By DAMILOLA AJAYI

Now I can’t precisely remember when I conceded to Agatha’s impression of the Colloquium of New Writing.  Perhaps it was after she made the statement, or earlier, when I walked into the programme venue to find the organizers to be fellow students, or later when a facilitator began his monologue on the death of Nigerian literature, on how our gathering that fateful day in September, 2008 was, in fact, a requiem of some sort, or much later when the grand finale event was a grim shadow lacking both the enthusiasm and impact of the opening day.

But I can precisely remember when the programme failed in the eyes of its organizers, three individuals I would come to admire. I knew, even from their facial expressions, that what had unfurled during the program was not exactly what they had conceptualised. Their expectation was a noble one: to organize a program for budding writers, help them find a voice and platform on which they could showcase their talents, hence the caption of the programme that lured me into being its first applicant—Write, Connect, Publish.

On the very first day of the event, the first facilitator held up the works of the participants in the air, the weight of which should have made him wince, and said that it was all trash, hog-wash. Works of the organizers included.

Although, at that point in the event, a thought ran across my mind as to the failure of the event, I attended every of the three days religiously, unlike my fellow writer and friend, Agatha, not because of the toxic words that most facilitators save one shared, but for the commune between writers, the intercourse of ideas, the love for which Saraba was born of, the success of a failure.

MR AND MR SARABA
The first “toward” encounter with Mr. Iduma was our second meeting. Our paths crossed in the foyer of the English Department, Obafemi Awolowo University. A conversation ensued largely on literature—Rushdie, Tolstoy, Habila. This was just one of the conversations that we would have; conversations that would occupy many Sunday afternoons subsequently.

It was on one of those Sundays in November that Emma relayed an idea to me. Previously, we had been plagued and haunted by rejection mails, documents I would later find to be the reviews of the early works of a great writer.

It occurred to us that the dream of starting an electronic magazine and floating a website through which it could be accessed wasn’t too farfetched. But even as Emma ran through the ideas with controlled excitement, the ideas replicated itself in my mind in form of algorithmic logistics, beeping and stretching into infinity like a grim DOS Prompt program on an obsolete IBM monitor.

I knew it would not be an easy task. But I found the idea to be very fresh, original, timely. And I welcomed it, with open mind.

The idea hatched, all it needed was nurture. So we assembled a team to join our duo: a poet, another writer, a web-designer. We met, examined logistics, rubbed minds and at the end of the meeting, we left with a higher level of skepticism. Nevertheless, the idea had married us together and even when the team unceremoniously dissolved, Emma and I were stayed married to this figment. We were joined in literary matrimony as Mr. and Mr Saraba.

MAKING A FAMILY, A CITY, AN ECONOMY
We began to prepare for our first issue. We picked a theme, Family. We contacted Jumoke Verissimo to be our first guest editor. She accepted. This was a boost for our morale, especially when a small portion of the Sunday Guardian Arts Page featured our call for submissions. Entries came in from all directions, from even notable writers, and it was with excitement that we released the first issue of Saraba on the eve of valentine, 2009.

Mails of appreciation trickled in. We were added as links on several reputable literary magazines. Critics also brought ideas to the table; some thought what we had done was at best gibberish; others thought it was a humble start. Our maiden edition earned several a name amongst which was ‘picture book’. It had the flavor and aesthetics of a campus lifestyle magazine, someone said, pictures competed with words, and most importantly, the literary feel was attenuated. This, we found noteworthy, and we rented ourselves room for improvement. The next issue was going to be better, we thought we should enlarge our scope and so we chose Citylife as our next theme, and opened our mails again for submissions.

Submissions were very few and very far between, a guest editor was not forthcoming. We were surprised and almost lost faith. But never the less, again, we published. The city life issue cover was adorned with the picture of a black female waving down a taxi on a commercial street, and introspectively, this was how we felt. We were alone in a street with a budding idea needing transport to spread its fruits. The Citylife issue was welcomed like a regular visitor; there was no enthusiasm, especially the kind that is gleaned by peculiar distance. But all the same, the dream was alive and in the words of Emmanuel, one was tempted to end it there.

Between April and August, we had four months to prepare for our next issue. And ambition enlarged. Our theme was grander than our following; we wanted to give Saraba a voice of relevance, so we picked Economy as our theme. Economy became our august obsession. The Economy of Sound, our first chapbook, was also in the making, a gathering of local poets. I wrote a piece on Death and Grief which I called The Economy of Loss.  And as if providence foresaw our plans, there came ASUU strike. In that period, usually characterized by extreme ennui for fellow students, we applied ourselves. Our Sunday afternoon visits extended into other weekdays.  The dream was Saraba, the drive was Saraba, the future was Saraba.

OUTLOOK AND LOOKING OUT
It’s important to note that Saraba today can’t rub shoulders with greater global literary magazines. But the figment and the economy from which this idea originated cannot be disregarded. Saraba is a pioneer in online publication in Nigeria and up till date is a major labor of love. No financial support or any similar arrangements has been forthcoming but this we wouldn’t allow to deter our focus. Saraba, we once wrote, can regarded as human; human in the sense of growth. We are certain that a time would come when Saraba would stand by itself, a time not too far from now, when Saraba can diversify and become a major literary hub catering to worldly literary yearnings. This is achievable, I mean, we started from scrappy ideas and here we are one year, still strong.

Our story is an accessible fable. The moral lesson is of the beauty of the mind, the possibility of ideas. Once, I was obsessed with idea of a child sitting in a small corner in his room and affecting his world. Now it’s possible. And we have the internet and Saraba to thank!