An Interview with Sumedha in India | Reading Around the Globe

Thank you for taking the time to participate in the Reading Around the Globe interview series! What is your name? Sumedha!

Where can we find you on the internet?

The Wordy Habitat Blog Twitter Instagram

Where do you live?  Bangalore, India

Do you find that there is a culture of reading where you live? If not, tell us a bit how you came to be one!

If you had asked me when I was in high school, I would’ve said no. I found only ONE friend who read in 9th grade, and converted two people to readers in 11th grade because I was lonely. It’s up to me to push the reading agenda, you know? But after I joined college and then, recently, my job, I’ve been finding more and more people who read. It gives me a slight identity crisis because most of them aren’t on the online bookish community or read 100 books a year, but they are readers. The reading culture around me is not as evident but it does exist. Because of the variety of books we’re exposed to, I barely find people with the same reading taste as me, so that is quite interesting too.

I started reading because I was a lonely child with no siblings. My mom has fond memories of reading in her school days so once a private library opened nearby, she got me a membership to help me cure boredom and not feel lonely. I haven’t turned back since!

What kinds of books do you enjoy reading?

My number 1 genre is romance. It’s my comfort genre and one that I always turn to when I’m sad or about to go into a slump. I’m also passionate about making more people realize how revolutionary the genre is haha.

I highly enjoy literary fiction and fantasy as well. They’re my next favourites. Other than those, I read pretty much everything except classics and horror. There are very few books I wouldn’t consider haha.

Have you always been a reader? 

When I was young, I read local comics like Chacha Chaudhary, Pinki, and Tinkle. Whenever my mom went to Delhi on office trips, she’d get me some of these comics. I got into novels only in 6th grade and have been a reader since.

Do you also read books published in your native language/published locally to you? If so, tell us a bit about what kinds of books are published in your country!

I have a complicated relationship with local languages like many South Indians. I studied English, Hindi, and Sanskrit but my mother tongue is actually Tamizh (anglicization: Tamil). Then there is Kannada, the state’s official language where I live, and Telugu, my native state’s official language.

Even though my mother tongue and my state’s languages are different, I learnt to read and write only English, Hindi and Sanskrit because I studied in a nationally central school. I realized the disservice done to us only later when I became very ashamed that I couldn’t read and write in Tamizh (the language that I speak at home!), Kannada or Telugu. (There is a discourse about Hindi being taught nationally when it is NOT the national language, but I won’t go into that here.)

All of that heavily affected my reading. The comics that I started with were in Hindi but I’ve been reading almost exclusively English works since I got into novels. In 9th grade, I dropped Hindi as a language in my academics and stopped reading books in Hindi completely. I didn’t pick it up later because I’m a little ashamed that I know Hindi better than Tamizh, and also because I refuse to give Hindi more importance than Tamizh or other South Indian languages. It’s a small personal rebellion, honestly.

Only recently have I made it a personal project to learn to read and write Tamizh. I’ve started with children’s books now and hopefully will read novels soon. Kannada and Telugu will have to wait for a while.

For the second part of your question, I don’t read that many locally published novels but I do try to pick them up from time to time. One reason I didn’t get into them early is because Indian novels don’t have a specific YA category. Our literature includes more literary fiction. And since I read mostly YA, I didn’t even go towards Indian works. 

Once I started going towards the adult genres and literary fiction, I started picking up locally published books. Not very often because now I’m into smutty romances and Indian romances aren’t like that (due to acceptance in society etc.) but I do pick up Indian books when I’m in bookstores.

The only books that I don’t pick up and leave for the future are books originally written in Tamizh. I really want to read them in Tamizh itself and I feel like reading them in English would be a betrayal. I don’t have such qualms about books originally published in other Indian languages, though. Just Tamizh because it is my mother tongue.

Are there libraries where you live? If so, what kinds of books can you find there? Are you able to get the books that you want?

Yes, we have a few libraries. Not enough to service every neighbourhood, but there is at least 1 every 20 sq kms. Now, the distinction here is that most of these are not public libraries. As in, we cannot borrow books for free by just having a membership card. Many private libraries are one-off libraries managed by individuals or families who just happened to collect a lot of books. One such library near me is managed by an elderly couple who turned their apartment into a library with their personal collection and rented another small apartment to live in. We need to pay monthly for these library subscriptions. There is one chain library that also asks for an (expensive) advance deposit as insurance in case we damage or don’t return books. Yes, this chain library is a company. Only companies ask for such exorbitant deposits.

Since most of the private libraries are managed by individuals with bills to pay, they generally will not buy books that we request for. What books are on the shelves, and what they buy out of their interest/priorities, are what we get. If many customers request for some book, only then will they buy it. When I used to go to the library near me, that was the time I started reading adult books. Simply because they did not have Young Adult books except the most popular mainstream ones. So it forced me to pick up books from new genres and learn to like them because I didn’t have the option to go for YA contemporaries or fantasies.

Here’s a funny story: when I was 15 and going to that library, I was once too busy to go get new books due to studies so I asked my mom to get me any book (since they were all the same to me i.e. new and adult). She got me an book with a mother and baby on the cover thinking it’ll be something about relationships with moms or something. But it turned out to be a romance with graphic explicit scenes and I was scandalized haha. I got into adult romance way too early because of that. My mom never knew because the cover was so innocent.

In the case that we do have public libraries, they don’t have any new books. Most of the books on the shelves are donated ones or old books that the library has had for 5 decades. Many of these public libraries are also used as record spaces for newspapers instead of books. So we’ll find dusty newspapers from the 1970s and old men will come and read today’s newspapers. We mostly won’t find people with books.

All of the facts that I mentioned above cultivate a harsh reading culture for youngsters. We don’t have libraries with books simply to encourage reading in kids or teens. We don’t have books on the shelves for education, information, or entertainment for young readers. It’s mostly business—what books will most people want—and convenience—showing what book they already had. Because of this, most people don’t develop a love for reading until they become adults and can read adult books or can afford to buy the books they want

How prevalent are English published books where you live in bookstores? (For example, books printed by HarperCollins.) 

Very prevalent. English is the language that is pushed on us the most. Even when bookstores have books in local languages, they take up smaller sections and English published books dominate the space.

Do you use NetGalley or Edelweiss to request electronic galleys for review? If so, what kind of success rate would you estimate for you personally?

I use NetGalley more than Edelweiss simply because Edelweiss requires a lot of work for less returns (I’ve not been accepted for even one even though I wrote a lot in the request). On NetGalley, about 80% of the books that I’m interested in are available only as “wish for it”. I’ve never been granted a wish so far. When books are available to request, I’ll get accepted for maybe 1 in 10 requests. 

Maybe these stats are affected by the fact that I’m not exclusively reviewing books on all my platforms. But I’ve also never had the incentive to exclusively review and review every ARC because even otherwise Indians don’t get accepted for many.

Do you experience hurdles or barriers to access for the kinds of books that you read? Please explain if so.

Now that I have my own money and can buy books, it’s not that bad. I also read ebooks more than paperbacks or hardbacks, so it’s better for me compared to other readers. That being said, it is hard. If we are looking at YA books that are popular in the online book community, many of those books have to be imported into India. Even when they do come to India, it’s months or years after release in Western countries. In the case that I want to read them as ebooks, they’re pretty expensive on Kindle as well because the dollar prices are directly converted to Indian rupees. So those books will be 500+ rupees whereas the regular paperback price is 300-400. 

Looking at romance which is my favourite genre right now, I don’t find ANY book like what I want. Romance books written by women and targeted at women which have explicit scenes in them are generally NOT displayed on bookshelves here. Only the most unassuming ones are kept, which don’t LOOK like romance books with explicit scenes. (like the romance book that my mom got me, LOL) Religion, acceptance in society, “morals” etc. come into the picture for these books. So I’ve learnt to be okay with just ebooks.

On the other hand, I don’t find it very hard because my reading tastes have adapted to what is available around me. Literary fiction is most available along with mysteries and speculative fiction (by mostly white authors). It is one reason that I read a lot of genres, because I have to like what I can get

If you could make one change to the publishing landscape, what would you do? 

That’s a broad spectrum. But my wants are pretty simple actually. Allow readers from other countries to read books when it’s easily possible. For example, make audiobooks and ebooks available for all books and let international reviewers have a fair chance at eARCs. That is so easy to do (barring legalities, of course). We have it hard enough with not being able to afford or get access to books near us so we should at least have access to ebooks.

Help other international bloggers out… What resources do you use to obtain the books that you want to read?

The few things I do, that others may be able to as well:

1. 1. Find second-hand bookstores where you can sell back the books for store credit. I have a store near me where they sell books for 80% of the price and then we can sell them back anytime for half of the amount we paid. I use the store credit to buy other books.
   2. Make use of free ebooks on Amazon or get a KU subscription! The selection may not be top tier or consist of popular books but there are quite a few hidden gems there.
   3. Sell any books you don’t need. I started unhauling any books I bought (selling to people around me or other readers online) so that I can buy other books. It’s the only way I kept up my reading in school/college haha.

Do you have any other experiences as a reader around the world that you would like to share?

Just one observation. Most readers in “developing” countries (as far as I’ve seen) look towards books, publishing trends, and reading trends in “developed” countries. For example, Indian readers look for Indian representation in books that are published in USA/UK. While I understand that there should be representation there, why aren’t we reading books that are published in our countries? Maybe a lot of the books aren’t good or of our tastes, but it doesn’t hurt to try. If it means we won’t be able to talk about all our books with international friends online, it’s okay. 

I won’t lie, I’m a part of the problem. I’m not vocal about the representation bit because I find it a little hypocritical to look for South Asian representation in books from Western countries, but I do read books from mostly those areas. But I’m trying to change my expectations and read more books published in India. It alienates me a little from readers online but I can’t help it. I’d like to see more homeland Indian readers to read books published here. We actually have a really good selection of literary fiction books.

The reason I say this is because most of the book lists with South Asian books contain books only about South Asian-Americans. Even homeland Indian bloggers miss to add books set in India from Indians who live here. If we’re pushing for diversity, we can at least mention one book that is set in South Asia and available to South Asian readers easily.

Please note that all experiences reflected in the interviews are personal and are not meant to generalize what reading access is like in each country. If you are interested in participating please DM me on Twitter or send me a message on Discord.