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BS Murthy

BS Murthy

I’m an Indian novelist, playwright, short story, non-fiction ‘n articles writer, translator, a ‘little’ thinker and a budding philosopher in ‘Addendum to Evolution: Origins of the World by Eastern Speculative Philosophy’ that was originally published in The Examined Life On-Line Philosophy Journal, Vol. 05 Issue 18, Summer 2004.

Born on 27 Aug 1948 and schooled in letter-writing, I’ve articulated my managerial ideas in thirty-odd published articles, and later penned Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth (plot and character driven novels), Glaring Shadow: A stream of consciousness novel, Prey on the Prowl: A Crime Novel, Of No Avail: Web of wedlock, a novella, Stories Varied: A Book of Short Stories, and Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays.

Then entering the arena of non-fiction with a ‘novel’ narrative of Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A critical appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity ‘n more) possibly a new genre, I ventured into the translation zone for versifying the Sanskrit epics, Vyasa’s Bhagvad-Gita (as Treatise of self-help), Valmiki’s Sundara Kãnda (as Hanuman’s Odyssey) in contemporary English idiom, and a critique Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for Their Revocation).

And in the end, as a prodigal son, I returned to my mother tongue, Telugu, to craft the short story తప్పటడుగులు (Missteps).

Whereas my fiction had emanated from my conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all my body of work was borne out of my passion for writing, matched only by my love for language.

My body of work as above is in the public domain as free ebooks https://g.co/kgs/bGUEqt

Besides, some of my published articles on management issues, general insurance topics, literary matters, and political affairs in The Hindu, The Economic Times, The Financial Express, The Purchase, The Insurance Times, Triveni, Boloji.com are at Academia.edu https://independent.academia.edu/BulusuSMurthy

I, a graduate mechanical engineer from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, India, had been a Hyderabad-based Insurance Surveyor and Loss Assessor for over thirty years.

I take keen interest in politics of the day, have an ear for Carnatic and Hindustani classical music and had been a passionate Bridge player.

I’m married, to a housewife, with two sons, the elder one a PhD in Finance, and the younger a Master in Engineering.

 

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State of Art

When the masters rendered those classics of yore, literacy of the times was limited to the core. Invariably that confined literature to the connoisseur and kept it away from the crassness of the masses. However, it is the increase in literacy that paradoxically caused the degradation of literature! With the multitudes of the educated abounding, publishing appeared a fetching proposition to the enterprising. After all, business acumen is all about catering to what the market demands, isn’t it?

Media and Literature

But for wasting the precious media space on many a penny work, the hype wouldn’t help, for after all the discerning readers would have seen through the game any way. True, in the short run, the hype turns the novice into a literary celebrity before anyone had shown any inclination to read his work! But being the talk of the town for a while, most of these books collect dust in the bookstores before they become fodder to the shredding machines in time.

Back to Square One on the Writing Board

Unlike the visual arts, as the written words cannot be appraised on espial, writers have always been handicapped in the arena of recognition, and if anything, in the world of printed words, the publisher-media nexus dealt them a double whammy, more so in the recent past. With this vexatious commercial nexus pitchforking their favoured folks, aided by the literary editors, as published authors into the public limelight, the genuine writers got relegated into the scornful arena of self-publishing

Domain of the Devil – A Satire on Indian Publishing

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.

BS Murthy
BS Murthy
1 day ago
13 min read
3

On Writing ‘n the Writers

Those who treat writing as a vehicle of visibility would be incapable of experiencing the joy of the journey. In the end though, were they to come into spotlight, they might well gloat in the limelight though without experiencing the real thrill of letters. Even in case such won’ make it to the post; their pain cannot be intense for they wouldn’t have felt the joy of writing either.

My maiden 'Novel' blues

But what a poetic justice it was that the publishers’ apathy, for my literary foray into an uncharted fictional arena, pushed me into Roopa’s despondent shoes, leg for leg! So to say, to atone for myself, and to earn for her the empathy, at least, of a few discerning readers, I self-published it, and it's gratifying to me that it has earned some literary acclaim in the digital world of ebooks.

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