My Caferati* Experience

Jumping into the fray. Someone mentioned that writers who write for themselves and refuse to share their writing with others or discuss ways to improve their craft are being selfish. I tend to agree. Why write if you are only write for yourself? I mean, you don't qualify to be called writers if you see it as a private thing. Then you are a diary-ist (or something such).

This forum was conceived (I may be wrong) for writers who want to improve their craft and maybe in due course be published by magazines, newspapers, or publishing houses. Believe me there is a big industry out there looking for competent writers and the pay is unbelievably good. I for one am a technical writer and write for web-based businesses and BPO outfits. We have been desperately looking for writers and not getting any. That too, with a good salary package and perks to match.

If not, take creative writing. There are a whole lot of possibilities for creative writers. And, you are doing what you love and earning some money on the side.

Why I am committed to Caferati is because every since we first met at a sea shore somewhere in Bandra Bandstand I have improved tremendously as a writer and now know the basics of the craft, if not a little more. I can also recognize what is good writing and what is mere fluff.

* Caferati is a forum for Indian writers

Hi

Today I received an email stating that my story "Flirting In Short Messages" will feature in the final list of stories to be published by Penguin in the Sulekha-Penguin "India Smiles Contest."

I didn't believe it. So I phoned the concerned person in Sulekha who confirmed the news.

You can read "Flirting in Short Messages" here.

Seems 2006 will begin on an encourging note, after a personal tragedy.

J

06/01/2006 0:05 hrs

Losing your mother just isn't that simple. I had steeled myself, assured myself, with thoughts of "After all she has to die some day some time," but when it hit me, it was like nothing I had ever imagined. Total surprise, I wasn't prepared for the absolute shock, the slow unraveling of what a mother really means.

Mother died this day: 06/01/2006 0.05 hrs and I was by her side when she breathed her last breath. She had been there when I had taken my first tenative breath in this world. There is a mystery, a loss, a deep sense of disquiet. Words fail me.

Those of you still have a mother around, thank your stars. For a mother is as precious as the most pricey jewels. I posted the following poem on Caferati message board.

To My Mother

You loved me
You hated me
You left me this day 0.05 hrs
Feeling empty.

As you lay helpless
Your heart beating, so slowly
I don't know
Where your spirit
So strong, so feminine
Has dissipated
Leaving this mask
Of death on your face.

I stare at you
As you lie dying
How can this corpse
Be my mother?
Mothers don't die
They create life from love
And keep nurturing the loveless.

Resolutions

Resolutions I have made
Kept, I have none
Why do I have to make
Resolutions anymore?

I pause through endless time
For this year to pass
And the lights of celebration to die
On this New Year day.

Remember those magical days
When the promise of meeting
Was what held us together
Alas! No more!

Years just flow by
As water beneath bridges
Gathering speed towards
The great sea of immortality.

There you and I
Will rest our weary heads
On the bed
Of our broken promises.

Interesting take on poets here.

Sample this:
Quote
They all wanted to be writers. Every maniac in the world that ever brought about the murder of people through war started out in an attic or a basement writing poetry. It stank. So they got even by becoming important heels. And it's still going on.
Unquote

This is me at a recent readmeet of Caferati. I read my short story Rina's Dog. The response ranged from "Girls don't wear frocks anymore," to "Girls don't play house." Guess girls in my days did. Times change. So do readmeets. Someone called it an eatmeet. True. There were lots to eat including chocolate chip cookies (everybody's favorite, there were verbal duels to get to the cookie box), gulab jamuns, jalebis, home-made cakes, samosas, snacks, snacks, snacks and to top it all divine coffee.... As a wag remarked, an eatmeet it was with breaks for reading.

The wife is away!

The wife is away. I wake up groggily to do some feeding... um... chores. Where’s the bloody milk vessel? Where’s that damn knife to open the milk sachet? Where’s the blustering gas lighter? Where’s the effing knob to switch this on? Is it left for sim, or, right? Where? Where? Where?

I run cold water over a cup, rinse it. For the coffee, of course. My hands chill to the touch of water. The detergent, clammy to touch, the scrubber so squelchy, yetch. How does she do it?

Where’s the coffee power? I holler to my son. Where are the spoons? Why can’t everything be ergonomically placed? Assembyline style, asks the industrial engineer in me. There should be a system to this madness.

There’s water to be filled. I run to the bathroom. The tank’s ball valve isn’t working, so I have watch out or water will spill all over the bathroom. Is the milk boiling? I run into the kitchen. No. Safe. It’s near boiling with those little bubbles about to break.

Back to the bathroom. The tank is about full. Shut off the water; get doused though from the first part of a forestalled deluge. Sound and smell of incineration from the kitchen. The milk is all over the kitchen platform in great white tides of froth. Oh! Where’s the damn cloth she uses to handle these dorky things? Never mind, I will use my hands.

Ouuuchhhhh! I burnt about an acre of my precious epithelial cells. Quick. Douse it with more water.

Coffee is out of the question, I say as I look at the mess on my wife’s precious gas stove that she lovingly polishes to a mirror-like finish. Women, you know. Now I will have to use my knuckles to do that, or I will be a dead man.

Bread and jam, asks son. Yes. That’s easy. A cakewalk. Walk to kitchen. Put the skillet on the gas, glance pityingly at the white mess sticking to the stove. Well, let me eat first. Then I will do the cleaning. Spread four bread slices on the non-stick skillet. Non-stick skillets cost a bomb, wife had warned.

What was that song, ummm, “Christmas season, season, is a merry, merry, season. You can dance the Christmas polka...” It is the season to be jolly and I am doing this? What’s that smell?

Oh! What does this have to happen to me? Duh! The slices burnt and are stuck to the precious non-stick skillet. With my burnt hand I try to remove the damn slices and turn them over. That side is gone, a black mess. At least I can eat the other side. I turn four slices over.

Where are the plates? There should be something called ergonomics in the kitchen. I am an industrial engineer, you see, method study and all that stuff.

More smoke. The other side also has been burnt a crisp black. There goes my breakfast.

“Papa, breakfast, I have classes.”

I bribe him with a hundred-rupee note, “This is for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and don’t spend too much. Have idlis and dosas from the Udupi restaurant, okay?”

He looks at me strangely. I know what he is thinking. Papa can’t do anything right. Mummy always says that.

I am a wreck. The kitchen looks like the aftermath of the third battle of Panipat. How do women do it? She does this every morning, packs my lunch, goes and teaches children and comes back and does this all over again.

Thank god for women! As for the bread slices, I had to eat it. Serves me right!

Muscles or talent?

Muscles, or, talent?

Just a thought struck me as I was watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie (whichever, whatever, all of them look the same to me!) yesterday.

When, I mean really, when, did this thing of acting prowess as muscles take root? I mean, when did the likes of muscle-and-brawn men like Arnold and Sylvester Stallone come to be called exponents of the fine art of acting. True, neither can act. The former confessed that directors have to make him lie down on a table to bring some expression into his immobile face. The guy just can’t act to save his life. He is an actor because of his muscles. Ditto for Sylvester, why, he can’t even speak.

Back home in India, our heroes-in-waiting have taken to the idea of brawn as acting skills as a fish takes to water. If you visit your local gymnasium you will find at least a hundred youngsters pumping iron in the hope that they would get to be actors like Arnold, Sylvester, Khan, and Kapoor. I guess our own wanna-be Khans and Kapoors must have been inspired by the Hollywood duo to beef up their pectorals and fight, sorry, scare the villains with their biceps!

Acting? What acting? We are into the “looking good” business. Acting is for sissies and grumpies who sit with books the whole day.

A big “ha!” to that!

Now, can biceps, triceps, or, for that matter, pectorals, compensate for good acting skills? Agreed Arnold, Sylvester, the Khans, and the Kapoors have churned out a lot of hits. That’s what biceps do to acting talent.

Confession: I have watched a lot of these capers, and have, ummm, liked them too. But can they really, really, act? Can they?

If they can act, then “Wat r u ding?” is great literature. And the following is great poetry:

“Honey came in and she caught me red-handedCreeping with the girl next doorPicture this, we were both butt nakedBangin' on the bathroom floor”

Written by some pop or rap star called Shaggy who is also a shabby writer. But, come on, he sells millions of records. That’s what biceps do to music. Don’t you know?

What does it say about the state of humankind when a fine art form like acting is not done with brains but with biceps, triceps and pectorals? Is acting and poetry no longer an intellectual pursuit?

Is it all about flexing the above-mentioned muscles?

Thespian Charu on Reservations!

My reply to thespian Charu Hasan’s article on a Caferati thread:
"Once untouchability was practiced as a matter of hygiene. Even to day the practice is relevant in the Intensive care units of hospitals. The people who consider themselves a cut above the depressed communities must realize that cleanliness relates to bath and not birth."Charu, the above statement had me rolling in my seat with laughter.Hahahaha!Incisive, very incisive comment, Charu. It requires a wit as you to drive home these truths about the deceptions we live with and accept as a fact.As far as hygiene is concerned I would consider not touching a Brahmin if he is not hygienic. How can anyone consider himself touchable because he is born in a certain family though he may be personally very unhygienic?The government has polarized society by their policy of appeasing certain sections. This is class distinction in a new avatar. We have not solved any problems with this policy. The number of the poor is increasing. A day will come when 100% of the population will be covered (on paper, that is) by reservations. It will go like this:Backward classes: 10%OBC: 10 %BT: 10 %NT : 10 %Backward Christians: 10 %Backward Buddists: 10 %Backward Muslims: 10 %Backward Jains : 10 %Backward Sikhs: 10 %Backward Parsis: 10 %Total 100%But what about those who don't fall into any of these categories? Pray to God they may be born into one of these Brahminical castes in their next birth.Initially reservation for weaker sections was meant for ten years. Then they were extended ad infinitum to get votes. Now the follies have been compounded by the government's myopic policies for the benefit of a privileged few. That too to garner votes.For more about me visit http://www.johnwriter.com    

Esquire on outsourcing...

I used to love reading the Esquire. It fell somewhere in the penumbral region between Playboy and Time. I still love reading it, if I can get hold of a copy, that is. But this terse article by one of Esquire’s pontificating editors methinks is too tongue-in-cheek and critical of the work I do as an outsourcing papi-pet-ka-sawal-walla in a BPO unit. So go here and read what A. J. Jacobs has to say about the growing Indian outsourcing boom.

http://www.smartmoney.com/esquire/index.cfm?Story=20050909-outsource

Excerpt:

Quote:
“The next day I email Brickwork, one of the companies Friedman mentions in his book. Brickwork — based in Bangalore, India — offers "remote executive assistants," mostly to financial firms and health-care companies that want data processed. I explain that I'd like to hire someone to help with Esquire-related tasks — doing research, formatting memos, like that. The company's CEO, Vivek Kulkarni, responds: "It would be a great pleasure to be talking to a person of your stature." Already I'm liking this. I've never had stature before. In America, I barely command respect from a Bennigan's maître d', so it's nice to know that in India I have stature.
“A couple of days later, I get an email from my new "remote executive assistant."
“Dear Jacobs, My name is Honey K. Balani. I would be assisting you in your editorial and personal job. . . . I would try to adapt myself as per your requirements that would lead to desired satisfaction.
“Desired satisfaction. This is great. Back when I worked at an office, I had assistants, but there was never any talk of desired satisfaction. In fact, if anyone ever used the phrase "desired satisfaction," we'd all end up in a solemn meeting with HR. And I won't even comment on the name Honey except to say that, real or not, it sure carries Anaïs Nin undertones.”

Unquote

For more about me visit http://www.johnwriter.com