Write India: Penance

The fourth author as part of the Write India campaign is Ravi Subramanian. His competition was set in the modern society, and explored extramarital affairs. Read on for the short story I wrote for the same. Do leave feedback in the comments.

Write India: Waking from the Dream

The following is a short story penned by me as participation in Write India, a year long short story writing contest where popular authors set guidelines, and one writes and submits the story in accordance to it. You can check out about the contest here:

TOI Write India

This story is submitted as part of the month which is judged by Ashwin Sanghi, of The Krishna Key fame. You can find his instructions below. Cool? Cool.

DNA Out of Print: No One to Fight, No One to Die

DNA India recently invited submissions for short stories as part of their Out of Print edition. The theme for this year's competition is Erosion. Aspiring contestants, this author included were given full freedom to interpret the topic in any manner we saw fit - from the erosion of political freedom and its impact on society and culture, or erosion of relationships that lose meaning in many ways over generations, or physical erosion of the environment due to man, or even the disintegrating emotional stabilities of the human psyche.

The only rule was that the stories needed to be in English, previously unpublished, and about 2000 words in length. The following post, should you choose to read more, is my attempt submitted for this competition. You can read the winning stories of last year's editions here, and also those of the other finalists, where the theme was Choice.

Al right then, let's get on with the story, shall we?

Creative Poetry: Birds

Much of humanity's drive through the ages has been through a need to learn and understand the world around us. This has defined, and in some ways restricted who we are, as a species as well. The following poem was my way of feeling out the impact of such defining restrictions, and the ease of living without said chain and ball. Hope you like it.

Write India: A True Maratha

The first author as part of the Write India campaign is Amish. His competition was based on historic fiction, and revolved around women empowerment. Read on for the short story I wrote for the same. Do leave feedback in the comments.

TOI Write India: Introduction

Times of India is a big media giant, and hence a big platform for one to showcase his talent on. So their Write India competition is a very promising venture indeed. For more details of this section, please read on.

Tale Share: Purely Fictional by Arundhati

Have you ever tried to bring a world from your imagination into the real world? Or tried to capture the world around you in a canvas of words, in a manner so perfect that even blind could see? It has been my lifelong dream to be able to do that. Arundhati Bhardwaj, a friend of mine by happen-stance and a film-maker-in-making by trade (yes, I wrote it that way deliberately, shush), managed to do just the same with her small anecdotal fiction pieces. I am impressed, and it's time for you to be the same. Read on.

Tale Share: I Was 4 When My Bhai Found “Cancer” In Me And Removed It From Between My Legs Every Night

For every one of these gutting tales that we hear about, there are several that never see the light of day. Statistics tell us that less that 30% of these cases ever get reported, but who knows how many children never even tell their parents? Statistics also shows that most perpetrators of child sexual abuse are those known to the victim, close relatives - an uncle, a brother...

This article was first published at Akkar Bakkar. Read on.

Musings: Walking the Cross-Cultural Tight Rope

This is to be the first of hopefully many pieces of my Office Diaries section. I suppose it is an effort to convince myself I am one of the evil minions now - part of multiple despised guilds, including but not restricted to 'office goers' and 'working class'. Office life, as it is, is often about moderation. You want to be appropriate. Except when you end up doing that too much, to your own detriment. Read on to know how.

Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World: Conclusion

So ten weeks ago I took an online certification course on Coursera on Fantasy and Science Fiction, linked here. It has been an instructional ten weeks, and finally I have completed it successfully. Read below for more details.

Musings: Of Effeminacy, Homosexuality, and Stereotyping

A friend of mine told me today that she had heard that gay couples has normative gender roles - that is, one of them was more manly and the other was more womanly. Now I believe that she spoke of what she heard, and in all probability respects homosexuals. But the ignorant stereotyping still got to me, and here I am typing away about the most talked about, and obvious topics, just to clear my own head.

Cory Doctorow: Final Thesis

So this was the last book I needed to read and prepare for my coursera course. If I pass, I will let you know. But for the time being, let us just enjoy the fact that it is DONE! Ha! I did it! *tap dances*

Ahem. Anyway. Back to Doctorow's Little Brother. Basically it follows on Orwell's 1984 Big Brother, and asks who will put Big Brother in check? In today's world, who fights against the Police State? Whoever this person is, or this outfit, one can assume it has to be a darn hard job to get even with the Big Man with all the power. And yet who but a teenager could have the reckless bravado required? And thus we reach the novel, which you can find on the author's website. Or, you could just read on this post, which summarizes, analyses and (hypo)thesizes this novel. Onwards!

Cory Doctorow: Introduction

To know more about this segment, read on.

Tale Share: The ICHR's Ayodhya Visit

Recently the new ICHR (Indian Council for Historic Research) chief visited Ayodhya, and then went on to make some controversial statements. This of course let to a lot of media coverage and opinion clashes and basically a lot of negative air. However, some expressed their opinion through humous, and one such blog post, by a certain Rajat Datta made my day. I have shared some of the snippets here below.

Ursula K LeGuin: Final Thesis

So this book was a treat to read. There is no free online copy that I can recommend (legally, that is), and so I will simply tell you a story, the story of Gethen and how it came to become a part of Ekumen, a sort of United Nations on a planetary scale in the Hainish universe. And then I will study one aspect that this tale that stood out to me. Capisce?

Ursula K LeGuin: Introduction

To learn more about this section, read on.

Ray Bradbury: Final Thesis

Obviously, if you have read my last post, you know that a legal free copy of this book is not available online. I mean just look at it. It's hard enough to find a pic of this book. Anyhow, it is a hard read, and as it sometimes happens, I was late in reading it, and could not submit the final thesis for this book. But worry not my friends, I always have my views for you right here, beyond that 'Read more' link down there. Shall we?

Ray Bradbury: Introduction

To understand what this section is all about, read on.

Burroughs and Gilman: Final Thesis

For my final thesis, for once, I only wrote about the rejection of tradition and the embracing of rationalism in Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. You can read the story here, and my analysis of the story here. You can also find the analysis of A princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs here. For my final thesis, read on.

Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars

Okay then, so turns out that Princess of Mars was written as pulp fiction in a serialised manner in a magazine back in the day, before being compiled and published as a book. Which should say enough about the sort of writing one can expect from it. However, the fact this book is the first by the dude who finally went on to give us Tarzan, you have to go see the raw base that masterpieces are worked from.

Plus point - He managed to put in some feminist narrative into what is literally a SciFi escapist fantasy.

Super plus point - He got Michael Wheelan to draw his book a cover, for the 1971 edition, seen above. My love, you see? I mean yeah, it isn't the first cover, or even in the first five chronologically, but it's Wheelan alright? And the longest lasting cover as well - three decades! That's Wheelan right there for you.

Anyhow, the link to the book is above, so read that shizz, and now, moving to the summary and analysis.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland

This post summarizes and analyses, hopefully in some depth, perhaps one of the earliest Feminist Utopia based stories in the science fiction genre: Herland. It has been an engrossing read, and though there is a summary below, I would still recommend that you guys do read the actual story. And on we go.

Burroughs and Gilman: Introduction

 

To know more about this section, click below.

H.G. Wells: Final Thesis

H.G. Wells is perhaps the best founding author of the Science Fiction genre, and it was a pleasure reading his works. What follows is my final thesis based on his works, the individual studies of which you can read here.

1. The Star
2. The Country of the Blind
3. The Invisible Man

So for the analysis, go forth and read.

H.G. Wells: The Star

The Star is a true Sci-Fi short story by the father of science fiction. It is an apocalyptic tale of an extra terrestrial threat to the earth. You can find the story here, and my analysis below.

H.G. Wells: The Country of the Blind

Imagine a world, a world where everyone was blind. Imagine they had been blind for generations, and had completely lost the concept of sight from their collective memories. Imagine you got there, and were stuck with them. How would you fit into their culture? In a world of the blind, wouldn't the one eyed be king? Here's how HG Wells predicts such a situation will go. My analysis, read below.

H.G. Wells: Introduction

To understand this section, read on.

Hawthorne and Poe: Final Thesis

And after a long ride, I am done with the thesis for Hawthorne and Poe. This has been thus far the most challenging reading yet, filled with so much symbolism it made it hard to decide what to write about. You can read about the different stories I read and studied here, here, here and here. For the thesis, read on.

Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Birthmark and Dr Heidegger's Experiment

You should probably read up on the actual stories: The Birthmark and Dr Heidegger's Experiment, before reading the analysis below.

Tale Share: You've Come Out, and You've Come Out again

We like labeling things. We like binaries. We like our equations simple. So we find it hard to digest that nothing is ever really binary. The colours in this world are in a spectrum, as is gender.

Now, that is a hard concept for people to get in the west itself, which, let's admit, is a tad bit ahead of us in the acceptance of the non "normal" than us. US legalised same sex marriage, did you hear? We Indians on the other hand, are still grappling with the fact that transgender are people. What I wish for a day when I don't hear, "Which bathroom will they use!?"

Anyway, I digress. The point is, when a natural selection of sex itself is hard for us to see as a spectrum, I really don't see much hope for gender identification, which is more of a conscious choice than nature selecting sex organs for us.

I came across this one short story, written by Shikhar Vyas on The Cake, set in this nice world with nice people, who are supportive, and willing to learn, and don't ask if you have sex with yourself if you are an asexual. This, I would like to share with you. You can read the complete article on the Cake's Facebook page, linked above. Here I give you some snippets that stuck with me. Read on.

Edgar Allen Poe: The Black Cat & The Tell-Tale Heart

Edgar Allen Poe definitely had a thing for all things horrific - murders, evil incarnate cats, and guilt. It has been suggested that this is mainly due to Poe's own miserable life - it is well known he struggled with depression and alcoholism, and it is possible he wrote in this manner as a warning to the reader about his own world view.

Here I read through two of his stories - The Black Cat (1845) and The Tell-Tale Heart (1850), both dealing with murders in their own right, and the way the human psyche deals with the act of murder. To read the stories, click on the links above. For the analysis, read on below.

Edgar Allen Poe: The Oval Portrait

The oval portrait is about a painter who loved his wife, and loved painting over her. What happens when he decides to bring his two loves together, and paint his wife forms a telling narrative on humanity's eternal pursuit for immortality, and our focus on perfection. To read the story itself, click here. To read a brief summary and analysis of the different themes, read on.

Hawthorne and Poe: Introduction

To know more about this section, read on.

Mary Shelley: Final Thesis

To read the book, click here.

I have found a lot of interpretations for this book that say that this book is a warning against pursuing science with too much ambition, leaving behind religious morality and restriction. This theory fits in very well with the time when the book was written. But we also know that Mary Shelley was an atheist. My reading gave me a different, in fact opposite look at the book. To see why I see Frankenstein as an atheist reading - one that separates morality from religion, read below.

Mary Shelley: The Modern Prometheus

To understand the reference to fire, light, and Prometheus, these links can be useful reading. To read Frankenstein, you can get the book on-line here. To understand why the book's subtitle is so significant to the reading of the tale, read on.

Mary Shelley: The Sublime - Romanticism

To understand this motif, I would recommend reading Frankenstein, a free on-line copy of which can be found here. Mary Shelley wrote at the early stages of a literary movement known as Romanticism. We can see shades of romanticism in her novel, as explored below.

Mary Shelley: Introduction

To get a basic understanding of what this section is all about, please read below.

Tale Share: The Dead are Real

The one question that bothers me a lot is about how real or fictitious historical fiction is. I mean, think about it, if one wanted to talk about historical figures, tell their tales, then why not write biographies? Obviously historical fiction is different, allows the author some agency into the lives of historic entities. But then, what right does one have to change the way someone lived, or died? Perhaps the best way to understand historical fiction is to think of it as set within the realms of history, aligned to the reality of the time, and yet allowing agency to the author to take their characters through the story they have chosen to tell.

A famous personality who has made historical fiction her life, is Hillary Mantel. In 2012, the New Yorker's Larissa MacFaquhar talked about Hillary and the agency of historical fiction. I have quoted a few snippets of this enlightening article below, but for the full article, click on this link.

Tale Share: Why Historians should Write Fiction

When a novel is set in the past, we often have to build a world to support the story that we tell. If we set it in our actual past, then we have to take elements of history and fit to the plot itself. This brings forth the field of historical fiction. But how do we define historical fiction anyway? The following is an essay by Ian Mortimer, a famous historian, who writes historical fiction under the pseudonym of James Forrester, and it tries to address the question from the point of view of the authors who write these stories. This article written at the IHR conference is an insightful look at how historians view the genre, and how we could possibly define it. The following are some snippets that I found really relevant to the conversation.

Bram Stoker: Final Thesis

For the book, read here. For my final thesis on the basis of my reading, click on the link below.

Bram Stoker: Introduction

To get a basic understanding of what this section is all about, read on.

Lewis Carroll: Final Thesis

For the first book, read here. For the second book read here. For my thesis on the books, read below.

Procrastination

When you know what you need to do, like read Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland series and come up with a thesis, but it's the weekend and... well, procrastination.

Pic credits: Piled Higher and Deeper

Lewis Carroll: Introduction

To get a basic understanding of what this section is all about, read on.

Grimm Brothers: Final Thesis

So as it turns out, I missed my submission window for the thesis by an hour and a few minutes. But the effort I put in still has some meaning, and so I share my views on my readings here with you. For the thesis, read below.

Grimm Brothers: The Three Spinsters

For the story, click here. For summary and analysis, read on.

Grimm Brothers: Faithful John

Find this story here. Read the summary and analysis below.

Grimm Brothers: The Goose Girl

Read the story here. For summary and analysis, read on.