What word describes you??

Watching Eat,Pray,Love again today, I realized how much the movie helped me change when I needed a change. I haven’t read the book, rather unfortunate, but I sure will in the near future.  The movie helped me see that “ruin is good. Ruin is the road to transformation” and with that philosophy I accepted the damage I was groping in and have grown much clearer. I built a whole new refined me from the ruins I once thought were the end of a happier me and today I try to be a pioneer in everything I do.  I learned to appreciate the ruins and use them to build my world on.

             There is always one word that can describe things (as the movie says) and I always wondered what defined me. I’m a writer and I love to write but that alone doesn’t define me. So very recently I found that one particular word that describes the person I am today.

Create.

     Nothing exists without creation. We are all created and recreated at many junctions in our life. I was/am created recreated and continue to be created. As a writer I create characters, I make worlds, I fashion emotions, I invent . As a person I create the world I live. As a human I create my opportunities. As a dreamer I create my dreams. As I am I create. From my ruins I created a new me and I continue to create myself as I learn lessons and all other learnable things each day. I learn as a student, I understand as a human and I mould as a potter but in the end I create.

     Maybe at some other phase in my life my word might change. But then again the word changes because I created a different me. So there is my word. Create.

                     What word describes you the most? And why?

A letter to Charles.

9^th June, 1870


To Charles,

I watched the pride in your face as you walked the streets, your head held high. The spark in your eyes was mesmerizing, dimming the world around me. From then on, you had my invariable love. I followed you everywhere, every step of my life, trying so very hard to have a constant glimpse of you.  It might sound lame, as I let you know this but I did truly love you, from the very first sight.

You were just a journalist when I first saw you and to my very dismay, I learnt you were married to Catherine Hogarth. They told me you were a writer and that you wrote wondrously.   I read “The Pickwick Papers” and it led to my first sight into your world. I continued reading your works earnestly, frantically trying to find the real you between the lines. I wanted to take your each word to heart, wanted it to stay there reminding me always about you. I read your Oliver Twist with hunger hoping that finally my search would end. As I read Great Expectations, I almost fantasized Pip’s feelings for Estella was meant for me, the unseen love of your life.

    But not once did you turn to look back at the woman at the end of the street, her hair flowing hopelessly in the wind, a tear of love in her eye, a broken yet beating heart.  When you separated from Catherine I deeply hoped you would extend your hand to me. Alas, my poor heart! You found Ellen Ternan in 1850.

 Not one day goes by without me dreaming of leaning onto your bosom.  I continued to believe you were mine, well what was there to believe, it was the truth. But why had you never written about me? The lady in love with you. I could not be Estella, for I was not so cold hearted. Was I Dorrit? Helen? But then how would you have written, when you never actually set your eyes upon me.
              For thirty-four years, I have lived with you through your books, not once having the chance to feel your shadow let alone you touch and presence.  Ohh…my Charles!
                                                                                           
Life is made of ever so partings welded together.

Its 9th June 1870, they say you are dead. I refuse to believe it, after all how can you? With me still alive? But your books no longer speak to me as they used to, I no longer feel your love. Something is wrong Charles; I can feel it. I think it is time I left too.
 Here I write a letter to you, my love, knowing well that you would never read it. Ahh! My lost love. Finally we shall meet, in an eternal world. 
                                                                                                                                                      



                                                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                        
   From,
                                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                                            Your love.

Novels or Short stories??

What do you prefer? A novel or a short story?  As a reader each one has a different preference with varied reasons.  As writers too people are partial to one for their own reasons again. What do I fancy? With no hesitation- NOVELS.

    Loads of people put novels into the category -“too long and too boring” . My take on them is that they aren’t wired to enjoy a journey of imagination. Novels are that. A journey of creation. Well, you could counter me and say “so are short stories”. I grant that. Short stories are creations too. They consume less time to write/read, they are “short and sweet”. Short stories are like power naps. They rejuvenate a bored mind.  Then again, to write a novel! It’s a whole new feeling. A road trip a writer takes, packing beforehand all the necessary items including the characters’ names, the characters’ character, the plot, the drafts on each scene, plus plus. And then the ride begins. Slipping into so many shoes at once and knitting a miracle word by word. When you write a book it becomes you as you become a part of it, stitching each page together to make sense in the end. You get to become so many people, you learn so many things through your own words. Its long, its tiring, its very mental but that’s the whole point! Its exhilarating from the start to the end. And when the last word is penned no one can trade the feeling a writer gets when they complete a work for anything under this universe. It is priceless and you get so high no alcohol will be capable of. That’s a novel! It’s a drug, an escape from hearts/minds turmoil. For me, no short story can give that.  Take reading a good novel. You become a part of its world; you become one of them and live through so many different settings. When you finally come out of it, you have stepped out from a different universe. If you haven’t felt that its time you do.

      Short stories are needed too. It’s not easy to write a short story. It’s a test of mind of what you are capable of. If a novel is a bucket of imagination short story is a bucket of imagination compressed to fit in a mug.  Short story now and then is healthy and an excellent break from hard core novel writing/reading. But then again my vote always goes to novels.

What do you think? Counter me. Novels or short stories?

The Lady Who sang her Lullaby

The earth has gone  around
the night has swayed by
somewhere the sun shines
blind to our eyes. The hills
seem to rise higher in
the dark, casting upon us
its unseen shadows. The river
continues to flow by, unable
to stop its black waters rustling
in the soundless night.

Even before our heads touched
The ground her melody flowed
through the night. The lady who
sang her lullaby. Her sereneness
seem to blanket the night, her
music honey to ears. The world
seem to rock us in its cradle
caressing us with its love. It
was a angel’s voice the sang
as she sung her lullaby.

Her song read the whole world
the meaning of life.
her name was Night.
She made the wind to a singing
breeze, the rustling leaves her harp.
the owl our guardian
the bat her warrior,
she sings all night until she takes
a deep breath and the darkness
disappears in a streak of light.

But she will return every night
singing her lullaby.