Over the years, Karuna Ezara Parikh has worn many hats. Journalist, TV presenter, author, poet, entrepreneur. And now, podcaster. But the one constant in this journey has been books.
My Kolkata caught up with Parikh to discuss her journey, and how she is trying to empower readers through her company, Books Need People.
While Karuna grew up in Delhi, she always had a certain fondness for the City of Joy. “My parents met here. I vividly remember visiting my grandparents at their Bhowanipore home. That small apartment was my world in Kolkata. It was a simple life.”
Although she didn’t have a literary background, books were an indelible part of growing up in the Parikh household. Karuna remembers both her parents being voracious readers, who inculcated a certain respect for writers and journalists within her. “I loved to write and always wanted to become an author, but never thought it was possible. Everyone told me that you can’t just write books for a career. When it was time to choose a course for my higher studies, I picked journalism. I thought that it was the only way one could make some money by writing,” she chuckles. Eventually, Karuna went to Cardiff University to study journalism. Upon returning, she realised that this wasn’t a lucrative career choice either. “By then, I knew that you do this out of pure love.”
Karuna started her career as a staff writer at a popular magazine, which is now defunct. The same group went on to create India’s first green living magazine, and she was assigned to work on the team as an assistant editor. Within a few years, she got a call from one of the biggest media houses in the country to host a travel show. “I'd never considered broadcast, but decided to take it up. The rest is quite crazy.”
The pivot changed her life. She went from writing and editing copies to travelling to the most exotic parts of the world. “I remember talking to a boy in Fiji, who couldn't have been a day older than 22, and he had a wife and a child. He outwardly seemed like the happiest person ever, but I’ll never forget the sorrow on his face and the anxiety he held in his shoulders of having to provide for a child at that age. Each of those conversations made me who I am today, and I hold them all in my heart,” she said.
But it wasn’t just a simple vacation. The job came with the underlying weight of being in the public eye, and Karuna adds that it took something away from her. Amongst the things she lost, privacy was the most pivotal one. “People could say whatever they wanted about me and I had no control over it. I was highly sexualised by fans and the media, which made me uncomfortable.” Her perception as a VJ was extremely unsettling, since Karuna’s aim had always been to do serious journalism. “It broke my heart.”
However, she maintains that the positives outweigh the negatives. “I was not the most confident person, but it helped me gain a sense of outward confidence and allowed me to project it. I met people from all walks of life, and learnt how to understand their personalities, anxieties and joys.” Her years in broadcast led her to believe that she would never write the book. But in 2018, moving to a new city changed things.
“I’d always felt a connection with people from Kolkata, and one of them turned out to be my future husband. I never thought I’d end up living in this city, but fell in love with it the second I moved here,” she said.
Kolkata’s sense of nostalgia, art, and intellectual culture particularly spoke to her. Simultaneously, Karuna found the slower pace of the city favourable. “I think it’s a city for dreamers and lovers. I relished every bit.” The hard part was making friends, and Karuna experienced a lot of resistance while trying to find her place into cemented social groups. Her experiences demystified the myth about Kolkata being a ‘small city’. “People don’t like to talk about the divide between the rich and the poor, which is huge here. This isn’t a small city, but people think so because they only hangout with the same 200 families from their income level. Kolkata doesn’t start at Alipore and end at Park Street.”
While the isolation was hard, it pushed Karuna back into the world of writing. She confesses that because she didn’t know anyone in the city, she had hours of emptiness, which she filled with writing. “Seven years ago, the city didn’t have a cafe culture like today. The city really inspired me, and I would sit in my apartment and write all day,” she said.
Karuna’s years on television proved to be transformative, providing her empathy for people across classes and demographics, while also acquainting her with the woes of being a public figure
Karuna’s first novel, The Heart Asks Pleasure First, was published in September 2020. Though she was nervous about the reception during the pandemic, the response was overwhelming. A year later, her second book – a collection of poetry titled Where Stories Gather – was released. While Karuna is thankful, she adds that a lot of it hinges on luck. “Before being published, my book was rejected by seven publishing houses. You can’t take it personally, because there will always be people who won’t like your art.”
However, nothing beats the joy of being published, and Karuna’s eyes light up as she talks about the sacrifice involved in writing. According to her, one has to completely give themselves to it, which often comes in the way of earning a livelihood. And yet, people continue to do it because of how fulfilling it is. “You make no money, but your heart is full.”
Her next book, Waterbaby, has already been acquired by Pan Macmillan India and chronicles experiences from her days on television. The book will document her journey towards finding comfort and confidence in her skin despite the cameras reeking of male gaze.
Apart from writing, Kolkata also pushed Karuna to do her bit for reading habits. When she arrived in the city, she was a bit underwhelmed by the quality of bookstores here. Most of them were more focussed on positioning themselves as cafes or gift shops, and the staff were also not trained in giving recommendations. She started her company, Books Need People, with the desire to open a bookshop in the city that would bridge these gaps and cater specifically to readers. “I soon realised that the dream was ambitious and I did not have the required capital. Thank god Bahrisons opened a branch here and took off the pressure,” she laughs.
Instead of the sprawling legacy bookstores, Karuna swears by the trinkets that often get lost in a crowd. “I got a beautiful 1950s leather-bound copy of Leaves of Grass from College Street. Similarly, I have picked up so many Penguin classics from the 1940s at Gariahat. I was enchanted by the library at The Saturday Club, which was once selling books at Rs 20, and I walked out with a 1930’s copy of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. That’s the magic of Kolkata,” she said.
All this while, Karuna continued to receive frequent DMs by random people, asking for book recommendations. She realised that the best way to help readers would be to create a community. “I’ve had a small book club with four of my girlfriends for 10 years, and our interactions have been some of the richest I’ve had in my life. The space always has criticism without cruelty, and is brimming with new ideas. I decided to replicate this with a larger group of people, and started Karuna's Kitaab Club.”
The format is simple. A book is chosen on the first of each month, and people gather for a virtual discussion with Karuna and the author on the last weekend of the month. The online discussions have allowed people to join in not just from across India, but all over the world. “We’ve had some incredible authors like Sheena Patel, who had just won the British Book Award on the week of the discussion. I’m so glad she didn’t cancel! This month we had Laline Paull, who was shortlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction. While we are currently looking at South Asian and diaspora women authors, we do aim to expand this list going forward,” Karuna says, adding that the central goal is to connect authors with their readers.
Started in May, Karuna's Kitaab Club already has over 2,700 followers on Instagram. “My favourite takeaway is that contrary to popular opinion, people are still reading. We see people with no connection, living in different countries, who have never met and probably never will, coming together to discuss one piece of art. Their sincerity and honesty warms my heart.” Karuna chuckles as she recounts how the club has even spawned a Discord server for literary memes!
She is far from done though. Each book club meeting has been recorded with a studio setup, and Karuna just launched The Books Need People Podcast, centred around her conversations with each author. The first two episodes are out on Spotify.
The logo of Karuna’s Kitaab Club
Apart from the online segment, she also wants to add an offline dimension to the club.
Kitaab Club had its first offline meeting in July, which coincided with the Kolkata launch of Aanchal Malhotra’s novel, The Book of Everlasting Things. Karuna intends to do more in the future, although her primary objective is to make them accessible to everyone. “I want Kitaab Club meetings to feel hosted, and readers shouldn’t have to pay for food or drinks just to discuss a book.” The geographical distribution of members is another challenge, one that she hopes to overcome by doing city-based chapters. She also hosted her first writer’s retreat for 16 participants on the beaches of south Goa, in collaboration with Kyo Spaces. To cap it all off, a Books Need People website is in the pipeline too.
For Karuna, it isn’t about doing many things at once, but doing them right. “There is so much mediocrity and anyone who can afford to do it is putting out whatever they want without holding themselves to any standards. If you are doing something, give it your all. This can be your worst enemy while writing a book, making it difficult to not only finish work, but also start it at times.” She emphasises on the need for peer reviews to counter this, adding that social media has finally brought a channel for criticism. “Unfortunately for artists, feedback can either be really cruel, or involve kissing a**. One extreme or another.”
When asked if multitasking gets overwhelming, she quips, “I live under a constant level of stress, but I also enjoy it. I need to hand in the draft of my next book to my editor too!”
