Frauds in the Pond – Laughing at the System through the Loopholes of Democracy

For Josma Ettumanur who carries decades of experience as a journalist in New Delhi and all over the country, loopholes of our system are real holes to peep through at the functioning of democracy in the country.

His new novel ‘Frauds in the Pond’ is different in the sense that after a long time we have a political satire fit to its fullest meaning.  Politicians, editors, reporters, police, activists, Godmen, Communists, pastors, dog lovers, award hungry poets, astrologers, snake charmers, butchers, actors, sportsmen in poverty, and even cyber criminals are looked from behind. This could be the first novel that deals with the business of begging and chapters like National Begging Corporation Limited and its listing ceremony in Bombay Stock Exchange will throw you to irresistible laughter.

Although ‘Frauds in the Pond’ is a satire, serious topics like Indo- China border conflicts and India- Pakistan partition becomes part of the story and here the long-term news reporter’s knowledge of things comes out handy. Josma Ettumanur shows extreme craftsmanship in mingling such topics in the story through characters who are journalists named like Pinky Singh Lahorewala. The controversial soda bottle spectacled Channel editor who makes a ‘walk a talk’ programme with the Defence minister is too loud a character who tries to get a war declared between India and Pakistan on his channel. Thus serious topics have serious laugh making situations while situations like the Communist leader’s son making bombs for export to extremists and party worker exporting owls to Harry Porter fans in UK prompts fireworks of fun.

To start with, Josma  explains about the title of the book ‘Frauds in the pond’. It is a unique and different title. What does this mean? Josma explains it like this. As if in a cartoon or lampoon, I am pointing at people’s ill deeds in the society or country with a positive common good in mind. These days all people pretend to be very important…and they declare everything they do as first time in the world. So like frogs in a pond they are not seeing beyond their vision. In India a lot of poor people especially the children on the streets are not getting the attention that even the street dogs get. Even Canada President and New Zealand prime minister walk in the streets like commoners …but Indian leaders are not like that. They assume a lot of self-importance and keep people away. They call it security in the name of Pakistan. A family divided into two and one brother is always in constant fear of the other. How long this can go like this? So this is the story of such pseudo people in a State called Democristan.

Some asked, “Are you saying that there is no threat from Pakistan?” My answer was this, ‘Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were killed. Pakistan was not behind those political killings. Can this continue as Military in both countries have got good budget allocations? If I say corruption is in mind for tension between the countries, will anybody deny? No leader of the party that shouts against Pakistan was killed by Pakistan. Rampant corruption prevails in both countries and as we scare children saying about devil or bhoot, some leaders always tell ‘Pakistan, Pakistan’. In Pakistan also common man sees India as a good friend while politicians and military try to scare them saying ‘India, India’. Few months back one Malayalam writer went to Pakistan on a literary invite and travelled and spoke to a number of common people in Pakistan. Nobody said ‘yes we are at war with India.’ All said that these are manipulations of the political people at the top.

Although Josma says very serious things the novel is a funny crispy read. ‘It is my style of telling things. In my journalism life I used to write serials on the edit page which had regular readers. There were readers who told me that they have cut those pages of the daily and kept to read again and again The subjects used to be very serious things based on issues at the parliament or Supreme court. But I have a style to make it read like a fiction. If I say serious things in a more serious way who will listen to it as a fiction? I want people to read this 352page novel from beginning to end. So the narration is funny and sarcastic and sentimental at times.

This readability is a missing thing in many of the new books published by Indian major publishing houses. Book editing and news story editing are different. You edit like school exercise book correction and throw away Arundhati Roy and her ‘The God of Small things’ as unpublishable as it has numerous language ‘mistakes’. But real English editors and publishers found it innovative and New York Times and Washington Post publishes her. These so called Chief editors and Executive editors and Commissioning editors cannot produce such beautiful prose.’

Sangeeta Mehta, former associate editor of Simon & Schuster in New York, wrote about ‘Frauds in the Pond’ as, ‘I am definitively impressed by your sharp, lively writing style. I especially enjoyed the scene in which Sahadevan Vaidyar massages Vikraman’s chest (with his foot!). And I’m curious to learn about Chottu’s background, how he came to work for someone like Ayyappan’. One American literary agent liked the theme. But she wanted me to change it into first person narration which was the in-thing there. But it is not possible. Frauds in the Pond is on an epic platform.

I don’t believe in old dirty terms like ‘protagonist’ and such technical structural words although I studied English language and Literature. Somebody defined and placed such words in literary criticism. When we look for such elements in a manuscript we may miss readability. Yes we edited and made a book, but it is not reader friendly. This is why fiction from main publishing houses are not selling much despite ample publicity budgets. I Translated James Joyce at the age of 20. Published the first ever literary criticism book on “The God of small Things’ in 1997 just after two months of the book’s release. (It was reprinted five times in Malayalam)

 People ask me why I selected such a big canvas for ‘Frauds n the Pond’ Given my experience of decades as a journalist from Attari to Kanyakumari I need this much space to tell such a story. I had travelled all over the country and know many such incidents directly. From Indira Gandhi to Dr Man Mohan Singh, I was able to work as a journalist many a times directly and otherwise. So my mind is like a pressure filled tank full of experience I gathered during decades of work. It comes out at high pressure or in strong words.

I started reading books ardently from school days. There is a huge children’s library at Kottayam which was the largest in India in those periods. It had more than 10000 square feet area in three floors for children with a huge collection of children’s books. I had almost finished reading a good portion of it by the time I reached standard nine. While studying in standard seven, my first novel for children was published as a serial in a magazine. First book was published while I was studying in standard nine. Late D C Kizhakkemuri, the doyen of Malayalam book publishing helped me a lot while I was in college.

There was a shocking moment in my literary life. Once I went for a super hit Malayalam movie in R K Puram New Delhi. After 10 minutes I felt some doubt about the story. As it progressed I stood up and shouted, ’This is my novel! They have stolen the story.’ One of my novels in Malayalam published by D C Books titled ‘Eakaakikalude Aakaasham’ or ‘The sky of the solitary’ was stolen by script writer John Paul and director Bharathan The title was ‘Kaathodu Kaathoram’. I got out of the theatre and next day reached Kerala. But it was late. The movie had completed 200 days in full house and now by approaching a court my name can just be established and that other writers like P R Nathan also had filed cases against John Paul for story theft. I approached my friend and script writer Dennis Joseph. But he was also facing same allegation as they all steal stories. Later I found that there is no name of the story writer. But the name of the script writer was there. More than that I had only few days leave. So I returned to Delhi.

I come from Kottayam, Arundhati Roy’s place which is called the city of lakes and letters. All prominent newspapers and publication companies in Kerala were from there. I also started from MTS High school in that city and think its quite natural that I became a writer.

So after a long life in New Delhi as the Bureau Chief of a Kerala Daily; Josma Ettumanur returned to Kerala to settle in Cochin.