Tridib and May could have been an awesome author couple: Fan fiction to Shadow Lines

Seriously. Both of them were excellent in spheres that would make therm authors of bestsellers. I for one would buy their books (that is, if I couldn't find a free e-copy of them online and if they weren't very expensive). I could list a dozen reasons why. For starters, May had excellent language and Tridib could talk about anything. Well, at least I found whatever he talked about very interesting. Even about snakes.I am not sure whether I am generally interested in snakes. Because I dunno much about snakes, yet I am not sure whether I want to know or not, because, well, as said before, they are snakes. You know, those writhing, slimy things with triangular heads and forked tongues that slither really fast. Even then, I find it interesting that he can talk about them. That he is knowledgeable enough to do so. And he makes it sound interesting. So I would listen to Tridib if he talked about snakes. Tridib is admired very much by me not just because of his knowledge in archaeology (I love the subject and he is working on a PhD in it. Of course I admire him. Duh). His skills in imagination are just SUPERAWESOME, for lack of better word or expression. He constructs stuff in his mind so carefully, giving the initial image somebody has provided him with minute details, like slightly zoomed photographs (good quality ones, not the ones that get progressively blurred). When the narrator talks about what Tridib  would have imagined after hearing about monitor lizard versus Ila's-enemy-the-snake, I tried, like Tridib, to construct that slop-roofed house with a pond and a garden where the UN official's family lived. (The mere fact that of all the things he heard, he was trying to draw an image of the house in his mind is pretty cool by  itself, I should say). It was very picturesque. Like something out of a Disney movie based on a fairy tale. Like something I would like to live in. (Once I have a heavy paying job that required me to loaf around and submit reviews of the happy-ending novels that I read that week, while drinking my mug of hot chocolate and munching on non-fat chips. I would have a lounge chair where Ilas sat  and would recline and read, enjoying the ambiance to my heart content. Hmm...colorful Disney dreams.) There was a tree, the medium tree that was neither too fat nor too slim, that was not too old but not too young, that had an afro hairstyle and the branches didn't go far and didn't look like sticks and were graceful. There was the tied up monitor lizard of course. (It looked much like a very small crocodile in my head, since I have never seen a monitor lizard and the Google images makes them look a little bit like snakes and we have already established what I feel about snakes.) Then there was very green grass and the yard of the beautiful house. I can outline the tiles on the roof. Now that I think about it, I could even put down a stone path from the door of the building to the lounge chair. But this still looks like Winne-the-Pooh/Disney-ish to me. I am having a hard time imagining what the actual house might look like. Or I am afraid that the image of the actual house will be very realistic and I wouldn't like it and would prefer my house where Belle would have lived with her retired Beast/Prince at the edge of the woods.

But Tridib could imagine. And in detail.He could retain his memory about things that he saw a long time back. i could argue that he has meticulously patched up memory where they have faded but the narrator's experience in London where he is able to identify the road and buildings tell me that those memories stayed very clear. THAT is one great memory, I'd like to say.

I could go on about the various instances where Tridib's memory and ability to construct things in his mind (if I start using the word imagination, there will be too much of it in this one page). Added to this is his ability to transfer these iamges to anther mind through word. Conveying doesn't cover this. The narrator is not even creating his own images in his mind using Tridib's words. He is reconstructing Tridib's images in his mind.
Which he is capable of because his mind is still innocent. It is able to capture images without questioning them or their probability of existence. He is not completely naive here because he has material evidence that Tridib had been to London(photographs) and I would like to think that the people at the tea stalls are not able to completely believe what he says is because they have grown up minds which are skeptical of everything and cannot imagine. (If they were able to do so they wouldn't be called adults and would be constantly asked to grow up and be cynical about the world.)

This brings us to May. As mentioned before, her language is beeeuutiful, especially when she is being slightly sarcastic. And she is an even nicer character that Tridib. As much as I admire him for being an academician in history and his story telling skills, I am still slightly suspicious of him for writing a pornographic letter to his friend who was younger than him. If he is so much in love with his pen friend, shouldn't he think a little bit about how she is going to be when they actually meet? But of course, he doesn't worry about it, and she apparently is exactly what he expected. Everybody lives in a story, he tells the narrator. The story he constructs for himself is so true that he might as well have written his own death in one of the chapters. Which he finally did, by the way. May is a rare person who still has some innocence left in her despite being grown up. I t is the innocence that Ila is dismissive about. That makes her cry for people that she wouldn't meet in her life. That makes her brave enough to plunge a knife to the jugular so as to stop the pain. The wide eyed look that is able to capture the world like nobody else's look. She is not seeing everything rosy. But she is seeing. Actually vision-ing (I feel like viewing or visualising are not the right words here)the world. She is looking and she is seeing. Unlike "normal" adults, who don't see. They look, they watch, things pass in front of their eyes. What May finds in Khaleel's smile while others think he is stupid is an evidence of this. She with her insightful eyes (yes, that is the word) and he with his detailing mind, would have eben able to create wonders in paper and on best seller charts and review columns had they been a couple and had taken up writing as their profession.

Who knew, had they lived and were a couple, may be they wouldn't have taken up my brilliant idea that would have made them rich and famous. He would have taken up a teaching job in the university and she would have done something similar (I have a hard time trying to peg May to a job- NGO, painting, clerical job in one of the corporate offices?). He would have studied about the ruins of churches and World War II memorials around London during his free time and she would have fasted on Saturdays and gone for fundraising for famine affected African countries. He would meet her in the coffee shop at evenings and discuss about everything under sun and then they would grab dinner before walking to the tube in the dusk, holding hands. She would help him proof read the book on some historical street he was writing about and he would help her draw her posters and come up with catching captions. I could go on constructing their lives - what would have been - but I am not sure Amitav Ghosh appreciates fan fiction, so I should stop. Also, if they had a life together, they would occasionally have to deal with the drama of Ila's and Nick's marriages, they would have let the narrator live with them during his studies in London. Okay, stopping here. Please don't be angry, Mr. Ghosh, I just love your work. And the narrator is a completely different story altogether and subject-worthy of another blog. Alrightalright. Stopping right here. Now. Zip.

Mild existential crisis: growing into self

Recently I changed my Whatsapp status into hakuna matata. Because it sounded cool. And had a deep meaning that one should follow in life. Starting to write this, I suddenly discovered that I had forgotten what the meaning was. And yes, as a logical next step, I googled it, and it wikipedia says it means "no worries", also that it is in Swahili. Doing this, I realise that sometimes we forget what we meant by the mottos that we kept to heart and considered as our driving force. I believe that most of us have a quote to inspire ourselves. Mine was one by HW Longfellow. It kept me driving for 2 years. And I am amazed by the fact that mere words, and a very few of them, arranged as a poem(which is not exactly a favorite genre of mine) was able to do what it did. Yet later, when I lost track and wanted to re-inspire myself, I stuck it upon my wall again, but unfortunately didnt have the desired effect. Not because the words lost their charm, but because the context in which I wanted to drive myself was different. I also discovered that I needed a new quote for this situation and I couldnt find any that stuck.
Anyway, this was not the point of opening my account with the intention of writing something in a very long time. What I wanted to talk about was the Whatsapp status that I had before hakuna matata. "Growing up is a painful process". I generally tend to beat down my urges to put up a self-deprecating sentence in social media because I dont want people who already didnt know about my constant bitching/whining. Most of the people around me know that since I havent yet discovered the switch that would shut me up. But this was so true and I really thought this is the kind of truths that at some later point would be considered as a quote. :)
I dont know how universal it is, but growing up is a really bad process which might even leave bruises while and when it is done. You fumble through yourself, discover aspects that nobody, and especially not you, noticed before. You hurt badly when you see what you have done wrong. You try to correct yourself and may be succeed, but also you might find that there are traits in you that you dont like or you hate and you have been carrying it for a long time and you cant get rid of them. You might hate yourself a little for it. You might find that there are people that you hurt as a kid, and there is nothing you could do about it. There are things that you continue to do even if you realise that they are bad for you or someone else but you cant help yourself and stop them.
And then there are these times when you want to do things yourself or your way and you realise that it is going to hurt someone when you do so, either because they never gave away control before or because they dont like you taking charge of your life. Yes, you are taking charge of your life. You grab the power to do it. But with power comes responsibility (YES, I am quoting spiderman here). And you are responsible for your own the moment you become an adult. Because that it what it means to be an adult. Somebody who takes charge of their own life and move through it, accepting mistakes that they make to themselves.
Things might take you by surprise but you handle them. You find that your shoulders are strong enough to carry whatever that is thrown at you, but you also might find new shoulders to cry on when you feel like things have become too much.
In short, life happens. It hits you like this random truck that lost control on a slippery road and come right at you and you notice it the last moment. You paralyse and you are unable to move even as you know that it is gonna hit you. Yes, life does that. Others might say that life surprises you. You dont know whether it is good or bad. But you know that you are never going to be the same. And that you cannot survive if you dont trust in yourself.
It doesnt matter if people find you beautiful or strong or confident. You have to believe that you are all that. Even if you are beautiful but you never knew that, there is no point that the rest of the world know. And even if you are not beautiful in the eyes of the world, it doesnt matter one bit if you believe that you are beautiful. Be beautiful.