Why #IndianCitizenshipDecoded

 

It was January 2020. Conventional Media was gushing out debates on the legitimacy of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. Social media was abuzz with protests against allegedly communal, unequal and, hence, illegal amendments of the Citizenship Act, 1955.

The name of the law appeared cumbersome to the tongue. It shrunk and evolved to CAA.

The Kolkata book fair was noisy with “CAA CAA CAA Chih Chih Chih” (Ka Ka Ka Shame Shame Shame) shouts. The literary environment was polluted with political propaganda “Kagoj Dekhabo Na” (Won’t Show Any Paper).

It was fun to absorb the conundrum being at the core of it. 

But it was shortened.

Shri Rajarshi Chattopadhyay, Editor, Nayadashak (Webmag), asked me to write about the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

I started digging. I failed to produce a relevant write-up for Nayadashak. Instead, my notes started taking the form of a book.

I was conscious that the debates over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 were (are) still subjudice before the Honourable Supreme Court. Hence, my writings must not cross the boundaries of impartial observations. The author must not cross the limits of an ordinary citizen by drawing inferences based on historic references.

Yet I have tried to highlight the facts that are never pointed out overtly in myriad politically colorful cacophony. Because, twenty years ago when the media was abuzz with pre-56 status of Kashmir, there was no clear definition of the status in the media. Nor was it explicitly mentioned in the polity textbooks. But analytical reads of those books revealed that 1956 was a waterparting in the history of Independent India with respect to accession of Kashmir to India. In “Indian Citizenship Decoded/ Beyond Emotional Outbursts and Political Predilections”, I tried to eradicate the confusion created by implicit narrations and ambiguous explanations. 

In this book I have literally decoded the code (law) of Indian citizenship by dismantling articles/ sections, subsections, clauses, subclauses into conditional statements. Bare Acts are prosaic reads. They appear cryptic, too. I have tried to untangle the statements of the acts through nested/ cascaded conditional statements that were condensed inside the statements of bare acts.

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More about the book will appear in subsequent posts. 

SUBSCRIBE to keep watch.

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The Kindle Edition is now available in Amazon and Amazon Kindle Store for PREBOOKING & WILL BE AVAILBLE FOR DOWNLOAD SINCE AUGUST 1, 2021 all across the globe through designated marketplaces at https://www.amazon.com/Indian-Citizenship-Decoded-Emotional-Predilections-ebook/dp/B09875SJF8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

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The paperback is available now in selected marketplaces from all over the globe through https://www.amazon.com/dp/B098GTZYKK?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

Swept Away #TheGreatWave @WEP

The Great Wave of the Coast of Kanagua

by  Katsushika Hokusai

Warning!

This is not a winning entry to the challenge. Reasons are several:

1. The author of the story does not belong to marginalized groups recognized by Associated Press and its affiliates, followers.

2. The author refuses to be victimized.

3. The author does not belong to any winning races or the races preferred to the winning races for further wining or the nexus between the two.

4. The author disavows ongoing race and gender politics and ECONOMICS of it.

5. The author is not a faminazi. Her female characters are never frail victims. They are all crafty, having their respective ways in good, bad and ugly manners, knowing, “Nice gals never get their ways’. They do not blame misogyny, patriarchy, systematic systemic oppressions, institutional injustice, lack of equality and equity and other ways to ignore individual responsibility.

6. The author does not hold the above criteria with greater importance than research and study (sometimes spanning over decades), plotting, narration, choice of words and other literary crafts for creating her fictions.

7. The author does not care much about winning any challenge, especially subjective ones like literary or artistic challenges, though the author appreciates critique. Because, the author could barely understand that the existence is transient. 

Hence, Have Fun.

______________ 

I have first seen the painting, "The Great Wave of the Coast of Kanagua" by  Katsushika Hokusai, shared along with the prompt of June 2021 by WEP, “The Great Wave”, in my undergraduate Physical Geology text book of my Geology (Major) curriculum. It was associated with the lessons on Tsunami. 

Later as a postgraduate student of Disaster Mitigation, I learnt a story about disaster preparedness and mitigation in the time of Tsunami. I am sharing the story next.

The Japanese Old Man Who Saved the Village by Burning the Harvest

In  a Japanese villages, the villagers used to lay their crops on the hillock for drying. An old man of the village used to be in charge of safekeeping of the crops on the hill, while other villagers used to be busy in preparing themselves for upcoming harvest and crop seasons.

One afternoon the old man on the hillock, while taking care of the harvest thereof, saw that the ocean was receding. Wasting no time, he started a fire on the hillock peak. Seeing the fumes, the villagers from all directions rushed to douse the fire and save their harvest. As soon as the entire village climbed the hillock a tsunami smashed on the village, drowned it and washed it away to the ocean.

The villagers were alive on the hillock. They rebuilt the village. Part of the harvests, too, were saved.

All of it was possible, because of the old man’s experience of receding ocean. The lives saved by the old man at the cost of a little of the harvest, brought many prosperous years to the village. The village remembered the old man’s presence of mind.

___________

Next is my story on the prompt “The Great Wave”.

___________

Swept Away

In our archipelago, Ignatio, in North to South lying four Eastern islands, people were purple during the day and red during the night. They were called Ds. In the nine islands, from North to South, along  Western flank, people were pink during the day and silver during the night. They were Cs. In between these islands were eight islands populated with people who were always grey and called Gs.

Scientists from continents collected DNA samples from the entire archipelago and analyzed. Later, they reported that Ds people had different ions in analogous positions of their DNA compared to Gs and Cs. These ions belonged to a continent afar suggesting a continental drift during geological past.

In Cs DNA those ions were substituted by the ions of similar sizes found commonly in the minerals of Western boundary of Ignatio. In Gs, those ions were absent.

Years ago, Ignatio believed that the mixing between Ds and Cs created Gs. This notion was proven wrong by the anthropologists studying birth records of people born out of the union of Ds and Cs. The offspring of mingling of Ds, Cs and Gs were either like Ds, Cs, Gs or peculiar.

Some peculiar, called Ts, used to exude pink in day and red in night. Zs used to radiate purple in day and silver in night. Some used to have no change of color but remained always mauve or teal or saffron. Others emanated green in day and yellow in night. Initially, they were grouped respectively as Ps, Bs, Es and Vs. 

With passing generations, as more variations of colors cropped out by random union of all groups, it was difficult to mark them with letters of the alphabet. Hence, they all were grouped together as Qs.

Ignatio’s human history comprised lots of political fancy and bureaucratic whim over bestowing privileges to the people of different colors. Ds was the most populated and the poorest. They had the lowest per capita wealth. Cs were the richest people. They were the meanest, too, according to Gs. Because Cs always favored the Ds. Citing poverty, population size and their colors, Ds were given opportunities which were not available for Gs and some of which were available to Qs.

Obviously, Some Ds were among the richest people in the world. Some Cs were found begging on the streets of Ignatio. Gs were hard working farmers, builders, grocers, manufacturers, distributors of products and major service providers. Their businesses largely depended on bulk investment by Cs, rarely by Ds and Gs too.

In the entire archipelago there was always hostility towards Cs. They were often attacked and hacked to death by gangs of Qs, Ds and Gs. Those killings usually revealed that the killed Cs was a thief or counterfeiter of currencies. Mob violence in our archipelago had always been justified.

Properties belonging to all people were targeted and destroyed, in the name destroying Cs who reportedly profited by enslaving Ds, Gs and Qs, hence, must be avenged. Though it was always kept under the rug that Ds kept on enslaving Gs, Cs, Qs and Ds until now. 

I was studying our geologic past. I did not learn much, but got an idea that this archipelago and the whole Earth has never been static. These were always changing, not only in terms of people and power, riches and destitution, but also, with respect to mountains and oceans.

Occasional tremor in Ignatio taught us that all these islands were borne of igneous activities of Earth. Then, continental people published that the tremor patterns of Ds were different compared to the rest of Ignatio. It was established knowledge that mineral chemistry of Ds were different compared to the rest of Ignatio. Intrigued by these facts, my research guide suggested a study along Western shore of Ds. 

Our study revealed that Ds were separated from the rest of Ignatio by an unfathomable trench. Probably, the oceanic plate beneath Ds was sliding beneath one lighter plate to its West and melted in Earth’s mantle, consequently, oozing out on Western oceanic plate the rest of Ignatio.

The anthropologists taking cue from our studies started trying to prove that the Ds were the most ancient people on Ignatio. Some political groups started voicing for more privileges for this most ancient population on Ignatio.

Once, the never ending tremors beneath my feet, for over a month, told me that some devastating changes could be on the way. Either the Ds will cease to exist and will be drowned beneath the rest of Ignatio, into the Earth’s mantle. Or, the entire archipelago would cease to exist, probably by being blown to pieces by a huge igneous explosion, with ashes, bombs and other rock fragments of the explosion completely covering Ds.

Anyway, we needed evacuation to continents. Richest ones fled by private aircrafts. Some rented airplanes. Those who depended on the Government were boarded on a ship along with convicts and patients of mental asylums. Doctors and health workers had separate flights. So patients on the ships remained unattended. Law enforcement officials were evacuating people. So there were no guards to control the convicts. 

From my research copter, one morning, I saw that the ocean was receding East of Ds. I alerted the control copter for final evacuation. They remotely turn on a siren to alert if anyone still remaining in Ignatio. My thermal images pointed out many people in the Ds, a few in the Cs and some in the Gs. I informed their locations to rescue copters. Those people were identified to be convicts scavenging on assets and fighting among themselves over the shares.

Before all of them could be rescued, most of Ds was submerged under a giant wave as high as hundred and twenty feet. Half of Gs  was flooded. Cs suffered some damages.

The ship returned. 

When half a decade later the entire archipelago burst into an igneous heap, people of Ignatio got the colors of continents along with its history, culture and politics. 

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Word Count: 1000 (one thousand) Words

Looking forward to vehement and very severe Critique.

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YOU would be served with stories in series with episodes appearing weekly.

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Woke #FreedomMorning @WEP

Commemorating lives and times of Elizabeth Keckley, Frederick Douglas, Horace King, John Sella Martin, Henry Garnet and comparing that with ours.

From, "Behind the Scene or Thirty Years of  

Slave, and Four Years in the White House" by Elizabeth Keckley 

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Woke

“Hey!”, Lizzie's ghost yelled at Okoro.

Before the ghostly shriek could touch Okoro’s eardrum, his hands threw a Molotov cocktail to the dress shop across the street.

Lizzie's ghost loved the shop. Tamara built it at the intersection of North Second Street and Lucas Avenue. Tamara even named it “First Lady Lincoln’s Choice”. Thus, she paid homage to the legacy of her great grandmother, Prissy.

Lizzie herself taught Prissy, a slave girl then, her cutting and fitting techniques, which were later adored by the First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. Then Lizzie used to live in Saint Louis Missouri, married to James, suffocated by his abuses, excesses and lies.

Prissy passed her learnings to her daughter and granddaughters. Tamara has learned from her grandmother, Josephine, Prissy’s great granddaughter. Tamara’s exceptional sartorial skill fused with her intelligent business moves reminded Lizzie of herself.

Tamara’s burning store gave Lizzie’s ghost the feeling of bleeding welts she got from flogging by Mr. Bingham. Cost of the burned asset might be recovered from insurance but would miniscule fragments of moments of Tamara’s enthusiasm constituting conspicuous countable years into this business be recovered?

Lizzie’s ghost mustered some dust, took form of an oldie, appeared in front of Okoro before he threw another bomb. Okoro failed to shove her off. He groaned in anger.

Lizzie’s ghost asked, “Why are you after this shop?”

Okoro replied, “They’ve fired my friend Keira …”

Lizzie’s ghost expressed concern, “What did she do?”

Okoro explained, “She took money from the register, picked up a dress and a bonnet; she’s working towards repaying; but they’re so impatient! The owners drive fancy cars, they’re wealthy; they could’ve waived Keira’s a few borrowings in a year. That’s how the rich become richer, depriving the poor; this country and its capitalism - Urgh!”

Lizzie’s ghost asked, “Do you understand that Keira not only borrowed from the store owner but also from her poor colleagues? If the owner loses money for Keira's and other employees’ borrowings then they might have to close the store; then there wouldn’t be any employment for Keira and her ilk.”

Then the ghost added, “This country and its capitalism let slaves like Horace King and me buy our freedom, became respectively representative to the State Assembly and Modiste and Confidante to the First Lady. Even before being manumitted, Horace was so influential because of his building skills that the State of Alabama, later a confederate state in deep south, amended  laws, much before the Proclamation of Emancipation, so that Horace could stay in Alabama and build. Don’t they teach these in schools?”

Okoro stalled her, “Don’ know. (I) haven’t been to school here. But traditionally people in this country are racist. White cops kill black people. White folks crave here to enslave the others.”

Lizzie's ghost cast a mirage depicting Horace King, erstwhile slave, whipping John Sella Martin, his slave then, though both had African ancestors. She narrated how Martin endured and escaped slavery and became an abolitionist preacher.

Okoro shrugged, “They’re born here. They never felt estrangement, like me, from mother, five younger siblings flying thousands of miles away from Nigeria.”

Lizzie's ghost quipped “My friend Henry's grandfather was enslaved in Africa itself, by losing a war to another African tribe and, was, later, sold to the Europeans by that tribe.”

She paused for few moments and added, “There's famous Sengbe Pieh, also known as Joseph Cinque, member of Mende People of today's Sierra Leone. Both Henry's grandfather and Cinque were enslaved before being transported as cargo, in brig of ship to the United States, unlike your travel by airplane. They're estranged, too.”

She continued, “My friend Frederick Douglas was separated from his mother by their owner …"

Okoro grew impatient and reflected his grudge further, “They weren’t betrayed by their own father. My father left my mother and us. Until my maternal uncle prodded and goaded me to come here on a diversity visa, I didn’t know that my father could've sponsored our visas! But he never intended.”

Lizzie’s ghost tried to appease Okoro, "So what? I's born slave in this country; my own father, a free White man, made me his slave by some 1662 Virginia law. I didn't give in to feelings of betrayal, bitterness. Instead, I built my life, helped numerous others build their respective lives ...”

Okoro protested, “How can I build life here? Everywhere they ask for racial identity, generously called Affirmative action, basically identifying people by their skin tone or DNA make-up … grossly racist.”

Lizzie’s ghost argued, “Everywhere people are different. Igbo dominated Biafra tried to be separate from Hausa-Fulani dominated Nigeria. Minority tribe, Ibibio doubted their stake in proposed Biafra.”

Okoro whimpered, “It’s not about demography. I hate White people. A white woman got my father after his arrival here …”

Lizzie’s ghost reasoned, “It’s personal then. You’re neither doing Keira a favor nor taking part in a social movement. Just because Associated Press sold you a narrative about victimhood of racism through a South African immigrant of mixed race, you’ve taken part in fashionable violence under peer pressure, driven by your urges of vengeance.”

The ghost continued, “My time saw that violence is White man’s way. John Brown bled Kansas, raided Harper Ferry Arsenal for slave revolution. But he was of English, Welsh and Dutch origin. White man’s newspaper publicized his actions.”

Then she added, “You might call me racist for my views on John Brown and media. Won't you?”

Wee hour’s greyness covered Okoro. He was quiet. Lizzie’s ghost begged him, “A new morning is here. Embrace it. Free yourself from anger. Stay woke.”

Then she dissolved into thin air.

Okoro ran to his uncle’s place, finished filling up and submitting his application form to Saint Louis Community College for a course on telecommunication engineering; tidied himself up, went to work in the neighborhood grocery store.

He realized, “History’s the witness of both conflicts and construction. It’s my choice to take a side and define myself.”

~~~~~~\\\\\\~~~~~~~

Word count: 998 (nine hundred ninety-eight, with hyphenated words, without hyphenated words, 1000 [thousand]) Words.

FCA : Full Critique Acceptable

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If you are curious to know what else I am writing these days then HIT the FOLLOW button on top right, just beneath my photo and OTHER PAGES. 

YOU would be served with new series with episodes appearing weekly.

Interesting? Share the post and the blog through the buttons just beneath the entries of this contest and the labels.

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If you are impressed by the wonderful theme and the painting associated with it then you MUST check out the initial WEP post laying out the year long challenges here.

 

The Fest #TheKiss @WEP

The Fest

In Saam Ved it was uttered:

 अयं बन्धुरयं नेति गणना लघुचेतसाम्।

(ayam bondhuryam neti gonona laghuchetasam)

उदारचरितानां तु वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम्॥ ७१

(udaracharitanan tu Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam)

meaning,“Parochial minds differentiate between friends and others. Magnanimous minds recognize worldwide family ties.”

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Mou never let Valentine’s day go dry. Even though she was single on the day, she never missed any Annual Kiss Festival at Shahid Minar ground.

Sight of couples in the festival arena brought uneasy awkwardness when she arrived there alone. To prevent awkwardness Mou resorted to explore the Kiss fest adventurously.

The year before last year she approached the cluster of lesbians, looking forward to finding some single souls. Ill-fated she discovered that they mostly came in pairs. However, one liberal couple blessed her with bliss of kiss. Each one favored equal kissing opportunity. So, Mou got two kisses. It was heaven with one and it was stale with the other.

Last year she attempted to disguise as a man to catch some gay kisses. It appeared men were more conservative than the women. No couple were willing to bestow Mou a kiss. Besides, they rated Mou as lesbian. Before the closing bell of the festival, Mou could barely convince one that she was just a woman trapped in a male body.

It was never so discriminatory during the early years of the festival, when Mou first bumped into its arena unmindfully. She was completely oblivious of her festive surroundings until a sudden kiss disrupted her thoughts.

The kisser was generous. He touched Mou’s uvula, bitten her tongue and gave her a clitoral erection yet finished with a calm pinch on her lips and held her head in his palms meeting her ecstatic eyes with a smiling steady brightly shining gaze. Mou felt as if she was in love again. Then the rest of the night they walked along city streets speaking nothing, not even asking each other’s names, communicating only through playing fingers in each other’s palms. At dawn, the next morning, they yawned by the river and took their separate ways not knowing each other’s caste, creed, sexual orientations. It long seemed a dream to Mou. She labelled the phenomenon as one night’s love. The feeling was immortal unlike one night’s stand.

This year things turned weird. The organizers notified via social media that Bharat Rakshak brethren would be present in the arena of the fest to prevent the participants from kissing. They also warned the participants of probable violence by BR. Strikingly, instead of criticizing BR’s parochial ways, the notification thread in the social media buzzed with how Rakshaks resembled the ferociousness of the wild bulls and how intoxicated they must be with the zeal of preserving Indian traditions.

However, the thread was nothing compared to the cleansing endeavors at the festival grounds. COVID pandemic hit the fest enthusiasts hard. The size of the crowd was a hundredth of that of the previous years. Those who came were busy cleaning their mouths by gurgling five times with mouthwashes and abluting their palms five times with sanitizers.

However, the organizers were explaining, over the loudspeakers, India’s historical liberal culture of accepting Shak, Hun, Mughal, Pathan ways of lives. They added how aboriginal people relinquished their urban civilization embracing pastoral power structure of the Aryans. They warned, “If BR attacks you as you start kissing with the gong, give them your kiss, not your fists.”

With the gong of initiating kissing, BR brethren, in distinct yellow shirts, white dhoti and brown scarf around necks, jumped into the field to separate the kissing couples. It was the responsibility of singletons like Mou to thwart the advancing brethren and engage them in kissing so that the couples could carry on.

Before Mou could start, the woman next to her was pulled by her hair by a Rakshak. Instead of hurling that Rakshak with abuses or punches, the woman pulled the Rakshak’s neck and swallowed his lips inside her own mouth.

Inspired Mou pulled a BR by arm and attempted to kiss. The man screamed, “No.”

Surprised Mou asked, “Why?”

The BR replied, “Aren’t you egalitarian? Your ‘No’ means ‘No’, mine isn’t!.”

Probably to clear the air, BR declared, “I’m a Brahmachari. Hence, I must abstain from all amorous rendezvous my entire life and rate all men and women respectively as my brothers and sisters. Hence, I won’t kiss you or let you kiss me, my sister.”

The BR added, “Besides, I’ve sworn to prevent my brothers and sisters from conducting shameless show of lust like the westerners.”

Mou quipped, “Dude, westerners taunt to lustful couples on their streets with, ‘Go, get a room.”

She continued, “Also, we’ve communities where marrying maternal uncle or paternal aunt’s son is perfectly alright. That’s incest for Westerners.”

The BR brought more references, “Sis, kissing is not Indian way to express love. You must know Kamasutra does not speak of kisses.”

Mou lashed her tongue, “Yay, neither it speaks of oral hygiene."

She was already mad. She had almost lost her only chance to have a ritualistic romantic night on Valentine's Day. She continued arguing with an attempt to pay the BR by his own coin, “Don’t you agree that Sam Veda teaches us Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam? Shouldn’t we embrace the occidental expression of love and harmony?”

The BR seemed lacking in logic. Mou opportunistically added, “Kissing’s an expression. None can violate another person’s freedom of expression. It's the constitutional right of each individual in India.”

Then she shrieked, “You and your brethren are thugs. See, how he’s pushing my friend’s ribs…”

The BR tried to reason, “He was attacked sexually and molested by your friend...”

Disheveled Mou argued back, “Why don’t you call the police then?”

The BR responded, “I have called. Leave the ground sister before you get tangled in this mess. Happy Valentines’ Day.”

Then he disappeared in the kissing crowd.

Mou rambled away from the fest arena, lamenting the kiss that was lost to lousy debates. 

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Word count : 946 (nine hundred forty six)

FCA : Full Critique Acceptable

~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are curious to know what else I am writing these days then HIT the FOLLOW button on top right, just beneath my photo and OTHER PAGES. 

YOU would be served with new series with episodes appearing weekly.

Interesting? Share the post and the blog through the buttons just beneath the entries of this contest and above the labels.

------------

If you are impressed by the wonderful theme and the paintings associated with it then you MUST check out the initial WEP post laying out the year long challenges here.

 

Mary Huxley and The Truth #Unmasked @ WEP

There is no formal challenge in December, 2020. If it would have been then the theme was “unmasked”. Perhaps the irony that we could not be unmasked yet, from COVID-19 pandemic obviously, took the challenge away. 

Yet I was ready with my story. Hence, I am posting as the WEP ritual.

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Mary Huxley and The Truth

Mary Huxley pulled the gun from the holster. The peddler must surrender, or Huxley would pull the trigger.

Huxley has been chasing this ever since she had stepped in this area, on foot, in civil clothes, without gun, even before she received charges of the post officially. She strolled around the scene from midday to middle of the evening, until the end of the last begging shift of the day. She reversed her shirt, released her bun into a cascade of hair down to her waist, between the first two strolls, to avoid being noticed by the beggars or anyone working in the area. Before subsequent strolls, she changed her look respectively by putting on a jacket and plaiting her hair, and, by reversing the jacket and stuffing the plait into a beanie cap. She used various combinations of these style moves during her subsequent strolls.

The scene had several visual obstructions. It was bound by historic Dawson Hotel to East and another Pennines sandstone building to West. Adjacent to this building, to its North, stood Hurtshire railway station. A hundred feet long alley was stretched from the station at West along the northern boundaries of the hotel to East. There was another alley between the hotel and the building. The alleys were separated by the hotel building, an erstwhile garden turned ivy infested dirty patch and an elevation of almost six feet to their eastern end. The southern alley descended to the level of Northern alley and was abruptly truncated by the sandstone building. A viaduct ascended westward along the southern alley and went past the building’s southern end.

Two cameras were mounted on the eastern wall of the building, one camera viewing the hotel a hundred feet away, another viewing the northern alley emerging from the railway station, forty feet away. These were single view traffic signal cameras, not with three hundred sixty degrees view, hence, unable to record everything surrounding them.

Huxley noticed different beggars, appearing in shifts, sitting by the northern wall of this building, near the railway station, just out of respective lines of vision of the cameras. The beggars were exchanging tiny paper wraps, like candy wraps without candy, filled with white powder, if paid with bills as small as five squid. Otherwise they were asking meekly, “D’ya have ‘ny change? Change please.”, shaking the paper cup part full of changes.

Mary Huxley, the cop, concluded, “Narcotic peddlers, in disguise of beggars.”

She sat on the crest of the viaduct, beneath the cameras, to watch the effect of the entry of the patrolling Peace Officers on the peddler. The station was out of the visual frame. The peddler’s blanket corner was peeking from North-eastern corner of the building. The hotel was to her right. Around this time, her anxious mother called, “Can’t you quit policing? Pursue forensic technologies, instead. You’re a Chemistry major.”

Mary’s mother hung up knowing the futility of the suggestions with, “Can’t stop worrying…. the whole world’s sworn enmity with the police…”

Patrolling peace officers were appearing every half an hour alternatively from East and West ends of the visual frame. Whenever a uniform appeared at the hotel end, Huxley found that the beggar was missing at the begging post. She also noticed the beggars leaving their post and pretending to walk towards the hotel, minutes before a peace officer appeared from the station.

From her strolls she gathered that the begging peddlers could see police persons approaching from the shopping center lying north-west of the railway station. The visuals enabled them to feign being passersby before the officer. But the hotel end was visually obstructed by the ivies and the elevation.

Huxley realized that there must be a signal for the peddler on arrival of a peace officer at the hotel end. Within the following two hours, she figured out that the vocalist with a guitar busking under an arch of the viaduct was striking a distinct pitch viewing the police officer at the hotel end. It was the signal to the begging peddler.

In her inaugural shift on job, Mary approached along the northern alley to Hurtshire station, remaining invisible to the busking singer by the ivies. She surprised the begging drug peddler at the usual begging post by North-east corner of the building and made her first arrest.

She mentioned in her report the requirement of cameras with three hundred sixty degrees vision above the beggars’ post. Her peers were congratulatory but jealous. Yet she was relieved from pursuing the case further.

Months passed. A veteran among colleagues, Martha Bentley, told Mary, “The beggar you’ve arrested was an undercover.”

Huxley was disappointed that her enthusiasm spoiled the toils of someone else. To make up, she started spending more hours of her own in between Dawson Hotel and Hurtshire Station. She took photos of changing faces of the beggars, of their ringleader in rainbow hairband tied like a rag in false carelessness, in earrings and necklace of rainbow beads, in pink lipstick.

Some more months passed. No new camera was installed. Mary continued creating a dossier with clear identities of every peddler feigning beggar, their ringleaders, and customers with the photographs she took. She shared her findings with her commanding officer Bob Smith. Smith studied Huxley’s work for some time. Then he instructed Mary, “Make the arrest.”

Hence, Mary Huxley appeared at the obvious scene of crime, caught the peddling beggar by surprise, by the camera blind North-eastern corner of the sandstone building. The peddler pulled a gun from his shopping bag. So did Huxley.

Her team was around, was armed and was targeting the peddler and scanning the surroundings for peddler’s aides. Yet, dying Mary saw that her team was fumbling to shoot her killer, the peddler, who disappeared in the crowd. She realized on death the numbing effect of stigma for upholding the law on rigorously trained police reflex. Her last sigh was on just unmasked initiation of destruction of the criminal justice system.

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Word count: 1000 (one thousand, with hyphenated words, without hyphenated words, 996 [nine  hundred ninety six)]

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Looking forward to your critique….

 

 

 

Few words in support of fellow WriMos #NaNoWriMo #NaNoWriMo2020

 I was skeptical if I could finish writing a fifty thousand words long first draft of a novel.

My first fiction failed to yield any response from any agent for the last two years. It was rejected by a leading global publisher for its kind and, mainly, for its size. It is one hundred sixty-two thousand words long.

My second novel failed to see broad day light of publishing as it was trailing behind the first one.

I understand that those two do not speak of victimhood of the communities, or misogyny or racism or casteism, or communalism and all that are in line with Associated Press approved narratives. Yet those two speak of power struggle, power abuses, conflicts and impacts of big issues on small people.

It is clear that those two will not never see the light of publication. Hence, there comes the question.

Should I put my hand on my third?

Should I?

I had to. I am helpless about developing a plot into a complete story.

When I had no time, I tried to finish my stories in only fifty words. They have a nice name for it, Mini Saga. But its readers complained of obscurity.

I moved on to tell stories in more and more words.

Written a dozen short stories of thousand to three thousand words.

Then, this October I noticed in a friend’s blog post about NaNoWriMo.

I started looking for it online. I missed it in 2012, 2013 and so on. 2012 required me to be present at WriMos' afternoon sessions at the county library headquarter. In 2015 the venue was two hours’ drive away, and the schedule was not compatible with my job. 2016 kept me busy with my near one’s medical issues. In 2017, my day job was monstrously all engulfing. In 2018 a job kept me distracted. In 2019 again there was …. something that held me back from participating in NaNoWriMo.

I had two themes under my sleeves. One, had already been developed to plot, too. But that plot needed me to read some reference books. I had no time for minute reading before the onset of NaNoWriMo 2020.

Hence, I developed the other theme into a plot. Then, I divided the plot points into five broad heads allotted ten thousand words to each of them. Next, I rearranged the plot points under those heads and allotted three broad points under each broad head. Thus, I planned for a total fifteen chapters segregated into five parts. Next, I allotted three thousand three hundred forty words to each of the chapters. Thus, my goal for the entire first draft became a little larger than fifty thousand words.

Also, I prepared its dramatis personae. Then, I waited till November 1, 2020 stroke my time zone.

For the calm of early morning, for my mind to be free from distractions while developing the plot into a novel, I dragged myself out of bed every morning between thirty past four to nine past five. The latter was the latest.

I did not have any beverage. I did not even think of having any. My whole attention was drawn towards writing at least a thousand words before anyone at home gets up. 

Yet the start was a meager six hundred words on the first day. It was followed by another one thousand eight hundred on the next day but dropped again on the third.

I had to gear up. I squeezed my all free time on the weekend into eight hours, five on Saturday and three on Sunday.

Even then my speed was below average.

I started wedging my hours to participate in the six O’clock evening sprint led by Mr. Prakash Hegde of WriMO India chapter. It tuned me up to write one and half a thousand words in addition to the morning words in the day.

Before each break and after each break, I checked the word count per chapter. The first was the biggest. It splashed much above its designated limit. Then, I tried to finish the rest of the chapters within the limits. For achieving the limits, I recalibrated the word limits of the last three chapters.

Division into chapters and calibrations and recalibrations of the chapters saved my writeup from being jumbled. I was in awe when the ending came to me in the middle of chapter 2. Had I not allotted a place beforehand for the ending, I would have ended in swallowing the ending up and searching my mind for its remnants thereof over following days. Thus, the structure of the story kept me aware of my limits and helped me follow the limits towards completing fifty thousand words.

Yet, what I have now is just a pulpy dump. After two or more months of marination, I shall take up my scissors and scalpels to adjust the hook and cliffhangers and to remove inconsistencies in the plot. I probably have to rewrite an entire chapter.

Anyway, it has been an amazing journey. I owe it entirely to the WriMo community.