When Mr Bond held writers captive

At the ninth edition of the Vodafone Crossword Book Awards held in Mumbai on Friday, author Ruskin Bond’s presence not only charmed the audience, but also inspired upcoming authors.

The soft-spoken Bond was in a jocular mood, remarking how now that authors have become celebrities, they’d rather stay away from the limelight. “Writers are best read, but not seen in public, because most of them are not good-looking,” he said, leaving the audience in splits.

For Bond, anonymity has come at a hefty price. The author narrated an incident at a bookstore many years ago, when he spotted a copy of one of his books at the very bottom of a shelf. He said, “I took it and put it right on top. Unfortunately, the manager saw me and ordered me to keep it back, tell me that nobody ever bought the book. So just to teach him a lesson, I bought the book!”

The winning authors however, made best use of the limelight. Kalpana Swaminathan, who bagged the prize for best work in fiction (Venus Crossing), said, “I must appear modest, humble and not overtly delighted.” Venus Crossing, a collection of twelve stories, beat 77 entries in the fiction category and Swaminathan was described by the jury as a writer with “an assurance and felicitous grace”.

The non-fiction category was tied with two winners — author Rajni Bakshi and veteran journalist Sunanda K Datta Ray. For Bakshi, it was a double celebration as her book, Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom also won the Vodafone Crossword Popular Book Award, a category voted for by readers.

Datta-Ray, author of Looking East to Look West, revealed the following about his book: “Singapore is where Jawaharlal Nehru first laid eyes on Edwina Mountbatten. My book has a rich account of their meeting in Singapore.”

The children’s category, newly introduced this year, presented a range of genres, from colour storybooks to young teen fiction. However, it was young Mumbaikar Siddhartha Sarma’s The Grasshopper’s Rum that won the top prize.

Meanwhile, Othappu by Sarah Joseph (translated by Valson Thampu) was declared the best translated work. Originally written in Malayalam, the jury described the book as a coming-of-age story of “a nun who quits the monastic life to experience humanity”.