I am reading a book, that is quite interesting. It is
actually about detective work and more probably in the times of my grandmothers
and stuff like that. You know Agatha Christies? Yes something like that. Years
ago, more like decades ago, I used to carry around novels of Agatha Christie
and Peter Cheney novels. I read about the French revolution first from the
famous book Scarlet Pimpernel. Then there was the Tale of Two cities. They gave
me an old fashioned look at the crimes scenes of London in the days of the
writers.
I think that was what I found very interesting. The way
the writers then added bits of their environment to what they wrote. I always
thought , it will be hard to get lost writing the locality as Peter Cheney then
made London quite alive and interesting. I knew the smog, the steam trains from
their descriptions. We had not arrived at the pre-occupation these days with
action, blood and grit but you read a good story that was beautifully written.
Somerset Maugham showed me the frailties of the human
nature through his stories of the Malays, the tension of war, the loneliness of
the soldiers. I learnt about Gauguin the artist from his stories about the
early life of that great French artist. Maybe, you now know how I came to be
such an addict on writing and writers.
From my earliest years, I fed on Enid Blyton. I would
compare the adventures of the Famous Five with Tales under the Baobab tree of
my grandmother. It was a heady mix and I had quite a lot of fun. I could
understand the vivacity of children remembering mine and how those books ever
so subtly shaped my moral compass and helped me to have a fairly balanced
outlook.
I did not have a yearning to cross oceans to bring home a
golden fleece. I simply enjoyed their magic, the remoteness and lived through
the characters accepting from my grandma that the human emotion was colourless.
Chivalry, steadfastness, honesty and dignity are emotions
of the human being in any part of the Universe the human being happens to have
been incarnated.
His responsibility has always been to search for a luminous
goal and do his very best to achieve that goal no matter the challenges.
Man was not permitted to be here simply to eat, sleep,
and procreate . He was also not meant to discover ingenious ways to make life
more uncomfortable for his fellow man.
I had not planned on writing that, you know, I generally
write when I feel unhappy, excited, angry ..what? angry? Yes of course. It is
the cheapest way out. I think when I write, I manage to dissipate my anger over
an issue or a person. I find that after I had written furiously, I feel a calmness
come into me and I am in a more rational mood.
I do write too when the creative bug hits and this can be
very frustration like yesterday when I needed to put a poem down. Like some loose ball, the poem detached
itself from some part of the Muse factory and headed straight for my head.
Wham. I searched in my bag for that pen I have never been able to get when I
needed it, no paper, the only thing in my bag was a bank receipt. I turned it
over and asked my girl to get me a pen.
Suddenly I felt better and this is what I wrote:
She was the wrong colour
too light skinned
very pretty
winning smile
and the wrong family.
She infected his dreams
with her soft voice
like silk running down his spine
created gasps in
his breathing
the insistent hiss of his passion
kept him chained
to the farm
for the dowry.
Mission accomplished
he returned to the village
her wedding
was already underway,
to another.
