moment

Good Vs Bad

In Friends, when Joey writes a letter of reference for Monica and Chandler, he writes in broken English and substitutes each word in his letter with synoyms from the Thesaurus. Each and every word, until Chandler finds that even Joey's name is subsitituted as baby kangaroo. Now from Joey's basic written English skills to our topic!

Who can say that he/she is a good writer? I cannot claim that I'm a writer. When somebody asks about my work and what do I write, I generally evade the question. Some of it has to do with my awareness of my own limitations. Then comes great writers who can make you enticed for hours and hours without stumbling across any word or thought in their writing.

Then comes this need to simplify everything. When I see bad writing, my gut instinct is to change it into a better form. I have read bad writing that has an antique taste, as if it was taken out of some English book written two hundred years ago and happily copied by a lot of people as good writing.

What I feel is that writing is an internalised process; you cannot study a style and emulate it in writing just by following how the words go. Rather than that the message has to come in clear and sharp terms and many good writers re-write until they get their ideas clearly in writing.

This might be dismissed as plain rubbish; but if you can become a good writer by imitating the style of 'good writers', beware dear writer, you might be centuries behind!

Freedom

Death

You and I

What brought you back to my mind, I do not know

But I do not like the hot surge of tears that arise,

That still rise though it’s been so many long years

Since we walked away from our future happiness.

Words, reasons, explanations I cannot find at all,

But the heart wants to scrawl a few more words,

In that curious hieroglyphic that we had invented,

To encode a secret message just for your eyes.

But then the long years have made us so apart

For so long that I do not know you anymore,

Nor the heart’s language or its silent desires 

Even my own self I hardly recognise anymore.

You have a good mirror to look in, so do I have

What we’ve had once is more than what'll be.

Us

In a way, each story has the same kernel in it- our dreams, hopes and longing all lost and found again- the fire and the smiles and the hopes that love kindles and brings joy.

The stories that we write are not what really happened or events that could really happen. These come from an imagination that loves to wander and see what would have happened if! Most of the time it shows you in many places you would have been happily rooted yet shows how you have nothing but your wings. 

Sometimes, it is sunshine and laughter outside; depends on the state of this mercurial soul. The reality looms large taking everything away and sometimes giving blessings unasked for.

Your stories reveal the joy of finding happiness in new things, which are in fact, new ways to name the old likes and loves while I harp on change and about moving on but have stayed in the same year where I stopped learning.

The fire still burns in these kernel stories of love, longing and loss so much that our words have intertwined the threads of our many lives forever.

A good ending

conscious breathing

peace

negativity

stillness

breath

thought

Real love

The Budgies

Chirp, chirp, chirp. The 14 budgies begin their  racket from early morning until the light fades in the evening, when they turn unusually quiet. They won't let anyone sleep a wink at daytime or night-time. They are the famous or rather notorious pets of my pet-crazy husband. 

Their names are strange. My husband has christened them with names of footballers from different nations (Zlatan, Ruud, Jaan, Juan, Veron)  and favourite characters from TV shows (Cosmo from Cosmo Kramer in Seinfeld. I have named only one-Mousse. 

The star attraction is Budgie with yellow and green shades. Three females fight constantly over him. So the criminal has to be kept in isolation cage and brought back only after it is subdued. All kids belong to him and he's the cause of all battles till date.

The budgies have certain pronounced tastes in music as well. They are fond of Eminem, The Ramones’ My Sharona and my collection of rain melodies. They will shriek at the top of their voice (just like me) when they hear their favourite tracks being played. 

river

Reality

the past

Dan Brown's Inferno

Dan Brown’s Inferno (2013) is quite unlike his earlier books in that here the author turns an environmental activist in that he constantly reminds the reader of the global ecological crisis and the problems of overpopulation. It reads more like GB Shaw’s plays that carry some social message or the other.

Though in the earlier novels, it was possible to suspend disbelief at the kind of code-cracking that Robert Langdon practiced, this time it becomes a little bit tedious with the population problem that is part of the discourse of the novel. He makes use of the character of a slightly eccentric scientist Bertrand Zobrist to offer a solution to the overpopulation problem and this is by creating a virus named Inferno that has got serious consequences to the entire humanity.

The apocalypse is near and the scientist being a fan of Dante has written all the codes in poetry. The allusions and history reveal a lot about the culture and heritage of art work as usual, the fun element is replaced by a seriousness quite unlike Brown. Like all Brown heroines, Sienna Brooks is also quite smart and independent but she turns mushy and cries on Langdon’s shoulder. 

Eat Pray Love

In a very interesting study of the blunders written by students, there is a story about how Milton came to write his epics. According to a very imaginative student, Milton got married and he wrote Paradise Lost. Later his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained. Though how many times he repeated this practice only history can answer as can be seen from the number of his wives.

Now in popular culture, marriage and love are usually celebrated while divorce is usually represented as the end of your life.  From Jane Austen novels to present day romance novels, there is a long tradition of writing that ties up your life neatly in terms of love and marriage. Then there are as many number of chick-flicks that show how the course of true love never did run smooth.

Eat Pray Love is a 2006 novel by Elizabeth Gilbert that is quite unconventional because of its veracity and audacity. Told in the first person autobiographical mode of narration, the novel depicts a woman’s search for identity after a rather painful and time-consuming divorce. A woman in her thirties, instead of settling down and having a family of her own, is haunted by anxiety attacks. She wants to be free and decides to go on an adventurous trip all by herself.

She feels that she has been floating through life without an identity of her own.  Once her marriage breaks down, she lands straight into the hands of a lover named David. One of her friends makes a remark that if she had resembled her husband earlier, now she resembled David. This turns her inward and she wants to find out what she is really like and what she really wants out of life.

After her brief rebound affair with David, she recognises that another relationship is not quite the answer that she is looking for. She travels to three places that have only one thing in common- the first letter I- Italy, India and Indonesia. In Italy, she learns the native language and finds a new interest in friendship and in the Italian cuisine. A word catches her attention- attraversiamo- which means “let’s cross over” commonly used by her friends when crossing streets.

She goes to India and scrubs floors in an ashram while learning how to recite the prayers correctly. She meets Richard from Texas who calls becomes friends with her and calls her groceries. Her next place of visit is Indonesia, where she meets an ancient medicine man Kekut Liyer who asks her to enjoy life to the fullest and to laugh right from the liver.

She meets a Brazilian divorcee named Felippe in Bali and agrees to spend time with him. She also helps a traditional healer named Wayan to build a house with the help of financial aid from the US. Her experiences make her believe in the goodness of life once more and she feels that she has finally confronted her inner demons. Her scars hurt her less and finally she recognises that she has become much lighter as she has performed this wonderful act of crossing over. A feel good book about divorce, the film adaptation released in 2010 has Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert.