Food and family mean the world to Mita Kapur. It’s no surprise that both her passions found her way into her first book,The F-Word, which is a part travel, part recipe and part memoir. This book should truly be bought and reread by every foodie, as it is multi-dimensional and a textured read.

We talk to this freelance journalist, founder-CEO of Siyahi, a literary consultancy, who apart from providing creative and professional help to new writers believes firmly in cooking out of love. “Don’t cook because you have to. Cook because you want to. It’s an act of respect!”

In the interview, she talks about how the Jaipur Literature Festival has grown, how passionate she is about cooking, on why she founded Siyahi, and of course The F-word!

How did you feel the need to have a literary consultancy Siyahi?
It came from a growing awareness that a lot of authors needed a direct link with publishers and that their writing needed professional and creative handling.

Why did you choose such a naughty and misleading title for your first literary venture?
It’s a light hearted book and the catch was to get people to pick it up.

When and how did you begin penning The F-word?
The writing happened over two and a half years though the idea had taken birth long back.

You have handled literary events, authors and are heading the literary agency Siyahi…. When and why did you decide to move over to be an author yourself?
I’ve been writing for a long time …as a freelance journalist. I am a very live in the moment person…will do exactly what my heart tells me to.

How do you don so many hats and yet look at cooking, which honestly is just a chore for most working women, as a “fun and creative” process?
I love food…I want to eat a good meal after putting in hours of hard work every day. Cooking is sheer joy for me – just this morning my colleague called and guessed I was in the kitchen.”You sound happier, are you in the kitchen cooking?”

How different was JLF in 2006, when it began from what it has grown to be now?
JLF 2006 was the birth year of the festival. The growth incline is tremendous, stupendous. Its far more representative, and has gathered broader spectrum than what it began as, which is natural as well.

While going through the manuscript of The F Word was it like the editor in you was over critical of the writing?
Yes, at one point after re-reading the first three chapters, the agent in me rejected the manuscript. It took me a week to face the fact that I must not run away from rewriting from scratch which is what I did. I’ve always been critical of my writing – till I don’t run it through some of the people whom I can trust to tear me to shreds, I don’t send any piece out.

Were you and your folks comfortable with you making your first release a part-memoir?
Yes. I guess they didn’t have much of a choice – we simply laughed our way through it.

Are you working on another book? Is it also nonfiction?
Yes, but it will take much longer this time.

Your favourite novel and writer.
Ha ha, you don’t ask a lit agent such questions!

http://www.bookchums.com/review-book/the-f-word/5410

The Hindu, 12 November 2011

http://www.thehindu.com/arts/magazine/article2621379.ece

Yet, nothing can replace meeting authors and publishers face to face to get into the groove of the latest in publishing trends, says Mita Kapur from the Frankfurt Book Fair.

An agent tweeted while at the Frankfurt Book Fair — “Received 3 meeting requests today. Are you all insane? No, we can’t meet because I already have 80 meetings!” There is something about why and how we do business during the book fair. We may be on instant email connections, crackle conversations on Skype, transfer heavy manuscript files with a click but publishers, agents, scouts and authors do need to travel to FBF and meet face to face over wine or coffee and avidly discuss the books that matter to us. We need to walk through the halls, browse, read the back of books and mentally add them to our lists of must pick-ups. It’s close to how we shop at book stores and yet it’s a multi-layered narrative that unfolds in the days to come. It’s hard-core business — of rights being bought and sold in various languages. Of an author’s creativity being noticed and appreciated. There are also focused events where the latest and burning issues that are raking up publishing winds are discussed.

The debating and pondering starts at  the International Rights Directors Meeting with the guest country’s publishers and agents presenting specific reflections of the present trends and market demands within the publishing circuit. Offsetting this is the overview of the larger trends and burning issues like the book being reinvented with e-books and now, enhanced e-books. Enchanced e-books use the functionality of video, audio, maps, photos, interviews embedded in them and not just flat two dimensional illustrations. Parallel to this is the huge influx of apps being sold. Apps are being used for marketing authors using their Twitter streams, Facebook, websites which fans can download. There are too many variables in the market place for e-books and with the massive sales and downloading of apps, they can easily be considered as add-on or complementary elements to a book. The questions of investment costs for enhanced e-books and apps were creating the buzz since even the risk-takers in this field are still figuring out the best math for it. In the Western world, the price of an e-book matches the price of the mass market book. It does ensure that it brings more and more readers to the market. For instance, The Bro Code, based on the popular sit com “How I Met Your Mother” has sold over 600,000 copies — the fourth book in the series is being done now and licensed apps used for this book have been sold in nine countries.  Digital distribution and marketing is the new buzzword of the game. However, we are yet to catch up with such trends in the Indian publishing industry in terms of scale of operations, although e-books are making their presence felt on the rights’ negotiating table.

Hectic pace

This set the rhythm and pace for the next four days of back-to-back meetings and it felt like hop-scotch being played between the halls. If you thought you were the only one standing at a café waiting for your meeting and landed up asking a couple of people, “Are you David?”, you aren’t. There are lots of us like this and then you can all laugh together as there are multiple cases of mistaken identity. Heads bent over catalogues, notes being scribbled quickly, intent dialogues, intermittent smiles, lots of coffee and wine and you end up congregating at one of the many parties being held at popular hotels every evening. While exiting from Hall 8 on the third day, I overheard two publishers — “You should have dropped in at our stand — our white wine was better than what you were serving.” Pat came the reply, “Well, our snacks were better than yours!”

Discussing trends

There are the hot spots where book discussions, meet the author, meet the experts and events such as Story Drive  (this year) take place under Frankfurt Sparks. How will stories be told in the future? Where content meets technology meets user, where mobile content solutions, story selling, the perfect pitch are as much a part of ebbing and flowing sound waves as much as are hot sales of books by authors in demand are. Publisher’s Perspective and Bookseller Daily are what you fish out first thing in the morning at the fair to read about the top deals, multi not just in monetary terms but also across languages, made by leading agents and publishing houses — it generates further energy levels.  From India this year, the Indian Literature Abroad (ILA) initiative was very well received at Frankfurt. “The book fair always provides a unique opportunity to reach out across languages and continents. ILA’s mandate is to translate and promote literature from the 24 national languages into the six UNESCO languages (and others) and we got to successfully register our presence with French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Russian publishers, besides interacting with English and German publishers. India has a plural and linguistically diverse literary heritage and it is vital to project this internationally as the true and accurate face of Indian writing. Quality literary translations are naturally the key to this”, said Namita Gokhale who heads the project.

A walk through the halls (in case you manage to steal a half an hour every day), to see how publishers from all over the world publish their books is time well spent. That is why the book fair matters — talking to people, finding out what they are looking for, what is really ticking, what makes them smile or cry — you can’t do that on email!

http://www.verveonline.com/97/life/scapes_raseel.

The Indophile collection by Raseel Gujral and Naveen Ansal brims over with eclectic energy, a burst of joyous, vibrant colours nuanced with textures that come forth with a message – that this furniture line and accessories need to be experienced, touched and made use of. They include patterns and graphics that subliminally spell out a kaleidoscopic garden of paradise, with birds and blooms embracing and jostling with colour and lyrical imagery.

Choosing to call it Indophile, Raseel explains, “It’s deeply India-inspired and basically conveys a sense of being in love with the country. There is a variety of inlay. The form of the table comes from a ring – the big thumb ring. The screens are all taken from old doors and windows. The embroidery is all Mughal bootas. The birds – the parrots and bulbuls – are from our miniatures so even if it’s not traditional Indian in a purist manner, it does have its roots in India.”

As my eyes run over the riot of raspberry pink, lime green, sunshine yellow, ultra-marine cushions sitting plump on sofas accented by straight-lined tables with the traditional jaali work attached to their legs, there is a sense that design here has been given a playful spin. Naveen, speaking like a proud partner says, “Fortunately for us, Raseel has a free flow of design coming out of her all the time. I have complete faith in her ability to do what she does on her own. I am part of the process just as a sounding board. Both of us love colour; we love doing something which is different but I think this is all hers – she keeps changing. I remember this from the time we lived together in Garden Estate – those days there was really no colour in Indian interiors and she was doing so much of it that people used to say, ‘Isn’t it too wild?’”

Raseel picks up the thread, “My take on Indian design and design per se is multiple. They can’t always be said at the same time, in the same breath or in the same story, so I need to tell different stories. This is the luscious diva story. I am working on a collection inspired by Naveen – I’ve used him as my model and created a very retro, of the ’70s, an Octopussy kind of line – that’s the next story. I am working on an India Palace collection – which is another story.”

Everything except for the pillars (whose flowers are of Japanese origin and are linked with the butterflies) harks back to our traditional past. Raseel says, “I have no professional training. I have been working in design since I was 21 years old.” Naveen adds in the same vein, “She was working with her father and Mohit (Gujral) when I met her. Likewise, I have no training in design or even business; I am actually a land owner and have picked up the threads on the job.”

Interestingly, Raseel, who has been a painter, got married when she was 18. “I was very keen on architecture and my father said it’s better to work straight at the studio and learn,” she states. “I started from scratch and was made to learn the basics right from drafting, air conditioning and electricals. I didn’t go to any professional institute, but my institute was a lot more gruelling. I worked there till 1994 when Naveen and I met and we set up our company.”

Casa Paradox was a platform for their design ambitions. But there has been an evolution, for as Raseel says, “Everything changes, yet remains the same. When we started Casa Paradox, I was already practising as an interior designer. I was producing furniture for my projects with other furniture manufacturers. When the two of us met, I told Naveen that we can set up a business in the same field as this was what I knew well.” Naveen adds, “I wanted to come to Delhi. We went around to all the kaarigars together when she thought that making furniture through other people was tedious.”

Raseel has been hands on with inlay for the last 15 years, giving the jaali work a modern take. She points out, “I have workers from Agra with me and I cannot really pinpoint where I’ve been experimental and where I’ve not. It’s not just working with craftsmen but working with a craft.”

The new collection which is ‘Naveen inspired’ will have, Raseel says, “a lot of forest, hunter green, navy blue, acid green, Indian yellow in a spectrum of neutrals but with a lot of punch and a far more fashion relevant accessorisation with different kinds of leather, metals. I need to work on this with Naveen since it has to be male-sensitive.” Naveen goes back into the past, “Any collection we’d do together, she’d take all her files when we were travelling so that we could dwell on what needs to be done.”

On their “fun at work” Raseel says, “We love what we do though it’s a big challenge and can get stressful to produce the quality we want. I don’t compare myself with the Italians – I think we are better than them but to get work done measuring up to our standards and get it done on time is a challenge.”

Naveen adds, “What we do is contemporary furniture but it is in a language that has continuity. It’s not something that’s been taken from here and placed there. It’s an expression of our experiences, a genuine look and what Raseel does the best is that our contemporary forms have a little bit of old-fashioned charm peeping in by way of more shine or more inlay work; or the forms are tweaked a bit to give it that special look – a leg may be shaved off a little more to give it a curve, to give it a more interesting silhouette. We develop our own polishes.”

In a philosophic vein, he continues, “I feel our strength is that we both don’t think we’ve reached anywhere, we are moving along. Internationally Europe, which is the furniture capital, is not moving anywhere – we should be presenting ourselves there with our strengths. We need to create our own identity. Indian design is very ready provided it can deliver the quality and stick to timelines. And, ultimately, internationally, we have to be true to our Indianness.”