Ali Sethi reads

To be so young and so confident; one wonders what particular confluence of genes permits that.
I was at a reading by Ali Sethi from his book, The Wishmaker, moderated by his former teacher, Amitav Ghosh.
As is often the case at book launches, the audience seemed to expect more of the author than his writing. In this case, they demanded that this young man, who can write and sing and not hesitate to voice his opinion, be a political prophet on the future of India and Pakistan. He handled it well. But although he spoke with intelligence and emotion, he seemed to me so young and certain that the evening acquired the flatness of a Hollywood film.

Birds

I wrote to a friend today about a recent journey.
Which brought to mind trips taken in the last years.
And suddenly, in the edgy density of the drenched city, I am reminded of the remarkable bare expanse of other landscapes.

I was in the middle of an ink drawing when a similar flash of memory inspired me to write a poem. I don’t think it will begin to convey to you the extraordinary optical sense of what we saw. All the same, I am, with much hesitation and apology and uncertainty – I don’t write poetry very often - going to post it here.

Birds
explode onto the horizon
as ink from a blow-pen on virgin paper.

expanding
particles of mist
take the v-form of birds in flight,
pinpoints
whose tendrils of absorption echo
the blurring edges of wing flutter.

The rockin' world goes round

inspiration expression

Recently someone asked a group of writers of which I was a part, what it was that inspired them to write. At the time I left it to the others to comment. They spoke of particular instances: discovering a lost item that took on iconic proportions of nostalgia, for example. There were the ever relevant references to motherhood and the amazing qualities of children’s voices.

I could have answered that the particular story that was in focus on the occasion was, among other things, a tribute to a Bangalore I grew up in. But that seemed too simple, too one dimensional a response. I left it to the others to comment.

I reflect once again on the question, in the context of my own creative experience of course. Ultimately, it is the entire complex subtlety of human behaviour that catalyses the need to express in a bid to understand the relationships, the sociology and the interactions that propagate individual destinies.

It is fascinating how nuances reflect on the face. For instance, a certain sub-cutaneous sheen, almost palpably dense under the skin often signals ill-health. I’ve seen it time and time again, often learning later that the person in question was indeed ill. The other thing it has unfortunately taken me long to hone is my empirical ability to read that particular stillness, a closed, guarded intensity that I now recognise as a sign of depression. Shuttered eyes!

I find I can work misery and discontent into a story, and am learning to incorporate them with the fine-ness they are due. Love, however, is impossibly difficult to write about. The whole ghastly caricaturing in popular cinema, of the secret communication between potential lovers, the lifted eyelid and lowered brow, the infatuated coyness and sentimentality, is a serious deterrent. I have to find a way to acieve some measure of the sophistication of An Equal Music.

In any event, catching passing glimpses of human expression invariably triggers stories. Capturing their elusive delicacy is the challenge.

short fiction

As I discover more and more short fiction, creative, experimental, classical, brilliant, bold, honest, two things strike me: If I had read much of this before I ventured into exploring writing, I doubt I would have had the courage to start. And now that I’ve started, will I ever reach a comparable level of craft or inventiveness or emotional depth.

I am driven to use lighting, transitions between tungsten and neon and natural light to set tone. In Stretch, Open Up, Stretch, the solitary shadow and neon light hint at the cold, aseptic world the protagonist is in. In another story, Rosy, a prime suspect in one of the Sonali Naag detective series, is a paying guest in a room lit by ‘grim neon lighting’ that she attempts to turn into a home. The ‘signs flashing across the street’ in Where’s my Baby Gone ‘make patterns’ whose jaggedness signals what is to come. But then, I read, ‘In place of its (the moon’s) luminosity there were only the streetlights, shrill and small, and the irritating flicker of the neons...’1. I am humbled.

Similarly, I recognise that I fail the grimy, gritty reality of the city because I do not have the courage to say something like, ‘under the city’s icy winter, there is a street where the trash builds up and drunks vomit, where the fight dogs shit and everything freezes fast.’2.

One of the themes that fascinates me, that I return to periodically is that of conception, birth and the relationships across generations. The profound single-mindedness of purpose that drive humanity to procreate, and love are beautifully dealt with in Procreate, Generate 3, a lesson in story-telling.

I close this stream of thought with the lasting imagery of the mobile, cohesive ‘rubbish island’ – ‘The whole sad flotilla, a peculiar combination of the once cared-for and the utterly irrelevant’ 4.

story teling story telling story telling story telling story telling story telling story telling story telling story telling story telling sto ry telling story telling story telling story telling story telling story telling story telling story telling story tell

1. Paul Bower, Big Head, Cadenza 19, September 2008, pp: 27
2. Antonio Ungar, Hypothetically, Zoetrope: All Story 13 (1), Spring 2009, pp: 54
3. Anthony Doerr, Procreate, Generate, Granta 97, Spring 2007, pp: 71
4. Rebecca Lloyd, The River, Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology, 2008, pp: 13

unveiled

unveil

your eyes

see multiple layers

Self Doubt

I saw Orhan Pamuk at a book signing recently. It was a most disappointing experience. For although we, the avid fans, could get close enough to stand practically nose to nose with the man, all we did was shuffle past him in a disciplined line as he somewhat morosely signed our books. I and, I believe most of the others, had expected him to talk about his work, share ideas and inspiration and craft with us.

I shouldn’t complain for I was the very first in line. As I started to pose my well thought out question on locale and character, the manager, a most polite and gracious gent I should emphasize, announced that the author requested that the queue move in a fast and orderly fashion. By engaging in discussion I was intending to break this newly stated rule whose amplification was, in any event, drowning me out. I persisted. Mr. Pamuk answered quickly before gesturing urgently that I should move along. ‘Many people in line’, he said impatiently in a faintly panic-stricken manner.

Showing off my signed copy to a friend, I discovered that most others had had their copies personally inscribed. I managed to make it back to the front, shamelessly breaking ahead of a bewildered couple.

‘I didn’t realise it was permitted,’ I said as I told Mr. Pamuk my name and held out my already signed and much-valued copy of “My Name is Red”. That got a little laugh out of him. ‘We were in an experimental phase then’, he replied.

I could have heard him speak the previous day but having assumed I would have a chance at the signing, I chose instead to listen to Vidya Dehejia, which was fine. I read that at the lecture I missed, Orhan Pamuk commented on how modern aids such as sophisticated word processing programmes tend to distract the writer. I paraphrase but he said something like, one worries too much about layout. Surely one would choose ones font, use the standard format and get going, I thought. But now that I’ve started this blog, I see his point. I’ve spent hours positioning everything on my page only to find that when I view it full page everything is rearranged.

Does it matter how it looks if the content is sound? But is the content sound? And isn't it important that it look good?

Explode and Flow

I had an interesting mental conversation with myself prompted by an online comment from a writer colleague. A conversation that revolved around old-fashionedness in writing: traditional structure, correct language usage as opposed to lingo and slang and wild, exciting peregrinations.
In ‘Asha Goes to the Cinema’ a tale of a young college girl whose first explorations into adolescence overwhelm her somewhat into valuing the security of home, there is the phrase: “Asha stayed in the autorickshaw on the pretext of holding it. She knew that if she went in, her grandmother would somehow get to know.”
Pretext – nobody says that anymore, it makes the text pedantic. I know that but I can’t bring myself to sound sassy and with-it. I can’t make myself sound like someone else.
In the end, I guess, one just has to be oneself and let it explode out of one and flow ......

Mango season

I started a blog today. My daughter encouraged me, helped me set it up.

My son has gone to the beach. He is getting into the sea as I post this, swimming with a friend.

It is mango season and I taste the warm, golden-red. I’ll go and buy some this evening.