Does this make you curious?

The beginning, middle, end or whatever…

The Noose

If she had imagined in her mind's eye how grotesque she looked hanging dead from the ceiling, she may have backed out of the idea of killing herself like that. But, obviously the pain or whatever it was must have been so overbearing in that moment to faze every other thought or vision out into some deeper recess of her brain. I wasn't feeling sad enough or even perplexed by her action. I was experiencing a sense of deja vu, as if I'd seen it coming. A strange kind of calmness had enveloped me, about which I'd have argued with her for hours if she had made a prophecy about it as my reaction to her death.

I’d written the above passage after reading how Ian McEwan starts to write something new:

Sometimes I experimentally write out a first paragraph – or middle paragraph, even – of a novel which I feel no obligation to write. Those kind of dabblings I always set down in a green, ring-bound A4 notebook. It’s full of paragraphs from novels I will never complete, or hardly start. But sooner or later, one of those paragraphs will snag my attention, and I’ll come back to it asking: why does that interest me so much, why does that seem to offer a peculiar kind of mental freedom? And so I might find myself adding a page or two. It was with a complete free hand, for example, that I once wrote what turned out to be the opening of Atonement – with no clear sense that I was committed to anything at all, I was just playing with narrative positions, with tone of voice, with a certain descriptive moment. Or I might decide that what I’ve written belongs to the middle of a novel, and then I’ll spend some idle time tracing out a beginning. Then abandoning it. It’s a way of tricking myself into writing novels.

Here is the full interview.

I’d this image of a female hanging dead from the ceiling in mind for a few days when I was thinking of writing something new. Without really having a clue how to convey it or even the story behind it. The first line came in two-three days. And, it took a few more days (with my legendary typing speed and lethargy) to add words to make into a paragraph.

Numb but not down

Sometimes you think you have given your best and sit expectantly with excitement rumbling in your tummy that good times are just round the corner. Then slowly it dawns on you that you have turned the corner and nothing much has changed so your best wasn't good enough to change things.

I'm going through a similar situation now, where my energy is sapped and nothing new is happening. I spend time watching films and games and even religiously read newspapers (which I’d stopped doing for a while now). But, surprisingly it hasn't effected me in negative way, I don't feel low, life is going on as normal (I can talk, smile and laugh effortlessly); this would have been unimaginable a few years ago. I'd have become silent, mulling over what would have gone wrong. Maybe, I have stopped caring or I’ve realised that there is something beyond my effort that guides the result of things.

I'm a political fence-sitter, never sure whether my thought process is right or wrong. Initially I wished to write about Anna Hazare's hunger strike. But as it enters the seventh day I’m confused and doubtful about where it is heading. Somehow, I feel that it is hijacked by TV channels that are pulling it to the extremes from both sides. One seeing it as the beginning of a corruption-less utopia and other as it is holding the democracy on ransom. I don't naively believe that every problem can be solved just by casting a vote once in five years. And, I even know that being corrupt has seeped into our bloodstream because being corrupt is convenient and bribing is equivalent to paying tips in a restaurant as we wish everything should be hassle-free, be it renewing our driving licences or getting a gas cylinder. I just hope something positive comes out of this churning.

Now a song from the film Aarakshan. I always thought Prasoon Joshi to be the true inheritor of Gulzar's legacy as a lyricist. This song seems to be the final stamp of that fact:

Finally, the new TV commercial of Airtel mobile Har Ek Friend Zaroori Hota Hai I got hooked to while channel surfing a couple of days back.

While searching for behind the scenes people for this ad I got back to Rashmi Bansal's blog Youth Curry. I don't exactly remember when and how it got pushed out of my browsing list.

PS. This post was just an exercise to flex my writerly muscles. So, please bear if you feel cohesiveness has flown out of the proverbial window.