A small crowd trickled into a basement bookstore on Church Street on Saturday night, moving quickly, in the threat of rain. Author Zac O Yeah sat, unassumingly, in the centre of the room and his audience crowded around. This wasn't the high-octane event one is wont to see at the launch of, say, a science-fiction graphic novel but it was a well-read company, who questioned their favourite author in very complimentary detail. At the end, they picked up copies of the book, Tropical Detective, the third part to the Hari Majestic series, by the handful.
"This is the sort of crowd I am happy to see," says Zac, a few days later, sitting at a corner table at Koshy's and tucking into a plate of liver on toast. Dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, Zac fits the European stereotype quite perfectly. He is a man of surprises, however: For one, he decided to make Bengaluru his home after spending a month or two in Majestic. Not for him were the quaint charms of the Cantonment, Zac was smitten instead by the mad, somewhat unsavoury bustle of the Majestic area.
"I remember having drawn Rs 10,000 for my weekly expenses. It was a lot of money at the time and as I walked back to my hotel, I was surrounded by a group of thuggish men. They watched me for a while and said, "Give me Rs 20'." Zac was so relieved, he laughed and began to walk away, only to hear them call after him, 'Come back! We're trying to rob you'! Only in Bengaluru will a thief ask you to come back and let him rob you," he said, to a chorus of laughter and several nods of agreement from the audience.
True to form as always, Hari Majestic, our bumbling, chikory-loving hero, now married, is going through a particularly difficult time. He is advised by an astrologer friend to seek a darshan from a particular deity. Hari arrives there and spots, to his horror, tourists smuggling priceless idols out of the country. "Hari has to go abroad in this book, his mystery takes him all over the world," Zac says.
The conversation was well-received in a room filled with Bengalureans, all of them proud of one thing: The Hari Majestic series has given Bengaluru the first piece of literature that is entirely its own. This was an exceptional situation, he seems to believe, saying, rather huffily, “Literary festivals and launches have all become passe. That may have been my last launch, this might be my last interview.”
The world has changed, with the artist’s success dependent on his or her savviness with social media, and the willingness to talk a good game. “Good talkers tend to be bad writers,” he smiles. “That’s why I try to be a bad talker! The trouble is, you hear people boast of hteir masterpieces and find in the end that it’s quite rubbish, really.” And behind Zac the humorist lies a frustrated, angry artist. “I have decided to stay away from it all.” At a recent literary festival, he went, hugely excited to hear the writer Michael Ondaatje speak. “There were 40 people there,” he fumes. “I had a bigger audience! Everybody, it seems, was flocking to the selfie zones.” When he raised the matter with the organisers, he was dismissed, not so politely. “I was told the selfie crowd belongs here,” he remarked. “The world of books seems to be a sinking ship anyway, perhaps you’re better off swimming to the nearest desert island and learning to live off coconuts!”
And Hari, desptie his apparent idiocies and his light-hearted ways, contains a hero that Zac admires to this day. “When he believes in something, he gives it his all.
That’s what I want to do as well, write my books in quiet and let things take their course. Either way, he isn’t too concerned. “I didn’t start out wanting to be a millionaire, but I have made some money. I think this is my time to hide away and write!
What: Tropical Detective: A Hari Majestic Mystery
Author: Zac O’Yeah
