Déjà Vu - A comparison of two novels

             As I was reading, deep inside, “Half of a Yellow Sun” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I developed a feeling that I have read these before.

This North versus South Civil War, this North crushing southern ambition of cessation, this southern aspiration of preserving their ways of life - all I had read before.

The feeling turned into thought.

On a stroll, during sunset, the reference appeared as a flash.

Yes, it was “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell.

The protagonists and other characters were all very unique and different in those books. There was no comparison of Scarlet O’Hara in the entire book by Ms. Adichie. But Kainene was somewhat comparable to Rhet Butler.

But there are too many similarities.

Other than what I have just mentioned in the beginning, both the novels were based on civil war torn nations a century apart. 

Ms. Mitchell’s novel revolved around the eighteen hundred sixties in the United States. Ms. Adichie’s novel was rooted in the civil war torn Nigeria of nineteen sixties.

I was so drawn into this pair, I cannot stop mentioning the one along with the other.

Do you have same feelings about any pair of books? Please in comment or by dropping your blog link in the comment.

Fantasy Is Not ALL

 As I finished the last blog, I was pretty complacent that Fantasy is the only genre that is selling.

In order to be a popular and earning member of the author community, one must have at least a seven book fantasy series. At least, that’s the consensus I was getting.

After all, Harry Potter is a seven book series. From cover contrast to title lettering, everything is imitated in one book or the other. 

It is evident  in the Shiva Trilogy  and in other best selling fantasy series. Though, Shiva Trilogy cannot be a seven book series. LoL.

This realisation made me aware. After all, it is not a formula.

While doing some other research, I found out that top charts are not really dominated by fantasy series. Still Elizabeth Brontë and Jane Austin are among the first fifty best sellers in India. There are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Franz Kafka, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Rumi.

On the United States market, George Orwell’s 1984 is still hugely popular.

So what matters most? 

The content. 

People are still finding solace in Rumi and enjoying Metamorphosis. These two had no chance of being reinvented by BBC worldwide as Sherlock Holmes Telly Series from time and again, from generation to generation, despite the marvel of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s pen. Also, there is absolutely mesmerizing One thousand Year of Solitude. 

Therefore, content creators need not sigh. But, they must start polishing their creations and learn how to make the end product shine in the crowd.

Not only the cover or promotion, but also the content needs to be outstanding.

Keep Writing.

Happy Writing.

Pros and Cons of Beta Reading

 Beta Reading is ……

Dangerous, at times.

Helpful sometimes.

Yet, I am still keeping an open mind.

I introduced my piece to be a flash fiction.

Beta Reading comments were:

• Too many character introductions needed more built.

• Too much is happening too quickly.

Isn’t it surprising?

Some advised to choose a topic that is not too vast.

Some protested the transition from one POV to the other.

And there are the usual grammar police, going beyond wholesome experience and the message, picking up gerunds and transitive verbs.

Instead of spending ten words on describing WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENED, I changed the respective tense of the verbs to create different time stamps in the plot. A question about this experiment was normal. But,  eviscerating an author’s inefficacy based on an experiment is too fanatical.

I have been writing for thirty years now.

I started publishing because a few accidental and private readings by teachers made them ask me for my write ups for school magazines and their private magazines.

My mistake was I asked entry into groups or asked a big publishing house editor for viewing my things.

Groups have their respective political goals and backstabbing methods through numerous private channels surrounding the forum. And I was not a whisperer.

Big publishing houses would not entertain anything outside their propaganda. Their employee editor has not much choice other than picking up a few money churning keywords. Neither big publishing houses can fancy to penetrate a new market with a new author.

With all the experiments and ideas of a potential market, I had to go self publishing. Often publishing under a publisher’s brand is self publishing too, with respect to author’s expense of printing, responsibility of distribution and marketing. So I have decided to do it without publishers’ names tagged along.

I have decided to do it ALONE.

Hence, I sought beta readers.

I do read other authors’ works in progress. I generally give them a reader’s feedback. I don’t suggest a plot point change or expression enhancement. I just convey what has satisfied me and what has not.

My readers made me think if I am seeking feedback from the right crowd. Hence, I would not accept the feedback that suggests elaboration or change of topic of the flash fiction. The efficiency of an author lies in depicting a story, illuminating a story within given limits of different formats(bytes, mini saga, flash fiction, shorts, novella, novel, epic). Whatever may be the topic, the story should be fulfilling and the message must be loud and clear. 

Besides, one of the readers, bragged that none of the contemporary author aspirants are good enough compared to the erstwhile ones. This is not a new complaint.

But I do seldom find the benchmark lies on classics from all over the world. The comparison of every writing is with the contemporary best selling books.

Hence, fantasy is sought in an upmarket novel. Fantasy is sought in sci-fi. Mythology is sought in political novels. Sorcerers are even sought in a Spy thriller or Police Procedural. Especially, while the author seeks feedback before publishing.

[Probably because fantasy gives lots of space to readers’ imagination which cannot be invaded by visual media. Otherwise, all other genres are better enjoyed over visual media at present.]

It is difficult to choose from piles of feedback. An author needs to be aware that her creation was a flash fiction, not the first three pages of a novel. 

To justify my points I would try mini saga format for classics:

If “One thousand years of Solitude” would have been a Mini Saga:

Crossing vicissitudes, some people escaped their sanguinous past; formed a township. The Gypsies explained to them, “The earth is round.”

While searching for her delinquent son, the mother discovered a trade route; ushered in government,  taxes, labor. Revolution insinuated.

Scandals, conservative superstitious cover ups were all blown by a storm.

If “Old Man and the Sea” Would have been a Mini Saga:

The old fisherman dreamt of seas and lions, though caught nothing for the past eighty four days.

Then he found one. While he was sailing with its carcass, imagining freedom from debts, the sharks attacked.

The fishing dock was abuzz with an eighteen feet piscean skeleton. He was asleep then.

It is not the responsibility of the beta reader to be satiated from what they get. It is the author’s choice to pick among feedback and move on.

Therefore, I chose the rare helpful ones and discarded the dangerous ones.

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What do you think?

Let me know in the comments.

Confronting the Sham

 Recently I have left one group.

The group had a garb of literary enthusiasm. In reality, it was a political propaganda group, though.

It is not that my politics does not match their politics. It is my author's instinct that flags all partisan politics, ideological politics.

My author's psyche abstains me from subscribing to any ideology from the past or ones that are prevailing. Author me is just a chronicler of time. For depicting a holistic view of any time, my author self needs to be impartial to all segments of prevailing opinion of a time. 

Besides, as a social creature I cannot afford to lose freedom of protesting and criticizing any opinion. If I start supporting one or the other, I would lose the clear conscience to differentiate between right and wrong.

After all, reciprocatory WRONG cannot be justified as protest to the preceding wrong.

Where to start?

A person hugely under influence of contraband substances commits several crimes within hours in an evening. First the person peddled counterfeit currency. Then, the person disobeys the law enforcement officials’ instructions for investigating the crime of peddling counterfeit currency. Then the person tried to evade an arrest.

From the viewpoint of a law abiding person, these are all wrongs.

From the viewpoint of a law-evading person, nothing is wrong other than the laws that define a society’s moral predilections. They label all the laws as OPPRESSIVE.

Then, there was a Law Enforcement personnel who crossed the defined boundaries of legal actions.

This is wrong, too, from a law abiding view point.

This is a heinous manifestation of hate from a law evading viewpoint.

THIS LATTER GROUP GETS OWNED BY POLITICIANS TOUTING RIOT AND RAMPAGE OF SMALL BUSINESS AND MIDDLE CLASS NEIGHBORHOODS.

AFTER ALL, THESE POLITICIANS’ GOAL IS TO DESTRUCTION OF BOURGEOISIE, i.e.,THE MIDDLE CLASS, ASPIRING TO BE MORE WEALTHY WHILE UPHOLDING THE SOCIAL VALUES. IN OTHER WORDS, THE GOAL OF THESE POLITICIANS IS TO DESTROY THE SOCIETY AND DIVIDE IT INTO TWO EXTREME CLASSES LIKE FEUDAL SOCIETIES OF PREINDUSTRIAL ERA, i.e., RICH AND POOR, RICH WITH ENRICHED POWER TO CONTROL AND POOR, DISEMPOWERED AND CONTROLLED. THUS, THESE POLITICIANS PRESERVES THE DYNAMICS OF RICH GETTING RICHER AND POOR GETTING POORER WHICH HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED BY THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION TO POOR GETTING UPLIFTED.

The literary group I left was touting these politicians. 

Whine....Evoke...Politick was the three conspicuous actions of the group.

I could have quit the group quietly. But I chose not to leave without a fight.

I waited for a year to see the initial emotional bubbles settle after the event and subsequent chain of wrongs. But the politicians kept the event spinning forever for their personal gain and enticing social media groups and influencers with monetary rewards in the course. The media also kept dancing along with these politicians to top the popularity charts and, hence, churn profit. 

At pace with the never ending media frenzy, the group was promoting politics by promoting non-literary political posts. A particular kind of promotion ended as the political clout fell apart on grounds of financial and ideological irregularities.

Till the group hubris continued to promote other political agenda in vogue. 

I decided to detach myself from a few handful persons’ political agenda  and delve more in pure  pursuance of literary passion.

Hence, there would be no more posts by link sharing with Whine...Evoke...Politick...

Uugh! Females Are Easily Enervated in Fiction

 I am ever dissatisfied with the plight of women in contemporary fictions. It seems a fashion now to depict women as victims, of a few terms. Those terms includes, but are not restricted to, misogyny, patriarchy, gender discrimination.

Thanks to the invention of seventy two genders, women now seem less discriminated.

However, fiction discriminates against them everyday. By their skin tone, by their body mass index, by density of their hair, by the shape of their teeth, by size of their eyes, by degree of deprivation they have suffered as per current media perception.

I am sore and sick of this derogatory view point.

In real world, I always find women protecting themselves and fighting their struggle by themselves successfully, every moment, everywhere.

Then, instead of telling the story of a winner, why do fictions project wimpy, wary women?

It is not that I heard only stories of strength in women and that has nothing happened to me ever.

My treads were tangled in the crowd. In railway junctions or suffocating buses, I have endured rampant groping since I was nine years old. Yet I never found that to be a general issue of misogyny. Instead, I took them as personal assaults by crooked individuals.

Since eighteen, I started retaliating against them. I wrenched the wrist with advancing palms to grope. I planted my fist on the back of the individual approaching to touch my breasts by shoulder or elbow. I bit people hard for attempted groping as I grabbed their sleazy palm crawling down from my shoulder. I returned every ogle with a straight undetterant gaze and made the ogler resign.

I prevented them from violating my body. I made them feel hurt instead of myself getting hurt.

Even then, I was sexually harassed, in my very early twenties and realized that the harassing person’s only intention was to subdue my fast learning abilities to cover up the person’s own inabilities. I resisted this manifestation of power. I suffered through hormonal imbalances and clinical depression. Yet I emerged stronger than ever by arranging myriad reprimands for the person and the person’s patronizing cohort.

Ever since, any cabal of incompetence, irrespective of gender, racial makeup and everything else constituting hubris of its individual members, whenever attempted to attack my person, I simply twisted them into an entanglement of nothing.

I, a female since birth, have been doing these all alone. Hence, my female characters are brainy, brawny, brave. 

Now tell me why would I take the fiction that portray women as vulnerables and victims?

FUEL

Bonky made a dragon. She named it Mycre, shrinking ‘mythical creature’. Her enemies rumored that ‘Mycre’ was Bonky’s gloating about ‘My Creation’.

Making Mycre was nothing impossible after three thousand two hundred thirty two years, since Jesus preached, “... meek shall inherit the earth..”; after one thousand three hundred seventy three years since Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ was published; after one thousand two hundred fifty six years since publication of ‘The Selfish Gene’ by Richard Dawkins.

Mycre looked fierce, but it was not ferocious. It had sharp curved long nails and teeth. It blew fire, as hot as thousand degree centigrade, for a second, five times in repetition within range of a day. Bonky could change Mycre’s semblance and functions whenever required.

Bonky inculcated several features to Mycre, including biological functions of eating and defecating; emotional aspects like joy and happiness. Bonky trained it to camouflage and speak different human languages. She was cautious in controlling Mycre’s intelligence.

Mycre was put to daily psyche evolution. Its emotional and intelligence indices were never allowed to surpass that of Bonky’s. Bonky, herself, created training and evaluation modules for Mycre. Thus, logical limits of Mycre were set within bounds of her own logical limits. It was necessary to prevent Mycre from becoming a monster.

All these helped Bonky bag the contract of World Fuel Communion (famously known as WFC).

The contract made Bonky travel all over the world. Obviously, she rode on Mycre to the Leladim plateau, like her other destinations.

In the Leladim plateau, people were breeding at the rate of ten children per year by each ovulating woman. None of these women ever stopped ovulating in any of their respective menstrual cycles. As their eggs used to be extracted for artificial insemination and the foetus used to be grown in the uterus of the women in menopause, the plateau became crowded, plagued, morbid and highly viable for the operations of WFC.

The Jandoli river surrounded the Leladim plateau like a horseshoe.  WFC drained all the dams on the river, within a year, through numerous subterranean conduits to distant places for achieving other business goals. Then, the Jandoli river bed was engineered to be a trap door to an earthen container, called Fuel Brewing Chamber (or FBC). The container was engineered to hold people in it at high pressure and temperature that was enough for producing petroleum from their protein and fat, within a few billionth of time compared to what required by the natural processes.

Bonky had six months to finish driving Leladimans to FBC interred in the Jandoli River bed. But the brave, enduring, enterprising, Leladimans delayed the project by eternity. They kept breaking the trap door of FBC and rescuing their friends and relatives almost every time Bonky drove some people there, by threatening to hurt them by Mycre. It compelled her to increase the daily instances of Mycre’s fire belching from five times to fifty times.

Yet Leladimans kept laughing at Mycre. Bonky failed to drive enough Leladimans to meet the target produce, even after a six months extension from the initial deadline. Around this time, WFC withheld Bonky’s remaining payment installments.

Moreover, multiple rupture of the trap door compromised FBC’s engineering.

WFC pinned the failure of the project on Bonky, blaming her methods and scrapped Bonky’s contract. After all, it was scientifically proven that the members of high density populations like the Leladimans lacked compassion for their fellow frail, old, weak, meek and diseased folks.

Then, Bonky fed Mycre ninety three quintals of Yaween leaves. Yaween shrubs used to  smell like rotten feces. Consequently, Mycre suffered from severe flatulence for the entire following week. That week, the target populace of frail, crippled, moribund Leladimans was successfully driven to FBC. The people choked in malodorous air failed to notice the disappearance of their loved ones. 

Yet FBC could yield only a zillionth of the target amount. WFC remained reluctant to conduct business with Bonky.

Recuperating from Bonky’s air attack, the Leladimans started sending their children to Mycre. The children befriended Mycre. They fed Mycre their fruits, vegetables, candies, and cereal. It made Mycre remain so full that it stopped eating Yaween.

Bonky tried to scare the children with her controlled tornado. The children were blown away from Bonky’s camp and were dropped involuntarily on the hard crust of Leladim. Two hundred of them died of broken necks and smashed ribs. Thousands  of them ended up with broken limbs, pelvises and coccyges.

Their parents and friends of their parents rampaged through Bonky’s camp. They broke her lab, smashed her psyche meter, took her supplies for controlling Mycre’s hormones. As the Leladimans started a fire to burn the camp into ashes, Bonky climbed to the back of Mycre and ordered it to take off. Mycre could never disregard Bonky. After all, Mycre was a partial clone of Bonky.

Since then Bonky and Mycre started living in a cave above Zykod cliff. Bonky rebuilt her laboratory in seven days.

Following three months, Bonky worked on devising a technology and succeeded. WFC bought her technology and hired her. It helped them cover their losses in the Leladim plateau.

This technology made the motor vehicle industry happy, too. It eliminated their need for spending on research and development of new engines compatible with new fuel chemistry and associated physical properties. People needed vehicles. Yet, petting a dragon like Mycre could never be affordable for all.

Mycre started playing with the children daily in camouflage of a child in different parks of Leladim City. While returning to the cave, it used to cover its flight tracks.

While playing with the children, Mycre fed  them candies embedded with microscopic devices. Mycre, in the same camouflage, distributed those candies for free to every Leladiman. 

Those devices scrapped Leladiman flesh and guided them along with Leladiman blood as myriad capsules, barely visible to human eyes, to FBC through sewerage, perennially, leaving the affected individuals alive.

Thus, people of Leladim thrived in peace ever after.

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How did you find "FUEL"?

Is it capable of burning?

Did it make you laugh?

Did you find it horrific?

Let me know in comments.

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Granny’s Philosophy #FREEDOMOFSPEECH @WEP

Granny’s Philosophy

My fifteen years old self spilled, “Pa forced himself into Ma.”

Granny doubted, “Does Sikha have scars?”

I was in a tizzy, “None seen;” yet desperate to prove my point, “They've been fighting since Pa returned from work; Ma slept on the dining space divan. Past midnight I heard things.”

Granny asked, “Does Sikha seem depressed?”

It was difficult to answer. Ma always seemed depressed. That day she seemed torn by some discord within herself.

Granny caught me in thoughts, “Sweetheart, Sikha can’t be forthright to you now, because she labelled Samir as the oppressor in the family and herself along with her daughters as the oppressed. She could neither accept her submission to her own urges like all  natural and healthy creatures. Nor could she let what you’ve heard pass for her submission to Samir’s forces and become a liar.”

At fifteen, I was unaware of warm hugs that metamorphose rage into rapture. I was then unable to distinguish moanings from groanings.

I complained, “You always find Ma at fault.”

Granny seemed defensive, “I raised my daughter neither to disown her actions, nor to seek others’ approval for them. I stood by all of Sikha’s choices, including Samir, seemingly uncouth but sincere. Sikha declined nine to five Government jobs, teaching positions, tutoring opportunities. She kept fighting Samir over these decisions vying to please Samir’s father. Thus, she took Samir for granted, forcing him to be the lone breadwinner. Then, she blamed patriarchy and misogyny for her situation.”

Granny kept on grooming us sisters till today, “Never let your spouse rough you up ever.”

She narrated, “My mother-in-law sent me to college, honoring my matriculation gold medal. She passed away just after I started teaching. Grandpa’s paternal aunt started frequenting to bless the young couple’s household with her guidance, questionably valuable though, rather poisonous. Those days, Grandpa complained a lot about my negligence of him, of our children. One day, I talked back, ‘My bad, Should’ve learnt caring from your aunt.’ He lifted his hand high. I grabbed it in my left fist and dared him with the meat cleaver in my right. Never after he resorted to violence. Next time his aunt visited, I didn’t offer her water, sweets, snacks or tea. Neither did I ask her to stay. I kept the door open, looked at the clock frequently and then after half an hour said, ‘I need to go out. Either you come along, or I can call a rickshaw for you.’ That was her last visit.”

Shruti asked, “Was Sikha biological or adopted?”

Granny nodded with dismay, “Biological. During Sikha’s college days, ‘The Second Sex’ was in vogue. Girls and boys who never paid enough attention to high school biology lessons became followers of Simone De Beauvoir. They never understood what parthenocarpy and parthenogenesis are, yet, thought that respective processes of creation of seedless papaya and recovery of tail of lizards were proof enough that human females aren’t childbearing machines. Tapeworm alone, while, proves that human males, too, are birthing machines.”

Shruti seconded, [“Funny! Each grown tapeworm has both female and male parts in their bodies. Yet they can’t breed singly. They need to pair. Also some algae, with both female and male parts in their bodies, form conjugation tubes between bodies of one another. Copulating algae resemble ladders.]#”

Granny continued, “Since college Sikha lived in discord between her notion of patriarchal oppressions and her actions including falling for Samir, marrying him and birthing. She never found that marriage binds men to the responsibility of raising offspring. Intoxicated by indoctrination, she never realized that men themselves framed and propagated the idea that monogamous wedlock is patriarchal design to put women in shackles of childbearing and cooking, so that men can have their ways with women yet can relinquish responsibilities of children, thus, compelling women to remain fettered in eternal servitude of responsibility of child rearing. ”

Shruti teased, “Watching Wonder Woman?”

Granny smiled, “The franchise is the new shiny bottle of old wine, the myth of patriarchal ploy.”

I complained, “I once saw Pa slapping Ma.”

Shruti was indignant, “Did Ma slap back? Called the police?”

I felt hurt, “She kept mum for three days.”

Granny lamented, “Sikha could always stay with me till she would have got her own footing. She jumbled up being nice and being conformist.”

Then Granny scolded, “This’ same with you girls. You daren’t say even if you’re tuned on with the snares of Donald Trump, fearing alienation in the social circuit by your peers. The Associated Press told the world that Trump’s misogynous, women all over the world started chanting it, crushing dissent. Oh, I bet nobody would’ve loved Fleabag as much if she would’ve been musterbating with Trump’s face on her laptop. The girls worshiping Judith Butler, memorising seventy two genders, would never realize that they are enslaved by the media for propagating a designer narrative. Misconstruing biology lessons has made this generation mix up sexuality and genders. They’d never discover their own voices lost in pandemonium.”

Shruti inquired, “Granny, do you watch the Jimmy Kimmel Show?”

Granny spat, “Not since he started selling terror and grief by weeping on his shows like Amir Khan.”

Shruti mentioned, “In 2013 or 2014 he and Halle Berry both on his show spoke irritatingly raunchy about Ms. Berry’s then newly stylized mammaries. They have taken down this video from YouTube after the emergence of Trump’s ‘Grab them by the pussies’ video.”

Granny slandered, “YouTube did nothing to stop those videos from propagating, but took down some preachers’ videos!”

I murmured, “At least Ma’s generation followed a philosophy.”

Granny rectified, “Philosophy is nothing but popularized opinions of celebrities of an era. Now, who does popularize individual opinion to build public opinion?”

I mechanically answered, “The media.”

She asked again, “Who are always tetchy, anxious about their fragile, ever jeopardized freedom?”

Shruti quipped, “The Media.”

Granny concluded, “Only the media remains free while they enslave thoughts and opinions of  individuals.”

Her pronunciations made my Independence Day.

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Hello Everyone.

In my last Write...Edit...Publish Flash Fiction Challenge in June, 2021, I have rattled a little bit, intentionally, though. I was quite suffocated with the charade that covered convenient lies. The outcome was amusing.

Comments were edited. It was fun to see authors at a loss of words and claiming my post to be “something” instead of labelling it with an appropriate adjective. Alas! I did not keep the screen shots of those comments. I was too occupied with publishing my fifth Indie book “Indian Citizenship Decoded” [now available at https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09875SJF8].

However, I can help with that “something”. It is “calling a spade a spade”. It is opposite to hypocrisy.

Actually, my stance was redundant. My bad. I did not notice until July 7, 2021,that the preacher of the pie (hot propaganda) took an ‘hiatus’ as the propaganda went bust on accounts of financial, moral and above all, idealistic irregularities. LoL.

Attempting to be serious, I must mention that my conception about feminism has been challenged. Really? When did feminism become a concept? Last time I checked, it was a glorified opinion of a person who misconstrued biology and could barely come to terms with (t)h(i)er own bisexuality.

Believe it or not, my entry to the August 2021 Challenge, “Granny’s Philosophy” was formulated in early May, 2021 [as I'm still occupied with post publications and troubled by yesterday's all day scheduled electric supply maintenance power mishaps,  I was about to miss this challenge]. Eventually, it all seems well spiced up. 

Hence, relish. 

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Can’t stop sharing my association with feminazi’s on the occasion of Women’s Day 2017.

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[]# Edited on August 24, 2021, on March 08, 2022

Word Count: 1000 (one thousand) Words

FCA : Full Critique Acceptable

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