Feline Musings

Critics supporting the cause of technology-based rendition of news can say that the use of technology has increased the instances of vice and unscrupulous behavior being caught on camera or on tape, making it almost fool-proof to nail and punish offenders. So far so good; but what about the innocent (or even not so innocent, yet not the “big bad wolf “kinds) who are being made targets for blackmail, threats, and unwarranted attention, through some juicy bit of private detail duly captured (or even fabricated to dire proportions) using technology.

A confusing scenario; a messy state of affairs – women are supposed to be well-bred, educated and enlightened but at the same time their individual choices and career preferences have to be compromised in the face of pushy social norms. While men have always required women to work side-by-side with them – be it in farmlands, or orchards, or managing entire households and the finances while the men were at war or away on voyage – it is the modern trend of equal financial contributors that has added to the role of the women. In most families today, the burden of loans, lifestyle and spiraling expenses is forcing reliance on double-income and when this trend started more than a decade back, there emerged the concept of DINK – Double Income No Kids. But as women developed work-family life balance, social and familial demands on compliance to traditional child bearing and rearing roles were reasserted.

What I realized from this experience was that Creativity in any form definitely feeds on your life force, it imbibes, and emerges from something deep within you and you have to give it all that you possibly can. Whether it is fanning the fires within with passion for a Muse, or having a mind at rest from all other cares of the world, Creativity is a jealous child – an all-demanding, all-consuming force that compels and commands single-minded devotion, dedication and energy. Whether you feed it with intense pain or pleasure, with dominant passion or intense absorption, your enthrallment with your creative side has to be complete and undivided. No wonder, many bright and creative individuals over time and centuries have been known as eccentric, withdrawn, silent, moody and even autistic. With all things worldly, there are exceptions and many may not agree with the concept that I explore in this blog, but I would love to hear about real-life experiences that say that creativity demands single-minded dedication and most importantly, a mind a rest from most things materialistic.

The smell of the first showers intoxicated me. A gust of wind sprayed my face with icy rain drops, as I reached to close the window. I took a deep breath. The showers were heavy and had caught unaware many passers-by. A tiny puddle was created and a small child splashed in the water gleefully. I could almost feel the pleasure of the child, and in my mind I protested more vehemently than him when his mother pulled him away with a slap on the bottom. The child in me wanted to enjoy the rain and the mud. I felt light-hearted and child-like.

Hence, each bat of the eyelid and every trickle of a tear, the smudge of the sindoor and the sweat drop on the forehead, the teeth-gnashing and the shock, the breaking of the bangles and the flutter of the curtains, the shuffle of footsteps and the boiling of the milk, every single shot was shown three consecutive times in a swift replay, accompanied by music to suit the scene. Each replay – dhish-dhish-dhish – emphasized the severity of the situation, the seriousness of the matter, the wasting of the time of the jaw-dropping viewers.

When I came across NovelRace, the occurrence was aptly complimented by the fact that I had three stories running parallel in my mind, but had not yet penned them down. This made the search for a theme for my novel a cakewalk, as I decided to thread the three stories together with a common event and/or a series of event and then just go with the flow.

So, when I decided to dabble with 55-fiction, I expected it be cakewalk. It wasn’t. It’s very difficult to contain thoughts in as little as 55-words, while maintaining a plot, characters, conflict, resolution and the shock element. I had storylines but after I jotted them out, I spent a lot of time editing and redoing the sentences to reach the magic number. I finally have five stories in place that I am sharing here.

Books by bloggers are becoming a cultural phenomenon and a trend, and so is populist writing. Any blogger with a blog that will entertain and amuse the public has a chance to get a book deal. The appeal of a blogger’s personality and the passion for a subject becomes an attractive force for publishing houses looking for long-term commitments and sustained zeal. Aspiring authors are even coming out with e-books that can be downloaded from their websites and blogs. (I am reminded of Paulo Coelho’s web-based marketing wherein he releases some chapters of his forthcoming publications on his website, and regularly contributes small pieces of writing on the online newsletter – Warrior of the Light.) Today, such marketing concepts are being well-utilized by the tech-savvy, young and ambitious Indian writers!

Selective breeding has also been a well-practiced science in both zoological and botanical worlds. We get to know of genetically engineered better, bigger, stronger species of animals and plants. In fact, when we think of it, Hitler’s call for a predominantly Aryan society and the genealogical extermination that followed was close to the Spartan concept of society. Charles Darwin’s “Survival of the Fittest” is an assertion of the fact that the genetically “better, bigger and stronger” will ultimately rule the Earth, or for that matter the Galaxies.

I have favorites in each one, for example, in the Beauty Tips ad, I love the way the little ZooZoo is peeping in from the threshold when the mummy ZooZoo struts in to see what’s scaring the kids, or in Recharge Anywhere ad, the way the girlfriend ZooZoo has a hand on her boyfriend’s shoulder as he is happily driving away, or the wringing of the hands in the Fashion Tips ad…. there are so many more details to observe and enjoy and each one can find their favorites.

Good Friday is the day of Christ’s crucifixion, and is observed as a day of mourning. The obvious question is that if it is a day of mourning, why it is called “Good?” In archaic English, “Good” is a synonym of “Holy” and hence the nomenclature. It also symbolizes the fact that Christ was crucified for our sins, and the humiliation, pain, and death are His sacrifice on our behalf. As a sacrifice for humanity and the cleansing of the sins of man, this day of mourning holds tidings of redemption.

Our senses are being assaulted with so much distressing news that we have slowly becoming accustomed to listening, watching, discussing and then walking away from taking any responsibility. The fact is that we have undergone the psychological process of desensitization, which states that continued exposure to media violence undermines feelings of concern, empathy, or sympathy that viewers might have toward victims of actual violence.

In spite of getting used to having domestic pigeons as our regular visitors, my first love was reserved for the house sparrows. But this December, when I went to my hometown, the sparrows were conspicuous by their absence. The house sparrow seemed to have disappeared.

The “schools of thought” expanded and diversified, and we were enmeshed by more ideas and professed more ways of life than we could actually live! Minimalism gave way to lofty ideals and higher ambitions. More and better was demanded and at grandiose scales. The intellectual was churning out ideas for execution, and the social, political, economic, and industrial setup was working overtime to crystallize these ideas. While the human mind was at work, life was improving at a fast pace, but at what cost!

For those interesting in reading and particularly in short stories, you can order your copy from the Publisher’s website: http://www.saikiranpublications.com/orderform.htm. But before that please send me a message to share my author code with you.