Madhuri writes about the process of creating audio books for two memoirs: Mistakes on the Path and Reluctantly to Kunzum La
In early 2019 I received an extraordinary email from a man I had not remembered: Dutch Srajano was offering me the chance to record my forthcoming book, Mistakes on the Path, about my time with Osho, on audio. He had a friend in Groningen, where he was house-sitting, who had a sound studio.
In February I moved into my new Council flat, a huge relief after three fraught years of box-room surfing, and in March I flew, with two copies of the manuscript, to Amsterdam, where Sraj met me, and we took a train to Groningen.
What a nice man this was! Tall and kindly and funny and bright, in a faded orange t-shirt; just back from an ordeal in Sri Lanka, where he’d been living for some years; and at a loose end. The villa where he took me was huge, cluttered, equipped with a sauna, and had a very quiet room at the back, where we ended up doing the recording ourselves when the sound-studio friend backed out. Sraj was nervous about this, to say the least – he had aspirations as a video-maker, after joyous experiences in Poona, but had never done a sound recording. Nevertheless, we waded in.
I just love reading aloud! My mother read to her kids each evening, doing all the voices, enjoying herself immensely. And I’m the same – I love open mics, reading almost anything to anyone, really… so I wasn’t the least bit nervous… but then I didn’t have to do the tech!
We took a month to do the job, and it was a pleasure all the way through – though of course there were glitches with the equipment. But Sraj got these sorted, much to his own relief, and we carried on. When we weren’t in the little room doing that, we were walking, wandering, food shopping, cooking, eating, talking – and enjoying the sauna at night, having intimate conversations whilst we lay parallel on different shelves. We were platonically in love, and it was all good. I loved his beautiful deep voice as he shared with me things about his life.
I suggested he might like Corfu – he didn’t want to stay in Holland, and didn’t know where to go – and he moved there immediately I’d flown back to England. He worked for many months on trying to clean up the recording, getting extraneous noises out, etc. Each chapter had its own recording, and he could not figure out how to sew them together; eventually he gave up, and sent me the mass of separate recordings, on a thumb drive. All this took a couple of years. Meanwhile Mistakes came out in book form, and proved to be very popular, and occasionally someone who was sight-challenged would ask about an audio version… but I didn’t know what to do for the next step, or whom to ask.
In spring of 2022 I flew to Corfu with the manuscript of Reluctantly to Kunzum La: Motorbiking in the Himalayas in the Name of Love, and we spent three weeks recording an audio version. We worked in his big, cave-like flat, and again the equipment was a constant hassle, but we managed… I gave him a series of colour light therapy sessions in exchange. Again, he for ages tried to make sense of the recordings afterwards and sort them towards launching, but again was defeated by lack of knowledge and the right software.
So now I had two audio books sitting around un-launched. I put them on the back burner while other projects took over my attention.
In June 2023 I put out on FB that I needed a local techie who could help with interfacing with print-on-demand platforms, for my books. Someone recommended a guy we’ll call CF. This skinny narrow-headed fellow looked so quintessentially geeky in his glasses and purple t-shirt that we (by this time I’d acquired a sponsor) were sure he must be good at his job. At least, he told us he was! And he said he could get the audio books ready for launching. What did I know? …I believed him.
Long story short, two years later my photographer steered me to a real sound engineer, who was aghast at the job the previous (now fired) techie hadn’t done. The sponsor and I were £3100 lighter in the pocket, with no result, from CF’s depredations (which had not been limited to audio-work incompetence. He made my website look wonky and jagged, and I had to get that done over too. I haven’t calculated that cost. Too depressing.)
The new techie, a considerate, calm, good-hearted, mild-mannered fellow, made the books sound wonderful, and the chapters were knit together, and we recorded a few snippets to begin and end with, and then he researched platforms, and eventually we launched…
It took me a year to pay him off, though he was much cheaper than CF (the sponsor had run out of funds.) The new techie was very patient about it. I was particularly gratified when he praised the quality of the recordings enormously! I think he’d been worried that he might have to deal with rubbish, and he was delighted at everything instead: the voice, the honesty in it (“When you laugh, it’s real”), the job Sraj had done. He even said I should consider a career narrating audio books!
Osho had told me to write Mistakes on the Path in about 1978; it took me 42 years to write it, and another 7 years for the audio to be released. Reluctantly to Kunzum La was first written as a diary, while I was up in the mountains, in 1993 – so getting it into audio form took 33 years. I don’t suppose this is strange; just life doing its convoluted, variety-stuffed thing.
I think audio books are great – and I know many people prefer them to reading; or enjoy both. I’m so happy I now have two out there. I’ve got another one up my sleeve… if the planets line up right. Who knows? Books don’t make money – audio books least of all – so they don’t pay for themselves. It takes luck… and determination. I’ve got the latter; the former is up to the gods and goddesses.
The new book is short stories; I’d love to read them aloud.
Mistakes on the Path
by Madhuri Z K Ewing
640 pages
richly illustrated with b/w photos
MJ Press
madhurijewel.com/mistakes
Available from www.lulu.com
Now also available as audiobooks
Apple: apple.com
Spotify: spotify.com
Kobo/Walmart: kobo.com
Reluctantly to Kunzum La
Motorbiking in the Himalayas in the Name of Love
by Madhuri Z K Akin
Paperback and colour hardback
Independently published, 3 July 2024, 347 pages
ISBN: 9781446110393
Links to buy: madhurijewel.com/KunzumLa
Now also available as audiobooks
Amazon: amazon.com
Apple Books: apple.com
Kobo: kobo.com
Storytel: storytel.com
Related articles
- Mistakes on the Path – Svarup’s review of Madhuri’s memoir. “Put some time aside to read this book; it is a precious companion for entertainment, and growth.” (June 2019)
- Reluctantly to Kunzum La – Surahbhi reviews Madhuri’s latest book, subtitled Motorbiking in the Himalayas in the Name of Love (July 2024)
Comments are closed.