So as I lay awake in bed this morning, waiting for either a Tsunami or my wife to knock off the mobile-cum-alarm clock from the desk lying about 4 inches from right arm, a realization dawned on me. You can’t summon earthquakes at will. Well that, and the fact that I’m kind of lazy.
To be honest, it wasn’t a sudden realization; this thing was brewing under the surface for some time now, but I was too lazy to drag it out and pat it into a fully formed thought. But like an itch that wouldn’t go away, I am now forced to deal with it sometime or the other.
At around the time the first human beings were leaving their homeland of East Africa, and beginning to sow their seeds in Asia and Europe, I’d started writing what I thought would turn into a novel. Somewhere between chapters 1 and 2, two incidents of even more historical relevance took place. I got a job. And I got married. So, there lay novel.doc, cozying between matrix.avi and sultansofswing.mp3, tucked inside a folder named officestuffofcriticalimportance for a good 2 years. On a couple of friends’ insistence, the file was ritualistically revisited thereafter at least once every year, to add a few more pages, and to tut-tut at the literary career that was never to be.
On one such pointless visit, I made a startling discovery. It appeared that I had amassed about 150 plus pages in the document. Scrolling through the pages to check that nothing had been inadvertently copy-pasted in, I realized that novel.doc was gathering a semblance of a structure. It was still a mess, but browsing through the pages, one got the same sense as no doubt the auditors of Satyam did. Huge football stadium-sized chunks were missing, but something was definitely afoot. I was amazed. I was elated. Something needed to be done. Immediately! So, I switched over to National Geographic and dozed off. This was a year ago.
Which brings me to this morning. So, as I lay awake trying to telepathically explode my mobile, I realized that I will probably never finish the novel. Also, the plot, when conceptualized about a billion years ago, was kind of new. But now, it would probably draw the same ‘wow’ effect if I were to tell you that I just realized that the Commonwealth games being held in India was perhaps not such a bright idea. And even if I did manage to finish it, I can totally visualize myself running around pillar to post, trying to get someone to publish it. Yeah, right.
It is at junctures like this that I generally give up and reach for a beer. But it’s already past midnight, and the prospects of finding a liquor shop at this time in Chennai are as bright as me finishing this post. So, let me do something different this time.
Starting next post, am going to put up parts of novel.doc on this blog. To make it a little less cruel for you, I’ll also do my best to add in a punctuation mark here and a chapter there. Trust me, with the right font, and if you squint your eyes and tilt your head, it will look exactly like a novel.
In between, I’ll also keep sneaking in photography posts. Why, on a particularly nice day, I might even mix them mess them up both. But, you get the general idea.
Now if I can just get someone to Ctrl+c and Ctrl+V for me…
About the Story:
The story that follows (next post, tagged ‘novel’) is more or less a faithful retelling of my time at a B-school. While none of the characters are completely real, they have all been frankensteined from all the friends and acquaintances that I have made during my stay there. And as such, it is their collective fault if you don’t find any of this interesting.
As for the plot itself, well, none of it is made-up. I swear by the little blue antennae’d alien sitting on my lap. If by the end of every post, a warm, fuzzy feeling doesn’t come over you, it’s completely natural. You haven’t commented yet.
Main photograph © Tobias
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