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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.

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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.