Stories

"You know I've had this poem for so long, much before I even met you."

"Its freakish, isn't it."

"It is this kind of tying of loose ends that makes my world go round. Make me feel like I am in a well-written book."

"Don't you think at times that we are just characters in a story?"

For as long as I can remember, I have felt like my life is a story. Sometimes well written and crisp like a taut screenplay, sometimes meandering and obtuse like a Proust novel, at times verbose and idealistic like a Sorkin script, on occasions replete with a background  track and wide angle lens shots. Often times, it is sprawling and messy, there are side-plots abandoned midway, staircases that lead to nowhere. Characters exit abruptly at times without it being woven properly into the story like a bad past-it-best-by-date-American-TV show. It has no real beginning and end, like the Great Banyan Tree in Calcutta. Somebody accused me of being terribly pompous and egocentric when I tried to explain this recently. I was at pains to explain that it was not so much that it was my story, I was just a part of a story constructed by forces beyond me. What could be more humbling? Nor do I feel that my life is particularly interesting. There is more  Dravid in it - ponderous and full of struggle - more ebb than flow, than the theater of Brian Lara or the artistry of Laxman.

Off late, I have come to realise that this lack of agency transcends to what we write as well. When I write, my stories never end up where I intended them to. They have a mind of their own. Fiction and poetry are supposed to be medicines that heal the rupture that reality makes on imagination. We try to get right in stories what we can't in real life. But, more often than not, we can't. Stories have a life of their own, they lead you down rabbit holes that mess with your head, they can surprise you and on rare occasions, even take your breath away. They are pretentious bastards up on their high pedestals looking down on you. And there is nothing one can do about it. I am completely helpless in front of them. Stories, quite literally make my world go round.

For some time now, I have been trying to write a novella. The process has been largely slow, laborious and frustrating with brief bursts of furious typing. Somebody told me recently she felt the idea of the muse was a made up one, an excuse when you can't write. But inspiration is a very real, living presence for me. She (she's always a she) visits rarely,  more often than not at the end of a tiring day, demanding that I write. There are days when she has to be coaxed, bribed even. And when she leaves, I miss her. I miss being able to think the way I do when she is around. Lately, I have been struggling to write the narration from the point of view of my central female character. There is nothing I find harder than writing for a girl, even that girl.

Recently, someone left an anonymous smiley as a comment on a post on my blog. I immediately instituted inquiries with the regular followers (those known to me, at least. I'm hoping there are many more of you out there who wait with bated breath for new posts) of my blog if any of them were the source of that smiley. Having found not one person yet who has claimed responsibility for the smiley, I am more than curious about where it came from. It made me think who or what I write for and I came to the conclusion, that pretty much everything I do in life, is with an audience in mind.

Yet, most of what I write does not go up on any public space, it is reserved for private consumption only. My best pieces of writing, which I have noticed are intensely personal, though not necessarily about but more often connected to my own life, are reserved for select few, shared via e-mails and chats or read in private. Nothing, I noticed a few days back, gives an indication of my regard for people as much as the amount of my writing I share with them. Writing is, for me, something that keeps me me sane. If you are privy to what I write, chances are that I will do as much for you as I can for anyone, it's a good measure of how much I care about you. This is all, a little strange, I think.