To be or not to be?

Tags

discussion, novels, paulo coelho, raymond chandler, words, writing

As most of you know I am writing a novel. To hone my skills in creative writing I am part of various groups in Facebook as well as in real world. Being hand broken for a while let me spend time in various discussions in online forum. One of such trending topics is stuffing your prose with tough words. Most of the published authors in the forum were all for stuffing tough words. It didn’t bother me. We can hardly see agreement in a forum of artists. So it was a welcome change. 

But mocking people who make such comments are not cool. I went into few threads and gave my piece of mind. While people who don’t know the parts of speech or structure of novels become published authors, there is also this tribe of non-reading reviewers ( you read it right). All they want to do is leave an opinion. Constructive criticism be damned.

When I think about it, such avant grande language never had any fans. But still people want to pose as of their vocabulary is wider than Bay of Bengal. I wonder for what? Think about the literature you really liked. Think what you liked about it. Was it the words or idea? Or the words which expressed the idea? When I did thought about it I couldn’t be sure. It’s a mix of all of it. Paulo Coelho, Raymond Chandler, Sidney Sheldon and yours truly dont bother to say big sized aerotic pumps. We just say big hearts. 

Here is a link of my  favourite short story. This was not by some famous foreign author. This had not been in print. This was written two years back. I was working night shift then. I read this while I was out for a smoke. And when I finished reading the hairs in the nape of my neck stood up. That is why I remember this vividly to this date. Read on and see if you get the same feeling. And when you can give me the same feeling without running for a dictionary when I read your short story, you my friend, have truly arrived. 

Till then shut up, look down and type away. Words should come out of the darkest part of your geart when your fingers dancing on they key board. Not from your recently dusted dictionary. 

Come On Inner Peace – Book Review

This is the second book of Sachin Garg that I am reviewing. I don’t know about others, but I like the flow his stories have which takes us to the end without any effort. I have read and reviewed I am not twenty four here. His contribution to Shades of Love, Anthology of love stories was also simple and moving. He has come up with yet another coming of age story. This time, it is three people and how they find inner peace forms the crux of the story.

Samar is a chemical engineering student, whose girl friend died recently. Samar blames the death on himself and goes without food or sleep, making him look like a zombie. His friend suggests change of place for his well being and he ends up in the ashram in Rishikesh

Vandana, is a 40 something cheerful Punjabi lady, who is suffering from terminal illness, who befriends Samar in Ashram. The Swamiji in Ashram thinks that their journey together will benefit both.

Navya is a budding author, wasted on drugs. She loves Samar. Samar is bit late in reciprocating her affection. Eventually Navya fades away from his life. She becomes hopeless when Samar finds her again.

How does these people attain inner peace? Buy your copy to find more.

The novel starts with a very melodramatic tone with Samar feeling bad about Kanika’s death. But from the moment he steps in the bus to Ashram, things change. The novel picks up speed when Vandana is introduced into plot and Navya’s introduction. These twists and sudden introduction of few characters were handled really well by Sachin Garg.

Also, The way the Swamiji in Ashram counsels Samar is worth mentioning. He teaches Samar three things

1) Embrace yourself and stop trying to be someone else

2) It is OK to be wrong sometimes

3) Help as many people as possible.

Though it sounds like “beaten-to-death” quotes the way it is used in  the novel and the way it helped the story to race forward is refreshing. These timeless advices can work wonders in lot of people’s life. But, if you can, try the three points given above. Most of the time we miss to try these things, not because its too mainstream, but because its so hard to follow. Accepting ourselves with all out mistakes and short comings is the most difficult part of the existence. When we have achieved that we will successfully piss off others.

There are few similarities with Sachin’s previous novel “I am not twenty four”. Like, the protagonist develops a website in this novel, where he had a blog in his previous novel. The lead characters standing up for what is right, in spite of their fears and conquering it also reminded me of the previous novel.

The exciting part of the novel is the part where Vandhana and Samar team up to find Navya. There are some hilarious situations and some super ideas to find Navya. Somehow my favourite character in the novel is Vandhana. She knows what she is and she had accepted her past. Her full enthusiasm in helping Samar makes us feel like she is a close buddy, though a little older.

The book with such a pace deserved a better proof reading. There are some grammar and spelling mistakes in the book glaring at the poor English reader like me. And also just like the Indian movies, forget about the logic when you read the novel. I am not sure how many 21 year olds loved, lost, ran away, did odd jobs and came back to continue studies. May be it is new for me. I have never come across such people, not at that age.

Overall, it is a good book to laze around on a Sunday afternoon. A different type of coming of age story. You can also watch the trailer of the book  here

The Bullet Vanishes – Chinese Movie

Tags

2012, Bullet Vanishes, China, Chinese Movie, Intelligent, Investigation, Phantom Bullet, Police Procedural, review, Sherlock Holmes

I was recommended to this movie by my brother. His recommendations rarely go wrong. Though I enjoyed this film a lot, there are few things I want to say upfront about the movie.

The production values of the movies, the costumes, the settings everything resembles the first Sherlock Holmes movie by Guy Ritchie. There is a gentleman Cop, There is rogue cop. You see smoke emitting buildings far away. Whenever it rains there is something bad happens in the movie. We have Irene Adler there and Little Lark here. A similar explosion is handled at the end of the movie. Let us say, it is like the remake of “The Girl with dragon Tattoo” of US version.

Now the good things! The plot is superb. The story is set in 1930s. There is ammunition factory in China which is owned by (retarded) person. He punishes a person for stealing a box of bullets. Not by law, but letting the divine intervention decide her fate. A game of Russian roulette is played and the girl is killed. Mysterious sentences appear in the wall and the floors warning the workers about a phantom bullet which will kill them all. Adding to the injury, two of the factory people are killed by pistol but the bullet, the main evidence is nowhere to be found.

A honest cop (played to perfection by Lau Ching Wan) from another province is transferred to this place, mainly to find the corrupted officers. He joins a quick gun officer (Nicholas Tse) who is in charge of the case and goes on giving his expertise and Sherlock Holmes like observation. Where they able to find the phantom bullet and the criminal? Who was behind this all? These knots are cleverly and stylishly undone by the director at the end.

Coming to the performance, I think everybody was good except for the owner of the ammunition factory. He has performed for million dollars though he would have only paid peanuts I believe. The right amount of humor here and there and the tight screenplay helps the audience to sit till the end of the movie. The camera angle and the special effects of the movie are to be given special mention. Because most of the scenes as per script are shot in dark alleys and rainy nights. The gun fight challenges and the sequences were brilliant. The Russian roulette played at the end of the movie is one of the best endings I have seen in recent times. The previous best was the last frame of “Memories of Murder”

If you are a fan of police procedural and intelligent investigations then this film won’t disappoint you.

Disclaimer – The Chinese actors names were sourced from Wikipedia. I do not know Chinese and the subtitles didn’t give me that.

6174 – A Tamil Novel

Tags

6174, constant, Kaprekar, Language, maths, Mingun Pagoda, novel, subtract, tamil, thirller

My brother always tell me, that there is an invisible thread that connects Maths and  language. I have seen many of my Maths teachers handle language classes in school. Recently I read this Tamil novel, 6174 which made me realize my brother is right as always.

The number 6174 is called Kaprekar constant. It was first identified by the Indian mathematician Kaprekar. To explain this we can take a four digit number like 1897. Now arrange it in both ascending and descending order. 9871 and 1789. If you subtract both these numbers you will get 8082. Now repeat the same process and you will get 8532 and then repeat it again and you will get the answer as 6174.

This is kind of tricky number. If you repeat the same process again with this number  you will again get 6174 as an answer. This is constant and you cannot take the process forward from here. This tamil novel is based on this concept.

After a long time there is this racy pacy thriller in Tamil. In the start of the novel there are war ships starting from Russia and North Korea for their practice in the Indian Ocean. It alleviates the pressure of USA in the region. All the ships get stalled in particular location because of some technical difficulties. At the same time there are two asteroids starts circling in the space exactly at the same co-ordinates. Few foreign terrorist organizations and a person who thinks himself as the Lemurian (descendants of the lost land Lemuria) wants to put end to the earth.  A professor with the help of his students who is a Crystal researcher and Geometrical researcher stops their plan. This is the plot.

The place where the penultimate scene of the novel happens

I am not worried about giving away the plot because there are so much more to savour in the book. The search and the clues lead them from Padmanabapuram to Thailand to Lonavar to Myanmar. This book should be a result of massive research. Right from the description of places and fishing hamlet near Orissa and explaining the features of the Mingun Pagoda of Myanmar in the penultimate scene, the author does a good job in bringing those places in front of our eyes

One thing that is heartening in the novel is, there was no undue heroism. For most of the novels I read in tamil in the genre, the hero will be jack of all trades and undisputed king also. But the author has given the lead of characters so clearly that as the novel progresses we know what their shortcomings and what their strengths are. Such characterizations are very much necessary when you develop a thriller.

The author Kasthuri Sudhakar is from Tuticorin. His language is a treat to read. I am from Tirunelveli so I enjoyed reading it. Few weeks earlier the author had commented in one of my posts and I wanted to do the post then and there. But then I remembered his birthday falls on April 22nd (Yes I am a stalker :P). So I wrote this and kept in draft but forgot to schedule it.

Better late than never. Happy Birthday Kasthuri Sudhakar. We are expecting a lot more from you in coming days.

Sumithra – A reading experience

Tags

corpse, Death, funeral, Ithra Mathram, Kalpetta Narayanan, Malayalam, question, sister, Sumithra

The opening lines of Erich Segal’s Love story goes like this.

“What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful. And Brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me.”

Sumithra, the translation of “Ithra Mathra” by Kalpetta Narayanan begins in the same fashion. The difference is just that Sumithra, the girl who died is 38 years old and was not suspecting her death. She used to sleep with her hand tightly crossing her chest. She didn’t wake up the next day. Her husband Vasudevan went for a morning walk and spent few extra minutes observing fishes and birds near the local lake. When he came back he realizes he lost his wife.

The novel traces the life of Sumithra, who had always been a given in her life. She was a mother to a motherless child, confidante to her high school and college room mates, more of a child to an old man who had no one to take care of him when he was ill, a playful companion who didn’t care about the society when she was a close friend to a sex worker. The novel traces all these parts of her life in non-linear fashion.

There are women in everybody’s life. As sisters, friends, mothers, cousins and more. I wonder how well do we know them? I mean, I know my sister as my sister. But when she gets married, would I ever know how good a wife she is? How good a mother she will be? I am always amazed by the transformation these girls make into woman. Its so sudden like the dusk in villages. You will be playing like there is no tomorrow and suddenly there will be darkness falling upon you without even a hint.

Sumithra was one such girl. The second episode of the novel has some lines about scenes in funeral home. Its a crime to translate it into English, but I am doing it here.

People who is affectionate on others will feel a tide of affection grow in them. The vibration a death makes is so strong. If you ask for a loan there, the chances of you getting it is very high there. The people who have skeletons in their closet will feel the burden in their chest. The funeral house is a big canvas. It paints the walls of the house with the Monalisa mystery. Death teaches us lot of things ruthlessly

The dampness and chillness of Wayanad and the customs of Kalpetta village has been wonderfully handled in the novel. What can be interesting in a girl’s life who got married to an uninteresting person in Wayanad? you may think. But believe me, it is interesting just like the life of yours and mine. People always reach out for her, they enjoy and moved to tears when she does something they like without them saying it to her. She takes care of her husband like a mother. Throughout the novel, you cannot see her ask something for herself. She borrows some money from neighbours just to be in touch with them.

All the people who come to her funeral, still search for something she had left behind. The motherless child, still looks for a mother in her and the old man still looks for a daughter in her even though they can never get it from the corpse that is lying in front of them. Women’s life is like this. We always expect something from them. Right from socks when we go to school to reading glasses when our eyesight eludes us, we always look up on them and they happily oblige. Not only materialistic but also emotionally women are always expected to give more than they receive. They are giving it endlessly even if there is nothing to give.

Be it wife, sister or a close friend when the soul leaves the body, its just a corpse. We have seasoned ourselves not to be around corpse for so long. We cannot endure the silences and the reality that weigh upon us in a funeral house. In western countries they use tablets to control from breaking down. People who came for the funeral house at some point of time loses their patience. To them it is to bury or burn them and get on with their life. So they do to Sumithra, who had done so much to people around her by the evening and carry on with their work. The people who she helped may not remember her in the passing months. The novel ends here.

The novel sunk so deep in me that I put the book aside and sat for few minutes reflecting about my own life. And then I read the first page of the book again.

In Mahabaratha, Yaksha asks question to Yudhirshtra

Yaksha : What do you think is the most surprising thing in this earth?

Yudhirshtra : Thousands of people die daily and reach the fort of Lord Yama. But the rest of the world carries on as though they are going to live here forever and earth is for them to stay forever. What can be more surprising than this

 

Now Yakshan and Yudhirshtra would be looking at me surprised.