Apu’s World

Warning: A rambling and somewhat personal post follows…

Some readers of this blog may be aware that I dabble in fiction writing, among other interests. In the past year, I’ve tried my hand at writing a novel, but given up. I don’t think I’m ready yet, and it certainly needs a lot more discipline that what I bring to it now. What I have been working on though is short stories. And, I have been working consciously on improving them - not just writing a story as it takes my fancy (as I used to), but writing more thoughtfully, paying attention to the language, to the characters. Yet, I would not place myself in the category of highly innovative or experimentative writers. No modesty here, just an awareness that I tend more towards a classical style and am still in favour of a good story told well even if the narrative is not earth-shattering.

I’ve never made any serious attempts to get published, partly because I don’t yet have a large enough body of work and partly because I’m too lazy to do what a friend calls ‘the incremental route’, i.e. submit to contests and anthologies, start getting in your leg slowly and hope to get noticed. Frankly, that is a lot of work, and it’s something I haven’t been very focused on.

In some ways, I haven’t actually thought too much about getting published. I have been sharing my work with a few good friends who’ve really enjoyed it, and that, along with the process of writing itself, has been a delight. So, yes, even if I were never to be published, I’m not likely to kill myself.

Yet, a few days ago, I’d sent a sample to someone who is familiar with the publishing industry and this person got back to me in five minutes flat, saying that he thought it was unlikely the work would find a market, because it was just too plain and old-fashioned. In all truth, my heart sank.

While I haven’t been really focused or even enthusiastic about getting published, the thought that it could never be, still felt depressing. When I really thought about it, it wasn’t even so much about the not getting published bit - it was the feedback that my style was too plain and old-fashioned. Nobody wants to hear that of course!

On the other hand, as I spoke to another fellow-writer, surely there is space for different kinds of writing. And while ‘big publishers’ may only look at the next big avante-garde thing, surely there must be people around who are interested in the ordinary lives, the story of everyman and everywoman well told? While I want to keep improving my writing, I don’t want to transform it into something that doesn’t come naturally to me, for the sake of what the market wants. My work tends to be spare and the language doesn’t particularly stand out, but I like to think that the stories do capture something of the essence of people’s lives, especially lives that look ordinary on the surface.

The one thing about feedback of this sort though, is that it forces you to take a close and hard look at your work. I’ve been doing that for the last few days and I’m not vain enough to suppose that there isn’t plenty of room for improvement. Description and setting, for instance, continues to be a weak spot for me. So, back to the writing desk it is, I guess!

p.s: An interesting discussion on short stories here, over at Lotus’ blog.

apu In General, Original Fiction

Once upon a time, when Earth was very young, (almost a toddler, you could say), Moon was a lot closer than he is to her today. For you see, Earth and Moon were actually siblings who had been separated from each other when they went to the large fair of the Universe in its heyday. In the early days, they could still remember the time when they had been together, and Moon began a slow revolution around Earth so that he could always see his sister, as she moved around their mother, the Sun. 

But time went by, and the memory of the early days grew faint. As Moon looked out at the vastness of the Universe, billions of light-years in every enticing direction, he resented his ties to his sister and even pretended to himself that the bond had been of her making. As the Sun’s shadow moved every hour of the day, and slivers of darkness covered one longitude at a time, he brooded over his insignificance in the larger scheme of things and wondered why he couldn’t be a planet himself. It was the resentment of all younger children, who know that however bright and beautiful they may be, they can never truly be first. 

With every movement around his sister, he took a step further away, until, many years later, when Earth had grown up (and so had he), he was many millions of miles away from her. Over that unbridgeable gulf, he looked at her one day, and for no reason at all, the memories of his childhood came to him uninvited. The ties that he had snapped now seemed worthy and desirable, and his heart cried out in sorrow. By now, Earth’s heart had hardened and she would not hear his cries, but her children, the young oceans heard a kindred voice and could not help responding. 

Every day they heard the desolate Moon’s call and answered with their tides, but the Earth hushed them up and ordered them to shut their ears. And that is why, to this day, the tides rise and fall every day, but Moon goes farther and farther away. 

apu Original Fiction

About six months ago, I wrote a short story, with another story tucked inside it. The plot went like this. A young man quits his job hoping to write his first novel. The main characters in this novel are a family of vegetable-sellers that he meets every now and then, on a busy road in his locality. When he hits a block after the first three chapters, he becomes almost voyeuristic, visiting the shop every day on some pretext or the other, hoping to draw ‘inspiration’. Until, one day he discovers that the shop has been razed for some road-widening work. His inspiration and in fact, his whole dream of being a ‘maverick’ writer falls through. (There is more to why it falls through, but I won’t get into that here). 

Now, the voyeuristic story that the author in my story is writing, is infact based on a family of vegetable-sellers whom I sometimes shop from, close to where I live. Yesterday, from inside an auto rumbling down the same road, I was horrified to note that this shop had been razed down. I felt unbearably guilty; guilty of having pre-empted reality in what is no doubt an unpleasant outcome for them. And for a moment, though I don’t believe in a literal supreme being directing individual actions and events, I allowed myself to wonder how God feels when his script goes wrong. 

p.s. This is my 100th post on this blog and though occasionally, I’ve thought of closing it, on the whole, I’m thankful for all the conversations I’ve had, the different view points I’ve got to hear and the interesting people I’ve been able to meet. A big Thank You is in order to all my readers!

apu In General, Original Fiction

Her name was Manju. His name was Manju.

She lay in the general ward of the Bowring hospital, on a wrought iron bed and a mattress a little thicker than a well made paratha. He ran from place to place, looking for a relative who had not yet heard.

Her mind and body were on one frequency. Thousands of receptor cells acted in conjunction, flooding her nerves, making sure that her brain blocked out every signal but pain. Occasionally, she sensed that many different people came to visit her but her brain urged away the awareness almost as soon as it dawned. Pain was a jealous companion.

His mind was split on two different axes. He was afraid, of course. Anyone would be, if the police was pursuing them so doggedly. Curse the television channels! It was they who were publicising the case relentlessly. But he was also a little proud. He had proved that he was a man. The whore had asked for it, hadn’t she?

She used to study at the University, the first girl in her family to do an M.A. Her parents were persuading her to get married. He used to work at his cousin’s bike repair shop. His parents had tried to get him to pass his twelfth, but he didn’t see the point in it.

One day, she had come to his shop to get her moped repaired. Her father, a class D government employee had bought her the second-hand bike when she passed her graduation, though her mother had protested that the girl was receiving too much freedom. He believed that he had fallen in love with her on their very first meeting. Hadn’t she thanked him so nicely when he had replaced the punctured tube? He had followed her that day, watching as she entered the University gates.

She had asked him to go away when he stood outside the gate the next day. Gently. She wasn’t scared. She believed that a good word could handle most people. He left but he was thrilled. She must like him, she must. She would come around when she knew how much he loved her. Didn’t they share a name? That could not be a coincidence.

She began to fear, as he followed her, the next day, and the next day and then, everyday. He began to feel more confident. It was just a question of time.

When her exams got over, she told her parents that she was willing to meet the boys that they had been pestering her to see. He told his parents that they must go and ask her parents for her hand.  

She liked one of the boys. He had a government job and his family didn’t mind her going out to work. She was ecstatic. She was sure that she would go on to be a lecturer. He slapped his mother when she got back from the meeting and told him that her parents had no intention of getting her married to a school dropout. He was outraged. How could she deceive him?

She began shopping for her wedding clothes. He got his lab attendant friend to buy him a bottle of sulphuric acid.

She had no thought for him as she lay in the hospital. Once, she felt anger flooding through her body, but soon, pain forced it out. In some time, there would be anger and helplessness and even disgust when she looked at her charred face, but not now. He thought of her endlessly, for the first few days, as he skulked at his mama’s house, but when the FIR was filed and they flashed his picture on the news, he was driven out. Driven from house to house, he soon discovered that he could not keep her tight. Soon, all his thoughts were on himself as he was hunted like an animal and he feared for his life if he was taken into police custody. In a week, she seemed like a dream, a nebulous vision that he had a long time ago and could no longer quite clearly remember. 

apu In General, Original Fiction

Ardhanarishwara.

“How could they? How could they?” He would ask himself. “How could you?” He asked his parents. He didn’t long for a Rahul or a Rohit. A Sundar or a Murali or a Kartik would have been just fine. But Ardhanarishwara? He dismissed his parents’ tale of having been blessed with a child by the Shiva who went by that name. What, did they imagine themselves to be living in a mythical age?

When he was really young, all it had meant was an unpronounceable name. Everyone just called him Ardha, which wasn’t that bad, even if it did sound incomplete. When he crossed primary school though, and the kids figured out what it meant, he lost all hope of ever living a normal life. “Ey, you, half-and-half”, they would call him, or just Number 9. Even then, things were tolerable until he reached class 8, when an Akhilandeswari had to join their school and wriggle her way into roll-call. That really pushed him to roll number 9. There was no way he could possibly overcome that.

With a name like that, there would be no place for him at the IITs or even at a second-rung engineering college. He finished his boards with an astonishing 55 percent, a record low for the family. A B.A. That was all he could hope for. It was then that he started collecting words. Epiphany. Colloidal. Oppobrium. Catatonic. Prehensile. Three or four syllables - he was very specific about that. No more and no less. He would place each of them on the tip of his tongue, and roll it around. Gently. Words deserved careful handling. When he was finished with one, he would pause for a moment before lapping up the next one.

College ended and he landed at the calling of the new generation - BPO worker and shirker. He was twenty one now, and the sound of his own money was pleasant to the ear. He considered changing his name. If he could, he would have a name like Archangel Correlation or Mellifluous Persiflage, a four-syllabic beauty. It wasn’t possible, of course. One day, his boss called him and announced that they were making it easier for American customers to talk to the agents. And they christened him, Ar-ty.

apu Original Fiction