Some time ago, which feels like a long time, ago, a cherished friendship ended. The usual story, a momentary miscommunication inflicted a hurt so quick and deep that months of attempts to mend failed to heal it, till it reached a point where my attempts to reconcile became hurtful and eventually, I had to let go. The friendship shrivelled and now lives in the purgatory of ‘how are yous’ and ‘happy birthdays’.
A different time ago, my debut manuscript was doing rounds with publishers. Brand new in London, I had poured all my energies into this labour of love, a story about a middle-class Indian neighbourhood set in the nineties. My growing up days, basically. What started as art imitating life turned into life imitating art, because to talk about this manuscript finding its true home is to talk about all those times when it didn’t. For some of us, to talk about being finally accepted is to talk about all the times we are rejected.
Ever wondered when detectives are solving a case, searching for a clue, why is it that every time they find it, it is in the last place they looked? Because once they find it, they don’t have to look any more. Like finding a friend. You know you’ve met the right person when you don’t feel the need to look any further. This friend was like that. Our values aligned on the big things, like being kind, giving up your privilege to make space for others and of course, food. When she came over, I didn’t worry about tidying up the house. I did worry about the smell of onions and jeera in my kitchen, years of conditioning have made me self-conscious, but she walked right up to the cooker, opened the lid and asked to taste the deliciousness. Back then, I told very few people about my writing work. This friend showed genuine interest, asked about my projects, gave me ideas. The writer in me wasn’t used to being seen with curiosity and compassion. It came out gingerly, inhaling this love like oxygen. We were home.
I completed the aforementioned manuscript around mid-2019. A slice-of-life story replete with joint families and nosy neighbours, quantum physics and chai, laughter and loss, love and lies. A story where nothing really happens, yet whole lives are shaped. A story like mine.
I started the querying processing tentatively, approaching all of two agents. After three months that felt like thirty, one of them picked it up. They loved my book, not a single edit needed. They were a veteran in the field, representing authors I loved and admired. We signed a contract, they started sending it out to the big five and more and I sat back, relaxed. Within months of completing a draft, I had arrived on the publishing scene!
What followed was COVID and a bunch of warm, fuzzy rejections. My characters were charming, writing was witty, a heartwarming tale, just what readers need in the pandemic, but no thank you. Another round of submissions, another round of ‘lovely, but not for me’ responses. Apparently, there was not enough of a hook in my book. They wouldn’t say what it was that didn’t work for them and I couldn’t make sense of what they meant, but one thing was clear. I was far, far from having arrived anywhere.
Every rejection was a mini death. Of hope, of my delicately stacked confidence. Doubts started to creep in about whether my novel was actually as great as I thought it was. Was there really not enough happening? If only they would tell me. I could weave in a more complex plot, a sex scene, a death, if nothing else then some good old post-colonial partition trauma. Was my story boring, like me? Was it simply not good enough?
I tried several times to explain my position to my friend. I had not meant to be disrespectful, she had been misinformed, my intentions were only ever good, surely she knew that? But not only did she not believe me, she was not interested in hearing my version of what had happened. The portal of friendship had closed as magically as it had opened. When repeated attempts to clarify, reconcile or simply move on were met with polite silence, I started doubting myself. Had I indeed been in the wrong? Was the onion smell too much? Was I too much? Or was I not good enough? If only she would tell me. Perhaps if I dressed a bit sharper, lost a dozen pounds, she would speak with me? Maybe if I got a dog?!
With my friend gone, I was homeless. Lost. I retreated into my shell. It’ wasn’t that I did not have other friends. There were people in my life who wanted to have coffee with me, go for a walk. They felt like a downgrade. I wanted that that did not want me.
There is a special kind of joy in living in a hole, scratching your wounds, licking the juice of loneliness and victimhood. But after a while, this too gets boring.
I stopped refreshing my inbox for updates from editors. Instead, I enrolled in workshops, joined book clubs and writing communities, volunteered with refugee families, showed them how to use the Tube, tried to make them feel at home while I suspect, in reality I was trying to learn from them how to plant roots in a foreign land that is less than welcoming. I taught their children to converse in English, took the little ones to parks, and they taught me how to play in a place that doesn’t speak the same language as you. I ranted to the therapist, I struggled with my feelings, so I conducted journalling workshops with single mothers. Who was helping whom?
I wrote new pieces, essays and stories that got published in journals. With some of the new people I met, I realised I did not have to rehearse my responses in my head before speaking. I could just be. They seemed to enjoy my weird opinions, and I theirs. I could turn up with my hair oiled, they didn’t mind. They didn’t care for the made-up, edited version that I presented to the world, they saw the authentic, imperfect, bright and messy me. In branching out, my roots were finding softer ground.
It’s hard to say which was more difficult, waiting for updates or the persistent bad news they brought when they did come. Four years of anticipation and thirty eight rejections later, I took my baby back from the agent. It was like stepping off a cliff, the mind-numbing trepidation of going back to being an unrepresented author came with the blinding clarity that was no other way of out of this hell of perpetual waiting. I took my book in my own hands and started submitting to opportunities tailored for writers like me, to publishers who took it upon themselves to work with writers of colour, an unwanted minority in the publishing world. I embarked on this road with zero hope, only knowing that not doing anything was not an option. As long as I could find even one publisher open to submissions on the internet, I would send them my work. I would take my chances, against all odds, against all despair. I owed this to myself and my work.
Imagine my disbelief when one such publishing house selected it! A collaborative, kind and professional team of editors who were committed to reading stories that don’t usually get told had created a platform for them. They loved my submission, they saw the multitudes of stories steaming beneath the beguiling calm.
A story becomes a book when it fits in with the editor’s vision of what they want to bring out into the world. Like when two people are curious about each other, a simple conversation can create a connection that is magically bigger than both of them.
I sometimes see my old friend hang out with others and it takes a day, sometimes two, to get over the sadness, FOMO and shame. I have to remind myself that it takes two to make a bond. When life takes away a friend, it is a signal to find new ones, the ones who are able to be curious, who will make space for you, see you for who you are. When editors send rejections, when they say a piece is not for them, what it means is that their editorial vision, quite literally, cannot see it. As stinging as it might be in the moment, it is a nudge to find a different home, one that is willing to create space for it, where it will be accepted, no line edits needed, just the way you are. And that perhaps all we can do in life is to go forth as the best version of ourselves, knowing that there is a home somewhere and we will find it as long as we keep looking, keep submitting.
What a stunning essay, Nidhi! Read it from end to end with an invested heart. The journey of your book and friendship are interwoven so seamlessly✨ Paused at so many moments to marvel at the profoundness of your words and ideas💛
Oh Nidhi . How you talk about rejection and acceptance in the same breath and at so many levels . Defining life as we know it . There is so much resonance even if our experiences are different . Your soft voice is one of the boldest and I want to keep listening .