Bringing to Life…

 

I just thought of getting clicked in front of this giant wall-to-wall poster at work today. I thought it came out pretty well. What say?

If God ‘was’ a Banker…

No, I’m not discussing hypothetical possibilities here, at well past the midnight hour.

 

Dale Carnegie did say, “Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.” But, I think he forgot to mention what to do in case the object in question were to be completely unworthy of praise.

 

Well, I’m referring to the book ‘If God was a Banker’ by Ravi Subramanian, an alumnus of IIM-Bangalore. I picked up the book just out of curiousity at a bookstore a couple of days ago, and just finished reading it.

 

The first thing that struck me about the book was the incorrect title. Ideally, the title should have been ‘If God were a banker’ instead of ‘If God was a banker.’ Since the latter is correct under certain conditions, I decided to give Mr. Subramanian the benefit of doubt. Hence, burying the vociferous protests of my ‘editorial’ self, I bought the book.

 

Sadly, after an hour and a half of reading the book, I feel as if I have wasted my time, and hard(ly) earned money. Even if the back cover had not said that the novel is the author’s first, I’d probably have figured. In fact, there’s nothing ‘novel’ about the story really. It just consists of some half-baked characters, a rehashed, beaten-to-death story, and totally inane dialogue.

 

I’m confident that my 14 year-old cousin could come up with more engaging conversations that Mr. Subramanian.

 

Also, someone please tell him that the word is ‘ma’am’ and not ‘maam’. There are loads of examples of incorrect apostrophes, names not being capitalised, and convoluted sentences. In my opinion, the book could be given to budding editors to practice their craft. Perhaps, one could have a contest like ‘Spot the maximum errors within a minute’ or something.

 

What I fail to realise is why people believe that just because they are at a bschool, they are entitled to dish out lame-duck stories, which people will buy. And why can’t readers be discerning enough? Just because someone from a premier bschool has written a story, it doesn’t become eminently readable. (After reading books by a certain Mr. Bhagat, one ought to have realised that. )

 

But, all is not lost. Perhaps, the book could be made a mandatory read for amateur writers like me. After all, if this guy can write, I can write.

 

Just two points to finish, Mr. Subramanian:

 

a) You say this is your first novel. Please let it be your last too.

 

b) If God were a writer, I’m sure he wouldn’t do such a shoddy job.

On writing...

Since I've recently finished writing the story 'The Magnolias Still Bloom' on this space, and have heard/seen a lot of online and offline comments, I've been thinking about the feedback I got.

I'm glad a lot of you liked reading the story, even though it has a sad ending. I'm just an amateur writer, trying to learn to write better, but I thought I'd just share what makes me tick. (Perhaps it is presumptuous of me, but I think I'll still do it.)

When I write, I like to 'live' the character, so that's why most of my main protagonists are simply 'I' or 'He' - with no names specified. That helps me blend into the character better, and assign him my thoughts and my emotions.

And since I actually imagine myself going through all the experiences that a character does, I think I tend to be more visual, more descriptive and more 'raw' in my emotion. (That's both a good and a bad sign, as far as I know.)

When I started writing 'The Magnolias Still Bloom', I wanted to write a story about how a boy has a chance meeting with a mysterious girl, and how his infatuation changes to love. I wanted to write about how she spurns him, and is not very comfortable with the idea of a relationship.

But between the time the story was conceptualised and written, the boy grew up. I discovered that I could no longer believe in a fairy tale romance - 'and they lived happily ever after'. (Make no mistake, it's not that I don't believe in love; it's just that with love one also has to accept disagreements, arguments and other 'negative' emotions.)

I didn't want the boy and the girl to end up as two bickering middle-aged people, bored and frustrated with life. I didn't want the love they had to fade.

Even though she died (and I did feel very sad when writing and editing that section) I would like to believe that their love lives on. She died in pain, but happy at having found true love.

He lived (for many more years, hopefully) with the knowledge that true love exists and he shared it with her. He will always be able to go back to memories of happy times spent with her, and smile, even though that smile may be tinged with a bit of sadness.

Nevertheless, the magnolias still bloom.

Soulful Melody

Born in the recesses of my heart,
the sweetest song I’ll ever sing,
delicate notes crafted with Love,
taking flight on gilded wing.