Taste

Salted beans
Swirling in the green
Liquid, like submerged elephant-gods

I dip my finger
Into the verdant concoction
Parting the colliding
Waters, like a modern Moses

A delicate softness
Steamy yet sublime
Wet yet velvety

I lick my finger
A twang of lime
A breath of garlic
A whisper of coriander

Sorted tastes
Each in its well-defined
Corner, combining to form
Culinary confabulation

Untitled ...

Love, touch me sweetly softly shy
Love, feel me what my thoughts belie
Love, show me all unimagined
Love, fly me on the wings of wind
Love, hold me till they scream: my veins
Love, hurt me till they bleed: my pains
Love, seed the flower over where I lie
Love, hover nigh as a butterfly

A new story...

You pocketed
My secrets
In the folds
Of your white shirt,
And walked away.

Now,

You’ll stand
And watch
My dazzle act
And grin silently, arms
Folded, in the shadows.

You’ll watch
amused
As I distract
Lesser men, with my
Dangly pearl ear-rings.

You’ll see
More of me
When I but raise
An eyebrow, you’ll push
Another mocha smirk my way.

Just admit
Before you touch
Another hidden chord,
You were ravaged too,
And not exactly unwillingly.

Cyberoptic

These keys
That I tap
For sonic delight
And literary sunlight
Produce packets
Of ancient lore
Covered by cobwebs of thought-bore
I blow away
The colluding threads
With the breath of my dreams
So do you see them now?
Lilac-colored tales
From the digital entrails
Of the cyberoptic underground

(10/07/2004)

Is Your Face A Mirror?

I want to first write a poem and then, request the erudite reader to go down scroll down and read a Japanese folk tale which says the same thing.

Refelections

Often I have turned up my eyes
after reading a paper that suffocates
my soul, to see sheer boredom all around

and ofen with galvanized movements,
I've looked up to see electric responses

and irritating bits of news
mushrooming all around as sheets of pique.

Voices carry,
and don't be surprized
if your hidden fears
get refected magnified and rebounce
to shake up the whole world.


House of 1000 Mirrors
Japanese folktale - Author Unknown

Long ago in a small, far away village, there was place known as the House of 1000 Mirrors. A small, happy little dog learned of this place and decided to visit. When he arrived, he bounced happily up the stairs to the doorway of the house. He looked through the doorway with his ears lifted high and his tail wagging as fast as it could. To his great surprise, he found himself staring at 1000 other happy little dogs with their tails wagging just as fast as his. He smiled a great smile, and was answered with 1000 great smiles just as warm and friendly. As he left the House, he thought to himself, "This is a wonderful place. I will come back and visit it often."

In this same village, another little dog, who was not quite as happy as the first one, decided to visit the house. He slowly climbed the stairs and hung his head low as he looked into the door. When he saw the 1000 unfriendly looking dogs staring back at him, he growled at them and was horrified to see 1000 little dogs growling back at him. As he left, he thought to himself, "That is a horrible place, and I will never go back there again."

Moral: All the faces in the world are mirrors. What kind of reflections do you see in the faces of the people you meet?

The Bridge

1.

Pausing for breath
I stand in the middle
Of a rickety old bridge
And see
The sun setting in front of me
And the moon rising behind.
I stare at my shadow
In the red
And my reflection
In silver.
The waters rise.

2.

I am now thirsty
And I sleep on my feet
Like a horse
Like a tired racehorse,
Sleeping to forget
My dry throat.
I dream
Of stars
Burning the sky
And falling
Like tear streaks.

3.

Somebody
Must have made
This old bridge
For others to cross
To the other side.
I think
I should jump now
And swim.
Perhaps then
I’d develop
Muscles on my arms.

Introspection

An inexplicable deep anxiety grips my soul.
I am tormented by the thought that love still eludes me.
Dejection, rejection and castration
Are all I can offer myself
While content with the knowledge that
My person is no less beautiful than any other.

I am coming to terms with my selfishness,
I am learning to accept it slowly.
It’s distasteful but true.
I feel ashamed of it but see no stolid reason to change.
Even the little change I do adopt now and then
Is hypocritical, I know:
A thin shell that can crack in a whim

I like to be brash but cannot take brashness.
My ego hurts terribly when
My vanity faces silly encumbrances.
Am I really this shallow a person? I must be.

I’m looking for love
But my motive is selfish nonetheless.
I can’t bear to look at myself
That am desperate for someone else
To find any faint resemblance to goodness in me.
And there again I’ve lost
For the lot I’ve thrown myself into
Is the only lot that might appreciate me.

Life is a sick game.
They tell you the good will win in the end
And if you listen and they do then you’re lucky.
But the signs are otherwise.
The signs favor the bad
So supposing you’re good and then bad wins,
You miss out on everything.
Tough luck huh!

I feel sadder each day,
With a huge sorrow growing only deeper inside me.
Something I’m too scared to share with anyone.
Something I can’t share with anyone.
How much I loathe myself!
I feel stupid asking God for forgiveness -
How many times will He just go on?

I know I can’t promise
Not to stray from the path of righteousness.
Do I hurt people? Yes.
Do I lie? Blatantly.
Dishonesty - it kills you from within.
I wish I could stop myself.

I’m such a weakling and I pretend to be so strong.
My whole life is a pretense.
What’s my purpose? What’s my purpose?
I cannot go on living like this.
It hurts.
My existence has absolutely no meaning.

Why am I like this?
The pleasures that have me hanging on to them lustily
Are so veneer. Why can’t I let go?
Why will I not succor what’s important?
People bore me to death.
There isn’t anyone whose company can hold me in a spell.
I just flow on with the masses.

You know what I’m talking about don’t You?
I’m desperate.
I know I’m not sick or maimed
But if I needed help ever,
I need it now so badly.
My heartbeat has vanished and so has my will
I am living the life of a zombie.

(c)

A Prayer

Dear God
Make me a virgin
As the Magdalene,
Staring into the mirror
Of her forgiven immorality
Searching for an evidence
Of the Devil’s accusation;
Finding only
The death skull behind
And the rising light
Of the world’s candle
Before her.

With reference to the painting Magdalene at the Mirror by Georges de La Tour.

Shades

When i went out, it was sunny,
so i put on my shades.
And you said I forgot
to tell you I’m getting married.
Please be happy for me.
So i put on my shades and smiled.
People in the train looked
suspiciously
at my red eyes and straggly hair.
i could have assured each one of them
that it wasn’t a hash induced glaze
but it seemed much easier to put on my shades;
So I came back enclosed
in my portable, personal dark.
And then i took off my shades.

From long ago and far away

Nineteen

At nineteen, I wasn't like this.

I didn't talk innuendo;
I didn’t know how.
and I just knew, love was waiting
for me to graduate.

At nineteen, I did not practice verbosity.

I wrote for intra-mural participation certificates.
I wrote, for they told me, I had poetry in me…
Terrible rhymes, I wrote, contorted into lameness
in the effort to rhyme.

At nineteen, I was not a funny shape.
I was not plump and thin, smooth and scarred.
I worked, resisted work,
And hid in the bathroom. Tears -
my shame and pride.

At nineteen, I had no tricky charm.
I smiled rarely, if at all.

I grasped the world, without grabbing it,
nor grappling for my two column worth in it.

At nineteen, I wasn't homeless,
nor Godless.
I knew a home and took a bus back.
Fought one God in a chapel and found another tramping in the Dargah.

At nineteen, I strained at the leash that was me.
At nineteen, I waited for life.

Written long, long ago... I wrote bad poetry, much beyond nineteen.

Father

You throw your hammer at me you Thor,
Convert my dreams to ashes and perform
My funeral rites.
Think it not too much expense of energy dear father,
All this to keep me worthy of your sky
That I may rise from my grave? I turn
And suffer from insomnia.

I have not always agreed with you,
With your great light, your thundering voice
You threw me in shadow, you stole my music,
I played my guitar
And heard my semi-breve’s whimper
Like dotted hemidemisemi-quavers
In the rotundness of your presence.

I tried so hard to salve the stabs
On your tender heart and ended up
Causing more with my blunt knife.
Father you have now woken up to exact revenge
On your negative Elektra,
Can’t you see I have put down my weapons?
Oh, I forgot, I had gouged out your eyes.

Stories at the Coffee Table contest: Last date for entries extended

You now have more time to hone and polish your entries. The last date for you to send in your entries to the Stories at the Coffee Table contest is now 15th November 2004. We look forward to receiving yours.

What are your favourite online writing and reading resources?

We have a large selection of links that we hope writers and readers will enjoy. You'll see most of them (sorted alphabetically) in the left panel here, under "Recommended," and a sorted list on our site.
Do tell us what you think of the selection.
If you have some links of your own to recommend, even better. Either mail them in, or leave a comment here, with the URL and why you think that site is a useful addition. (Note to the Contributors: perhaps you can post reviews of the sites you find most useful? Feel free to pick up one of the existing links, or choose one of your own.)

Love

At low tide
I found love
By my side
Cleansed-
By the blue dawn
Perceptive and indulgent

At high tide
I found love
Tortured by pride
In broken sea shells
Brittle and suspicious

At dawn
I found love
On my green lawn
Lying naked
Vulnerable and cruel

At night
I found love
Hidden from sight
In my heart
Like a metaphor of emotion
From Nature’s breast

(09/05/2004)

Listen

Listen
to my whispers,
electric streaks
tearing across a deaf sky

an inscrutable universe
vibrating knowingly

nothingness
dissolving into whorls
of possibilities...

(c) Max Babi

SMS verse contest

Inspird by ths.herez d rulz.up 2 160 charctrs,includng spaces.NE subjct.SMS abrevs & bad spelng encuragd.prizes:2 Gmail inVt8ns.entries only via commnt buttn.*

Stealing lines

my lines seep into you
your lines ooze from invisible cracks
smack into mine

my thoughts hover around you
like a barely felt miasma

my feelings crackle into the indolent
body of your spaced out emotions

your thoughts fuel me on this endless quest
your feelings prop me up when I fall in a heap
your emotions sparkle through my darknesses
your words leave my mouth

the mouth that has hungered for so long...

(c)Max Babi
221004

Radiance

As the rickety bus
screeched to a thudding halt
I idly looked outside,
sure enough,
a young lady on the curb
put out a hand,
her glistening eyes full
of pure mischief,
contrasting terribly with
feigned driving-need for help

our eyes met, and I laughed
abruptly she laughed too...
with gesture implying
futility in its infinite endlessness
she pulled back

and my heart lurched
soon as I realised
her right leg was missing
from mid-thigh downwards
-but the bus lurched onwards.

Those joyfilled lustrous eyes
that irrepressible joie de vivre
that impatience to get back
to horseplay with buddies

contrasts
ever so sharply
with a platoon of worried
sick everyday faces

swooshing down on me
like a phalanx of restless
ghosts with eternal hungers

leaving me to
wonder, and untangle
the severe strands of confusion.

(c) Max Babi

Dreams

Dreams
are moments of lucidity
flashing playfully scenes
that the mind fears to conjure

dreams
like faith belief trust
are simply the invisible glue
holding the self together :
sternly mocking at our pseudo
-notional excesses

dreams
in their pristine purity
never ever lie
it's just that our mercenary language
mindlessly distorts them
beyond repair
beyond recognition.

cheers


(c) Max Babi

Truth

Often
have I encountered
truth falling like a splinter
out of my own
eye.

- Sonia Menezes

SMS verse

I hug your indifference tight;
Trying to comfort
my tired nights.
Our fire leaves my soul cold;
lashes wet.
I am still defrosting
from the time
we last met.

--- Read on Oct 16, Caferati Meet, New Delhi

In Search of Jiya

How did this silly yellow notebook change the way I’d thought about her for 30 years? I touched the plastic cover. She wouldn’t have bought a notebook with a plastic cover to write her most private thoughts. This was a woman who loved natural fabrics, the beauty of texture and touch. I’ve seen her in bookshops, caressing books and folders and files. Sometimes if she didn’t like the cover, she wouldn’t read a book. How did she pour out her words into this ugly little ‘diary’?

Poo often asked me, “What is Jiya like?”

And my reply would be different each time. There were so many facets to Jiya. Usually I would end with “mature, warm, one of the few people I know who copes best with what life offers and turns it into joy”

Poo would say, “What does she look like?”
Why do people always want to know what other people look like?

And I would say , “ She has a smile and eyes that talk all the time”.

Poo said, “That’s not what I mean. You don’t even have a photograph. Is she tall and slim? What is her hair like? Is she fair? Compare her to someone we know.”

I can’t compare Jiya. I could never compare Jiya to anyone else. I turned to Jiya whenever I needed my life interpreted. I turned to Jiya to talk about the world, the human condition, God. She was quick, she knew what I was going to say almost before I said it. She became me while I said what I had to. We talked and it was like she moved my thoughts around, gently, playing with them, dropping some, adding a few, and by the time I said “OK, I have to run”, I was happier, lighter and the world made more sense.

I said to her once, “Jiya, you weave magic” and she laughed and said “no, I just live life… but you know how it is, life is magic.”

Many lives ago I realized that it wasn’t just me – Jiya wove the magic for many of us who were part of her life. No, I don’t think we were part of her life – she was a part of ours. Her life was her mind and heart, her husband, her family and the project of the moment!

“No, Poo, I don’t put her on a pedestal; no, she isn’t an exotic creature. She is ….” I shrug. Poo rolls her eyes but she is intrigued and will bide her time. She would wait to meet Jiya.

But whom was I going to introduce Poo to now? Who was this woman in the dirty ochre yellow book? This fickle creature whose thoughts swung first one way and then another like a pendulum trapped in an unceasing madness? This woman who loved and hated and despaired and struggled through the mundane irrelevance of life. This woman sounded like an ordinary mother, like a petty sister, like my neighbor’s raucous wife, like those women in inane television soaps. This woman lamented the very spirit Jiya had celebrated. Where was Jiya? My mind ran into empty rooms searching in panic for a life Jiya always said was never permanent.

I looked at my wife. Poo is a special woman. She recognizes signs. There were photographs of Jiya around us. Now finally Poo could see her, and now Poo didn’t know what she looked like at all. She could see the death of a Muse in my eyes.

When I am better, Poo and I will search for Jiya.

- Anita Vasudeva, 2002

The Wind

Slightly
sweeps the
noon silver
of wind

Waltzing the
leaves in
one rhythm

wind, blow
firm, shoo my
cares away

weave me into
your floral
ballet

- Sonia Menezes

Inspired!

held my breath for a minute,
was there more?

of her life?

like tendrils,
she crawled upon my chest,
words, nails, poetry.

my dreams
are too endless
she exhaled.

and some of that ether
mingled in,
some wafted away
as air.

what remained
i captured.

held my breath
for a minute,

was there more?

(C) Sunil R Nair
19/10/2004

(I borrowed a stanza from Manisha Lakhe's poem For you which appeared in this blog. Had to write this poem, my first in some months)

For you

My dreams are too endless,
My mind knows no fatigue,
I do not want
peace with you,
I want you
unceasingly...

In Remembrance of Agha Shahid Ali

Priya Chhabria, spoke to me about Open Space, located smack in the heart of the city, Deccan area, where the senior writer Dilip Chitre was going to read and talk tonight. I must thank first of Deepa Gahlot to have put me in touch with Priya, what a wondrous evening it turned out to be.

Dilip began reading from one of the three books of verse by the late Kashmiri poet Agha Shahid Ali who had lived for a long time in the US and developed his own sytle of writing wherein the language was English but the ethos was Indian / Kashmiri / and drilling downwards, one could see a south Asian influence. ASA died young as recently as two years ago with brain cancer. Dilip showed us an autographed copy saying how much ASA had enjoyed the evening at Pune.... there was some disagreement about the date, but 1989 or 1990 seemed to be favoured by most.

Fourteen persons were present. I knew Priya, and Arshia Sattar who runs Open Space... I recommmend all to click on www.infochangeindia.org and see some of the enormous work they all have been doing..... the other faces remain a high speed blur since quick introdutions were swept aside and the evening's main discussion began somewhat abruptly. Dilip's knowledge of Urdu poetry is excellent, and so is his pronunciation -this was the first time I met him though we knew each other from the email circuit and common friends like Sujit Patwardhan the environmentalist and Jazz aficionado. Four foreigners had turned up too. Some of them were doing scholarly research on Indian poetic traditions.

Dilip explained the ghazal format, its inherent rigidity and how the Urdu poets masterfully manage to beat around those restrictions and produce ambivalent couplets which can carry opposing meanings. ASA tried a lot to get this sort of playfulness and amazing skill into his writing, though he wrote in English. Someone wanted to know about inevitability of local politics affecting his poetry. Blood bath cannot leave a poet untouched, So amongst the many poems we read turn by turn, one poem dealt with the paradise on earth having turned into a veritable, impenetrable hell.

Dilip, Arshiya, Priya and myself, we all read one or two poems each-this emboldened others to try out their skills in reading too. The ensuing hydra-headed dicussions went on for another two hours.

All in all a wonderful evening though no coffee nor tea were served -producing rather a hollow feeling inside. God, have I turned into a hardcore caferato ? Sunil, caferati is
plural as my smattering of Italian tells me. Graffito and graffiti... cognoscento and cognoscenti so on and so forth.... correct me, readers if I am wrong.

Cheers
(c) Max Babi

Am I all that different?

Am I all that different?
Of what am I so proud?
Can I stand myself apart?
Or do I just mingle with the crowd?

Am I hopelessly shackled to verbal inventiveness?
Have I lost the art of being mundane?
Am I forever supposed to be creatively different?
And is my pursuit of literary greatness insane?

Why can't I pick my own roman nose??
Or strip my fingers of their nails?
Why can't I create a public ruckus at the drop of a hat?
Why should I write letters when I can use email?

Is there a rule that's built to govern human behaviour?
One that forces us to desist from being ourselves?
Maybe thats why all those wonderful thoughts I think
are gathering the dust of unspokenness on my mind's shelves

How technical can you get at poetry?
Is this now, an art form or a science?
Can I not combine a flowing rhyme with free verse
I mean, Can't I just mix up the lines??

What awards in life do we covet?
Should we write acceptance speeches in advance?
And how horrendous a scene if we were unprepared,
if we did win on an offchance

Is there a pattern to the way that people react?
Or is all human emotion just a sham?
I know I'm asking very many stupid questions
But I can't help it, That's the way I am

Answers galore, I seem to find,
when the questions aren't floating around
Ofcourse when they do make an appearance,
Well I dunno, I guess I'll just have to have this poem rewound...

- October 17th 2004

SatCT press coverage

Menka Shivdasani mentions the SatCT launch in her column on the Daily Star, Letter from Mumbai.

Visitor

Unheralded, you hogged the telescope’s field.
You came unannounced, unalmanacked,
elbowing every cosmic fire
out of the lens’ ken. Your incandescence blacked
the firmament out entire,
and for a while, your brilliance sealed

the retinal mind’s edges. Your diamond hail
blinded us, and stupored eyes scrummed
for shafts of countless winking stars.
Past all wonder, senses numbed,
we watched your rainbow showers
scatter magic in their trail.

And then – nought. As swiftly as you’d blazed you were gone.
Poor Halleys we, we trawled in vain
the mocking void for telltale gleam, lambent spoor.
But black, resplendent, king once again
answered but with tawdry glass, a charlatan’s lure.
The spaces stared unmoving, blank of where you’d shone.

Three poems

[Untitled]

You touch me with politic ardour.
You touch me to fraternize.

I dare not touch you.
Touch tells tales.

[March 2004]
--------------------

Morning - IV

I think of you with dry toast and early mornings
that last longer than mornings should.

Longer than dawn, longer than noon and even
through sunsets, it's still morning...

And you are still with me -
swilling my tea,
stirring in sugar,
sipping from my glass.

My eyes open, but I am
glazed, shut up
in a sleep-like box,
where the whiff of dry toast and morning and you
steeps into me.

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

White

They say I could be almost white.

Almost white,
if it weren't for my genes.

Cream-white
porcelain-white
sky-white
wall-white
but not white white.

Someone had once called me a white buffalo.
How right he was!

White, but tropical.
White, but still,
a black-hide animal on the inside.

White,
but not quite.

--------------------
[From the Oct 16th reading at Anita's]

Delhi's first Caferati meet - Oct 16, 2004.

First things first - there was cake!
Not cheesecake, not orange-n-walnut cake, not raisin-n-chocolate cake. But soft, homemade lemony, light-on-the-palate cake. Mmmm!

That said, let me proceed to thank Anita (and her sister-in-law who did the baking, I believe) for the goodies we partook of (yes, yes, I know. Archaisms don't go down well with everyone, but this is MY report.)

I walked in to Anita's Defence Colony residence, and was led upstairs into a warm living room where I was introduced to Madhu (editor of journeymart.com and fellow-ryzer) and Meera (who kept introducing herself as "I'm not yet a ryzer" until we told her it wasn't necessary). Meera works at the Greek embassy, is a voracious reader and buys a lot of books, which I trust will make her very popular with this network. She is going to join Caferati very soon, I hope.

While we waited for the others, I indulged in some light-hearted nostalgia and told the others about our first reader-meet, at Bandra Bandstand.
Harjaap, a new member, was the next to join us, followed by Gaurav (who's into business writing for mighty search engines and the like) and Yamini Dhall, who came all the way from Chandigarh. Somit Makar and Shilpa Bhatnagar were next. There was the usual reticence to begin with; most people did not bring anything to read.

Anita began by reading something that she wasn't quite sure how to describe - a short story? An extract?
As it turned out, the piece seemed rather complete by itself, though it could just as easily metamorphose into the first chapter of something larger. Her protagonist, Jia, was likened to the character played by Anuradha Patel in the film Ijazat. I still remember one of the last few lines - the death of a muse... in my eyes.

Yamini was prevailed upon to share one of her short poems. She hadn't got any written out, but she'd saved as an sms on her phone, so it was available anyhow. I trust she will share it here as well.

I read out three poems. The first one, White, drew mixed reactions. Some noticed the... well, the whiteness of it. Others commented on the lack of grey, which led to a short discussion on the white, black and grey of the mind and its reflection in our writing.
And the second one drew a question about why the toast was dry (refer to the blog for the whole poem), which enforced a revelation of my breakfasting habits.

I followed this up by reading out Keki N Daruwala's 'Chinar'. Simply because it's such a favourite with me.

Anita set us off on several discussions by asking us what we were all reading/writing. And this led to an interesting tangent about letters and diaries. Anita, it turned out, is writing three sets of journals. One is a set of letters to her young son. Another is her rant-diary, and a third in which she pours out her gratitude.

The next interesting bit of information came from Harjaap, who's great-grandfather has put together a set of letters in a book called 'Letters From Jail'. The title is self-explanatory, but let me add that these were letters from India's freedom struggle era.

I have to admit that I couldn't keep track of all the parallel conversations happening in the room, and soon, we were all getting restive about getting home. We left promising to meet again next month, tentatively on the afternoon of 20th of November, though the details will be finalized a little later. We've debated the pros and cons of another venue, especially with the infamous Delhi winter upon us, and Anita generously offered to play host a second time.

Needless to add, we all had a very nice time.

Upper Case and Lower Case - origin of the terms

Here's the story. In the time and age of linotype hot lead composing machines there used to be an urn of molten lead connected to the back of the composing machine. To compose each line of text the compositor would press the key and a type mould would roll on to a horizontal scale and the molten lead would be poured into it and would solidify into a line of text. These lines were then arranged in a “galley” to be printed. That is the beginning of the term “galley proof.”

There used to be two cases placed above the compositor. One case contained the capitals letters, which occupied the upper position so it is the "upper case" and one case contained the ordinary type so it is the "lower case." So the compositor had to press a lever to change from one case to the other.

The magazine I worked with at the start of my career would use this type of composing. The compositor used to confess that he won't live long as some of the lead would get into his system with constant handling. The result: lead poisoning! The maximum he expected to work was ten years. But he was happy with his job.

In those days people put their lives at risk working on these antiquated machines. Now we have computers to do the job, spelling and grammar checks, and autocorrect that corrects without our intervention. But still people are lazy and lethargic and prefer to consider themselves "geniuses" in the language who do not need editing.

Sprouting...

Amidst the dark tired green
of older leaves
shoots up a fresh leaf
like hope amidst
cynical ruins of defeat.

Novel Ideas

First a disclaimer. What I write here is solely for the purpose of starting a discussion. I do not intend to pass off as an expert, though at places I might sound like one. At best I am a student of the art of fiction writing, and this perhaps is my day's assignment.


I think it was yesterday's Pune times - I can't rememeber exactly - but somewhere I read Sir Vidia Naipaul's interview. Cut out in a bold block letters, right in the middle, was something he said about the current state of Indian fiction.

I have forgotten the exact words and can't seem to find the paper right now. But it was something to the effect that ...the present Indian writing is autobiographical and archaic. It needs to come out of this style and try new things...

I was rather taken aback. I could not understand what he meant by that. I thought about it, turned it over in my mind, questioned it and analysed its possible import. Indian writing, especially fiction, seemed to me to be doing great presently. We have right now, some of the most expressive story-tellers in the English language. Many of them, acknowledged globally as masters of the trade.

The statement appeaered quite meaningless to me. And then it suddenly struck me while reading Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat. Its a masterpiece, undoubtedly - that book. Terribly funny and full of wonderful insights on life.

But reading it, as with every book of that era, is like following a river on its way to the sea. The river is never in a hurry to reach. It meanders from its course, loops, stays put and then suddenly starts again. The journey is delightful but it takes an awful amount of time.

The mordern reader, pressed for time, influenced by hundred different factors, would love to travel along the river, but simply cannot afford to. The average reader who picks up a novel from the bookstore, loves reading. He intends to devour every single word. He would love to draw a mental image of the story, its characters and its scenes, from every sentence.

But then, there are so many other things that he must do. Like earn a living, raise a family, check