I don't remember the date. I was invited to the Camac Street Office of Blue Rose Publishers by one Mr. Sameer Banerjee. He showed more interest in making a deal than looking at the manuscript that I had carried with me at his request. The manuscript was a novel I finished writing almost thirteen years ago.
For me paying money for the package he suggested was a problem. Though it was not a huge amount. It was not meagre either. Besides, I have always had this feeling that if a writer is good, he doesn't have to pay for the publication of his work from his pocket.
“Sameer, please talk to the people who matter in your office and see if you can bring the price down somehow.” I urged him at the end of a long discussion.
“I’ll see what I can do and let you know.” Those were his final words.
He didn't call me afterwards. Not did he respond to the message I had sent to him when another publisher from Madhy Pradesh contacted me. As they were willing to publish my book at half the price of what Blue Rose Publishers had suggested, I decided to accept their offer.
When my queries to Sameer went unanswered, I called one Ranu Verma from Crown Publishing, India and agreed on the Basic Package and I sent them the first installment of the agreed amount without signing the Contract Form!
At first, the same lady Ranu showed a lot of interest in the cover. After about a week, the cover was ready. Then she asked me for the manuscript. I had lost the softcopy when my laptop crashed. My younger daughter, Anushka, came to my rescue at that time by promising to type out the manuscript from the only hard copy I was left with.
Once, the manuscript was ready, I whatsapped it to Ranu. Then another lady called Poonam took over. I went through the manuscript once my daughter had finished typing it. I had a feeling that the publishers would look at it, edit it and publish it within the time period (15/20 days) agreed upon.
What happened then was quite strange! I kept editing the draft manuscript and sending it back to her and she sent it to me again the next day or after a couple of days without making the changes following my edits! After some 3 weeks, I realised that she was biding for time. Either they were busy publishing other books or they were not interested in publishing my book at all!
In the meantime, they had asked for the second installment and I, like the eternal fool I am, sent the money to them. Last Thursday, when she sent the file back to me again without incorporating the edits, I asked her what she thought she was doing by asking me to edit the manuscript over and over again! I told her that it was the job of the Editor to edit the manuscript and not my job.
She simply messaged me stating that my page number and the page number of the draft she had, were not matching. Now, let me tell you something here. I am not a tech-savvy man. I try to do things manually rather than doing it on my computer. So, I couldn't make head or tail out of her message. I was doing the corrections in the draft sent by her, saved a copy before sending the same back to her. So, how come our pages were not matching?
She has not called me since last Thursday and I am getting extremely apprehensive. I have reasons to be. I have no one, none at all, known in MP, if I am being duped, what can an ordinary person like me do?
I posted something on Facebook yesterday with the title “RNB is in trouble. Can anyone help?” regarding the same matter. I have nearly 5000 followers but not any one of them bothered to address the issue. I am kind of scared now. It is not that I am worried of losing the money. Deep down, I know it in my bones that I have never cheated anybody in my life. Naturally, I am not going to be cheated either. Period.
I am more worried about if this non-responsiveness on the part of Crown Publishing, India is due to some lackings on my part. What if while sending the edited draft back, I am sending the wrong one? But that cannot be. In that case, there is only one possibility left. For some reasons, the publishing house is not interested in bringing out my novel entitled “Meghe Dhaka Tara, Mejdi ( The Star Hidden Behind The Clouds), or they have just made a fool of me and the sooner I forget the matter, the better.
I am quite heart-broken, to say the least. Why can't I have a hassle-free writing career like many others? Why am I always being out to tests? At 64, how long can I put up with all these challenges, hardships of a Writer's Life? The answers, for the time being, do not look very promising at all.