Le nouveau autor

As far back as I can remember, no other place in the world has ever held higher appeal for me than a library or even better a book shop. Rows and rows of colourful spines with titles from the great and glorious stacked neatly in place. There is history in these places. You can sense the air of mystery and almost feel the invisible ideas and stories floating all about you. I remember always walking in eagerly and not knowing which way to turn first in the euphoric excitement of the initial moments. I eventually always made it to the racks that held the books written by my favourite authors. But just the thought of discovering new writers, genres, perhaps growing into reading titles I was still too young to grasp always left me with this hopeful feeling of endless possibilities and discoveries.

People, their thoughts, their ideas and the essence of their lives live on forever in their books. I know this is a much repeated line but if you just stand still for a moment in a library and let the line sink in to the very depths of your soul you'll be able to see wispy floating caricatures of Charles Dickens writing in his cozy study with a felt pen, Enid Blyton sitting in a green meadow and dreaming up her next adventure, Alexandre Dumas perhaps casually moving his sword in the air plotting the next fencing sequence and Sir Arthur Doyle creating Sherlock Holmes from thin air in the fictitious 221B Baker Street residence.

My books meant everything to me. Even today after moving at least two flats a year I have a small sized collection of about 15-20 books in my room at all times. It's my security blanket. It's my escape into a world that welcomes you with arms wide open. Even though each story is new and each scenario painted is novel, it all feels more familiar than any moment lived in the real world. The magic that my mind conjures in the moments of reading a scene live on as memories. I seem to look back upon my 'imaginative' memories sometimes with even more affection than I do the real ones, made of real moments. Am sure this is not a psychological issue but a quirk shared by all book lovers! ;-)

I seem to have digressed completely. What I wanted to talk about was my dream of being an author; or writing stories and essays and poetry that people would love to read; of being famous for the wild fantasies I'm able to make come true for my readers; of creating unforgettable 'imaginative' memories for them. I wanted to be on one of those colourful spines in a library or book shop. The dream lives on today and is irreplaceable on the top of my list of deepest desires.

There are millions of writers who blog today. Millions of voices with thoughts and ideas living their dream through a blog. One argument is getting lost in this sea 'typed' as another mundane voice. However, with the modern  day phenomenon of blogging the dream seems more real and attainable. Writing regularly on a blog and having a handful of followers can never make up for the beautiful fantasy of being a well renowned author but it definitely provides a platform to assuage that ambition, to hone the skill, to keep the hope alive of someday writing something worthy of being published.

It also makes the entire process of writing a book open to the common man. You and me can write and so can John Grisham and Phillippa Gregory. It's the birth of 'le nouveau autor' who is not magnificent and whose thoughts will not make generations stop and think. But this author will inspire immediate friends and find a confidence in his/her daily existence that the generations before never had.

Butterfly Effect

She sat near a window, watching the rain trickle down the glass. Over the din of human voices, she could hear the soft consistent sound of raindrops hammering the earth. She held the cup of Latte between her slim hands and waited patiently for him to arrive. At least she thought she was being patient. It had been months since they'd started meeting for casual coffee's, romantic dinners, regular movies, random walks... It was dating without actually acknowledging it to be dating. It was a relationship without actually being a relationship. She didn't know what it was. She only knew that she was falling for him. She didn't understand why as he wasn't her usual type. He wasn't romantic, he wasn't charming nor was he an easy-going flirt. He was just a guy with too much testosterone and an above average intellect. But she was in the deep end and she had to find out whether she would float or go under.

'Hey! Sorry I kept you waiting...', he rushed to her side and pulled up a chair.
'Hey!' They hugged. 'It's ok, I bought myself a coffee.'
As he went over to the counter to buy himself a coffee, she took a few deep breaths to calm her racing pulse and rehearse what she had to say to him. He looked over his shoulder at her and mimicked her tensed expression which made them both smile. She sat a bit straighter, shrugged her shoulders at him and and indicated to his empty chair.
'Missing you already', she mouthed.

'So, you had something to tell me? We better get it out of the way and wipe those tension lines off your face', he eyes crinkled as he smiled at her from over the rim of his cup.
'I met a man on my trip last month...'
'ok.'
'I...we...I can't do this with you anymore'
'Do what?'
'This...us...meeting'
'Aren't we friends? Why does us being friends have be affected by you meeting a guy. I'm happy for you!'
'But...you and I? Are you sure it's okay?'
'Ok? Why wouldn't it be? It's not like we're dating or anything. We're just friends right?'
'Right.'
They sat in silence. She couldn't bring herself to say anything more. He continued to look at her.
'Good. That's settled.When do I meet him?'
'Umm...I don't think it'll be a good idea. I'm meeting his parents tomorrow. It might be okay for you but I can't continue doing this. I'm sorry.'
She picked up her bags, dropped a light farewell kiss on his cheek and walked out of the cafe.

At dinner.
'My parents are going to love you babe. Just be yourself'
Nervously sipping on her champagne, she played with the strap of her shoe under the table. He leaned over, took her hand in his and kissed the palm.
'Oh here's dad!'
She turned around and stared into the eyes of just another guy with too much testosterone and an above average intellect.

Inner Call

The edge of the precipice

The sheer drop of height

The dip of my heart

The tear in my eye

A call to the skies

A plea carried by the winds

A tremor in my soul

A cry against all of the lies

To stand against the storm

To fight the inner call

To wade into still waters

To like a dove transform

It’s the reason to cease

It’s the desire to carry on

It’s the fire that melts

It’s the moment for a sweet release.

This economic storm

A traveler's wonder at copper sunsets,
An artists angst at every sunrise,
The farmers distress at his debts,
A nations folly of it's empty disguise.

Of paupers and pockets full of gold,
As chaos in minds and markets arise,
What will each new day mould?
Tossed in this tempest of never-ending lies.

An authors desire to live a period of change,
Experience the glamour and storm of this day,
But who shall pay the price of this economic derange?
And live to tell this tale that led everything astray?

Will the past in the future emerge as present?
Will all memories of the world as it was disappear?
The tides of change might bring a constant,
As the new dawn might to nothing as seen before adhere!

Revelations...

Sometimes eureka moments are big earth shattering moments of clarity and sudden understanding. That's when you feel a rush of excitement and thrill at what you've just discerned and cannot wait to share it with the world.

At other times they are subtle moments of revelations that sneak up on you and even before you grasp what they mean, the thread of the idea disappears in the dense cloud of your thoughts. These are the ones that make you follow that thought, make you desperately try to hold onto the last vestige of that revelation so you can understand what it means entirely. The revelation lies in front you...just within your reach like a carrot (cake) that's been dangled in front of your eyes to tease you. Oh the niggling feeling that you're just not quite seeing it gnaws at the edge of your consciousness. It's like knowing the lyrics of the song you so desperately want to sing but your mind chooses to elude you at the opportune moment when you desire it so much! See how the mind plays games with itself all the time? ;-)

I had one of those recently. And when it showed itself it was a warm glow of a thought; a soft and pleasant surprise. There wasn't an earth shattering moment, just a gentle internal nudge that acknowledged that change.

You dream of being self assured and confident in yourself and your abilities. You dream of having unwavering conviction in yourself when facing the world both in the harsh stare of challenging eyes and the tender gaze of an accepting pair. There is always a wonder whether the strong face you hold up for the world to see hides a shaken and scared spirit or whether it encloses a truly brave and self assured one...

We face trials and tribulations everyday and they serve to make us stronger but their memory always reminds us of a weaker spirit at the time. It's a beautiful moment, when the world comes crashing down at your feet and murphy rejoices for all his plans seem fool proof but you smile not just externally but internally. It's a beautiful moment when you feel undaunted and completely in control of your fate and destiny...when not a vestige of doubt preys upon you. When you smile at the world and seem brave...you truly are sure that all is well and you can still hear the birds chirping and feel the sun shining.

It's a small step but somewhere I feel like having lived up (even if momentarily) to the sonnets of the poets of the past. The good was good and the bad was bad but they are all seasons and I am constant.

What it made me realise is I am all of these values and feelings. We like to think we are intelligent, we like to be known for our achievements, we like to be remembered for contributions and we end up believing that all of this makes up who we are. We think our jobs, our research papers, our professional acclaim, our recognition as being kind friends and family members is what makes us. But truly when stripped of all external circumstances and people its what we feel inside and how we think within our naked soul that makes us who we are. That is our constant. Our inner honesty, our inner peace, our inner integrity, our inner faith whatever these might be truly define us. These are our brand and we carry them with us in everything we do and wherever we go.

I guess it's worth waiting for the slow eureka moments to reveal themselves...

Song of sunshine

An ode to a wonderful person I met today..

There was that song again...that song that played in the background of the universe every time she saw him. The song that made everything around them melt away. In her mind, time would stand still when she looked into his eyes. The sounds, the people, the smells everything would fade and all that would remain was the very essence of his breath, his aura, his force, his pull and her restoration.

Through gently closed eyes and a smile on her face she would come watch him in the park everyday. She would watch his smile, his gentle tentative steps towards the toddler, his joyous laughter when he finally reached the child along with the toddlers excited squeals. She would eagerly take in every seasoned change in his expression and memorise the planes of his face. She knew every timber of his voice, she understood every message in his stance.

Even from a distance she could feel the caress of his touch. Her body of its own accord would turn towards the warm tenor of his voice. She was a moth to his flame...she was the waves of the ocean that could not have been contained without his shore. There was a time when all she knew was darkness. A deep, heavy darkness. There was a day when time had no meaning. Each second was damp and dense and meaningless.

And then he came along. It was his voice talking to the child that first permeated her fog. She heard the kindness in his voice like it was coming from a deep well...like she could never reach it and yet she had heard it. The voice stayed with her. And suddenly all she wanted was to hear it again. She could only wait and of all the hardships God had made her endure, she came to understand that waiting was the hardest.

But then she heard his voice again. In that same place...and again. And then she heard that glorious laughter and it was as if a thousand suns had burst inside of her like tiny pin pricks of joy. Suddenly time had begun to have meaning. Waiting to see him again, the days all sprouted wings...flocked into birds and flew away. A beautiful symphony of nature's music began to penetrate the fog and she lived only for the moment she could see him.

His laughter mingled with the toddlers and she would watch them dance and play and live. In her mind's eye, when not in the park...her imagination would keep the thousand suns glowing within her. In his laughter she knew his face, she knew his eyes, she knew his soul. In his laughter she found moments...many moments of beauty. In his laughter, life's unfairness redeemed itself to her.

His laughter redeemed her too. She had once said aloud with no thought of consequence...'I wish I could see the world through a blind man's eyes. I wish I could breathe in the fresh air, the scent of wet grass, the feel of the golden sun rays on my face through a blind man's eyes...only then would I have truly experienced life."

A hit-and-run accident that afternoon had taken her sight and made her wish come true. For years she was bitter...for years she was blind and then she opened herself to love. Love for a stranger who's voice was all she carried in her heart and she lived her life like it was the most beautiful one to be had. 

The beginning of things...

Once upon a time the world had no context. Nothing was necessarily how it was meant to be. Everything was different, lopsided, random. What I mean to say is that there were no rules to be followed. God hadn't yet decided to create the world and so the bible did not exist. Nobody had simply 'let there be light' and 'let there be man'. And so it all existed in a crazy haphazard fashion.

The sun did not necessarily have nine planets and not all the planets revolved around the sun. In fact the sun revolved around the moon and the planets all swung from the moon through very very long and opaque celestial cables. These planets swung randomly from their pendulums tilting the moon this way and that. This created random days and nights for the planets as the shadow of the moon decided when it would be day and when it would be night. Sometimes it was day for weeks and sometimes it shifted from day to night every hour. These were confusing times.

Every now and then, the planets would bang against each other and people or species from the respective planets could get off and roam on the other planet. Such transfers happened often but they were unpredictable and not a soul had a clue as to when they would happen, who would come into their world and what the consequences would be. This was in the early days...before they realised they could use these collisions for trade or theft.

During the collisions strange species from two planets now called Mars and Venus came to planet earth (then called Peacetikette). In those days, before God appeared, Mars was called Moronikette and Venus was called Lunatikette and there were plenty of kette's (planets) in between swinging this way and that.  

The species were very different from what we see today. They came in all colours, shapes and size. Their skin could be velvet or pink or one of the lost colours from those times and their hair could be just like ours today or different, very different. It could be a mass of balls, it could be a bunch of tubes or it could be mound of hanging spiders. There was a lot of variety and there was nary a dull moment like there are today. 

They were different those times before everything began.