The unfinished memoir! 'Premature' autobiographies are in vogue

Early last month in the midst of the launch of a memoir on one of Bollywoods leading filmmakers writer Shobhaa De whose imprint the title had been published under made a veritable declaration to the audience ldquoI want this young lady to write down her story nextrdquo she said pointing to a petite woman in the front row who stood out from among her contemporaries in her mustard yellow dress Des remark was rather coyly received as this young lady immediately put her head down to evade attention There was no mention of whom De was referring to but those seated around the front tables knew that actress Alia Bhatt had just been wooed for a book title in front of over a hundred people Its irrelevant whether the star is ready to pen her story down yet The fact is that she has already been consideredJournalist Shivani Gupta who cowrote Sania Mirzas biography with the tennis player and her father Imran Mirza also sees the sport star taking her authorised biography forward with timeIn the day and age of quick consumption who readers want to read about appears to have superseded how much there is to actually write about them Last Julys memoir on Kanhaiya Kumar From Bihar to Tihar Juggernaut Books which told the story of the former president of Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union who shot to fame after he was charged with sedition in February is an interesting case in point Sports journalist Vijay Lokpallys Driven The Virat Kohli Story Bloomsbury India that came close on the heels of the cricketers brilliant run as skipper India won the test series during New Zealands tour of the country in SeptemberOctober last year and Sania Mirzas Ace Against Odds HaperCollins India though welldeserving again saw critics argue if these book had come too early on in their careers But professionals in the industry believe otherwiseWhy wait till the endThe question really is whether there is such a thing as a premature biography or memoir ldquoThe conventional view about memoirs has been that a person is best qualified to tell their life story when they have lived a full life and are nearing the end of their journeyrdquo says Udayan Mitra publisher literary at HarperCollins India However this says Mitra who has been in the industry for 20 years holds true only for politicians career diplomats and public figures ldquoFor sports persons who have a relatively short playing career an early memoir when the person is at the peak of their form and in the limelight makes senserdquo he saysMitra cites examples of Sunil Gavaskar Kapil Dev Yuvraj Singh Abhinav Bindra and Saina Nehwal mdash all of whom had early memoirsWith biographies this space becomes more negotiableldquoA biography essentially caters to current interest in a personality and it need not purport to telling the whole story of a persons liferdquo Mitra insistsKanhaiya Kumars story mdash a small town boy from Bihar becoming a youth icon mdash definitely fit the latter says Parth Phiroze Mehrotra commissioning editor nonliterary at Juggernaut ldquoYes he is a public face and in that sense there was a recall value to him But keeping his politics aside he had an incredibly poignant story and one that deserved to be told rightrdquo says Mehrotra ldquoI dont think there is a general principle or rule to be followed on age or experience Its the content of their life that should be the focusrdquoMumbaibased literary agent Sherna Khambatta cites the example of Christina Lambs I am Malala which traces the story of how Pakistani activist Malala Yousufzai bravely defied the Taliban It was first published when she was only 15 years old ldquoIt got a message across Would it be wrong then to say that her book should not have been writtenrdquo she asksThe story mattersIf there is a story worth telling and its of interest it must be written says MehrotraWhen television journalist Suprita Das was approached by HarperCollins to write the turbulent tale of Manipuri boxer Laishram Sarita Devi who had stirred controversy after she did not accept her bronze medal at the Asian Games 2014 her story was not yet known to the world ldquoWhat Devi did was rare I cannot think of any sportsperson who until then had stood on an international stage and said I was wrongedSo even though her career didnt take off like Mary Kom Devi did not qualify for last years Olympics her story made for an excellent case studyrdquo says Das author of Shadow FighterBoth Lokpally and Das were confronted with reluctant subjects ldquoDevi did not want to speak about the Asian Games I shuttled between Bengaluru where Devi was training her camp in Delhi and hometown in Manipur trying to convince her that her story was one that went beyond what transpired at the Gamesrdquo says DasKohli too thought it was too early ldquoBut I have followed his career and his game closely So I knew what I wanted to write about I deliberately did not involve him because Id like him to tell his story somedayrdquoIts usually the restrictive idea of what a biography entails that make a lot of people hesitant to translate their lives into a book Once they are convinced otherwise the job is half done say publishersNo sense of an endingMitra admits that an early biographymemoir is bound to be dated and can be forwardlooking only to an extent ldquoBut an early biography also has the immediacy and currency that a later biography sometimes lacksrdquo he adds And then there is no hard and fast rule of how many biographies or memoirs one can write in their lifetime says Faiza Khan editorial director Bloomsbury India ldquoIf people go on to take another avatar after their stories are already documented in a book and they are doing things differently there is absolutely nothing stopping them from writing a second biography Playwright Noel Coward wrote three autobiographies in his lifetime and they were all hilariousrdquo says KhanLokpally who wrote Virats book last year hasnt ruled out a revised edition in the future ldquoTwo years down the line I will have to revise this book because its likely to lose its appeal But it is a document on the making of Virat the cricketer and thats not going to change As and when his game evolves so will his biographyrdquoWhats hot sellsTruth is peoples stories sell ldquoIf there isnt enough interest in a person or their story the whole point of pursuing it becomes a bit questionablerdquo argues MitraDe doesnt see the hype around early memoirs or biographies ldquoAn interesting life is an interesting life Young or old happy or unhappy struggle or no struggle Alia is a symbol of success on her own terms She is her own person Her achievements are inspiring She is a youth icon This is a book about nowrdquo she saysShobhaa DeThat the market has played a significant role in this growing trend cannot be ignored ldquoWriting a biography about a young celebrity is more like writing an extended article because there is only so much that you can put into it But our readership has changed There are a lot of young readers today and they want to read about celebrities Quickies sell but that doesnt mean they dont qualify as ideal biographies that are well researchedrdquo Priya Kapoor editorial director of Roli Books ldquoAt the end of the day I am not going to wait it out for 20 years so that 10 other people jump in and do the bookrdquo says Mehrotra adding ldquoI dont want to be last on the train all because I want to plant a flag saying that this is the definitive a biography of someone Thats not my optimisation strategyrdquo