Love and happy endings

Note: I finished writing this today for an assignment on "A piece of art that moved me". Turns out, today Olivia de Havilland, who played Melanie Wilkes in the movie and is the last surviving actor from the cast, is celebrating her 99th birthday! Also, 'Gone With the Wind' was first published on June 30, 1936. So, it celebrated its 79th anniversary recently. Here's a tribute to one of my favourite books. 

“I'll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I'll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.”

That’s it?

I flipped back cover of the book I was reading, looking for more text.

That’s it?

I examined the edge where spine held the pages. Surely, some pages had been torn. Nope. They weren’t.

That’s it?

No! I screamed in my mind. This can’t be!

I read the last page over and over until I had it memorized. There were no clues about what happened next. I had this sinking feeling, like I had been dumped. Nah, make that slapped, punched, and then dumped—by a book. Wasn’t ‘Gone With the Wind’ supposed to be a love story?

So, tomorrow is another day. But what happens tomorrow? Does Scarlett get Rhett? She is tenacious, would definitely go after him. But Rhett has had enough. When you long for something for too long, you reach a tipping point. He cared for her well-being, but did not feel the same way anymore. So, what happens? Human emotions are complex. It’s not impossible for Rhett to fall back in love. Is it? Oh God! Somebody just tell me what happens!

My feelings had been shared by an entire nation when the book was first released in 1936 in the US, and by generations after that. People had demanded a sequel, which Margaret Mitchell refused to write. [It is rumored she herself did not know what happened next. She never completed the story in her mind!] After Mitchell’s death, Mitchell Trust asked one Alexandra Ripley to write a sequel, which was named Scarlett. I’ve never read a sorrier book.

Anyhow, I just could not get my head around the story. In months that followed, I lived in a trance. The nail-biting curiosity about what happens next was soon replaced by melancholy of unrequited love. I wrote to my friend:

Dear N,

Life is so fragile. How lucky are those who find true love. And how tragic it is when those lucky few remain blind to the treasure they posses. By the time their eyes open, it’s too late. The love of their life is gone. And they are left alone in the world.

Do we ever look around and see those who love us? Do we truly appreciate those who are there for us? We should, because one day they won’t be there, and we will be left with a hole in our lives that no person can fill. And we may run after them, but they won’t return. We’ll be left with only regret and loneliness.

Life can be beautiful, if we find the one who is meant for us; and it can be hell, if we find the one and lose him…

I don’t actually remember what I wrote. But this is what it would have looked like, perhaps more vague.

N called a few weeks later.

“Are you in love?”

“What?! No! Why would you think that?”

“I showed your letter to M and she agrees. You have someone in your life.”

“Huh? No! It’s a book. You see, there’s this woman called Scarlett who is in love with a man called Ashley. But Ashley is married. And then there is this guy called Rhett… Anyway, it’s complicated. Go read ‘Gone With the Wind’. You’ll get it.”

“Umm… okay. It was a book?”

“Yes!”

“Yeah. Right!”

I could tell she didn’t believe a word. She probably thought I was hiding something.

FYI, I wasn’t in love. In fact, I had never been in love. I was 14, and fancied we could choose the person we would fall in love with, and that love happened only once. The book had filled me with fear of losing out on my true love. What if I have my Mr. Perfect next to me, and I remain blind to him, and then he leaves forever? What if I’m Scarlett? I kept going over the story and taking mental notes on ‘How to know your Mr. Perfect is in front of you’. Like life’s that simple!

That fear introduced me to the world of ‘what ifs’. It’s a depressing place to be, for ‘what ifs’ are never ‘what is’. How I wished Scarlett had called out to Rhett when she was recovering from her fall! It seemed stupid that she would not recognize that Ashley is a wuss! But then, life never comes with background music. It’s tragic to lose out on something so beautiful because we’re too busy running after illusions. If only we had the power to change the past! Caution: 'if onlys' are the building blocks of ‘what ifs’.

For months I obsessed over the story. I kept re-reading passages to find some closure. When none came, I made up a sequel. Scarlett runs after Rhett, but he keeps her at an arm’s length, until she takes a bullet for him (literally). Then, as she lies in his arms bleeding, his feelings come rushing back, and they reunite. Cheesy much? Blame Bollywood. I named the sequel: Scarhett. You see what I did there? I had many alternative scenarios in mind, each resulting in a reunion. One had nostalgia, other played on guilt, another on gratitude. I craved for a happy ending, and became increasingly distraught. Nothing helped. Perhaps, it was the lack of 'happy ending' that made 'Gone With the Wind' such a great love story. Don't epic romances have tragic ends? Romeo and Juliet? Heer and Ranjha? Perhaps, Scarlett and Rhett were fated to be never together. Oh! Why was life so sorrowful?

One fine day, I decided I had had enough. I reached the tipping point of longing, like Rhett had. I locked the book in a cupboard and fought every urge to pick it up. It wasn’t easy, but I persisted. It took me a lot of time to snap out of it, but eventually I did. Then, I cursed myself for ever picking up that book. Why did I do that?

I’ll tell you why. We were moving to a different city and I had found the book during one of the endless ‘sorting’ sessions mom did before the actual packing. It was an old book, and I couldn’t resist taking a whiff. It smelled so nice! It had beautiful yellowed pages. Love at first sight… and smell. I was hooked. Then I saw the first page. It was a gift from dad to mom before they were married.

*Sigh*

Love be damned!

[Here's an interesting piece on Why we should keep reading 'Gone With the Wind'] 

Book Review: The Snowman

The Snowman

~Jo Nesbo

What makes a great crime-fiction thriller? A solid plot, mind-boggling twists, a spine-chilling narrative and an edge-of-the-seat climax. Jo Nesbo’s ‘The Snowman’ rates 7 on 10 on those parameters, and 9.5 if judged only on the first.

One fine morning 10-year-old Jason finds a snowman in his garden. While his mother compliments him for making the “big snowman”, he wonders why it is facing the house and not the road. The same night, his mother disappears, and her scarf is found tied around the snowman’s neck.

Inspector Harry Hole believes that there is more to the case than simply a missing person. As Harry looks deeper in the case, he discovers that a startling number of married women, who had kids, had gone missing without a trace over the last decade. The serial killer had taken one victim a year, each on the first day of the snow. And then, another woman disappears, except this time, her head is found atop a snowman built in the woods near her house. Why is the killer changing patterns now and killing more often? And, why has the snowman started leaving body parts behind? Are the victims random? What is that connects them?

The search for the snowman takes Harry and his colleague Katrine Bratt to Bergen, the scene of the first crime. Eleven years ago, Laila Aasen was murdered; her body cut in so many tiny pieces that it was difficult for the police to even determine the gender. The inspector in-charge then was Gert Rafto, who was, Harry thought, his “spiritual doppelganger”. Rafto had interrogated Laila’s friend Onny Hetland, right before she disappeared. Rafto, himself, was the next one to vanish. The Bergen police believe that Rafto murdered Laila and Onny, and then committed suicide. Is that true? What’s the connection between Rafto and the snowman?

As Harry untwines mangled clues, he feels that the killer has something personal against him, and is somehow keeping an eye on him. Another woman dies, and the snowman slips from Harry’s fingers yet again. If Harry doesn’t stop the snowman soon, he would strike again, and this time, the stakes may be much higher.

‘The Snowman’ is the seventh Harry Hole novel. There are some references to cases and characters of the previous books, but they are not integral to the plot. Nesbo’s narrative is racy and bound to keep you hooked right until the nail-biting climax. Ardent crime-fiction fans may be able to guess the killer in the first half of the book. However, the true mark of the book lies in its plot, which is well laid, to say the least.

While the story finds strength in its plot, it loses some with the apparent twists (SPOILER ALERT: for example, why would Nesbo try to show a woman as the snowman, when in two previous chapters he made it clear that the killer was a man). The book has a dash of macabre, several good action sequences, and a few memorable characters. All in all, it’s a great read.

Albatross 'n Phoenix

Troubles of a troubled time,
Questions queue up,
Answers unclear 'n without rhyme,
Nostalgia and guilt sup,
On dreams 'n emotions, morphing,
Can you hurt and sing?
More questions, accusing eyes,
Stares, pointed fingers, 'The lies!'
What do we answer? Answer!
Let me talk, help, please,
Don't talk, that helps, please!
Let me crumble and burn,
Life's lessons, I learn.
One day, everything will be fine,
I will rise anew, and,
Take back happiness, that's mine.

#100DisbalancedThoughts

Book Review: The Silkworm

The Silkworm
~Robert Galbraith (J K Rowling)

Owen Quine, an author with just one successful novel to his credit and a penchant for drama, disappears soon after writing a book – Bombyx Mori (Latin for silkworm). Written in his usual gothic and surreal style, the book contains insulting pen-portraits of all people acquainted with Quine, including who’s who of the publishing world. In the chaos that ensues, nobody, except his wife, seems to be bothered about the missing author.

Quine’s wife, Leonora, hires private detective Cormoran Strike (of the Lula Landry fame) to find her husband. She thinks he has gone to a writer’s retreat, as he often goes out by himself (“because he is a writer”), and she is reluctant to call police as the last time she had done that, Quine had been very angry (he had been found with “a friend” in a hotel).

As Strike starts investigating, the seemingly simple case of a missing man becomes murkier. A lot of people had motive to harm the writer: the head of his publishing house, Daniel Chard, his agent, Elizabeth Tassel, his editor, Jerry Waldergrave, his contemporary and much famous author, Michael Fancourt, his mistress and her friend Kathryn and Pippa.

And then, Strike finds Quine– his guts carved out, acid poured over the entire body and seven sets of plates and cutlery arranged around his corpse, like seven people had feasted on his intestines.

The case is taken over by cops and the person-in-charge is Anstis. He is convinced that Leonora is the murderer. It becomes a race against time for Strike to save his client and expose the cold-blooded murderer lurking around in the society.

Helping Strike is his very able and enthusiastic secretary Robin. She is eager to prove her competence, and at the same time she is dealing with a strenuous relationship with her fiancé. The Silkworm, a sequel to The Cuckoo’s Calling, also throws more light into Strike’s past and his relationship with his family. The narrative is not racy, but manages to hold your interest with the array of interesting and memorable characters, and plot twists. The plot is better than that of its prequel and this is a must-read for all mystery lovers and Rowling fans.

From a wanderer

Wave after wave washes ashore, 
Sea swells, the rising tide, 
I, a sojourner, stand on the side, 
Letting it wash over me, 
Sea breeze, time, life, the tide, 
Weather me, or take me adrift, 
But before oblivion swallows, 
Let me matter, just a little bit.

Tiny Tales #1

'What did the falling meteors say?'
'That some things in life are meant to last only for a few moments. Their beauty lies in brevity.'🌌

Train Of Thoughts

Under the bright afternoon sun, a train left Mumbai station, chugging on familiar tracks that led it to Delhi. Inside, snacks were served, tickets checked and a lull settled over the passengers. In one of the compartments, a young woman sat facing the window, lost in thoughts. At some point, instead of looking through the window, she started gazing at it. The train had moved past the city, suburbs, farms and was now crossing a river. Maybe it was when she had leaned to look at the river, trying to spot fishes, that she noticed a narrow brown strip stretched across the bottom of the window. 

At first glance, it seemed like an art work, a landscape captured against sepia backdrop, like the sun was setting on a forest. It was beautiful. She admired the patience of the artist who must have painstakingly painted minuscule trees, or maybe it was printed. Simultaneously, a voice in her head questioned if the Railways would ever actually paste strips of art on windows of a daily train. She leaned closer and realized that it was actually a strip of brown tape which had cracks that had appeared like trees, and at some places there were tiny patches of discolouration, leaving a tinge of blue.

'Ah! Silly me!' she thought. But the disappointment was short lived.

As she gazed at the pattern of cracks, a story appeared. It seemed like a view of a forest at a time when the sun has not quite set. At one place, there were a few diagonal cracks that looked like a man holding an axe above his head, leaning back, about to strike at a tree. Further ahead were two humans – a couple – holding hands, running away. A blue patch at the spot, made it look like they were walking into the sunset, having traversed through the forest. Perhaps, the man with the axe was not cutting trees but was chasing the couple to kill them and was striking the tree out of frustration as they had escaped. Or, he was helping them, cutting trees to block the way of their pursuers. Maybe the couple had eloped and the villagers, with misplaced sense of honour, were looking for them. But love had triumphed, they were walking into the sunset. They had escaped. At least for now.

And then, she glanced out of the window. The sun was setting, and the sky was more yellow than blue, very like the sepia background of the tape. She let out an inaudible gasp. The train was moving past a lush of trees, strikingly similar to the ones on the tape. How many times has this train crossed this route? It was a daily train to Delhi. Maybe it had witnessed something on one of its journeys which got imbibed on the tape as a memory, like it had clicked a picture, or painted one. Maybe there were other stories on other windows of the train. As it sped past the greenery, it would have mutely glimpsed parts of many stories. Did they all have happy endings? Or were there horrors too? Humans being human, or not-so-human? What did it see? Did it witness drudgery of everyday life, daily struggles of average humans, or were there extraordinary moments, too?

'Soup?'

Breaking out of the reverie, she looked about and saw an attendant offering her a tray. She looked back at the window. The sun had set, the pattern was no longer visible. She sighed, turned around and took the tray.