The big picture

Do I focus on ‘the big picture’ or do I fret over ‘the smaller details’? Is it enough if I focus my attention, energy, and efforts on achieving the overall goal or do I need to pay equal attention to all the smaller tasks and milestones that I have to cross before I reach the final destination?

I am sure these are questions that most of us ask ourselves whenever we set out on any endeavor. Ranging from the small mundane tasks such as taking the family out on an impulsive breakfast outing where the decision has to range from the cuisine to be chosen, which determines the restaurant to be visited, which determines the parking space available at the venue, which in turn determines the choice of a four wheeler versus a two wheeler, which further determines the amount of ‘dressing up’ to be done by the whole family. So, while ‘the big picture’ remains the family going out for breakfast, ‘the smaller details’ determine the final decision, in this case, at least.

Let’s talk about how this so called ‘dichotomy’ affects the way we read books and imbibe them. While the choice of the book itself is based on the big picture, ie, book reviews, author reputation, the overall genre to which the book belongs to, what makes the book a good or a bad one for readers remains the smaller details. The character quirks of the main protagonist and the antagonist/s, the setting and the milieu in which the plot is set, the character and plot development, the pace at which the story chugs along, the supporting cast, the tone of the overall book, these are a few of the things that either make or break a book. These are the elements which ensure that a book remains memorable for a long time after it is read, or not.

That being said, there are cases where some books beautifully build up the smaller details and get almost all of them correct, but completely miss out on the big picture. At the end of the book, readers, while suitably impressed and happy with everything else, end up having the impression of ‘there was something missing in that book’ without being able to put a finger on it. The easiest way to know whether a book missed out on the big picture or not would be to try and explain its essence in one sentence using ten words or less. And if that one sentence manages to capture the overall essence of the book, then it paints the big picture for sure.

In one of my recent posts, Second Time Around, I had pretty unequivocally stated that my all time favorite book remains the great epic, the Mahabharata. When it comes to reading this book, it has been my experience that while imbuing the ‘big picture’ of the entire epic, it also helps readers a lot if they pay attention to the ‘smaller details’ as well.

An endless treasure trove of information, this book contains various sub-plots, smaller side stories and memorable characters with interesting back-stories of their own, that one can end up spending quite a few years of ‘reading hours’ on them. Although I had read the Amar Chitra Katha comic book series on the epic and had also watched BR Chopra’s TV series on Doordarshan, it is only in recent times that I have realized the sheer depth of the Mahabharata. And regular readers of my blog can vouch for the fact that it has always been my endeavor to highlight some of the lesser known stories from this epic from time to time.

So, here’s hoping that the smaller details of the Mahabharata continue to educate me and provide you with enough interesting reading material on my blog, while not missing out on the big picture.

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This post has been written for the WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts where the idea is to publish at least one post a day based on the prompts provided.

Today’s prompt was “When you gaze out of your window – real or figurative – do you see the forest first, or the trees?” and I took the liberty of interpreting this prompt as a question as to what I see first – the big picture or the smaller details.

The Critical Eye – Music meets mythology

Today’s prompt was “The Critical Eye – Write about the subject you usually blog about as if you were a music critic”.

Now, I have never written a music album review nor do I know enough about music to call myself a critic. But having said that, I do enjoy my music and this post will be an attempt to correlate some songs that I have enjoyed over the years to some mythological tales (subject that I usually blog about).

Please note that I am restricting myself to only a few tales and songs as both these subjects; mythology and music are quite vast by themselves. And another disclaimer is that this is an entirely tongue-in-cheek attempt to marry two vastly different topics – Indian mythology and Western rock/pop music. It should not be taken seriously by any stretch of imagination.

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Mahabharatha – The episode of Khandava-daha (burning of the Khandava forest)

Agni, by virtue of consuming clarified butter (ghee) for an uninterrupted period of twelve years during the sacrifice conducted by King Swetaki, was completely satiated and could not drink butter again from anybody else’s hand or at any other sacrifice. Agni, therefore became pale, lost his color and could not shine again.

Agni’s situation reminded me of “Can’t stop this thing we started” by Bryan Adams where he inadvertently got into something that he had no control or couldn’t get out of.

Link to Soundcloud clip of this song

Mahabharatha – Yudhisthira’s plight after the game of dice

After the tumultuous and disturbing events of the game of dice where Yudhisthira managed to lose himself, his brothers, their common wife Draupadi, his kingdom and all his worldly possessions, he was completely distraught at this turn of events. His fondness for gambling and his inability to refuse a game of dice as it was considered bad manners and ‘adharmic’ (against the dharma) of a king, had resulted in this situation for his family.

One song which he probably would have mumbled at that point in time would be “Please forgive me” by Bryan Adams.

Link to Soundcloud clip of song

Ramayana – Rama’s rage at Ravana

After having killed Maricha in the form of a golden deer, when Rama and Lakshmana come back to their hut, they find Sita missing. And in the course of their search for her, they come across Jatayu who informs them that she has been kidnapped by Ravana, the king of Lanka.

I am quite sure that the song “Wanted: Dead or alive” by Bon Jovi would have resonated well with the duo at that moment.

Link to Soundcloud clip of song

Ramayana – Rama’s emotions at reaching the southern tip of India

After having reached the southernmost tip of the mainland on their way to Lanka, Rama and his advisors wanted to confirm if Sita was indeed being kept captive in the island nation. The long journey to reach where they were, the passage of time since she had been kidnapped, all of these distressed Rama quite a bit and he needed reassurances from Lakshmana and Hanuman.

My guess is that the Bon Jovi song “Livin on a prayer” would have pepped his sagging morale quite a bit, and helped him continue on his quest.

Link to Soundcloud clip of song

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This post has been written for the WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts where the idea is to publish at least one post a day based on the prompts provided.

Once again I repeat, this post was just my attempt at trying to infuse some ‘musical humor’, if I can call it that, into the above mentioned serious incidents from the Mahabharatha and the Ramayana. They are not meant to be taken seriously under any circumstances.

Please do let me know of other suitable songs for episodes / incidents from the great epics that you can think of in the comments.

The constant headache

Giri always had a throbbing headache. He had this headache ever since he could remember.

Every day of his life was just the same as the previous day, just like the last thirty odd years of his life had been.

All Giri knew about what he did was that it was a job that needed to be done, that’s all.

In fact, most of the people in his profession were forced into it due to various reasons; some because it was a family tradition, some because they were social outcasts in that they were banished from their communities due to offences they committed, some because their caste or creed was traditionally involved in this profession. Almost none of them did their job because they liked it. Most of them did it because that was the only job they would get in a country which placed a premium on a person’s birth more than anything else.

As far as Giri was concerned, he was an orphan who was adopted as a suckling child by an old man in this profession. He didn’t know enough of the outside world or even care much about it. All he knew was that if he did his job correctly, he would be given the means to survive; food, clothes and some token money would be given to him as remuneration. As for shelter, his workplace had enough and more space to accommodate him in the nights. And the little money he earned, he would spend it on drink to numb his senses.

No day was ever significantly different for Giri. While some days would be a little lax with little or no work to be done, some days would be especially busy with lots of work. These would be the days when the outside world saw natural calamities such as famines or drought, or man-made calamities such as wars or pogroms. However, on such busy days, rather than being treated well for his services, his job would just literally pile up at the boundaries of his workplace, and Giri and his colleagues would have to do their jobs as a free service on such days.

While Giri didn’t have preferences to who partook of his services, he preferred the wealthy patrons, as they were more generous with their offerings. At times if he was lucky, he would also be given free alcohol, tasty food and other goodies along with money for his services.

It didn’t matter to him if his job involved beating up men, women or children. After all, to him, they were just corpses, empty shells, corpses in which humans once lived; they were just burning flesh, tissue and bones to him.

All he had to do was to ensure that the process of burning was uniform throughout and that no predators disrupted the process. And after the corpse was fully burnt, he had to collect the ashes, deposit them in the specified urn and hand them over to the relatives when they came back for it.

The only friends he had were a couple of dogs that lived in the burial grounds with him. His only constant ‘companion’ was alcohol which helped him numb his senses to the constant smell of burning corpses around him and alleviated the physical pain of his work. And this ‘companion’ of his ensured that he always had a headache.

All Giri knew about what he did was that it was a job that needed to be done, that’s all.

Every day of his life was just the same as the previous day, just like the last thirty odd years of his life had been.

Giri always had a throbbing headache. He had this headache ever since he could remember.

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This post has been written for the WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts where the idea is to publish at least one post a day based on the prompts provided.

Today’s prompt was “The bizarro world – Create a story in a bizarre backwards world.”

I have taken the liberty of publishing a short story whose first three and last three paragraphs are exactly the same. The way I see it, the life of the only protagonist in this story remains the same forwards or backwards. 

16th May – Freaky Friday

16^th May, 2014, the day when all of India will know whether I have lived up to the ‘dynastic’ expectations that the country had of me; the day when the whole world watches the results of the world’s largest democratic vote in 2014; the day when I will know what direction my life will take over the course of the next five years at least.

I have always wondered whether I would have been happier being born into a normal apolitical family. I have had a tough time being the great grandson of the first prime minister of the country, grandson of a woman who probably was the toughest prime minister the country has ever seen and the son of a father who was the victim of a political assassination and a mother who has widely been recognized among the most powerful women in the world.

As if these familial achievements were not enough, my elder sibling have time and again proven that she has the charisma that my grandmother possessed and is very easily able to relate to and connect to the electorate. Her ability to strike an emotional chord with people old and young, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, across class and caste barriers endears her to them a lot.

As for me, I still remain confused. Try as hard as I may, I am unable to get my point across in a cohesive manner; so much so that even my own party cadre doubt whether I have what it takes to lead them. Almost all my speeches are dissected word by word and unnecessary interpretations and layers are credited to them even when I don’t intend them to be so.

As if this weren’t enough, the constant jibes by almost all the opposition leaders, especially the personal ones relating to my half-foreign lineage, my ex-girlfriends, my educational background are also very hurtful. While I am Ok with history and people judging me by my deeds and achievements, I find it very unfair that people judge me based on my personal life.

After all, even the prime ministerial candidate of the principal opposition party was married once and abandoned his wife without any care or concern for her future or how she would fend for her own. Has the media or opposition party-cadre ever wondered why I don’t bring that up in any of my election rallies or media opportunities? No, nobody ever bothers with the fact that unlike my detractors I play a ‘decent’ and ‘clean’ game, and don’t resort to attacking my opponents personally, under any circumstances.

The last 18 odd months, when the election campaign has begun in earnest have been really tough. As if traipsing around the whole country from urban to rural constituencies have not been enough, the constant media attention which highlights and magnifies all my mistakes and the pressure of living up the ‘family name’ have taken its toll on me. I look and feel much older than the young sprightly 44 yr old that I really am.

Minor gaffes such as the usage of ‘escape velocity’ in the context of caste being a deterrent to progress, poverty being a ‘state of mind’, ‘yoga’ and ‘Amitabh Bachchan’ being the true representatives of India, etc have been spoken about in almost all media circles as evidence of my immaturity. In my defense, these were extremely potent examples and anecdotes used in the context of the overall speech. Quoting them in isolation just makes them sound unintentionally funny.

In any case, the only hope I have is that the people of this great nation have judged me based on my potential and what I am capable of. The polling has concluded in all the constituencies, the counting commenced and the results will be declared today; the 16^th of May, 2014.

Today will decide how history will remember me; the leader of the single largest party or ‘shehzada’ as one of the opposition leaders likes to derogatorily refer to me as.

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This post has been written for the WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts where the idea is to publish at least one post a day based on the prompts provided.

Today’s prompt was “If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?” and this post is my attempt to be the leader of one of the main parties contesting the Indian elections 2014. There are enough and more clues in the post to figure out who I am trying to be.

The reason I chose this personality for this prompt was because at times I felt that this guy got a bad deal from the media in terms of his words being taken out of context, his intentions being questioned, etc. However, please note that this post is NOT to be construed as an endorsement of my political views in any form or fashion.

The dream

Jamshed or ‘Jammy’ as he was fondly called by all his friends was having quite a ball this particular Sunday. Both his parents had to attend a wedding and were off from quite early in the morning and also had another reception to attend in the evening as well. Now Jammy had finished most of his exams and had only one English exam on Monday which anyway didn’t need any preparation.

Being home alone on a Sunday was quite a bit of fun. While the evening was reserved for the India vs Sri Lanka 20-20 World Cup Final match on television, the rest of the day was spent in Jammy lapping up the latest summer / spring fashion trends in Milan, Munich and Paris. His special interest in these collections had more to do with raging hormones and the skimpily clad female models on FTV rather than the clothes themselves.

It was only at around half past five in the evening when Jammy noticed the message that his friend Balu had sent “Why did Maya have to worry so much about her revenge? She was after all a yogini and could have easily killed Riddhiraj using her powers…grrr”  And that was when Jammy realized that he hadn’t studied “Maya’s Revenge” by Deepika Ahlawat which was one of the books for tomorrow’s exams.

As it is he had always hated history and legends, and given that this book was set in an India that was a federation of princely and republican states and involved more than its fair share of names of kings, kingdoms, princes, and other assorted characters, he hated this book just that little more. All through the classes when this book was discussed, Jammy had either dozed off or had doodled on the margins and the few blank pages in the book. He didn’t know anything about the book except that it dealt with Maya who wanted to kill some prince, that’s all.

Now Jammy had written the rest of his exams quite well and didn’t want to screw up the English paper just because he had put off reading the book and discussing it with his friends. While he was a smart kid, his habit of procrastinating things had finally come to bite him where it hurt the most; his academics. Clearly he had dropped the ball when it came to preparing for this exam and while he was panicking trying to figure out the best plan of action, his television suddenly switched off, the lights in his room dimmed and a blue haze/smoke started coming in through the window.

It was only around six in the evening, but the moonlight was streaming into the room, so much so that Jammy thought he could actually see the old lady on the moon. And then all of a sudden, a white ghostly apparition (just like Casper, the friendly ghost from the television series) appeared in front of him. He recognized her from the book cover; she was Maya, the main protagonist of the book.

Although he was more than a little disturbed at what was happening, Jammy was also curious to figure out what Maya was doing here, in his bedroom. And as if she could read his thoughts she started talking “I am here because even if you don’t necessarily have an interest in my story, you need to understand that you are imperative to my ultimate goal of taking revenge.”

This completely freaked out Jammy. While it was one thing for a character from a book to suddenly come alive in his room, to actually hear her talk, and that too respond to something that he had thought about was a little uncomfortable. “Don’t worry Jamshed. I am here because you are the only one who can help me out with my quest” she smiled.

He took a long breath and suddenly in the blink of an eye, both of them were transported to another place in another time. He was no longer in his room, but instead was sitting on a sofa which was covered with what felt like really costly velvet covers. The rest of the room was also quite opulent in its design, the upholsteries, the chandeliers, the silverware on the table, the marble flooring, all of it looked quite costly.

While Jammy was wondering where they were, Maya said “Jamshed, welcome to my home, Sheerpur. You are now in my room at the Sheerpur palace. And if you are wondering why you are here, that is because I have spent my childhood here and all my early memories belong to this room.”

By now he had completely lost his patience with this one-way conversation where she was actually responding to his thoughts and closed his eyes tight.

He was rudely shaken awake by strong arms shaking him by the shoulders. “Wake up Jamshed. What are you doing sleeping so early, that too with FTV playing on the television?” his father shouted “Don’t you have your English exams tomorrow?”

Fully awake, when Jammy jumped out of his couch, the book Maya’s Revenge fell off his chest to the floor. The cover seemed to have slightly changed. Maya now looked like she was smiling at him.

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This post has been written for the WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts where the idea is to publish at least one post a day based on the prompts provided.

Today’s prompt was to visit my favorite blog, select the third post, select the third sentence from that pots and weave it into a post of my own.

Since I have more than one favorite blog, I selected the following three posts from three dear friends of mine, and weaved three sentences into the above post. The sentences themselves are in red font.

Sakshi Nanda : Book Review of Maya’s Revenge by Deepika Ahlawat

Sid B : Fashionista? I think not

Rekha : The stool