Looking back at the failed writings of a failed writer

Till a few months ago, I used to call myself a 'writer', and then I used to pause for effect. However, of late I have realized that I cannot write to save my life. And then I went to look for the route cause of this effect, I started to trace back all the uncomplete stories that I had written to see where exactly I went wrong. I dusted all my old notebooks and diaries to see how my writing had shaped or dissolved over the years.

And then I came across several unfinished masterpieces, which made me strike my face with an open palm with each page I turned. It would take a long time for me to write about them all, but I have to make a start somewhere.

I'll start with the solitary page of a 'Long Story' that I had planned to write, which had the title 'My Life In the US Marine' (for reasons that escape me at the moment, perhaps because at that time to me, the US Marine were Da Shit), the main character's name was Jimmy Nelson, and the story started with him sitting on a park bench watching some children play. All of a sudden a bearded guy approaches him and says 'Do you wish to be a part of the US Marines?', to which old Jim replies 'Why not?'

All this seemed to me at that time the standard recruitment procedure for the Marines, this attempt at spewing garbage ended with Jimmy boy accepting a few books which were 'required reading' to be a Marine. Perhaps overflowing with awesomeness, I decided to not continue writing this story, you know, when the power in your hand is too big to be controlled. The rest of the diary whose first page I had spoiled thus, was empty.

This was when I was in sixth, and one of the most half-baked productive times for me. Because, (and in this case I distinctively remember everything), I started writing a space adventure epic. Earth had been destroyed, and using something I wrote as a 'wormhole', one percent of the Earth's population had succesfully migrated to a planet called 'Carborundum'. (which, after Avatar's Pandora and Unobtainium, seems quite imaginative). The main character's name was Chuch Roosten, which means absolutely nothing at all. I am bad at names, I will explain this later.

Chuck Roosten starts his journey stranded at an obscure alien planet with a fascination (read : fetish) for triangles, where everything, beds, toilets. televisions are all triangular in shape and warm mango juice is the favourite drink.

I was really making good progress with this one, and I added enough detailing and space crafts and aliens to give George Lucas a hard on, but then I do not know why (I do not distinctly remember) I stopped writing the story, after writing around fifty A4 sized pages.

Then came a long long long time for which I was obsessed with The Godfather. Anyone with Cajones cannot read the Godfather and remain unimpressed. I thought this guy Puzo with the video game name was a good thing, and promptly read three more of his books (Omerta, The Last Don and The Fourth K, in that order) to realize that this guy Puzo with the video game name sucked, and that Godfather was in fact bleeding brilliant.

I decided that since a work of a seminal nature inspired by The Godfather had not been produced in India, it was my burden to do this. And so I started writing an untitled novel, about an industrialist who lived in the outskirts of Vadodara, and had the rather impressive name of 'Abhishek Raizada.' I borrowed this name from a friend, and read it aloud, if it does not strike you as the name of a man with influence, I do not know what will.

The one bit of this attempt that particularly interested/disgusted me was that of when a righteous Foreman working in a Candle making factory of Raizada industries, (Genco Oil, Raizada Candles...you see the connection) notices that a worker has not been coming to work by the amount of wax piling up near his work station. The Foreman then goes and investigates the dissappearance of the worker, and finds that he is being persecuted by a goon named Aslam. The righteous Foreman goes and battles Aslam, thereby killing him and paving his way to becoming a 'made-man'.

What irked me on reading it again was that instead of checking the damn attendance roster, this guy has to look at a pile of wax to check whether a worker is coming to work or not.

7th and The Pink One

By Mishita Jethi

My baby brother fell sick when I was in the 7^th grade. Real sick! Now the funny thing about a member of your family falling sick, and that too the little baby you love most in the world, is that you’re mostly in a state of denial. So when people around me used to ask me how he was doing, most of the times I felt like telling them, ‘Why, he’s fine. He’s just a little unwell and the doctors will fix him in a jiffy.’ Instead, I would end up giving them all a watery smile and mumble a few words, and walk away in brisk steps lest my eyes give away my real answer. I’m reminded of a particular incident as I lie down shaking up more than two decades worth of memories! I remember being extremely angry one day. I was all of 12 and refusing to understand that my parents needed to be in the hospital for days together because my brother had to be looked after. I was being troublesome and difficult. I rebuffed doing my homework, would not eat food or go do my own work-basically I was making the day worse for my dad, who had come back from the hospital as my mom went to be there. Finally my dad ordered me to change into my night clothes and go off to sleep. In particular defiance, I chose to put on a fancy t-shirt (something I was to wear mainly to parties) and came back to my dad’s room just to show him that I would not listen to him. And that’s when something happened which changed the way I looked at myself and my anger and fears. My dad came up to me and gathered me in his arms. He said, ‘I know you’re scared. So am I. But we can either choose to accept our fears and fight them, or continue ignoring them. And I can tell you that if we continue ignoring them, we’ll never really find out what we were really scared of.’

Years later, as I sit separated from that little kid (who has since then grown into a very loving young boy) I wonder what really went behind my state of denial? Why are most of us afraid to face our fears when it comes to things most close to our hearts? I am yet to find an answer to that question. But the question itself has manifested in me thinking a lot about the feelings that we keep bottled deep inside ourselves. I have that pink t-shirt kept safely even today. Its no longer fancy. It no longer can be worn in parties. It is close to wearing out fully. But I’ll save it for as long as I can. I’ll probably give it to my daughter someday when she’s scared of thunderstorms or ghosts in her closet. And I’ll teach her that its ok to be scared because if we accept our fears, we can fight them off. And if we’re unable to fight them alone, they’re will always be a hand to wrap us close, and to give us that hope, that all will be well! It will be. I just know it. Till then, I’ll wear the pink t-shirt again and regain some of the hope that I’ve lost in the last few months!

The World's Shortest Love Story

One fine day she called me up and said, "Listen there is something very important that I have to tell you, and I have to tell it to you right now."

I was all ears. I stated this.

She continued, "The thing is, I have been thinking for a while...you know, about you and me. And..."

This sent alarm bells ringing, I racked my brains searching for anything that I might have done in the past few days that may have impacted my friendship with her negatively, I got lost in thoughts as the voice on the cellphone continued. "So this is final, and I am going to just come straight out with it and tell you, I love you. There, see, I said it." She paused for me to react, unfortunately I had been too lost in my thoughts to properly hear what she was saying, she shouted, "Hello! Are you even listening to me?"

I said, "Yes, yes, of course. And...you were saying."

"I said...you know, I said I love you."

My head swam for a while with a heady feeling, I held out a hand to the nearest wall for support, it took me some time to realize that she was still speaking, "Aren't you going to say anything?"

I paused, reflected and then said, "Well...of course, I love you too!"

And then we had a fairly longish chat which was full of happiness and future prospects and chorus songs in the background, when I remembered, "Er...what about that guy who claims to be your boyfriend? I mean, how does he figure."

She shouted, "Haven't you been listening to me? He doesn't matter to me anymore, you get that? I am through, I am over. I am...wait a minute, my cell phone is showing a 'call wait', oh hell...it's that bastard, let me get through with him and I will call you back, okay?"

I heard the familiar beep-beep one hears after being put on hold. I paced around for the next half an hour trying to keep my emotions in check, and trying not to think about what she would be talking with her ex about. Perhaps something vitriolic.

She called again, and said in the same firm and resolute tone of voice as before, "Listen, it's all over."

"Between you and him?" I asked, smiling to myself.

"No, between you and me, I am going back to him."

"What! How can it be over between you and me? I mean, we have hardly started!"

"I don't know about that," she said, "I am going back to him. He has convinced me so."

"But...we are such good friends!"

"Oh yeah, about that. So I guess we should never talk again, I am ending my friendship with you. Please don't bother me by calling me again, okay?" And thus she unceremoniously cut the phone.

I chose the same spot as before on the wall to lean and support my frame. I sighed loudly to extract sympathy from friends passing by. One of them stopped and asked me, "Is any thing wrong?"

I nodded, sighing again. "Tell me, what happened?" He asked.

I said, "I have just been a part of The World's Shortest Love Story." And I proceeded to tell him the details, it did not take long, I was through in a couple of minutes. My friend said, "But that's so cool...I mean, it's awesome! Isn't it?"

And then I realized he was right, it was totally awesome.

All You Need Is Love

"Love, love, love," I said, pacing around the room with a pen and a paper-pad. "Love, love, love." I added, for good measure.

Mathew asked me, "What exactly are you doing?"

I replied, "I am just thinking of lyrics for our next song, and I want to rhyme love with a word that's not 'above', I mean I have done that in my poems a million times, don't want to repeat it."

Mathew stopped tuning his guitar and said, "Can we write a song that's not about Love for once?"

I said, "Considering we have written only one song till now, and it was not totally about love, yeah, I guess we can do that."

He laughed and said, "Well, are you capable of doing that?"

"Hey, there is NOTHING I can do that can't be done, get it? Or...something like it."

"Fine, you carry on with writing the lyrics, and please, please add a reference to Harley Davidson in the song somehow." He said.

I continued pacing around the room, sifting through the pages of the pad for old inspirations and half-used poems. I came across our set-list for an upcoming show. "I have a point at issue here."

"A pointed tissue? Where?"

"No, I have an issue, with the song selection." I told him. "It appears, by some crazy mistake, you have added 'Rock n Roll' by Led Zep in the song list."

There was a pause in the conversation, I stared at Mathew, he shifted his gaze to birds sitting on a tree outside his window. "Come on," he said, "It's one of my favourite songs! And we gotta cover Led Zep sometime!"

I said, "There is a problem with that my friend, and I am going to be vocal about it. You see, the problem is with the vocals, I can't sing this song man, it's too tough."

Mathew threw his hand up in the air and said, "Hey if it can be sung, you can sing it. Practice, do whatever, but that song isn't going out of the set list."

I decided to go out of his room, and went to my own to write the lyrics. As was usual, I found a persona non grata sitting on my bed and staring wistfully at his cell phone. It was the other guitarist CP (Chandra Paul) of my band. I told him, "Get out." He said, "Fuck you." And that was that. The conversation moved to other areas.

"What the hell are you doing staring at your phone for?" I asked him, not caring to be grammatically correct.

"I just had a long, unpleasant conversation with my girlfriend Jyoti."

"Right," I said, "And I just remembered I have some work to do somewhere." I tried to escape but he caught me by the wrist and looked me in the eye, holding me at the spot like the ancient mariner had held the wedding guest.

I sighed and said, "Fine, tell me about it."

He stayed silent for a long time, and as I tried making a quiet getaway, he said, "There's nothing I can say to her these days. I have been with her for two years now, and I still don't know how to play this game called love."

I consoled him, "But you can learn how to play the game. It's easy."

After a few more minutes of (studied) silence, he said, "I guess I should not think about break up, should I?" I offered him nothing, he continued, "If this relationship can be made back again, I am willing to make it."

I told him, "Well, you can be saved still."

He laughed sarcastically and asked me, "And what do I do for that?"

I said, "There is nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be yourself, in due time. As I said, it's easy."

"How?"

"All you need is love."

Presently CP exited and Shobhit-The accidental philosopher entered the room. He picked up my writing pad and read aloud, "Love, love, love." He looked at me and then continued, "Love, love, love." He sat down and said, "Strange poem, six words and all are the same."

I told him, "Well, love is all you need."

We chatted for a while about this and that and about some girl who did not know who Franz Kafka was, and then he said, "Have you ever thought about knowledge? You know, as knowing being a fundamental part of being?"

I said, "No, I rather run away from academics and stuff."

"I am not talking about that...you see, this universe, it is full of knowledge. In fact it reeks of knowledge, it's almost vulgar in it's display of knowledge. There is a lot that you can know, I mean, there is nothing you can know that can't be known...and, I want to know about that which can't be known." He stopped speaking and looked at me, "Do you see what I am talking about?"

"If you show it to me, I can see it."

Shobhit laughed and said, "Never mind, we will talk about this later."

"You shouldn't be in this college maybe, you know."

"Why?"

"Cause...you think weird!"

"He he, you see, the individual is the driving force behind his own actions, and thus is the sole decider of where he should be, by that logic, you can't be at a place that you are not meant to be."

"Hmm...I see, I finally see what you are talking about." I didn't.

"You do, so what do you think about it?"

I tried to find a way out and said, "It's easy. Well...I think, All you need is love."

With A Little Help From My Friends

When I walked into the practice room I was welcomed by smiling faces and applause from my band members. What was missing was a big yellow coloured banner with 'Congratulations' written on it in black letters. "We were waiting for this day from the time you hooked up with her." Akash said, "Your relationship with her was all fire and brimstone, it was so shaky..and anyways, now you will have time to practice again, go wipe the dust from the microphone."

Akash was right, a strange sensation of freedom surged through me. And it was more than two months since I had last practiced, not being a good singer in even the mildest sense of the word, without practice I was horrible. As this thought crept into my mind I asked my friends, "What would you do if I sang out of tune?"

Mathew laughed and asked me, "When do you sing in tune?"

I said, "No, I am serious, what would happen if I sang out of tune, you guys won't walk out on me, would you?"

They debated this thing jocularly amongst themselves and came to the conclusion, "Dude, we would not be the ones walking out. You would be thrown out! And we would make sure you do not have a soft landing."

I laughed and struck a pose, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your ear. I am going to sing you a song," and as an afterthought I added, "and I will try not to sing out of key."

I remembered that it was yesterday while breaking up she had asked me what I was going to do now, I had told her I intended to get by with a little help from my friends. And tonight, I needed to get high.

The practice went considerably well, my throat responded nicely, and we covered a couple of new songs. After practice while I was in a buoyant state of mind, Mathew asked me, "Dude, do you really need somebody?"

I asked him. "Need somebody? For what?"

"Do you need somebody to love?"

I laughed lightly and said, "Not necessarily...but I don't know, not everyone needs someone to love. I guess, I do. Yeah, I need somebody to love?"

He frowned and said, "But could it be ANYBODY? Even her? That bitch, you knew her history, and now you know her future, you spent two months of agony with her, why man?"

I smiled and replied, "Perhaps I wanted somebody to love."

We returned to the hostel, and I walked into my room to see two of my friends already occupying prime positions on my bed. I checked my watch and pointed out the thin one, "It's eight in the evening, what is he doing in the hostel?"

I got the answer in second-hand, "His girl friend is away, she has gone home for the weekend. And all he has done since the evening is sit here and sigh."

Nishit, the thin guy sighed again, to prove Prakash's point, he said, "What do I do when my love is away?"

I asked him, "Does it worry you to be alone? For a single evening?"

He replied, "You don't know how do I feel by the end of the day."

Akash entered the room, having kept his bass guitar and amp in his room, he looked and Nishit and asked a similar question as me, "Hey, are you sad because you are on your own?"

Nishit sprang to his feet and said, "No! I got you guys!"

I mentioned my plan about getting high, Akash said, "We can try, but presently I am hungry."

The four of us went to a decent Chinese restaurant nearby, all through dinner I was the butt of a million relationship related jokes. Prakash, who had had a similar experience a few months ago said, "We can start a club you know. The Broken up club or something."

Akash. the master of tangential thoughts suggested, "Your relationship was like a punch in the face, and your breaking up with her was like losing a tooth. Painful, and perhaps necessary. So name your club 'Broken Tooth', I guess that will fit."

"Broken Tooth!" I said, "What a stupid name!" I was going to further philosophize on the general stupidity of Akash and his ideas when on the next table in front of me I beheld The Most Beautiful Girl in The World. She was wearing a blue dress and eating a starter of some variety.

I kept on staring at her, not realizing that all my friends are going to follow suit, when she started staring back we diligently returned to our table and food. After a while I asked my friends, "Er..do you guys..you know, believe in love at first sight?"

They laughed for the sixtieth time at my expense, and Nishit said, "Yeah I am certain that it happens all the time."

Prakash interjected, "But how do you know if it's love?" And because he didn't like notions of love, he added, "Love is nothing. Nothing is love."

Nishit said, "I have a method, it's fail-proof. All you have to do is close your eyes."

I said, "Can we try it now?" Nishit said, "Sure." After I closed my eyes he asked me, "Now in the complete darkness, as if the lights have been turned off, what is it that you see?"

I saw, quite clearly, the picture of the girl sitting a few feet away, and I told my friends, "I can't tell you right now, but I am sure that it is going to be mine."

It took me a whole minute to realize that I was sitting in relative silence, I opened my eyes to see that my friends had deserted the table, leaving me to become the laughing stock of the restaurant and to pay the bill.


A few days later I got to be introduced with that girl in blue, by chance and random consequence. In conversation, she asked me, "So Ram, what do you do in free time, generally?"

I smiled and said, "I get by with a little help from my friends."

Go To Him

The irony of choosing our favourite restaurant was not lost on me. It was a 'Mediterranean' themed place, with low cots and tables instead of regular tables and chairs etc. It had been over half an hour since I had been waiting for her. In frustration (and perhaps for the first time in pure frustration) I fished out my pack of Gold Flake cigarettes and asked the waiter for an ash-tray and a matchstick box.

I was halfway through my cigarette when I saw my girlfriend Anna Gupta entering through the gates of the restaurant. I continued smoking, knowing that she hated it. This was not going to be a pleasant meeting.

She sat down, throwing a look of disgust at me and my cigarette. After a few seconds I gave up and quickly put it out in the ash tray. "Why do you smoke?" She asked me.

"Feels good." I said, "Next question please."

"Why are you such an asshole?" She half-screamed.

"Good question, I will answer it later. Now, will you have something?"

It was a good thing she ordered tea, because it was the cheapest item on the menu and I was not in the mood to spend a lot of money on her today. I thought it would be better if we directly came to the main reason we were meeting today, so I asked her, "What is this about?"

"I want you to set me free." She said.

"When have I bound you by anything? And why?" I said, trying to keep the look of shock on my face to a minimum. I knew this day and this conversation was going to come soon, but I had been delaying it and denying it in my mind.

"Because I have found someone who loves me more than you ever loved me."

"Does that mean that I don't love you?"

"No it doesn't mean that, it only means that there is someone who loves me more."

I was annoyed by this line of reasoning, to show my annoyance I lit up a cigarette, I said, "Anna, all of a sudden you come and ask me to set you free, and you say this is because there is some guy (I knew who 'that' guy was) who loves you more than me?"

She was getting irritated by the cigarette smoke, she squinted her head and nodded.

"And you had a boyfriend before me right?" I asked her.

"Yes, why are you asking like this? You already know all about him yaar."

"And you left him because..."

"Because I felt that he didn't love me enough and you loved me more than he did, so I left him and came to you."

"And now you have found some guy who loves you even more than me..."

"What is your point exactly?"

I exhaled, both literally and figuratively, I said, "You have a brilliant scheme of things. You are going to constantly change boy friends until you find that guy who loves you the most, but how are you going to measure that love?"

"What? How dare you...how can you think of such a thing!"

"Mathematical induction," I replied, "Learned it at school."

We sat in silence for a while, I smoked, she fumed. I finally broke the tension by saying, "So you say he loves you more than me? Okay, then I will set you free. Go with him."

She seemed surprised, or was perhaps acting well. Maybe she was expecting more of a fight, maybe she wanted me to beg her to stay and then she would leave. She said "Fine" and slung her bag across her shoulder, getting up to leave. I caught her wrist.

"Before you go," I said, "I want you to know, that I still love you. I love you so much." I relaxed my grip, the features on her face softened. This was what she had come for, and I was giving it to her. I said, in the most sad and dejected voice possible, "But if you think he loves you more, go with him."

She sat down again, and said, "You know it's not like that. I mean, there should be no hard feelings, we are still friends right?" It was like she was reading from a script. I told her, "You know, all of my life, I had been waiting for a girl who would love me the way I loved you."

"But, I did love you...of course now there are problems, but there were times that I did love you the way you loved me, even more so perhaps." She offered.

I continued, without listening to her, "But every girl that I have ever had in my life, breaks my heart and leaves me sad." I gave her my saddest look possible, "What am I supposed to do?"

She got up from her chair and stood next to me, ruffling my hair, saying "Come on, it's okay" etc. After a few minutes of this charade she said, "I am sorry but I really have to go. "

I gripped her wrist again, tightening my fingers around her. "Ouch!" She said, "That hurts! Come on now, leave me, please! I have to go."

I smiled at her and said, "Anna, just one more thing girl. There was a ring that I gave you, you give back your ring to me and I will set you free to go with him."

"Are you serious? That was a gift! Do you really want me to return that?" She eyed me in disbelief. To prove my point I increased the tightness of my grip. "You asshole!" She shouted "You are hurting me! Leave me!"

"Anna, give back that ring to me."

She quickly took out the ring that I had given her from her finger and threw it in the ashtray. "Here, take it!" I let go of her, she asked me, "Happy? What are you going to do now?"

"Without you? I guess I will get by with a little help from my friends."

She left in a hurry. I too smoked another cigarette, paid the bill and left, leaving the ring lying in the ashtray.


(To be continued...hopefully)

Rewriting Lyrics (1) Everything I do- Bryan Adams

Listening to my lies, you will see
What truth means to me
Search the part, Search the whole
And when you speak like that
You are such a bore

Don't tell me it's not worth lying for
You cant tell me, this song is not a bore
You know it's screwed
Everything I threw, I threw up on you

Looking at my art, you will find
It's harmful to mankind
Search for warts, search for sores
And when you find them there
You'll puke for sure

Don't tell me it's not worth lying for
I cant help it, this song is not a bore
You know it's screwed
Everything I threw, I threw it on you

There's more love, like your love
And no I cant, take anymore love
There's no way, I am not THAT gay
Can't try to go, All the way (yeah)

You know it's screwed
Everything I threw, I threw up on you