Chennai: When Jayanthi Sankar, realised that a critic emerged in her, she decided to challenge herself. ‘It’s easier to criticise, have you ever tried any?’ she asked herself. Within the next few days, Jayanthi tried crafting a short story only to discover the creator, and there was no turning back for this freelancer-turned-author, hailing from Madurai and has published Dangling Gandhi, a collection of short stories.
For about two decades, she has been into jobs like transcripting, translating, proofreading, editing and subtitling.
“More than anything else, the library branches of National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore captivated me the most. Thus, in my twenties, I started reading more voraciously than before, and that changed my life. My passionate reading has made the writer out of me,” Jayanthi tells News Today.
In her book, she has explored diverse themes about people, issues and culture of Singapore. “Diversity is synonymous with Singapore, and when I write about the city, I effortlessly reflect only that. It is quite natural,” the writer, who has also worked as a full-time journalist, narrates.
Interestingly, the book does not fall into the conventional storytelling format. “The stories artistically break the traditional rules of storytelling to bring about freshness, so Singaporean, Indian, and Asian. About 10 out of the 12 short stories range right from the 1905 colonial period in Singapore, the period of the independence struggle in India to the contemporary modern themes such as ‘My mother is a feminist’ are truly SingLit, aptly published when we celebrate Singapore Bicentennial,” Jayanthi, who lives in Singapore, states.
Elaborating on breaking the norms, she says that as a reader, she joyfully catches up which brings about the 
transformation in the writer. “As I evolve as a fiction reader, I learn about many interesting ways to tell stories. Most of them appeal to me, but my mind always wishes to break the rules to come up with entirely new ways of storytelling, evident in Dangling Gandhi.”
Learning the fundamentals over the years and breaking them to create is an art that brings with it an incomparable joy for Jayanthi. She believes that fiction is constantly evolving like any other.
Asked about the title, Jayanthi immediately says, “The title story Dangling Gandhi is only a subtle metaphor. Although my favourite story of the collection is another, I decided on the title for the book as it suits all kinds of uncertainties and doubts of our times, the world over, on Gandhism as well as the non-violence he upheld, becoming more and more debatable in this modern world. However, the story hardly touches on these, interestingly.”
Jayanthi goes on to speak how her writing process is like. “Sometimes I create characters to sail through an issue in a backdrop. I write and rewrite in mind so many times that the theme mostly chooses its form, tools, tone and the narrative style, and it churns up to the surface, and that’s when I start writing. I live much in the fictional world, living the lives of my characters. In and out of the real world can both be a pleasure and a pain,” she adds with a smile.
