on, that would answer your question. But as that is too abstract to carry conviction, let me draw your focus on my body of work. Well, all my novels were products of original ideas from the plot downwards. Good or bad that makes them works of art. After all, what is a novel but a creative idea that ever holds in the context? Besides, the beauty of fiction in part is that it tends to lead towards the fact.”
“Why did you write the second and third novels when there were no takers for the first one?”
“In its essence, writing is primarily an art of self-expression,” said Rau. “And about novel writing, didn’t Jane Austin say that ‘in a novel the greatest faculties of human mind are on display.’ Only after handling a couple or more themes would a novelist come to know about the true capacity of his creative mind. Besides, of what worth is a novelist if he fails to make each of his work unique in itself. But, the bane of the modern world of letters is that many are writing though they have no business to write. But with so many imitating the existing, or writing out of the libraries, there is a surfeit of pseudo fiction. But, a novel is the brainchild of imagination and not a hotchpotch of all that’s known. And it is this narrative routine that makes the genuine readers skeptical about the novels in general. And that’s how the classic novel and the genuine novelists have come to grief alike.”
Finally, Suresh wanted to know how Rau handled the failures.
“The beauty of the endeavor obliterates the ugliness of the rejection,” said Rau. “As I was ever engaged in trying, I had no time to masticate my failures.”
“All said and done,” said Suresh, “what sense does it made of being a writer?”
“If anything,” said Rau, “writing a book is like planting a seed. And if it gets published, it’s like the sprouting of a plant. If not, it’s a lonely furrow in a no-man’s land. Like the gardener tends the plant into a tree, it’s the readers who help the book grow in stature. Blessed are the authors who would be able to live long enough to smell that their readers savored the fruits of their creativity. Oh, how that affords such the emotional fulfillment associated with original writing and the ego gratification that applause accords! And in spite of the media hype to the hilt, I'm not sure if all the writer-celebrities derive the emotional fulfillment associated with creative writing. Whatever, in my case, the pain of rejection made me immune to frustration.”