Revisiting the book-to-be

Title: Magnificent Loss
It shall be a story in 4 parts.

Part I
Neha and Avinash, the background of love, trust, comfort, security, friendship, aspirations, ambitions, gods, myths, resolutions

Part II
Avinash and his loneliness and his search for that elusive indistinct something, coping with loss, guilt, psychiatry, looking within

Part III
Avinash and Syamala
New beginnings, awakenings, coming out of shell, but still haunted by the past, conflict with the present, yearnings and disillusionment

Part IV
Resolution of conflict, the finding of peace, the gathering of energy, flowing in the river of life, awakened, alert, joyful and light.

Notes
1. Extend Part I to include background, develop characters, ground them in a self-made reality of dreams, then the sudden parting, and reality catches up with the romantic side

2. Rewrite Part II, focus on loneliness, relocate character and show his reaction to things external, and his dwelling on things internal - loss and guilt, and his search for the UNLOSABLE - what is the word here? Get the shrink into this section.

3. Part III explores the relationship between Avinash and Syamala. Let each interaction give a new insight or generate some conflict, in addition to the feelings expressed. Remove the shrink from here and let him discuss his problems with Syamala, who helps him to unfold, untangle

4. Part IV brings the preceding conflicts to a pinnacle. Both Avinash and Syamala go through intense soul searching, and the situation forces them to take a decision. Either they split and go their separate ways, or they come closer and marry. It would be right perhaps to leave them in a live-in relationship and end it on a happy note, with a hint of promise for something more...
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Time and Value

Time is a measure that the mind uses so that it could work in an organized way.

Valuation is the measure that the mind uses so that it could value the work it has done or the thing it has come upon or possessed.

Mind uses time also to value a thing. The older a thing is more valuable it becomes.

The mind seeks to possess things it considers valuable. By possessing it, the mind enhances its own value.

The intrinsic worth of a thing is separate and distinct from the value it is given by the mind.

The value of a thing is measured in terms of the currency invented by the mind.

The measure of time is computed by the units which the mind has invented to do it, namely, seconds, hours, days, years etc.

Time, like value, is not an intrinsic property of anything. Time and value don't exist in nature; they exist only in the mind that measures them by means of its own devices.

The mind measures time in other ways too. The chronological way of measurement is a physical aspect of measuring time. The physical measurement of time is scientific and the means used to measure are applicable world wide, such as a clock. This manner of measuring time is limited to the movement of matter, the work accomplished by humans and machines and the cycles of nature. It is universally regarded as accurate. Errors and disputes arising out of such measurement are resolved against common and universally accepted principles and tools.

The mind also invented a subjective way of measuring time. It is a personal reckoner, its own means to mark time for itself. These are many and they overlap with each other and sometimes align with physical time. When the mind hopes for a change in its present condition, it is marking time. When it is desirous of something, it is marking time. When it is believing in something, it is marking time. When it is impatient about something, it is marking time.

Time and value go together. If a change is desired in the present condition, then the mind is seeking to enhance its value. Until that improvement is reached, it is marking time, hoping that the change happens and the value increases in the time it has hoped it would happen. This kind of time is not measurable by any scientific means and its passage manifests in the mind as impatience, agony, frustration, despair and so on. The mind then resorts to other means in order to 'speed up' the process. It depends on its beliefs to 'get there', 'get that'. The physical time and this subjective psychological time then overlap and become a tremendous burden on the mind. When the desired change eventually occurs, its value increases greatly. Time through effort and agony enhances the value.

Nothing occurs in time. Only the mind is observing every occurrence in time. Strangely, the mind became subservient to its own invention. Instead of using it only as a tool, the mind has given it the status of a master and allows itself to be governed by its own slave.

Not knowing the intrinsic worth of itself or of the things around it, the mind invented value. In the notion of improving its value through possession of things it has valued, the mind is marking time to fulfil.

What happens when time and value are dropped from our observation - the internal subjective time and the external value of a thing? Could we then come upon the timeless existence in which we behold everything in its intrinsic worth? Is that what reality is, knowing the true nature of things, including our own mind?

Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Rockhound

He doesn't know why, but he collects pebbles, colored rocks etc., much to the annoyance of siblings. He stores them in a desk drawer, sharing the space with his books. His trouser pockets sag and become frayed, sometimes tear at the seams or develop holes, much to his mother's chagrin and she is always calling on the seamstress to get them mended. His father says it is a childish infatuation, that he will get over as he gets older.

Every night he would open the drawer to look at them, feel them, their surface, the curves, the colours excite his interest as much as the light that reflects off the surface. He keeps a count and feels awfully good when as it grows from a single to a double digit and racing to reach the three digit figure.

He begins to segregate according to colour and roughness of the surface. He needed more space, so he starts taking out his books and soon like the camel that drove the Arab out of the tent, the rocks occupied the space entirely and the books driven out of their enclosure begin to clutter the table top or scatter in the room. Mother begins to complain about his untidy room but he ignores concentrating only on making more space available for his collection.

The drawers now became heavy and creaked and groaned whenever he opened and closed them. And the noise irritated his older sister who would snap at him when it intruded in her work or music listening. So he with utmost caution he pulled or pushed at the drawers an inch at a time so as to make the least noise possible. He knows now he needed a bigger container to hold his rapidly growing collection. When the house is empty, he brings down an old wooden crate and pushes it under his bed and draws the coverlet down to hide it from inquisitive eyes. It was necessary not to draw attention to his collection, for every stone he brought in increased the danger of losing the entire collection if and when it becomes known to the household.

He made several partitions in the crate - he used thick cardboards as dividers - and filled them according to the segregations he had made earlier. The drawers continued to receive his findings immediately he reached home and at night he would transfer them to the crate according to their colour and shape, according to the pattern he had established to store them.

In the days he returned home with nothing he would shut himself in and go over the contents of the crate gazing at them fondly, until the last light went out in the house. On the nights that he couldn't sleep he would use a pocket torch and study them in its light, enjoying the reflections on the crate.

Sometimes for days he would go without a single find and he would feel sad. He would venture farther into places he had not been before. He would spend more time with the ones he already had. But it was also a time that made him look closely at them and he would further separate them according to shape, weight and location. He also utilized the time to remove duplicates. In the beginning he had often collected the same kinds of rocks, but as he collected more and looked at them often, the practised eye told him if a find was original or a duplicate. But before discarding something as duplicate, he often replaced his specimens with better ones when necessary. This exercise was very important to him for it improved his collection. As he grouped them according to a layman's classification, his eye by and by trained to see the diagnostic features of rocks, features by which rocks can be differentiated.

Of course there were difficulties along the way. Once he had lost a whole bag of stones. That was in the very beginning before he started to take proper care of them he used to drop them into a canvas bag and soon it became heavy and started to bulge. At that time he didn't even care if there were duplicates. Soon after he found it, he just felt it for as long as the contact gave him pleasure and then dropped it into the bag. One day his mother asked his sister to fetch something to collect the autumn leaves she had swept and piled up near the garage. His sister found the bag full of stones and swearing under her breath she lugged it across the compound and emptied it into a large waste bin. That incident alerted him to the threat of loss and took care to hide them first and later on to put a lock on the containers which could not be just lifted and thrown away.

His parents are worried about him. He doesn't take much interest in his studies. The only subject that interests him is Geography, and that too the topic of rocks and minerals. In all other subjects he is uninterested. They take him to counsellors, prayers, amulets and babas and finally to the exorcists thinking he is possessed by demons. He goes through it all, inwardly pained but to all appearances unfazed, unchanged and unresponsive.

Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Feedback on A Ghost Story

In the LICH meetup, we were about six people gathered around a table. Keku the organizer asked me to present my piece. I felt nervous and asked if anyone would volunteer to read my story. One of the ladies readily agreed and started to read.

As she read, I felt that certain words didn't come out easily - I felt I have used a strange juxtaposition of words which sometimes sounded a discordant note. But no one mentioned it. It was received well and they appeared to have enjoyed it. The reader mentioned in between that she found it interesting. Another said it was good.

One lady commented that the title was not appropriate. I said I suck on titles, never seem to get the right one for the story. She said it was not just a ghost story; it seemed much more than that, something that conveyed more, like a dream within a dream which included something that actually happened. This made me think and wondered if I had not fully appreciated what I wrote. The story reminded them of a movie Inception which I did not see.

I felt good. It occured to me that I must get my stuff read out so that I could feel the flow of the narrative. This time I felt it just did not sound right in some places. Perhaps I use too many complex and long sentences. I should break them down into simple sentences, present one idea at a time. Like Paulo Coelho did in The Alchemist.

Story available at http://www.ryze.com/posttopic.php?topicid=1078814&confid=1199

Sent from Nokia Smartphone

A treasure

The Alchemist is making an impression on me that no other book has in the past, not since I read the folk tales of gentle wisdom. A book that captures the timeless widom of humans in a simple language, in a story that could be read by the fireside in winter and in the shades of a tree in summer. It is ageless, it can be read to children as well as a tale of adventure, or adults may be read it in order to find their destiny. Even the young may find it inspiring to test their mettle and search their hearts for the one thing they would live and die for. It is a tale at once charming in its simplicity and profound in its sweep. I wanted to read the book because the blurb said it affected the lives of millions around the world, having sold 30 million copies world wide and been translated into 63 languages. Originally authored in Spanish by Paulo Coelho, the English version is published by Harper Collins. I am happy to be reading this book of magic and omens, of adventure and learning, of soul and destiny, of hardship and loyalty, of perseverance, intuition and travelling down the river of life.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Moral Screen

While watching a movie, mother would make us cover our eyes when the "scenes" came - the scenes that were supposedly made only for adults. However, the very masking elicited the undying curiosity for the forbidden and found release in furtive glances and later on lurid fiction.

A film that we all as a family had gone to see depicted the life of Vemana the poet who had miraculously transformed from a life of debauchery to one of a poet-saint and lived the remainder of his life as a naked mendicant singing eternal truths.

The first half of the movie showed the decadent prelude and we were naturally submitted often to sharp glances and hisses from the mother to drop our heads. When the second half began to take the audience through the transformational process, which included much abstruse poetry and high-flown language, we lost interest and started to fidget and beg to be taken home.

Mother oberved rather ruefully that just when she wanted us to watch what was needed for us, we wanted to leave, while all the time before that we were gawking at the screen as if we were imbibing at the fountain of divine wisdom.

New Writing Styles

For modern writers it is a Brave New World out there. Every new writer is writing in a format that is new, original and bold. It is no longer like in the past when a successful author experiments with a new style occasionally. Today writers have, in the manner of the World Wide Web, separated content from its presentation. New styles of presentation have appeared in the novels that indicate a boldness, a tendency toward novel (Ugh! Pun not intended) presentations which make the reading fresh, interesting and prodding to try newer ways of telling a story. It is a clear departure from the classical style that comprises a running narrative relieved by dialogue. Today one often comes across styles that break away from the old world model and present the content in radically different ways.

There is also a move away from the omniscient narrator who lords it over his or her fictional characters. This breed of writing seems to decline in favour of first person narration which seems to give to the narrative more solid believable characters and at the same time give the story a temporal quality. But it is not just the shift in the point of view (POV) that we are witnessing today. It is a wholly new perspective that allows the characters to reveal the story and the author is merely bringing the pieces together without making it obvious or becoming visible in any manner.

Two examples:
1. No God In Sight by Altaf Tyrewala
2. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday

The innovative courageous writers are debutants, who have presented - not experimented with - new styles of writing the novel.

Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Be there

A strange thought occured to me now. Look at the world through other's eyes. Completely and without judgment. Just let them talk, give opinion, say whatever comes to their mind and never, never interfere when they talk. Don't prompt when they are looking for a word. Wait. Wait and listen. With the patience of a hawk. Wait and watch how they react. Just look with eyes and ears open. Be so absent in the other's presence that s/he speaks openly, unreservedly, without fear of being contradicted or judged. Be gone, get lost, be nowhere, be not where the other is. Listen, observe. Without interruption. Let it flow, whatever it is, from their mind, from their heart, from their lips, from their hands, from their movements, from the look in their eyes, from the breath through their nostrils, from the shuffling of their feet, from the trembling of their fingers, from the tightening of their veins in the temples, in the jaws, in the arms. Just be, without being active, without being gentle or rude, without aching to know, without bothering to understand, without encouraging or otherwise, without caring or being sympathetic, without condemning or justifying, without patience or irritation. Just be, with your eyes and ears open, with watchfulness and alertness, without a thought in the mind or an expression in the face, like a stone idol, passive, aware, available. Say nothing, do nothing, no geatures, no movement. Be there, yet make not your presence loud.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Twilight

I wait for dusk to fall as eagerly as the struggling world awaits a new dawn. It is the time of the day when the activities of the world ebb and the laboring humanity return home to rest and recuperate, a time when the harsh light of the day mellows and explodes into the fading soothing colors of an evening, when the blue of the sky deepens to indigo and the birds return to roost, and the family members come together but only to lose themselves in their separate rooms. I look forward to that time when I could walk the earth like a free man, a man without encumbrances, without hopes of an unborn dawn or the entanglements of a dead night, the only time of my life when I meet people of my age, all in one place. In the evening of our life dusk is our meeting time, the community hall our meeting place and the hoot and clatter of a train our common refrain.

I shed my pajamas and change into a brown cotton trousers and a plain white bush-shirt. Adjusting my spectacles, I bend slightly to pick up the walking stick that was leaning against a corner of the room. The fist curls over the knob, but before I could grab it, the stick slips on the smooth tile and clatters to the floor. Ths sound from the fallen stick bounces off the walls and the ceiling and dissolves into silence, leaving a dull echo in my mind. The slender aluminium body of the stick gleams pitifully in the fading light. I push a cane chair close to it. Holding the arms of the chair in order to break the fall, I lower myself gently into it. I pick up the stick and using it as a prop I hoist myself up, groaning from the effort and cursing out of habit at nothing.

From a window sill I collect the lock and key, my mobile phone and wallet. I step slowly out of the apartment and lock the door. I double check the padlock by pulling it down twice, check to ensure I am carrying the mobile phone and the wallet, then slowly turn round toward the staircase. I hold the bannister for support and feel my way down with the stick one step at a time, taken slowly, ponderously, like I was hauling down a load.

As I round the street toward the back of the apartment blocks, a train chuggs past the community hall - I am late by a few minutes. When I reach the hall, I find that my comrades are already chattering and shuffling about in short awkward movements. It is a large hall, ideal for ceremonies and celebrations. We take turns to be the secretary and assume responsibility for its upkeep and arrange functions on public holidays. On a normal day, like today, we just get together and talk to one another until the train returns after two hours.

After the usual greetings I limp to a plastic chair and go through the circus of occupying it. The voices echo from the high ceiling and linger for some time like murmuring spirits. Women speak longer and louder than men. We all sit in an imperfect circle, turning this side and that side, or looking ahead leaning far out of the chair sometimes to hear better or to respond to queries.

We don't have an agenda for these meet-ups. We meet simply, casually, for companionship, for having someone to hear and talk to. Growing old is painful physically and lonely psychologically. We overcome the physical inconvenience in order to share a few moments together; we are then no longer lonely or feel out of place in this fast changing world.

Each of us has one single unchanging characteristic that distinguishes itself from all other qualities of the person. Call it a trait, a habit or an obsession or what you like. It is something that is so innate and intrinsic to the person that he or she may be easily identified with it. The person and his or her distinguishing quality are so inseparable that the person is the very embodiment of the quality.

Sarala is talking to Manohar about her grandchildren. She has short scanty hair that ruffles as she shakes her head this way and that way, making a point or gesticulating with a sense of hopelessness. She is angry that no one in her house cares about cleanliness any more. She expends a lot of her energy in cleaning the dining table, the curtains and the furniture. She spends a good deal of her time arranging things around the house. Manohar says he has been to her house a couple of times and found nothing to complain about. He tries to change the subject, but she keeps returning to it.

One of the helper boys comes in with a small steel drum of hot tea and sets it up on a table. Manohar excuses himself and gets up for a cup of tea. Sarala turns to Lakshmi and continues her harangue without interrupting her flow.

Lakshmi is a soft-spoken woman who rarely exhibits strong emotions. She looks frail and her forehead is creased with lines as though she were in a perpetual expression of anxiety. She has a granddaughter who spends most of her time partying and shopping. Her son is an artist who has had a modicum of success, for his paintings appear now and then in the art galleries. He is too preoccupied with his work and his wife, who works in a government office, is also very busy. Lakshmi is a pious lady who performs pooja twice daily and listens to the bhakti channel on the TV regularly. She has a duaghter who is married to a business man whose fortunes fluctuate on market conditions. She speaks to her often and enquires of her well-being. Lakshmi lost her husband a few years ago and since then she has devoted herself to praying, seeking divine munificence towards the families of her son and daughter.

I have known lakshmi for a number of years. She was religious, but not much given to rituals. However, as days passed and she was getting older she became more and more attached to the gods, going on pilgrimages, listening to religious discourses, performing the rites and praying, praying and praying.

The two women comfort each other as they share their mutual hardships, anxieties and helplessness. The tea is served, and it is drunk cold. The women continue their chatter as if talking it over together is going to resolve their problems.
TO BE CONTINUED...

Sent from Nokia Smartphone

The dinner party - I

Dressed in jeans and an open-necked plain white T-shirt I join the talkative bachelors who loiter in the playground waiting to form a group. No one ever wants to step into the RM's house alone. A group gives strength to the individuals who come together to form it. And it is always the like-minded who make up a group, like birds of a feather. In a group it is possible to divert attention from oneself, take refuge in a united front, slip into the background when singled out.

Usually the RM's secretary is a man who doesn't belong to any group, for fear that he may overhear or discover something and pass it on to the Big Boss. But luckily I don't inspire fear because as you know, Mrs. Arora, I don't gossip. I neither squeal nor carry tales. I am therefore welcome in any group, though I can sense an undercurrent of caution among the members; after all, though I am powerless and inconsequential myself and even though I am known for my neutrality, my proximity to the local power center is enough to make any man wary in my presence.

The trainees, the junior engineers and clerks I find are among the most outspoken of the lot. As men grow older they become more guarded, behind their apparent joviality lies fear; fear of God, fear of job, fear of the boss. I am sure they shun me inwardly, for they greet me with undue respect.

The groups have now formed, isolated clusters of men and women, chatting, shuffling, and looking towards the path leading to the RM's house - who will take the lead?

A pandal is erected in front of the house and chairs and tables waited to be filled. Behind it, there were lights in every room of the house and the sound of music reached our ears through the still moonless evening. It was very quiet, the trees scarcely moved. The heat of the day rendered the trees motionless in the night; they were silently recuperating, sustaining on bare essentials and waiting for the rejuvenating morning dew. The stars shone with brilliant clarity in the dark sky, something that is never seen here in the city. The cloudless sky, vast and peppered with numerous points of dazzling shimmering light, produced a grand spectacle. But very few looked at it, for they were engrossed in their own world of endless chatter, and missed the beauty of the world that is constant and available free for all who would experience it. It seems to me, Mrs. Arora, that there is more to living than merely seeking success, striving endlessly as if it were the very goal of life.

Now, a couple of cars drove up and the contractors, including Mr. Abdulla, arrived for the party. They looked around once at the arrangements, nodded to themselves and made their way into the RM's house. Then the senior managers started to move purposefully towards the pandal, followed by their juniors, and the clerical staff brought up the rear.

"Excellent arrangements, Mr. Abdulla." The RM expressed his satisfaction and Mr. Abdulla grinned effusively and bowed to acknowledge the honour.

"Thank you, Sir. It is my pleasure." Mr. Abdulla declined to take a glass of liquor offered to him by the office boy. He pointed at the RM and told the boy to begin from there.

"You are being too formal, Mr. Abdulla. Remember, this is an informal get together. Come on, friends," the RM picked up a glass,turned and swept his hand in an all-inclusive gesture. "Make yourselves at home. The party begins now."

The women formed a cluster around the First Lady who offered cool drinks and snacks to her retinue. From time to time their eyes roved over the partying male fraternity which was now slowly regrouping in the vicinity of the RM.

The men stood respectfully around the Boss, some closer and some a little farther, while the rest watched from the sidelines. The men who were closest formed a coterie, a loyal group of men who made the RM's life easy in this industrial outback. They spoke to the contractors on his behalf and arranged matters so that he could quietly enjoy certain benefits which would not be possible even at his position in the company. These men formed the first circle, followed by hangers-on who were eager to do their bit if they were given a chance to prove their worth. The men on the sidelines envied those in the cynosure of the Boss and watched helplessly. The men who did not and couldn't care to belong to the elite group were the clerks, the trainees and the juniors. They crowded near the liquor counter, cracked lewd jokes, argued over cricketers' fortunes or listened to the music in a wistful way as if it reminded them of home.

"They seem to be discussing something seriously with the RM. Why are they crowding him?" the junior trainee wanted to know.

"Oh, no, no, no." The senior trainee has seen a bit of the world, so he says, "they don't discuss. They are yes men, they repeat what the Big Boss says and feel satisfied that they have repeated it verbatim. Look at them running to fill his glass, how they jostle to light his cigarette and fetch snacks for him."

"Not all of them, though. I can see only some of them fawning all over him while the others are merely nodding and talking politely." The junior corrects him.

"Yeah, and those fawning men have an unenviable epithet - every one of them is a chamcha, a stooge," he said contemptuously. "You see them buzzing around him like flies around a Gulab Jamun."

Drinks begin to loosen tongues, raise the level of voices, increase the clatter of utensils and before long there is din enough to submerge the music from the record player and the silence in the vast open fields beyond the pandal.

Rati, remember? The RM's daughter, the lone adolescent in that little community, chattered with her even younger companions and threw inviting glances at the trainees. Accidentally our eyes met and she winked. An itch arose on the inside of my palm as I remembered our last meeting and closed my fist almost involuntarily. She grinned and said something to a little girl beside her and they both burst into laughter. The junior trainee caught our exchange and let out a high-pitched yodel. When I turned to him, he buried his head into his glass and licked lasciviously at the golden liquid. I must have reddened, for his mate, unaware of the context, remarked, "Guru, I think you need to go slow on that stuff. You look like you are going to conk out soon."

"No, it's nothing," I said defensively and moved away with extra steadiness in my step to show him he was wrong.

Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Movements

Talking of promotion, Mrs. Arora, brings to mind the notion of movement in the life of a construction employee.

There are two kinds of movement - the horizontal and the vertical, one is the physical and the other psychological. The physical movement happens when you relocate from place to place. Though one may have travelled often and to the far corners of the globe, there is very little movement paradoxically for the traveller. It is always a vehicle that moves while you, its occupant, is stationary, simply sitting in a chair or lying on a berth. The vertical movement occurs in the psychological realm as one climbs the ladder of success. Again, here too there is a notion of movement. The promotion of an employee is a vertical movement, while his transfer is a horizontal one. While he covets the former, he abhors the latter which entails much hardship and sometimes may mean separation from the family. The promotion, on the other hand, is the ambrosia of success. It is the only reason why I think most people work, for without a reward what is there to look forward to? To paraphrase Dr. Johnson: nobody but a blockhead ever worked except for money and, ah, promotion. More than the monetary gain, a promotion brings power and elevates one's status. Though it means more responsibility, it removes you from the ranks of those who toil in the sun and the soil. If the promotion did not come in the right time, then you lose face, lose the race and what is worse you may report to men younger than you. If there is anything in the profession that demeans you, it is not a bad name you got for your ill temper or your vulnerability to corruption, but not getting the promotion when it is due. Ingratiating behaviour, humouring the boss, being in their good books, pretending to be working and running errands for the boss or pleasing him with sweets and presents - all these and more happen in the race uphill. The vertical movement while rewarding in itself is fraught with expectation, frustration, loss of self-respect, indignity or impropriety. But it remains the prime mover and binds the employee into a straitjacket of subservience. It promotes (pardon the pun, Mrs. Arora, unintended of course) unhealthy competition and obsequiousness, puts power into the hands of unscrupulous men, corrodes their integrity and belittles their dignity. There are of course exceptions; take any human affair and you will find exceptional men and women who adhere to the lofty and the ideal, who are simple, honest and hard-working, without ever losing their sense of humour or their dignity or their self-worth no matter what the circumstances may be. The vertical movement degrades the human being, Mrs. Arora, while the horizontal movement more often than not makes you a solitary, away from the family. I carry a disturbing vision of an old man in the mess of an evening. He sat alone in the dimly lit room of the mess playing solitaire while his family lived a thousand kilometers away. I find both movements abhorring since both are debilitating in the end.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

We, the people

People seldom change, Mrs. Arora. There is a horrifying inevitability about life. Similar thoughts, feelings and similar circumstances recur with unvarying regularity and unchaging repeatability. All the stuff about change through intelligent choices, influencing it through prayers and wearing stones and amulets, following your heart or your favorite guru or the scriptures, and forever hoping for good times and remaining optimistic - all these operate only on the surface. The core of the person remains unchanged and propels the person inevitably into situations that the core dictates.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Reading

Do you read books, Mrs. Arora? No? Oh, I have been a book reader ever since I passed out of school. I find it a heathy pastime. But it is for the special world they create that I visit them often. Each writer sees the same world differently, Mrs. Arora. Each one sees it imbued with a color that seems so right when you see it along with them. You live their experiences, their fantases, their ruminations - vicariously you go through it all for a small price. But there are some who disturb a great deal. Like Sartre. A little French bird whom I came across on a holiday tour found my pronunciation of that name execrable and showed me the right way to say it. I struggled for a while trying to imitate her guttural intonation and gave up. The man is an incorrigible rambler; my god he rambles about nothing consequential; he sees the world in black and white. Why, even the radiant colors he describes so vividly hit you as colorless and insipid against the despondent and desolate background. Existentialism. You see things as they exist now, not how they have been or how they are going to be. That seems so much akin to what the Vedantists have said a thousand years ago. But there is a fundamental difference. They found bliss while Sa - aargh! - tre found nausea.

Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Rush Hour

Every square inch of the road during the rush hour is precious. It is in great demand and possessed with a ferocious aggression even if it is only taken only for a fleeting moment. If you don't fight for it, you are continually pushed back in the race to get there. It is a desperate struggle every day, from morning till late evening. A hoard of vehicles bearing down the avenue, capturing every available space, and flowing like river out of bounds, choking on the bottlenecks, fanning out on broader path and converging again at the intersections. Like an army, the swarm of vehicles of a great variety advance in ever widening arrays, covering the flanks so that not even a dog may pass through.

What is a good story?

A good story comes from a character and not a plot. A character whose ideosyncracies, desires, likes and dislikes makes the story. A plot is for entertainment, where the characters are like puppets on a string pulled by the storyteller. S/he makes the characters fit his or her plot. When you create a character out of the human charcteristics around us and set the character in a place or situation, it makes the character come alive in the story. In telling the story, you become the character, so to speak, thinking his thoughts, living his dreams, and suffer and enjoy with him in his pains and pleasures. The entertainer on the other hand is meant to titillate the senses with extraordinary events happening to soulless characters whose only reason to exist is to react to events romantically. A character in a true-to-life story reveals some aspects of life we have not hitherto known or did not consider them deeply enough. S/he behooves the reader to consider looking at life together in a sympathetic way in order to uncover things that have remained buried in the reader's mind. Expose the hidden and gray areas of life and reflect upon them: this is what a character does in a serious novel. A story driven by the plot does not share this sentiment, this invitation into a deeper exploration of life; it is content to remain on the surface, for its primary objective is to keep the reader entertained. Entertainment helps to forget one's troubles, though one must return and face them once again afterwards. A character-driven story on the other hand comes to grips with an existential question and invites the reader to take the difficult journey alongside the character; the reader is not promised a fantastic journey, but needs to pause often in his daily routine life and travel with the character - not necessarily at one go, but a few paces at a time.

Patterns and Art

Patterns are repeatable units. A structure that repeats itself is a pattern. A large structure is built of smaller structures which are themselves made of still smaller structures and so on. This is the basic organic principle that governs all things. Men like Christopher Alexander and Joseph Campbell have discovered these repeatable units in their respective subjects of study - architecture and mythology respectively. Many people have adapted their findings to other subjects with some success. Alexander's architectural patterns have inspired the architectural patterns in software and culminated in the seminal work Design Patterns by Eric Gamma et al. Campbell’s patterns have unleashed a flood of how-to books from the movie world led by notables like Christopher Vogler and Syd Field.

Patterns are meant to solve problems that recur in the design of systems. Systems design is a major challenge to the architect who faces problems that have already been faced by his or her predecessors and solved in the same way. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, so to speak, the architect has access to patterns that can be successfully re-used. They help build systems with ease and avoid mistakes that the pioneers have made while building their systems. A structure based on identifiable patterns is easy to manage and maintain. It is also possible to be more productive, since much time is saved by using existing patterns.

But patterns do not solve all the problems. As the need for designing complex systems arises, the architect faces new problems for which there is no precedent. The patterns that have been discovered so far are no longer sufficient to address the new situation. The architect is then forced to come up with something absolutely and creatively new. This is and has always been the challenge: to create something new. One wonders how the mind that has always been trained in the mechanics of an internal combustion engine has leaped into designing a gas-turbine engine that set man free from hugging and crawling on the land to soar over the earth. It must have required a great leap to break through the pattern of thinking in his time.

Patterns are good for solving mechanical problems (electronics included), but to use patterns in art is to deny that faculty of the mind which relies on intuition and stresses the faculty that builds and innovates but does not create. There is an element of spontaneity in creation that is sorely missing in works that have been carefully but mechanically crafted. Patterns may be necessary for mechanical systems; but even there the mind is ever challenged to innovate. Without the creative spirit behind it, even innovation is a mere novelty.

There is no pattern in the lines, curves and shapes that one sees in the sky of an evening when the dying Sun torches the sky and sets it ablaze in a riot of colors. Every moment there is a different stroke, a different hue, a different sky, a different tone of the light, and above all, a different being watching it. Creation is unpremeditated, spontaneous and free. In art, while a pattern chains you, creation sets you free.

Writing is not a craft

Writing is driven by the Muse, the source of the writer's inspiration. From the flash of the idea to the completed text, it runs like a river freely flowing, bound only by the constraints it has placed on itself.

What is written may be edited, re-written or tossed out altogether, but that is a different matter. One writes because one has something to say. And to say it well, one writes and re-writes a number of times. One is not writing to an audience or has a reader in mind. One writes for one's own satisfaction, for one's fulfilment. It is an expression of oneself in myriad ways. And one hopes that it will also interest others sufficiently to read through what one has written.

In a script for a movie, on the other hand, the compulsion is different. The script writer focuses on the audience; rather, he knows his audience and what they expect from the script. The script writer puts in effort to create the effect that the script produces. It is intentionally done, carefully planned and executed with skill.

The novel or the short story are not intended to address a specific audience, nor is it is designed and crafted for any purpose. An artist draws a picture because s/he sees the world in a certain way. It is his or her own personal expression. It has no critique or the viewer in mind. It is there because someone pictured it that way and gave expression to it. The same to my mind is true for the author.

To apply the techniques or the craft of movie-making to writing a novel or a short story is to defeat the very purpose of the Muse, who is hovering over the writer in mysterious ways. The techniques of the screenplay work for the movie, since movie-making is a craft and not an art at all, in my opinion.

Perhaps this is the reason that most writers don't like to talk about the art of writing fiction, though there are many schools teaching it. It is perhaps more useful to discuss one's work in a school with other writers, and also discuss what similar works have been handled by the masters (not the technique, but the content).

Above all, I think writing comes from writing, lots of writing and reading, lots of reading.

There is the matter of the structure of story telling. Again, it is a matter of craft. Every artistic work has structure, no doubt. But to put it into repeatable patterns is to turn it into a craft. While craft might determine success, it cramps the writer into a stylistic straitjacket and may fail to fulfil his basic need: to flow with the Muse.

Writing Seminar - Day 4

Day four began with a round up of significant points from the previous session. Viewed the beginning and ending scenes from Hitchcoks's Vertigo. The dramatic structures of the story as adapted to the screen has been discussed in detail.

Robert McKee's book on Substance of a Story has been the rallying point to all discussions related to story writing. Mckee wrote from the perspective of cinema, a medium that required a different orientation to the story. The audience has a pact, so to speak, with the director; they have agreed to come together for exactly a fixed amount of time in which the director displays his skills in riveting their attention to the screen for that duration. The screenplay writer aims to satisfy the needs and expectations of a fly-by viewer who wants to be entertained rather than enlightened, give over to maudlin emotions over incisive thinking, suspends his disbelief in order to experience a variety of thoughts and feelings over quiet deliberation and so on.

However, what is being emphasized in the seminar, and rightly so, is the basic structure of story-telling which applies with little variation to all genres of story.

Many novels have been dramatized for the screen; however, authors have always felt the loss of the substance of the story, for melodrama is all-important in the movie.

In any case, now the focus of the seminar is shifting to our own writings - novels and short stories - and this brings back to center stage the raison d'etre of the seminar - to write and review what is written and to write again.

All said and done, kudos to Markus for carrying it off with such authority on analysis and bringing the craft - art apart - of story telling closer home.

A man's life

A little child's much delight
A teenager is explorer
An adolesent is defiance
Twenty five's full of life
Thirty six is thirsty bit
Forty two does envy youth
Fifty one's a settled one
Sixty eight is outdated
Seventy four is greying bore
Eighty nine is eventide
Ninety five is deaf and blind
One hundred years of solitude

Check out - Godawful Poetry Fortnight

Writing Seminar - Day 3

The session opened with the comments and feedback from Markus on the text that we submitted to the seminar forum at itsagreatstory.net and was participated by every one with interest.

The points of interest in the art of story telling came out in the discussions that followed. They are:

1. The opening of the story, especially with a striking first sentence, in order to hook the reader and set the tone for what follows.

2. The inciting incident that happens early in the story that drives the rest of it. This location of this incident in the story need not always be at the beginning (In Lion King it occurs quite late in the story).

3. The story follows the classical path (in most cases) where the protagonist goes through several obstacles and conflicts before coming to a conclusion.

4. There needs to be a progression in the conflict and the obstacles such that the conflict intensifies and the nature of the obstacles varies and becomes increasingly difficult for the hero to surmount.

5. There must be a dramatic need for the hero which must be established early on and that will work as the motivation for him to forge ahead in achieving the end he desires.

6. In the flow of events in the life of the main character it is important to show that there is a gap between the expectation and the result - this forces the reader to take interest since there is a turn in the situation as a result of unexpected consequence. It is this gap that propels the reader forward. It is the way once scene moves to the next - at least in the classical style where the story progresses in a linear fashion.

We have also discussed ways of tackling the story from different view points. There are essentially three view points, and each has its own benefits and disadvantages.

1. First Person - the personal point of view, cannot delve into the motivations of other characters

2. Third Person - a person in the story reveals the story and therefore may not be reliable; also it cannot go into the character's mind

3. Omniscient - the presiding intelligence that can play god, but needs to keep out so as not to interfere with the flow of the narrative

The resolution and ending of the story plays an important role in the whole drama. It must leave the reader satisfied and not leave a bad taste. The story may have raised the expectations and has not fulfilled them in a satisfactory way. It is in this context that we talked about the "Fading" of the story.

The session ended with the viewing of the last act of The Lion King. The scene opens with Simba returning to the land of his birth and what was once promised to be his kingdom. He finds desolation everywhere and it saddens him a great deal. "Show, don't tell" has been aptly used here.

As he nears the cave he witnesses the altercation between Scar and his old mother and reveals himself dramatically to his arch enemy. Scar humbles him by reminding that Simba was responsible for his father's death and in pushes him to the edge of the cliff - a scene that the viewer once again witnesses ("the mirroring").

Hamartia - the tragic flaw in Scar's character - goads him to reveal his evil design in pushing Mufasa to death. Simba hauls himself up and charges at Scar, thus reversing the roles.

The Lion King progresses linearly, as it should for a children's story, but has in it all the elements that make up a classic story of trust, betrayal, guilt, call of duty, return of the hero, overcoming the challenge and re-establishing righteousness.

Seminar - Day 2

Markus and I exchanged a friendly and superficial insight into each other as we waited for other participants to join us. The two young college going girls apparently felt the subject rather hard and not to their level and so left the seminar. Markus spoke of a rough time table which he followed which he said helped him to focus on writing and taking his second novel forward. I told him that I lacked the discipline to follow a regimen, but I have been toying with the idea of planning my day and stick to it.
We discussed the first session's assignments, what each person wrote, which Markus had studied carefully and commented, and then went over it again patiently. We then continued with the second part of the movie The Lion King. Oh, before that we talked a great deal about Syg Field's video on screenplay. Markus pointed out how the movie was structured according to the classical story-telling model and used plot devices such as -
Characterization
Emotional colorwheel
Turn in the story, change in the character
Rising intensity of conflict
Four types -
Inner conflict
Conflict with another
Conflict with the world at large
Conflict on a spiritual level
The Lion King used these devices to a powerful effect, Markus says, even in a story written for the children. Then he gave us assignment for home work, which included presenting a 3-page storyline for discussion. The session ended in smiles and eager expectations.

Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Writing Seminar by Markus Vattulainen

After waiting eagerly for Saturday to come, I was excited to attend the seminar by Markus V, a would-be author from Finland. Markus posted the details of the seminar and invited participants to join him for a whole year in learning the craft of writing. A session would be held for three hours every Saturday morning to discuss not only the personal approaches to writing, especially fiction, but also to learn and analyze the time-honored techniques employed by published authors. I was hoping to be able to be part of a group of aspiring writers for a long time. Markus's offer came like a soothing balm to my aching heart.
The first session was introductory and began with three men and three women apart from Markus who headed the session and drove it skillfully forward with the tools of the trade, beginning with a short introduction on the purpose of the seminar and ending the session with a film clip. Markus has a pleasing personality with a jovial face and a friendly demeanor. He greeted all of us with warmth and introduced us gently to the writing process. Everyone participated in the discussions that followed. The session held promise for more interesting and useful interactions in the future.
Markus made it clear at the very outset that he had made a choice between writing and not writing. The decision must necessarily be irreversible, leaving no scope for dilly-dallying. He decided to write, quit his job and settled down to writing full time. It was clear I am sure to everyone who did not take as seriously to writing as he did that it ws important to decide NOW, which is what Markus told us to do before going ahead with the seminar. It remains to be seen how many will go through with it and with how much hard work and enthusiasm.
The first session began with the screening of The Lion King, pausing the flow often to make a point or deliberate on some aspects of story-telling. Markus is articulate, clear in exposition and often invited the opinions of his eager listeners before offering his own. He gave an assignment which involved analyzing a scene from the film and posting answers to queries he posed in a hand-out. He expected everyone to join the forum on the seminar's website and participate in the discussions. The days of enjoyment are over, Markus announced; it is time to be analytical whenever we watch a movie or read a story.

Burqa ban

Burqa, the face veil of the devout Muslim woman, has come under debate across the world, especially in Europe after Belgium and France banned it while other nations are expected to follow. Fifteen years ago no one questioned it, the use of burqa in public places by Muslim women; at any rate no Muslim nation ever raised a voice against it. On the contrary, its use was mandatory and enforced with efficieny. When I was in Iran in 1994, I was walking the streets of Azerbaijan with my wife. An elderly woman stopped my wife and asked her to adjust her headscarf so that it covered her hair completely. It was a helpful gesture on the part of the lady who did not want to see a foreigner getting into trouble with the clerics and probably the police?
Today I read that even Muslim nations like Syria and Egypt have banned the burqa, the former completely and the latter in select places. It surprised me, considering the inflexible nature of the Muslim idea of the propriety of a woman's dress, and the equally inflexible clerical mind in upholding it.
This issue will not stop here, for the many nations that have a sizeable Muslim population will have to confront it sooner or later. India is one such country, where it is already grappling with the idea of a Uniform Civil Code. Whatever maybe the case with a particular nation, but the idea of questioning the deep-rooted fundamental notions of a society, chalked out and maintained by men since centuries, is clearly the winner. What else is being modern?

Sent from my Nokia phone

Nature vs. mind-made

At an informal meetup whose members are grandiloquently called Immortals, I read a piece that I had blogged here. It was on rain and as a member I read it to a small gathering of about six people, both ladies and gentleman.
One of the expressions I used in my writing happened to be about a flash of lightning which I said was like a flash from a mighty camera. A member took exception and said I ought not to compare natural phenomena with man-made things, rather it is best if it were other way around. Commenting on this peculiar trait he gave an example of a computer professional who upon looking at the blue sky had compared the spectacle to the background wallpaper on a Windows desktop.
While one may lament the degrading implication of such a comparison, it is nevertheless a useful, albeit a quick and shallow device, in expressing one's feelings. For nature and its phenomena are incomparable and any attempt to describe them must necessarily run the risk of providing a subjective experience as a simile.
In one of the readings from Tagore the power of the written word came out forcefully as the poet creates a rich experience in which all the five senses were alive to participate in every nuance evoked and the feelings empathized. It was a humbling experience too.

It's raining

I love rain, especially when it comes crashing down on the rooftops and through the leaves and branches of trees. The sound of falling water, it changes in pitch, tone and volume depending on where it is falling. All that water falling and flowing in tiny streams and gathering into pools - ah, all that chatter of falling rain and gurgling water, the rising and falling tempo, its tingle on the skin and the heady smell it evokes from dry earth. It is a treat from the gods, a heavenly invite to rejoice.
Tropical rain is sudden, rushing and copious. It nourishes the earth and cools the air. It fills the ponds and lakes, and raises the water table. It washes the trees and the streets. It clears the air of pollutants. Water-washed leaves glisten in the light and in the night they reflect the street light like a thousand light bulbs. You see the trees festooned with lights. Thunder adds to the feeling of being among the primordial elements of the earth. Lightning appears like intense flashlight from a mighty camera.
Everything is wet and dripping, like the earth is ensconced within its own tears, sometimes of joy or sadness, depending on the mood of the observer. Rain is always rain, it is never good rain or bad rain, never a pouring or a trickle; it is the receiver who uses the adjectives to describe it to suit his or her mood or situation.
Thunder rumbles in the sky, like the earth that trembles under a quake. It sends currents of fear in the heart. It is the living spirit that is afraid, the fear of the elemental fury of nature, a fear as old as life itself. When lightning strikes something - a tree or a living thing - it burns, shrivels and dies. When water floods and overflows the banks, it washes away everything in its flow - humans, cattle and trees. When the wind blows with gale force, it uproots trees, razes shacks and throws everything in its path helter-skelter - be it man or beast. We call it the fury of nature, but is it? When a volcano erupts it is not the wrath of the gods, but we say it is. Fear has its own vocabulary. Nature sustains itself in myriad ways; rain or sunshine, flood or drought, quake or volcano, it is nature living, breathing in and breathing out life.

Father's Bio

I have been busy working on gathering the details of my father's early life, before he got married to my mother, even before he left his family home to become a journalist.
It is quite a job to dig out the past from those who lived through it. Depending on the subject they either express freely or guardedly. In any case they usually tend to digress when they talk about the past. It is difficult to bring them back on track once they go off at a tangent. Under pressure, they do return to the topic, albeit reluctantly, for they have been interrupted in their free flow of memory.
It is surprising to note how much of a man's life is a history of his time. It becomes doubly interesting when the man had spent a considerable part of his life in shaping the events now considered part of history.
Indeed, history is man's collective story. Every one of us leaves a little history behind which posterity will either love to cherish or hasten to bury. History though is unburiable and surfaces time and again in the pages of a historian or a sensitive writer.
I find the work of digging into my father's life quite interesting, even fascinating at times. I have collected scores of photographs and anecdotes. There is a lot of work to do and the job remains unfinished until the man lives again through the pages of the written word.
I have started putting together some random notes and scanned photographs. I have begun to blog at bjbnr.blogspot.com where I am attempting biographical sketches using the information I am gathering from time to time.

The Necklace Road

A ring of sodium lamps light up the lake's boundary in the night, hence the name Necklace Road. A popular haunt for children and adults, and for the tourists and the town's folk, the Necklace Road winds round the Hussain Sagar lake, also known as the tank bund.

The Hussain Sagar lake, built by the Qutb Shahi kings to meet the demand for water in Hyderabad, is now a picnic spot thanks to the government's initiative in building parks and lawns along the Necklace Road.

As you drive along the Necklace Road you will notice immediately that you have entered a special place in the city, a place where you leave your cares behind, a place where a vast sheet of water invites you to enjoy its unique environs of birds, rocks and greenery, of boats, water sports and eatery, of parks, lawns and scenery. It promises beautiful moments to capture and carry down the memory lane.

As part of the Buddha Poornima project, a huge monolithic statue of the Buddha is erected on an artificial island (the rock of Gibraltar) in the lake created specially for the purpose. The statue faces the tank bund road and is accessible by motorized boats from the Lumbini Park opposite the State Secretariat. Besides the ferry rides, the park hosts a musical fountain where children lose themselves in their merriment, cavorting and gambolling in its water, while their guardians watch over them from the lawns before it.

As you drive further down the tree-lined road past the secretariat you will reach the NTR Memorial and Gardens - the maverick actor-turned-politician NTR in whose name this was built and in whose regime as CM that the Buddha Poornima project was successfully undertaken. It boasts of a roller-coaster that propels you through a winding tunnel from a height and you squeal all the way down until you end up with a splash in a pool of water. There is also a small train with all the bells and whistles of a real one - ticket counter, stations, hooting et al. It takes you round the periphery of the vast garden of giant trees and several exotic flowering plants and cacti.

Let us stop for a while and digress a bit. I assure you it is the most interesting kind of digression. It is here, between the Lumbini Park and the NTR Park that every year on the last day of the Ganesh festival, the immersion of the Lord takes place. It is the Ganesh immersion when thousands converge in lorries, autorickshaws, cars, bikes and bicycles and on foot to take leave of their personal idol and witness the sinking of other idols which range from the size of a human palm to as big as a two-storey building. The police patrol the area with a thousand lights in their eyes - the wave of humanity in that hour of night is a commanding spectacle of noise from the cranes and other machinery, the shouts from the men and the screeching playback music from wornout records, a medley of vehicles of all sizes and shapes that only India can produce. To anyone but the native, it must look and feel like a pandemonium.

Continue your drive down the Necklace Road and you will reach a four-lane junction. To the left is the Prasad's, the city's first multiplex, and beside it the McDonald's. Straight ahead is the flyover which leads to Khairatabad junction with the statue of the renowned architect Mokshagundam Vishveshwariah, who tamed the Musi river, the tributary of the mighty Krishna, thus augmenting the efforts of his predecessors from 400 years ago to provide drinking water to the city. You turn right and continue along the Necklace Road, which hugs the lake's embankment all along its route, providing a breathtaking view of the lake to the right and the metro rail line to the left, over which the road flies to reach Khairatabad.

It is on this stretch of the road that things happen on a daily basis. A vast tract of land on both sides of the road is left vacant - the left one is reserved for vehicle parking and camel rides for the children; the reserved area to the right side of the road, abutting the lake, is where the city's alfresco events take place. While some events are seasonal - kite flying, regatta and military display of bravado - other events like exhibitions and musical nights take place regularly.

Kites fly in the month of January during the Sankranthi festival, when India celebrates Uttarayan, the winter solstice, and the harvest season. A great many youngsters and adults descend on the area to fly the colorful kites and enjoy the kite battles in the sky.

Sailing on the lake as a competitive sport has been going on for thirty years now organized by sailing clubs in the city. Monsoon regattas bring much cheer and delight to the onlookers.

Writings on the Hussain Sagar lake abound on the web pages sponsored by travel and tourism dotcoms; however they tend to miss an important event: the performance of what to civilians seem dangerous acrobatics over the lake by the Indian Defense units.

On a softer note, several musical nights regale the city folk with performances from the best in the country such as Ustaad Zakir Hussain, the tabla maestro whose thick rings of hair fly as he pounds on the drums and whose humorous asides between performances elicit resounding laughter from the audience.

The place also hosts exhibitions that draw huge crowds even on a working day. Books, pickles and namkeens (fried and salted) made by the DWAKRA women - a government supported venture for selling home-made stuff, plant nurseries, handicrafts and similar items kept on sale and display all year round.

By now you must feel hungry from all that sight-seeing and driving through a thicket of people and vehicles of an evening; head over to Eat Street. Get your favorite dish across a food counter, walk over to a table closest to the water's edge and settle down for a pleasant evening. If there is full moon, you would scarecely miss its iridiscent sheen over the placid lake. Facing the lake, turn over to your right and look up; if you are lucky you will see the bright and colourful lights on the marble temple of Birla Mandir, standing tall on a hillock. It is here on the floor above the eatery that children proudly and happily celebrate their birthday.

Intrepid children pester their parents to take them to Jalavihar - a place for water sports. It is located further down the Necklace Road after the Eat Street. Make sure you carry a towel and extra pair of trousers for them.

On the opposite side of the road is the railway line: the Metro Rail station has an imposing, though pleasing, structure and transports people to almost all corners of Hyderabad.

This is where I suppose the Necklace part of the road ends, beginning as we did from the Lumbini end near the Secretariat.

Coffee Day Out

Someone once asked me: what do you prefer, coffee or tea? I said I drink coffee with my wife and tea with my mother. No wonder you get along well with both, quipped my acquaintance. Coffee is a stronger beverage compared to tea, I remarked, and that much harder to handle!
Hyderabad is known for its Irani chay - the Iranian flavor of tea; however, in recent years it has witnessed a mushrooming of coffee houses, each selling a blend that goes well with the ambience created for it. So I step out to check out who sold what flavor and where - and my wife says I couldn't have chosen a better subject to do with her.
Set inside glass enclosure, a coffee house invites passers-by with its aroma, the music, the interior decoration, the uniformed attendants at the counter and the space for a tête-à-tête or a solitary muse. It is the outdoors equivqlent for a college canteen and therefore the quintessential hangout for the youth.
The first coffee house I happen upon is the one that is closest to where I live: Coffee Day at the Nagarjuna Circle on Road No.2 Banjara Hills. On a rain-soaked evening, what is more inviting than a coffee house? At any rate, Coffee Day is amongst the most popular in the city. Being the first of its kind to appear, it opened a chain of coffee houses all over the city. So I decide to do this story on Coffee Day and leave the others for another day.
Before we go into this world of coffee, I would like to give you a brief overview on this wonderful enterprise called Cafe Coffee Day that pioneered the cafe concept in India 15 years ago with their enticing tagline 'a lot can happen over coffee'.
They have a web presence which is not limited to the two web addresses below:
http://www.cafecoffeeday.com/
http://www.coffeeday.com/
They are also on Facebook (facebook.com/CafeCoffeeDay), Twitter (twitter.com/CafeCoffeeDay) and of course on YouTube.
A tweet I found funny says: "Good morning fellas.. You should spend this day doing absolutely nothing or else it's wasted ;) #ccd"; over a cuppa, I would have added.
So much for their presence on the World Wide Web. Now to the roots, from which the crops have grown and gave out seeds that spread the fragrance not only in India and Pakistan but also in Austria. It is the fastest growing retail chain in India and is now poised to spread rapidly in the world, being an exporter to countries like USA, Europe and Japan, according to the company news. Started in 1996 as a concept cafe on Brigade Road in Bangalore, the company rode on an unusual wave of success for what was typically a house-hold beverage. It operates under the following divisions, details of which are available on their website:
* Coffee Day Fresh 'n Ground
* Coffee Day Xpress
* Coffee Day Take Away
* Coffee Day Exports
* Coffee Day Perfect
According to the company reports, Cafe Coffee Day with a turnover of Rs.750 crores has coffee crops grown on more than 10,000 acres of land - the largest coffee growers in Asia, after the Tata's. It is a natural offshoot of the Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company Limited (ABCTCL).
Now, step inside and taste the ambrosia of the youth and the coffee-lovers of this world. As I open the swinging glass door and step inside, I feel the pungent aroma of coffee. I selected a corner table which afforded me a commanding view of the interior. Cane sofa sets and marble-topped three-seater tables make up the furniture with a huge TV screen set to a wall which everyone could watch, but nobody did. The house was nearly full and a steady chatter created a confused murmur over the din of the TV. Overhead lamps provided pools of lighting. Glass enclosures displayed packages of coffee beans and powders in both pure and blended flavors.
The house offered many flavors - cappuccino, macho, choc-o-latte to name a few - and in both hot and cold variants. Coffee is served either in long tumblers or gleaming white porcelain cups, depending on the choice of flavor. Decorative design patterns covered the creamy surface. The house provided the perfect ambience for a friendly conversation or a formal discussion group.
Cafe Coffee Day operated several retail outlets in the city: Begumpet, Gachibowli, Madhapur, Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills, to name just a few.
Much has been written on the health effects of coffee; the upshot is that risks are minimal if at all, and, contrary to the opinions of health fascists, in some cases it may even aid in promoting health by reducing the risks. At any rate moderation is absolutely essential - there is only so much the body can take - and the limit must be discovered by oneself by observing undesirable changes in the patterns of sleep, work and play. Caffeine in coffee can cause "increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, and occasional irregular heartbeat" - a study by the Harvard Medical School observes; however the same study reports "...risk for type 2 diabetes is lower among regular coffee drinkers ... may reduce the risk of developing gallstones, ... colon cancer, ... liver damage..., and ... Parkinson's disease..." The key, remember, is to discover a moderate quantity through self-observation.
De-caffeinated coffee is an option for the health-conscious. Decaff is gaining currency as a respectable drink and decaff drinkers are no longer the "losers", but have become a respectable lot, on the contrary.
Do you drink coffee to ward off sleep, to work more, to stay focused? Then you drink it for all the wrong reasons, I am afraid. It is a beverage that must be consumed for its own sake, for the pleasure of it; imbibe it with élan and inhale its aroma.

Sent from my Nokia phone

The T'angle of Hyderabad

In Hyderabad Telugu is spoken differently - the tone, accent and manner of speech is markedly different from that of the rest of the State. The city is in the midst of a region called Telangana - a politically explosive term in recent months. The dialect spoken in this region is called Telangana Telugu.

The regions are not official segmentations of the State, but a common conversational device to indicate a geographical area within the State. The Telugu variant spoken in this region sounds funny to people from other regions and vice versa. Even people originally hailing from other regions quickly adapted themselves to the language, though the customs and the cultural milieu remain foreign and impossible to assimilate. Many families, like mine, remain unaffected either by the language or the local customs; the language is used primarily to talk to the maid servants, the labourers and others who are born and bred here.

The language divide has been one of the fault lines along which the Indian body politic experiences tremors and sometimes even fissures. The linguistic division of the nation into self-governing entities is now sadly leading into separations based on dialects also. Hyderabad being at the heart of the Telangana region, and simultaneously the State capital, is in the grip of a violent agitation for a separate state. The seeds were sown in 1969 and after 40 years again riots broke out in several parts of the city, especially in the campus of the Osmania University. Time erases memory? Human memory is short? Alas, no. Nothing is forgotten, ever. Memory is only buried and at the first opportunity it rears its ugly head up and charges, taking energy from the young and the gullible in the present. And the politics of opportunity has always found the Indian mind a fertile field to take root and flourish.

Hyderabad occupies a unique position in this battle for separation between the separate-Telangana trumpeters and the rest of the Andhra state. It is the Urdu heartland in the south of India and has a sizeable population of Muslims. People from the rest of Andhra easily outnumber the so-called natives and have established flourishing industries and trade routes that cut across linguistic boundaries. The Telangana dialect exists only in speech; it is not the reason for the bad blood among the people. Hyderabad is caught in the crossfire and the conflicting interests of centre-state politics.

Telangana thrives on a folk culture that is at once colorful and lively. The Bonalu celebrations and the Bathukamma festival create a flurry of vivacity among the people and provide glimpses of women draped in colourful sarees standing in long queues in front of a temple, carrying steel plates of rice, incense and vermilion and pots on their heads with eye-catching designs. The Bathukamma is a prayer to the earth mother to ensure sound health for the husband – it means the festival of life, according to some or the festival of flowers according to others. Women decorate steel or reed trays with wild flowers in splendid colors and structured in the shape of a cone with a broad base. Bonalu are the pots that women balance on their heads and dance to wild trumpeting sounds while a potharaju – a half-naked man with a huge mustache and a saffron dhoti – whirls about in frenzy as he rouses himself with whip lashes. The Bonalu is an offering to the deity, the grama devata, for her continued patronage over their lives. The festivals occur in the months of August, September and October – follow the lunar calendar. Like most Indian festivals, especially of the local sub-cultures, the opinions regarding the origin and the purpose of the festivals vary, even as the manner of celebration itself varies from age to age. It is an incomplete presentation of Telangana without the mention of a Jatara – a ritual coming together of different tribes who pay obeisance to the local deity of Sammakka near Warangal about a 100 kilometers from Hyderabad.

Writing thoughts

I was thinking that to train oneself as a writer one must try to describe the ordinary day to day activities of a person such as shaving in the morning, praying in a temple, riding a bicycle, cracking a joke at the dining table, or rushing towards food when you are terribly hungry.
It is best to develop skills in writing ordinary daily events in life before one attempts large public events or ceremonies like a political rally or a wedding. It is fraught with difficulty I bet, for one will soon struggle for the right word and turn of the phrase that best describes the scene as honestly and vividly as possible.
Fiction demands such narration, even if the characters are fictitious and the scenes are imagined and the plot is contrived: make the unreal real.

More thoughts

The housemaid observes that brothers are blood brothers only as long as they are under parental care; later they are most unlike brothers.

The good never makes a good story, only the corrupt does.

There is no such thing as lesser or greater evil, except in the eyes of the law; evil it is when the self is corrupted.

Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Some thoughts

It is not enough to have a good intention, if it is carried out by wrong means; for means dictate the ends.
There is no such thing as a secret in human affairs; it is merely hidden until discovered, for what is there in the human consciousness, yours or mine, lies hidden and it is only a matter of time - one day or one millennium - before it gets out.
Uncle Sharma says that the church in Mettuguda is a haven for a syndicate of beggars. He says one can see on a morning a person in western clothes comes to the church on a scooter, changes into shabby unkempt clothing and walks out to the streets to beg. In the evening the man returns, changes back into decent clothes and heads back on his scooter to where he came from. Uncle also says that there would be a leader who controls and organizes the people for begging on the streets. If the assigned person could not fetch the target amount, he or she would be in for a corporeal punishment which ranges from thrashing to mutilation. Next time when you drop a coin in the begging bowl or the beseeching palms, drop a prayer for the agonizing soul.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Indian Summer

It is May; it is summer; it is hot and sweltering; it is the season for mangoes and hot pickles; as the temperature soars the tempers fly; the Earth thirsts for water as the Sun pours hot molten light; the leaves wither and the air goes dry; of an evening thunder and lightning shower promise of rain, but hot winds blow it away and leave everything high and dry; in the day the roads burn and the light blinds; the nights are sultry and find one spent and listless; in May the summer peaks.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

My Notes on Hyderabad

About notes on Hyderabad, I must keep it simple, lively, and colorful with a lot of pepper and picture. I must include a lot of personal element into it to keep it from reading like a tourist book. I must write from memory and research and then add colour from actually visiting the spots that I mention. I should like to title it Hyderabad Old and New or maybe My Notes on Hyderabad. Beginning with the Old it must blend into the New, thereby giving the flavour of the city as it actually is.
The objective is two-fold: to inform and to remind. To inform the reader who is new to the city and to remind (in the sense of bringing back to mind) those who have seen it years ago. It must kindle interest in the new and make the old reminisce nostalgically. With this objective, I must restructure and re-write the notes into moving running paragraphs such that they evince interest and evoke feelings. Happy reading!
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Old Hyderabad 3

After Troop Bazaar in Abids you head towards Sultan Bazaar. On the way you will notice (if you had seen a decade ago) that there have been some changes along the way.
    I will touch upon the things that have resisted the change first. The Rani park has not yielded to the growing and developing city. The lane beside it still leads to the Mozamjahi Market road. The bicycle shops on the opposite side of the road continue to do brisk business. Further on when you come to the 4-way junction you will notice that the Sultan Bazaar is as busy as it has always been - teeming with sellers and buyers and vehicles of all sizes and shapes, except buses and lorries perhaps, pass through its narrow over-crowded street. The road leading to the Imliban Bus Stand, which has been renovated and extended to cater to a large fleet of public transport, is a one-way street leading to the old city on one side and Nampalli and Abids on the other.
    Now I will talk about the things that have yielded to change. The road past the Central Bank beside the Sultan Bazaar is now bereft of the second-hand bookstalls along the Women's College which have served the needs of the students from high school to college for many decades. The place always boasted of books of all kinds; if you couldn't find a book there, then you can be sure it could not be found elsewhere in the city. After eviction the shop owners scattered into nearby corners until a big building came up specially built for them. It is located on the road near where the Sultan Bazaar lane ends on the other side.

Storyline

I was on a vacation, travelling in a train with my kids. There was this woman who sat on the opposite berth apparantly travelling alone. My older son sat quietly by the window. His younger brother struck up a conversation with an old man who seemed to be enjoying it. I looked at the dark rolling countryside and turned to the woman saying, 'do you hail from this region?' because she had got into the train at the previous station. She said yes, she belonged to this place. 'Isn't this a naxalite area?' She said yes it is. I asked 'how do you live here? Are you not scared?' she said no. Born and raised here. she found nothing to fear. 'Have you seen any naxalite?' I asked her. She said yes of course. 'What do they look like?' I asked again. Like any one here, she replied. Nothing marks them out as anything special. I have never met any one who belonged to the naxal infested area, so this woman was my only chance to know firsthand something about the members of this deadly outfit. 'Have you spoken to any one of them?' I continued. Yes she said, they speak like any other person you have met. 'But they are known to be violent and cruel.' I persisted. They are feared by people who don't want them to live and agitate for their cause. For the rest of us they are harmless and even friendly, she said with a smile. After a while the train stopped suddenly in the middle of nowhere. The woman got up to leave. 'Are you getting off here?' I asked a little alarmed. My house is close by, she said. It is my good luck that the train stopped here. And she was gone. A few minutes later some policemen stormed into the compartment and enquired about a woman fugutive who they claimed was a naxalite. My heart beat fast. Was I chatting amicably with a member of one of the dreaded Maoist gangs? A naxal woman who appeared to be quite plain and simple like me had me so completely that i did not for a moment suspect who she was!
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Old Hyderabad 2

In my youth Abids in Hyderabad was the centre of commerce. There was I believe a shop owned by one Mr Abid somewhere near the present location of GPO. However, I could neither know what it sold nor ascertain its exact location. Palace and Sagar Talkies were the most popular cinema haunts and Agarwal cool drinks slaked shopper's thirst. Khatiawar Stores sold dry fruits among other things and chief among the book stalls was Central Publishers. Missionary and convent schools were a stone's throw from Abid's and prominent among them were Little Flower High School (where I studied) and St. George's Grammar School. Our home was close by, near Troop Bazaar on the way to Sultan Bazaar. Elsewhere in the city life flowed lazily, while Abid's always bustled with shoppers of quality stuff. The Hanuman Temple beside the Police Station drew a large number of devotees in the evening. Abids continues to draw crowds of shoppers for jewellery and clothes even though it has lost some of its former glory. The loss is not because it has not changed - it has evolved into an upmarket area - but due to the changing lifestyles and corresponding change in the shopping patterns.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Writing

Writing conveys more about the writer than about what is written. Writing is the medium through which the writer speaks. Words express thoughts and feelings. So, rather than giving expression to one's thoughts and feelings through the written word, it would be worthwhile to rouse them in the reader. Writing demands a great deal of rigor and discipline from the writer, but expects nothing from the reader. It is in the interest of the writer that the reader reads, at least until the writer has achieved some notoriety or fame. Writer must be terribly serious in writing even when a comedy is attempted. But all writing is intended for a reader. Without a reader, the writing passes into oblivion, like fire in the absence of oxygen. No matter what is written or how much, a page or a book, it is important; for there is no such thing as a casual writer, though there is many a casual reader.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Old Hyderabad 1

When I was in school there were rickshaws in Hyderabad. The motorized versions came much later and eventually drove their predecessors to extinction. There was much in Hyderabad that is only a memory now. It has always been so with a growing city and Hyderabad is no exception to it. There is one inalienable part of Hyderabad, however, which remained immune to change. It is the old city. It has retained its quaint historical character, its crowded streets and small shops overflowing with their items for sale. Economic pressures and lack of political will perhaps ensured its continuance in its outmoded lifestyle. The captains of industry and the patrons of education have not made any inroads into its rigid social and economic structure; they preferred to leave the old city alone and turned to the salubrious though harsh landscape of the Banjara and the Jubilee Hills. Elsewhere, they preferred the outskirts to its dense and populous streets. The old city's only stake to modernity is in its use of auto-rickshaws in place of their traditional tri-cycle counterparts.

Theme

I added a few chapters at the beginning of my first novel, which I will probably entitle Two Lives - meaning the two different lives led by a single person. The book is coming up in five parts - The Beginning, The Red Book, The Gizmo Queen, The Shrink and finally The Ending. I drafted all the parts and need to do some research in filling up gaps and ironing out some kinks. The theme of the book, if one could talk about it, is an attempt to look beyond the obvious, beyond the comfort and the ordinariness of the normal, an attempt to penetrate the superficiality of daily living and dig deep into the mind and its activities. When the heart fails in love, the mind seeks answers in philosophy and spirituality. When love is gone, there is the barrenness of the intellectual landscape. Life in love is like a running brook; without love, it is like a desert sand, hot and barren. If I can capture this in the book, then my purpose is fulfilled.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Literary merit

Literary merit is a debatable issue even among the literati. Merit is something that is held up as praise-worthy, regarded in esteem and generally accepted as something to be emulated. Merit in literature must first of all be concerned with the use of the language to deal with the human condition at a depth not achievable in ordinary speech or the ordinary use of the language. It is not just the skill in story-telling, if you consider fiction, but to use the narrative form to evoke like sentiments in the reader that the characters are feeling, to create in the mind of the reader a deep sense of the ambience in the story; in the modern phrase, to generate an immersive experience. This requires a great skill in using the right words in correct combination to achieve the desired effect - to inform, to direct the senses, to captivate by the power of the words, to evoke empathy, to gratify the urge to read and draw pleasure from the written word - all these things become important in a literary work. While the story is important, how it is told is perhaps more important from the merit point of view.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Simple English

I was told that the books by Chetan Bhagat owe their popularity to simple English. Their reach is far and wide because the language is understood easily; there is no need to look anything up in a dictionary, which would be a distraction. Also, one needs to follow the story and hard words make it difficult.
Another reason for the popularity was also cited, namely, the novel marketing technique employed, which is to sell the books initially through supermarkets.
My interest as a reader of books tended to question the need to write in simple English for the sake of popularity. One writes in a style that best suits the subject at hand and the temperament and skill of the writer. Unfortunately, it is a sign of the times: like fast food, you want a fast read. The literary value is unimportant to a person who is just literate in a language, but is not familiar with its literature.
As an avid reader of books, I mourn the loss of literary merit in modern Indian popular fiction.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

The Human Race

The study of the human genome is providing evidence, according to researchers, that human race is one and that the racial distinctions based on skin color and so on are just myths and have no basis scientifically. I just finished listening to A Distinguished Race from BBC World Service on Internet Radio and it provided scientific evidence to what J Krishnamurti had said time and again that human differences and distinctions are skin deep. The myth of multiple races has been the cause of much human misery and arrogance in the history of the human race.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

One man, Two lives

The first story which I started to write in October laat year is about a man who sets out on a vague mental journey of ideas. He lives a secluded life, one in which there is intense speculation, marked by least physical activity. He confronts his past through dreams, beset by reveries, and interaction with a female companion. A new relashionship begins and promises to blossom, but his way of life and his obsession with his ideas threaten the budding relationship. What happens to them in the end? And why is he what he is? What happened in the past that so completely upset him and pushed him out of the groove of a normal relationship? This is what I am exploring now.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

Miscellany

This Notes app appears to be the best of the breed after all. Let me stick to this one. It served me well in the past. But what I wanted was more than a notes writer; I wanted a kind of diary in which I could type in text as well as append audio and video.

Whenever I hear news of someone's untimely death, like in a plane crash, I wonder why we go on in life as if we will go on forever.

It has been more than a week since I looked at my writings or considered them for edits. There is a lot of research I need to do to take the novels to the next level. Instead, I spent a great deal of time in forcing another story to come out, which it did not really.

Meanwhile I am playing around a lot with this device, loading apps and checking their functionality, then hunting the Net for more.

I did read a bit, a couple of stories from Guy de Maupassant and felt I must learn to write like him. Clear prose, simple yet profound, touching the depths of feelings without any grandiose writing.
Sent from Nokia Smartphone

My first story

I wrote a new chapter for my story after weeks of no writing. There has been some writing, but unrelated to the story. I started reading stories both short and long by masters and this activity seems not only to stimulate the muse in me but also to help me write better. Good writing it seems to me is the ability to delve in to the character's feelings and the skill with which they are presented.

Sent from my Nokia phone

Return of the blogger

I have returned after a year of absence from the blog world. I was trying my hand at writing and came up with a draft of two novels. In my subsequent posts I am going to talk about them. For now, I simply add that I have started blogging again and this time from my mobile phone. Keep watching.