The Night watchman

Weather was bad, conditions were overcast. Drizzle was being faded away only due to the force of strong wind – clouds were gathering overhead and making the afternoon seem like dark evening.  There was a silence in dressing room, openers were just going out and everyone was saying their silent prayers for them to just bat through the day without any casualty.

The captain walked to him steadily and said “Pad up Jim, in case of a wicket, you will have to go and weather it out till end of day’s play.’’

Jim was playing in that team as a fast bowler, however he loved batting too – and did not like to throw away his wicket. He was gritty by nature and a team man to the core.  A chance to go out as a night-watchman in troublesome weather was exactly the kind of challenge that he loved to take up, something that is unnerving but exciting at the same time.

Innings started and soon it came out that it was going to be a rough ride. Not only was the weather making it difficult, the pitch was also vicious – lots of irregular bounce and two paced behaviour. It was an openers’ nightmare.  The look on their face said that worst of their nightmares had come true.

Fall of wicket was merely a matter of time; it seemed to Jim, he was all set from the word go to go out there and fight it out for his team.  He had done that in past and backed himself for repeating the feat. As he sat with his safety gears on, the images of that innings flashed across his mind – it is surprising how vivid memories are!

A sudden roar from the opposition team brought Jim back to present, he realized there was an appeal – ball had taken up sharply from good length and put the batsman in awkward position and also took an edge of his glove.

“Take it easy Jim” – he heard as he stood up after seeing the umpire raising his figure to indicate the fall of first wicket.

Jim was a dear friend of mine and I was supporting his team, praying for him to salvage it for a few overs so that umpires can probably realize how bad the lights were and call it a day. There were some fine batsmen in his team and I wanted to watch them bat tomorrow in bright day light. As a fan of the game, sight of glistening red cricket ball under the sunshine was one of the finest views I had cherished – the overcast conditions were ruining it.

Just as I saw Jim walking out, a fantastic analogy struck my mind of how much I shared with him at this particular moment.

Indeed, being fan of Indian cricket at this point of time is akin to be a night-watchman. The dark secrets of corruption, poisonous accusations of conflict of interest, politicization of the game’s governing body, suppression and misrepresentation of facts from various entities leave us all in a very fragile state – just like that of a night watchman walking out to fight out on a difficult wicket and weather conditions.

My prayer is as much for myself as it is for Jim, I hope we both bat out this tough time safely without any further damage so that we can see that red cherry shining under bright light in days to come! 

Holi – The morning after

Did any colour I splashed on you, leave a stain? Somewhere on you?

Blue that we used in beginning briefly,

or the yellow that I loved to see on you so much?

Red, used with passion of both - love and anger?

Or the running water of time has cleansed every corner of your existence completely?

The lowland By Jhumpa Lahiri

The Lowland offers a different perspective to one of the most intriguing macro level socio-economic problems of modern India through a micro level narrative. It is a story of a young man, a man who is both – a martyr and a traitor both at once. What makes the story more poignant is the fact that consequences of his choice continues to haunt and impact all those whom he loved dearly, even after his death.

With every character the writer successfully brings out deep existential anxieties and eccentricities to the fore. It is this masterful ability to present layers of personalities of her characters that makes Jhumpa Lahiri such an accomplished story teller.

Unable to reconcile with rumours and revelations of their son’s activities after his death, Udayan’s parents chose to find peace in insanity and lost the touch with real life just because it had become too hard to handle for their deprecated bodies and minds. Indeed, seeing one’s son being killed in front of their eyes would not have been easy. His father simply turned ignorant and mother forgetful. Their life was debilitating and disturbing on the east coast of India –and when contrasted with the life Subhash led on the east coast of America, it gave Subhash a pang of yearning for taking better care of his parents.  He felt deeply betrayed by his own self, unable to justify and accept that steps that seemed to righteous at the time he took them turned so unjust and even heinous as time passed.

 Subhash and Udayan – central characters of the story were inseparable brothers as children. However, as they grew up their paths diverged, Subhash went on to Rhode Island to pursue his doctoral studies and Udayan let the communist ideology consume his life, completely. Subhash always felt a touch inferior to Udayan, even though he was elder to him – he felt Udayan always had a little more of everything than he had. In his attempts to involve Subhash in the ideological battle he was fighting, Udayan asserted himself even more fiercely, causing Subhash deep existential anxieties. Subhash wasn’t able to understand if his inability to join the movement was mere cowardice or something else.

After Subhash departs Udayan’s life takes a new turn when he met a girl named Gauri, another important character of the novel. Udayan married Gauri – on receiving the news, Subhash felt a mixed emotion – that of happiness for his brother and a feeling of having been overtaken – as per Indian family tradition being an elder brother he should have married first. Udayan’s parents don’t accept Gauri and though they had no courage to oppose Udayan and let her live in their house, they always stayed recluse from her, Gauri too made no attempts to bridge the divide – they continued going farther away with each passing day.

Feeling a need to anchor the troubled family life Subhash decided to marry Gauri – giving a rationale of the future of unborn child. Subhash’s mother admonished him warning that Gauri wasn’t mature enough to become a mother and that she should be the one who would take care of the child. Subhash did not pay heed to his mother, married Gauri and took her to America. Gauri also accepted the step, more because of lack of option than by choice.

Their marriage was never easy, Subhash pained with inferiority complex, even with his wife and Gauri pained with sense of infidelity towards Udayan’s ghost cannot offer each other any comfort. Their only hope was Bela – Gauri’s daughter.

 Subhash made Bela the sole purpose of his life and though scared by the fact of Bela’s discovery that he was not really her father but only uncle – he really proved himself a better father than Udayan could ever be. Gauri constantly found herself to be inferior parent as compared to Subhash and left both of them to pursue her studies of philosophy.

After Gauri left Subhash raised Bela – initially with great troubles and deep impact on child but later both adjusted to the situation and helped each other fill the deepest voids of their lives.

The Lowland, alongside of a macro level issue of Naxal movement, describes very personal story of struggle of each of its characters minutely. It provides just enough details and leaves the conclusions to the readers. There are numerous occasions where readers are likely to get judgmental about the actions characters took, in the story, however seen from the point of view of these characters they only seem natural and real reactions.

In an ideological struggle of our times, we too have choices, and perhaps the strongest point this story makes is that our choices have impact on lives that are irrevocably related with our own, could this realization help soothe the sharp ideological battles we see?   

Why do I like stories....

A long time friend, market researcher, mother of one and an energetic editor’s message flashed at the right bottom corner of my computer screen. “Do you read stories?”  read the text, no “hi” no “Hello” – to  the point, terse and direct – but that’s her style. (One that I have come to appreciate a lotJ)

“Yes,” I wrote back, “Why” was added as an afterthought and quickly followed that with, “It depends on the story actually yaar, but in general I like stories.”

“Why do you like stories?” she further asked, in quintessentially market researcher style. I knew this was a beginning of one of the very interesting conversations and I had to gather my thoughts well for it. so I asked her for some time and told that I will compose my response and share it over the email next year. (It was last week of December so she was quite cool with my deadline.)

Following are my thoughts about what makes me like stories. If a story is good on following points, I like reading/listening to it.

1. Characters: They give life to the events in stories; they are the ones we relate ourselves to. Figment of authors’ imaginations or reflections of her reality, characters that stay with us for long are the ones that touch a chord in our heart.  It is said of characters that, a writer should know a lot more of the character than he puts down in a story, only when you know each of your character that well, can they come to life and stay alive for long. Best example of how long a character lives can be found right from the characters of holy books to the heroes of bollywood movies.

Of story-tellers I have read, I find Tagore best as far as knowing his character is concerned. He demonstrates amazing dexterity at presenting his characters that you almost start believing that they are real people taken out of our own lives. Another one comes to mind when it comes to being extremely adept at presenting characters is P.G. Wodehouse, Reginald Jeeves and Bertram Wooster – his most famous characters are still quite alive in minds of his readers. Similar examples can be found in more popular parlance of bollywood as well, for example Bob Biswas of a film Kahani and Phaijal of Gangs of Wasseypur are some of the characters that stick in one’s mind for long time even after one has watched the film. 

2. Storyline: Imaginative and captivating storylines are must for a good story, there has to be an event about which you would like to talk. Every situation for which you can hold someone’s hand and say “Hey listen… “is a potential of an awesome story. J Storyline is the one which provides space to the author to paint story in her favourite colours. You can weave suspense, drama, surprise, romance and various other themes that most interest you through the storyline.

For story-lines, I find R.K. Narayanan most interesting. Not only because of the delicate fabrics that he weaves his stories with but also because the great care he takes in painting smaller details of the plot.  It takes great sensitivity to take care of all those details in one’s storyline. Popularly famous for his lyrics in Bollywood, Gulzar is also one of the writers whose storylines are very good, rich and engaging.

 3. Dialogues: Storyline and characters are skeleton of a story, they way they interact, behave and unfold are the flesh and blood, hence we remember most characters and dialogues, “Kitne aadmi the?” 

In terms of dialogues, best example is timeless genius, Shakespeare. Another playwright, I have had a chance to read, Arthur Miller, (Marilyn Monroe fame) has been extremely engaging with his dialogues.  In Bollywood, Vishal Bhardwaj, carries flames ignited by Shakespeare and writes really good dialogues in some of his films.

4. Sequencing/ (screenplay): This refers to the order in which incidents happen in the story, one must bear in mind that reader doesn’t have any background of the story you are telling. So you need to be detailed without sounding dragging. This balance is a key to interesting and engaging story-telling/writing. J There are no formulas but practice usually helps getting it right.

Any page turner book will usually be awesome on its screenplay as, it is sequencing that mainly drives suspense, and keeps readers hooked to it.  Harry Potter and some of the other thrillers are good examples of able sequencing of events in stories.  

One tip that I personally find useful is to tell a lot of stories in day to day life, describe events to friends, parents, spouses, elders, kids whosoever listens to you. Try and make them fall in love with what you describe.