Thanks to Sudheendra Fadnis for the following review

I picked up this book because the title Dangling Gandhi sounded intriguing to me. And of course, the cover page was beautifully fascinating. I am a non-fiction reader to the core, and just for the sake of change, I wanted to try fiction by reading short stories. It is the reason why I picked up this cute little book. Yes, the book was amazing and it did not disappoint me.

Dangling Gandhi is a collection of short stories written by Jayanthi Sankar from Singapore. This book is a collection of 'those were the times' kind of short stories, most of them set in the colonial era of Singapore, and in some parts of India, particularly south India. They teach readers about the subtleties of different cultures and their languages. Their daily struggles, and memorable trifles.

We should encourage authors like Jayanthi Sankar in our times as she enlightens the readers with the cultural context of different parts of colonial Asia; the knowledge which you would never gain by reading dry history books. Also, the language was very fluid and easily readable. My favorite stories are My Mother is a Feminist and the Mobile Dictionary. Mobile Dictionary, in particular, I like it a lot because my father loves his possession of physical dictionaries, and he takes pride in it. It evoked such warm feelings in my heart. All in all, a great and fantastic read.

In a dialogue with the Author Jayanthi Sankar

July 2019 – via email

(On Dangling Gandhi and other short stories)

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: Let’s begin with the title, what do you intend to send across to the readers by this title?

Jayanthi Sankar: As you have already read the book, you would know that in the title story Dangling Gandhi is only a subtle metaphor. Although my favourite story of the collection is not this, I decided on the title for the book as it suits all kinds of uncertainties and doubts of our times, the world over, on Gandhism as well as the nonviolence he upheld, becoming more and more debatable in this modern world. However, the story hardly touches on these, interestingly.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: In that story, an older adult's love for his motherland is brought in by a jubilant flashback. Isn't it strange how attached our human minds are to our land and our past?  And all that a soul needed before its departure was a whiff of reminiscence!?

Jayanthi Sankar: The story did just that – to capture the childhood memories of the departing soul amidst the interestingly woven present life and the voices of the next two generations. A gentle stroke of the zero brush of multicultural diversity helped add value to this particular painting of words.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: We are all well aware of the dreadful imperialism, but your stories paint a different shade of post-colonialism that none of us even imagined, don't you think it might offend or shock a patriotic mind?

Jayanthi Sankar: However dreadful a period may be, it will certainly have other sides to it. There is at least one angle other than what has always been projected to the future generations. When you say ‘none of us even imagined’ shows how we are all preconditioned to think hardly anything other than what has been prescribed to us.

Haven’t we seen Schindler in the famous movie? Are we going to argue that that character is going to offend the Jews? Such a character or depiction creates debates, and that’s the sole purpose.

In the same way, my stories are not meant to offend anyone or deliberately crafted to paint a different shade but only to raise questions and to provide ample space for debates. They are, but many flashes and images of real-life gathered in my memory over decades since my childhood, from what I heard from seniors in the family, relatives, extended families, and friends. Readers are sure to feel my neutral tone as they are not biased in any way.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: As we all are slowly moving towards being global citizens, is patriotism even relevant anymore?

Jayanthi Sankar: Yes, patriotism is slowly losing its meaning in the modern world but, knowing the past and the period when patriotism in its truest sense existed and had its relevance becomes important to confront our modern-day challenges. They may be of border issues, immigration, and terrorism of any kind. Values and issues do vary, but there is always a string of continuity.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: When we see the twelve short stories, the sequence seems to be chronological, almost from the 1850s till present date, but with a higher leaning towards the period of Independence of India. Why does the part seem to interest you the most?

Jayanthi Sankar: Well, it’s interesting to note that you have read them as one whole unit. I guess my interest in the Independence of India could have arisen from the life experiences seniors shared along the journey of my growing up years and the school days’ subject of Indian history. Nothing more than any of us would normally know.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: Tell us a bit about your journey and evolution as an author and a human being.

Jayanthi Sankar: Although I remember growing up as the eldest of the four children in the family, turning a second mother to the youngest when I was nine, a lot of internal debates and thought processes had happened with less than optimum reading, I’d say. I used to be always quiet and responding more in syllables than words, everything around me set me to think though I never used to express.

Having grown up in different states in India, naturally, I got exposed to different languages, people, and cultures. I never knew back then that I would write one day.

Later, when I came to Singapore as a young mother of my elder son, the libraries here fascinated me. My reading increased unimaginably. I used to read in English and Tamil. I started writing fiction in 1995 in both the languages and eventually decided to focus on one language at a time. And in the past 4 to 5 years, I’ve turned my focus to writing primarily in English.

The voracious reading shaped the human being that I am today with the writer being is only a byproduct. Reading continues to catalyst the evolution of both in me, also resulting in spiritual progress.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: I would like to know how you came up with the idea of making the floods the centric theme or the connecting factor between two differently timed yet profound sorrows and what effect you expect on a reader with a fleeting note about Winston Churchill in the story.

Jayanthi Sankar: ‘Did Churchill know?’ was written long before the recent devastating floods of Kerala. When I witnessed the images of the floods, I was intrigued, especially because I had lived through a similar one in my fiction during its creation.

This story carries two tiny canvases of the older man and Jack with a very vast and broader canvas of the tea estates that began during the colonial periods and how the devastating floods destroyed the hilly region.

I’d been to Munnar a few years back for four days on holiday with friends. The hill station with the surrounding ranges of hills captivated me just as the Winston Churchill bridge/arch did. I felt the arch stood there heavily carrying the remnants of the past. Ironically, Churchill detested India and Indians, and that makes us, the people of the later generations raise several questions.

The story comes under parallel storytelling. It wasn’t planned that way. I discovered that the story fell into that category, only upon reflecting later on. 

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: Physical disability is often looked upon as a bane; for the first time, your second story depicts a hearing and speech impaired man as an asset rather than a liability. Did you want to bring out this point in particular or was it just an unintentional note?

Jayanthi Sankar: It is more complex than that in the story ‘Punkah Wallah.’ For Herman, Mani may be an asset. But when you read a little deeper, you will also feel that an act that appears to help many a time becomes the exploitation of the situation.

The protagonist of this short story represents the community of fan men. Colonial English of not only the subcontinent of India but also of Malaya used these men to do this job of fanning them. Those were the days before Electricity came widely to the eastern part of the world. 

My dad used to have an elderly friend when I was in my mid-teens while we were in Shillong. He was a Sardar who used to share things about his ancestors, childhood, and partition. He said there were many of his relatives in the then British Indian army and many worked as fan men and that one such lad was taken to far away Malaya. The memories of those interactions surfaced in me to craft this short story, one of my favorites. 

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: Do you mean to say animal-loving and animal eating/ killing pests and insects the complete contrasts and exclusive of each other?

Jayanthi Sankar: On the contrary, in ‘The peacock feather fan’ I depicted the interdependency of not just animals, insects and pests but also humans. There is an inevitable, invisible chain similar to the food chain also at workplace, the institution of family and marriage, and everywhere. And this chain also has prey that turns a predator or a predator turning to be a prey at some point of time, and that’s what the story intends to bring about.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan:  Subtle yet profound expression of the pain of betrayal of trust in ‘Mobile Dictionary’, which raises in the reader a question. Which betrayal do you think would have been more hurtful by the family member or the doted upon friend?

Jayanthi Sankar: The betrayal by the friend or mentee of the story in today’s world would not even be a betrayal at all. In those days, especially in the community that the protagonist belonged to such a betrayal meant heinous.

There are other nuances in the story like Ramasamy Iyer, who could empathise the hunger of his beloved cow, could not even digest what his 20 years old sister needed and was after.

This story is typically character-driven. The protagonist is based on my paternal grandfather, who founded during the colonial period three primary and high schools in the Southernmost of the present state of Tamil Nadu. An erudite who memorized the dictionary used to be revered by his English friends, I’ve been told. I have never met him. He died when my dad was hardly five years old.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan:  In love, life, and separation, the significance of sacrifice has been well talked about by all, but timing? Isn't that the most crucial of it all?

Jayanthi Sankar: We continue to learn in this school of life, don’t we? The timely favourable happenings bring us happiness and joy and a stronger belief in humanity, whereas untimely unfavourable incidents just the opposite. Ironically, the whole unpredictability of life and the uncertainties make our lives. Those who realize this and embrace the truth to live with the flow find peace with life. In ‘The Pavilion’ the love and untimely separation in the past bring into this world the protagonist.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: Poverty vs. luxury well explained by a bus ride, a child's kindness and observance shine through, do you think as we grow into adults, we lose sight of humanity, or are we too selfish to observe the need of others?

Jayanthi Sankar: It’s more to do with the conditioning of the mind rather than the adulthood by itself. Those who grow into adulthood with some awareness that the conditioning is almost inevitable, escape this to some extent. Even those who are already adults and can unlearn are capable of shedding at least portions of the conditionings. In these, I believe, lies the selflessness and humanity. Though ‘Beyond Borders’ portrays a typical bus ride in Singapore, a simple story runs through in which I guess the unconditioned mind of the child has naturally come out well. 

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: Again, strength and talent despite a physical disability. What inspires you to highlight the good side of physical challenges?

Jayanthi Sankar: I didn’t think of highlighting the good side of physical challenge. I created the character Venu in ‘The Pavilion’ who lives his life normally like his peers despite his condition.  It’s neither to glorify physical challenge nor to bring sympathy in the readers but to show perhaps his inner strength, more through the feel the reader gets rather than through words. And it used to be common those days to come across people affected by Polio.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: Allegory, the most difficult form of literature, seems to be your forte. What made you prefer it over other styles like flash fiction or vignette? Do you think the readers would be able to find the essence of the story in the same thread as you wish them to?

Jayanthi Sankar: Normally, I play with the theme and characters in my mind before I start crafting. Therefore, I let the theme and content choose the form. That having said, I love all other forms, and I hope to try my hand at them as well.

Different readers can read these stories in different depths. Albeit the stories are in a simple language, I won’t deny that they are layered and require some effort to understand well enough. I’ve been blessed with a few first readers like you who read in some places beyond my intent and also those who sought my guidance before reading the second time. There were also a couple of readers who said they were unable to go into them, and I could understand.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: Suffering is the one left behind, not the dead. Aren't we all in a way facing the consequences of our ancestor's actions? Good or bad?

Jayanthi Sankar: The dead leave behind both good and bad residues for us to endure, I suppose, just the way we will when we leave.

‘Mother’ talks about the devastating fury of Earth turning upside down the lives of an entire lineage of an English family settled in Shillong.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: One can write about emotion in detail only if one had experienced it, loss by death or love, and ways of overcoming the loss seem better depicted in your stories. Is there a reason behind this?

Jayanthi Sankar: This moment, when I read your question, I am thinking. And except my empathy, I have no reason that I can think of because, fortunately, loss by death or love and ways of overcoming the loss have not been my life. Those effective depictions in my stories, for me, reflect my empathy. I tend to live those lives while conceiving and crafting.

If a writer can write well about death only after he experiences it, is it even possible for us readers to have texts depicting death?

I believe empathy is capable of creating the emotion in any writer even if she had not experienced that particular emotion.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: As an author, how do you think writing this book helped you?

Jayanthi Sankar: Only ‘Read Singapore’ was written way back in 2011. Writing the other 11 of the stories over the past four years has by far been the best creative phase that I loved and enjoyed.

I am writing a novel in English right now, and Dangling Gandhi has become the creative personal record that I hope to break. And this generates in me so much of motivation and drive, although I have to accept that there are times when the other end is also felt. These swings by themselves are so interesting to watch as I currently plan the novel chapters.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan:  Who do you think are your target audience?

Jayanthi Sankar: All readers who enjoy literary fiction, Literary critics, Academics, and the serious readers of the western world who are eager to know more about literature, culture, lands, and people of the east. I am very sure the simple language will help the readers enjoy these varied, layered, nonlinear narrations, and assimilate.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan:  Is feminism just supporting equal rights and liberating women, or is it much deeper than that? Maybe not judging anyone for their actions and respecting their journey?

Jayanthi Sankar: ‘My mother is a feminist’ aims to say just that - that respecting others’ journey is just the basic. It tells us that a man though a son would still see his mother as a feminist if he were to search for reasons to justify the action that left in him some mixed feelings about – after undergoing an unexpected after-effect.

To me, feminism with all its various shades is deeper. Constantly evolving as we humans evolve, feminism, too, undergoes constant changes.

This story was included in the Anthology, ‘the Other’.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: Are love and pain co-dependant? What's your take on unrequited love? Do we hate the object of our love that left us or ourselves for having fallen for the wrong person?

Jayanthi Sankar: I think it’s both - the love turning into hatred for the one who left and also upon self for having fallen for the wrong person. Natasha in ‘Am I a jar?’ is hurt and confused for the same reasons. As far as my knowledge goes, Love mostly comes along with heartaches, and naturally unrequited love would mean naturally tremendous pain.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: Life, love, loss, you've covered them all, is satire too latent in your words?

Jayanthi Sankar: I hope to search to discover this, which I’ve already started.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: It's good to know where we come from and respect our culture, but do you think we should branch out and flourish or still be grounded and attached to our roots?

Jayanthi Sankar: Knowing the roots can give the normal feeling of groundedness wherever you may go. With the globe shrinking fast, it’s only natural that one branches out to explore and flourish as he takes his roots within him. Some are unable to part with their roots and land that they end up returning sooner. Momo in ‘The peasant girl’ is one such girl. 

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: Indian, Malay, and Chinese cultures beautifully intersperse in your words. Being an Indian descent settled in Singapore, tell us what impact the history of Indian, Chinese and Malay, and mythology and politics have on your writings.

Jayanthi Sankar: Comprising not just the local ethnic groups but also of the immigrants and the floating tourist population, Singapore is almost as diverse as London. Two hundred years old modern Singapore is comparatively younger, though. Due to her geographical location, one of the earliest ports in the Asia Pacific, diversity has always been her specialty.

When one lives here for nearly three decades, it’s very natural that she gets exposed to this diversity. It is not too unique when she happens to evolve as a writer, and she depicts that.

In my formative years, I was fortunate to have been exposed to a multicultural environment as my dad, a central government engineer, used to be transferred all over the subcontinent. So I grew up in many states. Shillong was one such beautifully diverse place.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: Having read about, heard, and even being an immigrant, what do you think is the biggest shock an immigrant faces? Cultural, social, economic, or educational?

Jayanthi Sankar: I think it depends much on the immigrant’s exposure, childhood, upbringing, and other backgrounds. For instance, 30 years back, when I migrated to Singapore, because of my exposure I could see the city as naturally diverse, whereas many ladies who came directly from their home town could not take the culture shock. They had lived all their lives in their village, or town, or city, or state.

Here, I am also reminded of a friend’s friend, a guy from IIT Chennai, graduated, and had gone to the US. Decades back, not exposed to other cultures when the Information technology was not as advanced as it is now, he had a culture shock of seeing the cleavages of the American women and returned within months to his native place.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan:  If you'd written these stories maybe a few years ago, do you think they'd have shaped up the same way?

Jayanthi Sankar: My creative journey started in my late twenties, and so now, in my mid-fifties, my storytelling has evolved. I’m better exposed and experienced in forms and techniques, and therefore, I think these stories have come out at the right time for these themes that stayed in me for decades would not have shaped any better, if years ago.

Sredhanea Ramkrishnan: What recent/ past life experience of yours readied you to pen down these stories?

Jayanthi Sankar: Like I said earlier, my experience from enriched explorations in both reading and writing has brought me to this phase, and naturally. Most of these stories have always been churning all the time deep in me, only waiting to be created, I suppose. When the stories surfaced I could give them the needed shapes.

Title: Dangling Gandhi
Author: Jayanthi Sankar
Genre: (Literary) fiction/short stories
Published by: Zero Degree publishing
Year: 2019 / ISBN: 978-93-88860-03-12
Pages: 154
Price: Rs.220

Bhavani did the following brief interview to create the story above.

News Today - Interview by Bhavani Prabhakar

through email 3^rd December 2020

(On Dangling Gandhi and other short stories)

1. Tell us about yourself including how you were raised, where you were raised.

Jayanthi Sankar: Born in Madurai as the eldest of the four, I was brought up in various states of India, exposed to different languages and cultures of India. My father, a central government Engineer, used to be transferred often, and therefore I grew up in various states right from Coimbatore to Shillong. 

After graduating in Physics from Seethalakshmi Ramasami college, Trichy,  in 1985, I was immediately married off. After two years in Angmaly in Kerala, a year in Trichy, and another year Chennai, we migrated out of the subcontinent.

In 1990 when Sankar, also an Engineer, got a job in Singapore, I came here with my two-year-old elder son. My younger son was born in Singapore.

More than anything else, the library branches in Singapore captivated me the most. I felt so much at home because of the new beautiful world they opened for me. Thus, in my twenties, I started reading more voraciously than before, and that changed my life.

I am mostly into freelancing jobs of transcriptions, translations, proof reading, editing and subtitling for almost two decades now except for the three years of full time journalism three years back that gave me a taste of the field.

2. How did you develop your interest in writing? For how long have you been writing?

Jayanthi Sankar: I have been writing since 1995, and my passionate reading has made the writer out of me. I owe it to NLB (National Library Board) of Singapore. Whoever has not experienced our libraries has not seen Singapore fully, I always believe. 

The fiction reader in me grew and evolved incredibly fast. And also a critic that I only observed, later on, had emerged in me. And at one point in time, I’d challenged myself, "It’s easier to criticize, have you ever tried any?" Until then I didn’t even know I could write or I would ever write in my life. Within the next few days, I tried crafting a short story only to discover the creator in me, and after that there was no turning back.

3. What inspires you?

Jayanthi Sankar: Like any of us, I carry in me so many themes, questions, incidents, and characters imbibed deep in me since my childhood, when I used to be a quiet observer responding in syllables when asked questions. 

I write and rewrite many times in my mind before I type/write. Editing like a sculpture is a different process altogether.

Theme and characters churn out from within to disturb me. I give in, to focus, interact and live that life — a process by which I get to live the lives of hundreds of lives, both painful and pleasurable. In and out of the real world can be challenging but the result will bring the needed balm later, my creative mind knows.

4. Who inspires you?

Jayanthi Sankar: Everyone including strangers I come across, people I meet, interact with and get to know is my inspiration. And right now, in recent years, my readers inspire me the most. Their reading motivates me. Generally, I have hardly had particularly anyone who inspires me. All the fiction writers I enjoy reading certainly inspire me, all the time.

5. What is your writing process like?

Jayanthi Sankar: As a fiction writer, sometimes I create characters to sail through an issue in a backdrop and at other times I treat an issue through a backdrop with a set of characters. I write and rewrite in mind so many times that the theme mostly chooses its form, tools, tone and the narrative style, and it churns up to the surface, and that's when I start writing. I live much in the fictional world, living the lives of my characters. In and out of the real world can both be a pleasure and a pain. While reading the end product, if I feel it’s come out as I’d perceived in my mind, the joy that I experience is incredible, to stay in me for long. So, crafting is the challenge I go after, again and again.

I always challenge my brain to weave a story that can also challenge a seasoned reader - one of the reasons these stories are better enjoyed and assimilated when reading one at a time. Connecting things while crafting would demands some effort also from the reader later.

I believe in leaving ample space for my readers, and that creates an abstractness that most of my readers love. It leaves more than enough space for that participation from the reader. The modern and post-modern literature is more about this participation of readers, and a short story's primary role is not just to make the reader resonate/ empathize with the character or theme but also to make the reader think broadly on the theme.

6. Name a few of your favourite books, and why are they your favorites?

Jayanthi Sankar: Apart from my all-time favourites like Haruki Murakami’s ‘The Kafka on the shore’ for its treatment of magical realism and application of the Freudian psychology, Khalid  Hussain’s ‘Thousand Splendid Suns’ for the Kabul he showed and the realistic depictions of the three important women characters of three generations, my recent favourites are Devi Yasodharan’s ‘Empire’ for the fluid and credibly enjoyable setting of the fiction in the Chola period, all works of Manu Joseph for their narrative styles, humour, and the freshness. Not to forget the works of Amitav Ghosh for their extensive research on the history of their backdrop. And apparently, this list is ever-growing.

7. Tell us a bit about your book.

Jayanthi Sankar: This set of short stories that artistically break the traditional rules of storytelling to bring about freshness, so Singaporean, India, and Asian. About 10 out of the 12 short stories ranging right from the 1905 colonial period in Singapore, the period of the independence struggle in India to the contemporary modern themes such as  'my mother is a feminist’ are truly SingLit, aptly published when we celebrate our Bicentennial. 

8. Can you elaborate for us on that breaking of rules?

Jayanthi Sankar: As a reader, I make sure I joyfully catch up with that, and that brings about the needed transformation in the writer in me. As I evolve as a fiction reader, I learn about many interesting ways to tell stories. Most of them appeal to me, but my mind always wishes to break the rules to come up with entirely new ways of storytelling, evident in Dangling Gandhi.

Learning the fundamentals over the years and breaking them to create is an art that brings with it an incomparable joy. I learn and unlearn crafting my narratives, setting my challenges and objectives. And I also love breaking my own past records. Fiction is constantly evolving like any other, I believe.

The readers who are unaware of short story as a form that has evolved much over the years and that intro, character development, pre-climax, and climax is an almost an outdated style of storytelling seek my help in reading. Most of the seasoned readers could sense these varied ways of storytelling, and some of them also say that certain stories are fresh from that perspective.

9. What, in your opinion, is the specialty of this book?

Jayanthi Sankar: Most of my readers who’ve been reviewing are fascinated by the variety of themes and varied styles of storytelling. These with the diverse backdrops are obvious specialty, although seasoned writers can go into the layered non-linear narration to enjoy more.

The collection certainly has all the features like smooth readability, with an anthropological approach, interesting experiments both in content and form that any good collection would have.

Although different readers love different characters, most of the readers appreciate one particular character Mani in the second story. That character stayed deep in me since my mid-teens. When we were in Shillong, one of my father's friends, a Sardar uncle who used to visit us once in a while had shared about his ancestors, and once when the power cut, we used candles to continue talking. What he said was more of a passing comment, but it stayed in me. When I crafted this particular story few years back I was appalled by the impact it’d had on me.

10. Why have you named it 'Dangling Gandhi'? Why did you not pick some other title?

Jayanthi Sankar: The title story Dangling Gandhi is only a subtle metaphor. Although my favourite story of the collection is another, I decided on the title for the book as it suits all kinds of uncertainties and doubts of our times, the world over, on Gandhism as well as the nonviolence he upheld, becoming more and more debatable in this modern world. However, the story hardly touches on these, interestingly.

9. Briefly going through, your book seems to be multi-cultural. Tell us a bit about it.

Jayanthi Sankar: Having lived in Singapore for 30 years I naturally write about the people issues and culture of Singapore. Diversity is synonymous with Singapore, and when I write about our city, I effortlessly reflect only that. It is quite natural.

And, migration for me has always meant observing people, knowing people, listening to people, making new friends, attending new schools, talking to people of various backgrounds. When I think back now, migration within the subcontinent of India during my formative years meant exposing to different languages and cultures, therefore, issues, travel, and food.

11. How long did you take to write this book? What kind of hardships did you face throughout, from writing to the publishing phase?

Jayanthi Sankar: I wrote the 12 short stories of Dangling Gandhi except one between 2015 and 2017. The book was ready for publication in 2017, but getting a suitable publisher was not easy. A few renowned tier two Delhi based publishers were ready but either urged me to buy copies in bulk of expected me to invest. Some of them had it for 29 months.

Now, it’s not good enough for an Author to create well, she should work many times harder to create and expand her social network, and readership, I understood, as most of the publishers upon reading my proposal mail sent lengthy forms to fill. The form contains most of the questions suitable for asking marketing persons, PR, and distributors. So, an author is expected to do everything, and that’s precisely why literature pitiably ends up on commercial grounds. I am learning alot here.

Monopolization of the big names in the publishing industry is hurting the publishers. Therefore, it's a pity even some of the genuine publishers also can't do more to help good manuscripts. I firmly believed in my work and therefore chose to wait. Zero Degree publication took only weeks to answer. It was so encouraging when Ramjee spoke to me over the phone to express his reading experience. I thought, "Here is one publisher who can value the literary merits of the book." It felt good to be read by a publisher.

12. Are you working on any other book?

Jayanthi Sankar: Before 2019 ends, I would’ve completed the first draft of my novel that I am currently writing. I was supposed to have completed it in 2018, but the novel the research completely sucked me in. Happily, I spent a year and a half in that although I only required one-hundredth of the notes.

Title: Dangling Gandhi
Author: Jayanthi Sankar
Genre: (Literary) fiction/short stories
Published by: Zero Degree publishing
Year: 2019 / ISBN: 978-93-88860-03-12
Pages: 154
Price: Rs.220