When a well-known London magazine carried his first article, English essayist J B Priestly was beside himself with joy. As he was riding on a tram, he saw a lady reading the very copy of the magazine. "Little did she know that one of its group of brilliant contributors was not two yards away," he told himself.
When my first ‘middle,’ the column so-called by virtue of it being in the middle of the edit page, appeared in a (then) Bombay newspaper, thirty summers ago, I too experienced extreme joy just like Priestly. As I was travelling to my workplace by the suburban local, I assumed all those who were reading the newspaper that carried my piece were reading nothing but my ‘Middle’!
A few of them, I took it, were throwing glances at me occasionally while reading it! "Since none of them knew me, even if they were reading my article how would they know that I authored it," asked myself.
Those were pre-e-mail days. Its absence handicapped the contributors a good deal in that they had to post their manuscripts to the newspaper offices. Luckily, the offices of two well-circulated newspapers were located not far from my workplace—one a stone’s throw away; the other hardly a kilometre off. In both offices, there were boxes for the ‘middle’ in which I dropped my contributions. Once the article was sent, I eagerly awaited the arrival of the newspaper every morning.
In the halcyon days of middle writers, if a newspaper accepted an article the remittance of remuneration preceded the appearance of the article. Writers had many green pastures then which alas have now shrunk.
Whenever my middle appeared, I bought several copies of the newspaper for sending to such acquaintances and relatives of mine who got different dailies. After all, there is no art without audience!
Contrast me, a mere mortal, to Franz Kafka, a great in European literature. His literary output is not numerically great— three novels, a few short stories and letters. He wrote them only for the pleasure of writing. He asked Max Brod, his friend to burn whatever he had penned following his death as if he wanted to be consigned to oblivion! Ignoring his friend, Brod didn’t commit the ‘incendiary act’. Had he, the world of literature would have been much poorer! Kudos to Max Brod!