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“It is set in Varkala, my hometown, and the house I grew up in. When I sit down and write, I like to sprinkle the story with humour. I changed the names and the fate. Even now, though his heart desires to revisit his school days, he wants to do it unnoticed, preferably on a holiday. All this happened on a Friday and things were set by Monday,” says Anees, who doesn’t like the idea of attending launches or award-ceremonies. In a place like Kerala, you don’t see poverty. “I don’t want something controversial to sell the book. According to him, going home for lunch was his way of staying away from school. I used to go there only when we had a guest,” he adds.

One aspect that makes Anees’ narrative interesting is this element of humour in the face of tragedy. One can see it throughout The Blind Lady’s Descendants, which is a suicidal note of 26-year-old Amar. She lost her sight when I was 12 or 13 and regained it 20 years later. The home library, where he got introduced to classics, became his world. The image stuck with me.Living in that ambience inspired him to bring the railway tracks and sea in The Blind Lady’s Descendants. I could see poverty and meet people. When they got rejected, I started novels thinking short stories were not my cup of tea. The whole day she sees people coming and going, and I decided to write about it.

The characters are somewhat similar to the people I have grown up with,” says Anees, who, as a child, moved to Varkala, perhaps the only place where the sea has a cliff.After school, though he tried to study at a college, the place was too crowded for him. At our ancestral home, I used to stand at the gate watching trains disappearing in the corner. Then came Tales from a Vending Machine, which he wanted to be a commercial success. “We lived very close to the railway tracks,” he says. All the while I lived in Varkala, I never frequented the beach. “I began with short stories. Going there for books and coming back was like an excursion for me. I went to Hyderabad and there, I started working on The Vicks Mango Tree, set in Mangobaag,” he adds. “Being in school for eight hours at a stretch was unimaginative for me!” says Anees.

All the while, he was writing. When I go to aplace, I might visit one spot — it could be a path I fell in love with — for 10 days, and I come back with one good sentence,” concludes the author, who is currently working on a book set against the backdrop of Hyderabad. “It was a small town. Also, like in the book, I have three siblings.The Blind Lady’s Descendants is autobiographical in parts. For instance, The Blind Lady&automatic filling machines Manufacturers39;s Descendants gives a detailed account of circumcision prevalent in the community. I could starve. Also, certain things like the tunnel, a prominent element in the book, have been integrated into the landscape. 304, Rs 399. I don’t like to make a story more sentimental than it really is,” adds Salim, whose Tales from a Vending Machine showed how he packaged hilarity in a young woman’s airport lounge experience. In fact, he never loved Varkala during his stay there. His other works are Tales from a Vending Machine, The Vicks Mango Tree, Vanity Bagh and The Small Town Sea.

I saw a girl sitting behind a tea vending machine, something you would see only here. “I googled and found a new agent, and sent him a mail in Hasina’s name. Her character — the way she moved, talked and all — inspired me. But, he kept writing. “The British Council Library helped me discover beautiful English writers. But if I feel that something needs to be written, I write it,” he says.Giving more insights into his inspiration, he says, “My grandmother was blind.Sahitya Akademi Award winner Anees Salim talks about his tales, inspired from his unimaginative childhood, the paths he traversed & the people he met. In less than five minutes, he asked for the first 30 pages. Within an hour, he asked for the whole book and then the contact number. Interestingly, Anees’ books let readers know more about the Muslim community. Then, I revealed my identity. It was not the era of television and he had no friends. “I don’t know how this happens,” says Anees, who has five books to his credit.Anees feels that the journeys helped him write without inhibitions. The book was completed in six months,” says the writer who by that time, had sent his earlier works to almost all literary agents and publishing houses.

People were actually confused by my behaviour, especially my parents,” adds the writer. Anees Salim When I was young — probably six or seven, not older than eight anyway — our mother would drive tiny nails into the front door to ward off bad luck. His reading expanded as he began frequenting the British Council Library (now closed) in Thiruvananthapuram. “I am a different kind of traveller. As he feared they might reject this book seeing his name, he assumed the name Hasina Mansoor, the lead character of the book. He cites this newfound love for Varkala as the reason for placing his two books — The Blind Lady’s Descendants and The Small Town Sea there. But, he started liking Varkala when he returned home after travelling to various places in India. Bad luck, then, must have come in through the back door, for, by the time I considered myself grown up — thirteen or fourteen, at most, sixteen — I had started to regard it as a family member — our parents’ fourth child, someone older than me and younger than Sophiya — who would walk away with most of our small fortune much before I turned my present age — twenty-six.In between, he fell ill, returned to his homeland and later joined the advertising industry.

I remember her wearing a scarf. His books have won awards.” In the small town, # Anees lived as an unhappy child though he says he doesn’t know the reason. Begins writer Anees Salim’s The Blind Lady’s Descendants, which won the Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award in 2018. “The idea of Tales from a Vending Machine struck me while I was sitting at Cochin Airport. “When I was really alone and struggling, what helped me was this sense of humour. In that way, the book is autobiographical in patches.the blind lady’s descendants by anees salim Penguin Books Pp.Anees was a different child. “I wanted to escape as I felt it as an unimaginative place. That is there in the book, which is written within the transition of metre gauge and broad gauge lanes, which was a big change in those days,” he says.

That made me more courageous,” he says.All this time, his writing had been on the go. He was not very fond of school. His only solace was reading the books in their home library.Ask him how his travels within India and abroad have changed his perspectives and contributed to his writing, he says, “I think they hardened me, made me mature. New books hit the market and publishers who once rejected him came asking for more. “I stayed there for hardly six months,” Anees recalls. His family lived in a somewhat big house and he was lonely all the time. Then, his world became the railway tracks and the dirt road to his home, elements one can find in The Blind Lady’s Descendants