I almost don’t believe Himanjali Sankar when she tells me that she doesn’t really read Young Adult novels. I’ve just finished her book, “Talking of Muskaan”, and her grasp and understanding of teenagers and their world is impressively strong. The voices in the book are real, rounded and complex, and the book deals with that one issue no one seems to want to talk about, other than in hurried subplots which become almost incidental to the story. “Talking of Muskaan” hits the issue of homosexuality head on, and becomes one of the first Indian YA books to do so.
What is perhaps most interesting about Himanjali — now four books old — is her own place in the editorial and literary scene. Himanjali’s first book, “The Magical Adventures of Skinny Scribbles” was published by Scholastic India. Back then, Himanjali was also working as an editor for Scholastic. “I wasn’t very comfortable writing for Scholastic and working for them too. I didn’t really feel like an author.” So, for her next three novels, Himanjali turned to Duckbill Books, a small independent publishing house for children and young adults, run as a partnership between Westland, Anushka Ravishankar and Sayoni Basu. The Duckbill team is three strong, and includes just one other editor, Ayushi Saxena. Only two years old, Duckbill Books has already started pushing the envelope and expanding the scope and reach of children and YA books in India. Himanjali’s “Talking of Muskaan”, is just one more example.
The decision to publish with Duckbill, Himanjali says, was an important one, and the difference she felt with Duckbill has been immense. “They really take care of their author, and they make sure that people know about the book.” Of course the wide network Scholastic has at its disposal, extending across cities and schools, ensures their books reach a bigger audience, but for Himanjali, the support and attention she received from Duckbill has made a palpable difference to her own work.
While Himanjali had been toying with the idea of working on a YA novel, the encouragement came from the Duckbill team. “They felt that I would be able to do a good job with it.”
“Talking of Muskaan” uses three strong, believable teenage voices, each starkly different and offering a new perspective on the same story. “Initially, the book was one long third person narrative. But the editors at Duckbill felt that it didn’t read like a book. The idea of changing the structure was theirs. They suggested that I break it down in different first person narratives.”
Himanjali says that once the book went to Duckbill, it took a life of its own. There were multiple edits and back and forth between Himanjali and the editors. It was the editors who pointed out that perhaps, Himanjali was idealising one of her more challenging characters, Subhojoy.
“I found myself most unaware of his position.” Subhojoy, a scholarship student unable to adjust comfortably with his more privileged classmates, is now one of the strongest and most complex characters in the book. “His character went through the maximum edits,” adds Himanjali.
Interestingly, halfway through writing “Talking of Muskaan”, Himanjali found herself editing her own YA novel on homosexuality. “Bloomsbury published Payal Dhar’s book ‘Slightly Burnt’ at the same time as Duckbill published my book. I was editing Payal’s book and made sure I completed ‘Muskaan’ before editing her. We exchanged manuscripts too.” This coincidence also gave Himanjali a means of noticing how differently authors are treated in big publishing houses, as compared to smaller, independent ones. “The amount of attention I get from Duckbill I can’t give to my authors.” She adds that for her, feedbacks were regular, and Duckbill kept up the momentum, putting an intense amount of work behind the book. “Their responses would be very quick and detailed. This is something a big publisher cannot do.”
While Himanjali has found writing YA to be challenging, she also says the process has been immensely enjoyable — from minor edits and corrections with her 15-year-old daughter, who set her right on the teenage references and lingos, to long meetings with the Duckbill team. She says her next book is going to be a YA novel too, published, most certainly, with Duckbill again.
