the story about a story- 1  

Posted by Nitu in

As I began to write a crucial chapter of my story about a flood rising river sweeping a swath of landscape, the receding world economy shook my office. I had to call off my story writing and focus on code writing!(People let me think, you are being paid for the code, you know, for the code and hidden bugs, not for a gleaming firefly in a fable!)

The problem with IT professionals is that they don't have a definite timetable, at least not in India. It keeps on swaying in such a whimsical way I doubt even a circus master can attune himself to it. No, if you are a statistician, you still can't model this behaviour in your stochastic equation.

I dreamt of and made a resolution of a routine where my story would see a few words per day. But like so many dreams it saw the dust. I hit a doldrums.

Now that appraisal phase is over and I am nearing to the deadline of my code delivery, I am returning to my text editor( btw, text editor is far better and simpler than a code editor, only I wish it had a debug option!).

The primary objective of this chapter is to portray a flood calamity of a biblical magnitude. And I want it to be as vivid as possible, as devastating as perceivable. The chapter aims to -

1. a situation compounded by poverty and inherent human dark side.
2. rob a village of its innocent charm and simplicity
3. let the characters(including the protagonist) experience few incidents, both benign and severe which will eventually dictate and haunt their adult lives silently.

And I guess I started it well. But now that the flow was broken, I am finding hard to put myself in. Like an ex-lover returning and trying to win a second chance and confidence, it is awkward, hesitant and frustrating.
Btw, the abstinence has not been all that bad. For -
1. time again has reaffirmed it is what I love.
2. I have devised a twist in the story which will resolve a logical inconsistency present in the original story idea.
3. I have changed the name of the novel and I think, this truly reflects the story.


It is alright, if you are not here tonight  

Posted by Nitu

It is alright, when I invite and you don't arrive.
It is alright, when I call and you don't reply.
When tears dry, you shall find yourself again.
I shall talk of "My Sassy Girl" and you of "A moment to remember".

It is alright, when I joke and you don't laugh.
It is alright, when I tell a story and you miss the plot.
When the morning rise, you shall narrate why the Sardars grow a beard.
And if I go wry, you'll accuse me of a stone heart!


It is alright, when I verse Milton and you don't rhyme.
It is alright, when I sing a song and you only yawn.
When glooms fade, you will play a Beethoven and I a "November Rain".
I shall dance and you shall pirouette.

It is alright, if you are not here tonight.
For I am holding onto nothing, not even a thousand nights.


[This is what I am feeling tonight. It needs not be a poem outside, but you should know there is certainly a rhyme inside.]

An eclipse again  

Posted by Nitu

For quite sometime now I have been feeling that I have been living behind an eclipse. A long seemingly never ending one. Sometimes the shadow of a small moon grows so big and appropriately positioned that it darkens the brightness of size of a sun. And one wonders whether there exists a sun at all. No doubt, "there is always a golden ring following the eclipse" - as someone put it. But sometimes things arrive too late to be relevant. And I hope it won't be the case. I hope it won't happen behind a wall of a future cloud and not after when both the x-ray film on my eyes and the canvas in my hands go numb.

I get frustrated on the slightest setback, get annoyed on the most trivial friction. The world is turning out be too nihilistic and too purposeless and I don't know what to be blamed. As if the imperfect world has taken over the better part of the world for all. Suddenly(?) I have found myself to be a pedantic creature looking for the self sufficiency and meaning in every tiny bit isolating everything apart tending to defy the holistic meaning and existence. I feel as if the microscopic approach had defeated the telescopic approach of a life and no longer co-exist.

Consequently, I have been developing a dislike for anything that directly and remotely deals with the facts- history, statistics, news, chart, survey, percentage, absolute figure- anything; all because they represent the actual world, the factual world. And inevitably developing a sense of abstraction over objectivity which hides the naked truth and gives room for hundred interpretations, poems over chronology envisaging and espousing a perfect concept. When truth and falsehood are blurred juxtaposition, right and wrong are never settled debate - I feel accepting one doctrine is the way to be peace with. This can't amount to an escapism.

A few people argue, this is, indeed, a good phase for me, this is when one can turn upside down of a single thing over and over, flip one side to another side again and again and come up with an interpretation hitherto unknown, meaning and essence of it hitherto explained. But I am too confused. Am I a philosopher in the making or on the road of sainthood? Never I have had such a design in my mind. I will be happy if this transition will have happened as a result of a conscious drive, not as a war treaty after a battle over sadness.

I am fighting hard over everything, yet nothing with all my might and weapons. Till now it is all sands and dusts and a blurred vision. But I am keeping my windows opened, nonetheless. Someone said, we can't keep the windows closed and deprived ourselves of new air because of the fear of the dust.