Silence

Silence, a companion…

Silence is like a constant companion, when I am jogging, exercising or walking to and from office. A truncated thought which got lost in the craziness of the day would come out from nowhere and start knocking your head. With nothing to do your mind grabs it like a 2 year old will grasp a new toy and start licking it and looking at it from all directions. I might not reach conclusion but mind just tires looking at all possibilities and chuck the thought as I ring the bell….

Silence and Anger

For me anger is silence, but this is a different kind of silence, it’s like a dark thick liquid, and like your bile (I haven’t seen it). It is like a tight fist of a boxer or stretched muscles of an athlete before his 100 m dash. It’s a very intense and at times pushes for a physical action like u keep running till u drop.

Books, Movies & Silence

Reading a book or seeing a movie (which I like) is almost like meditation for me. That’s the only time I am one with what I am doing. These are the times when I want silence to envelope me so that nothing can come between me and my passion. Mostly (in my current state of affairs) these moments are post 10 pm. This silence continues even after I finish reading a book or seeing a movie, it’s like I am engulfed in a bubble with all characters surrounding me. It lingers on till sleep engulfs me. These are the most beautiful moments…..in my day.

Silence and Misunderstanding

Silence is also misunderstood a lot. In a relationship silence is not golden it’s the first step for a misunderstanding to start. Many times you plan something, visualize something and expect a certain course of action…..imagining in your mind, I will do all these and probably delight her. Not knowing the other person or thinks something but maybe totally different and at the moment of action, surprise, delight just the opposite happens….which shuts you up completely. Both people in their thought and expected action have gone so far that now they can’t pull back or explain to each other…..So each goes into their own deep silence till….

Master silence and you will master life….

The art of short story writing

In recent days, I have been under a short story attack. I read - Unaccustomed Earth – Jhumpa Lahiri, The Japanese Wife – Kunal Basu, The Elephant Vanishes & After the Quake – Haruki Murakami and also a collection of short stories by famous oldies like Graham Greene, Norman Mailer etc

No particular reason for picking them up, Jhumpa Lahiri and Murakami are my favorite authors, Kunal Basu – for the hype and the other one I saw it in our apartment library and thought I will give it a shot. Jhumpa Lahiri was the first and probably I got inspired by that, but after yesterday I felt I am not the short story type.

I am kind of a person who needs to get intimately involved with the characters, the plot, the situation and a short story if not well written is almost like an anti climax which is what happened with few stories in Japanese Wife & Elephant Vanishes. It’s like the author has so much to say but suddenly it just switches off.

On the other hand, Unaccustomed Earth as well as her first book – Maladies, you don’t get that feeling. Her writing is all about the finer details of existing emotions, trapped emotions, I almost get the feeling that she is lingering on every single thought / emotion which is running through a father or a daughter’s mind. And it’s beautifully articulated. There is a kind of style and elegance even in each every sentence. Importantly she can draw a canvas which to me it feels complete. Basu fails miserably in creating that grandeur of emotional upheavals

Murakami, on the other hand is a great story teller, different style but all his big stories / novels are written in a manner that many times I must have read a book till morning 6, made a cup of coffee to re align my senses then groggy eyed started waking up my kids. In a sense it is gripping….not because it is hurtling towards a specific end like a crime novel but more….in terms of the character his / her journey. Some stories in after the quake & elephant vanishes had a similar feel, but I still prefer the Murakami who wrote Norwegian Woods & Chronicles.

But, in the short story genre, I am great fan of Holmes and Felu da (Satyajit Ray) I guess the investigative / detective genre, has a start and an end but in both these case there is also a strong character who is residing in your mind, to whom you are giving shape when you are reading a new story (Part 2 of Unaccustomed Earth does that by creating characters who are linked by different situations).

Anyways, for the time being I am off this genre……but as they say book / music / movies….are like beaches and mountains. You keep going back to them because the sand, the sky and the mountains by nature are the same, but every time you go there you see a new picture.