A WHISPER IN YOUR HEAD

  Dear reader, We’ve made it! Thirty days. Whew!              This will be my final entry for the 30 th consecutive day dear reader. Exactly thirty days ago, our professor Dr. S. Samuel Rufus suggested in class that we take up a thirty-day blog writing challenge. The rules are simple. Be consistent and have at least 300 words in each blog. Since we did not have any exams on the horizon, I signed up, along with a couple of guys from our department.       Now starting the blog, I was in high spirits. If you scroll down the blog, you can see my first entry, “The Mean Little Flower”. I had previously asked my professor some writing tips. He suggested that I find something that catches my attention, even if it be a silly thing. So yes, that was my first blog, the mean flower. I am very proud of that!      I have tried to keep my blog as much related to literature as possible. It was interesting in the beginning as I could easily find out poems and stories that had stuck with me f

 Dear reader,         Since this will be the penultimate episode of my blog, I would like to provide my thoughts and suggestions on the art of creative writing. I do consider myself only as an amateur writer however I shall try my best to keep it as informative as possible.        One of the biggest problems that I faced (and still face) while starting a blog is quite the existential one. The question here being, “How do I fulfil my obligation to the reader to provide authentic and honest content? What right do I have to blog?”. To this one thing I would try is to be honest to yourself. As Abraham Lincoln said, “Whatever you are, be a good one”. It is imperative that one has to be honest about their feelings and thoughts, since it is art and you have the freedom to do so. Which neatly brings me along to the next question.       Style. Now this not something you need to necessarily develop right from your first sentence.   It is a gradual process which moulds itself over tim

      A peaceful afternoon here at Chetpet station. I'm waiting for a train. I have been to this specific station before and I have to say, it is really an underrated one. Underrated as in how surprisingly quiet and peaceful it is despite literally being in the centre of the city. Even my destination, despite being twenty kilometres away is extremely crowded and loud. But in here it feels like you have stumbled upon a station twenty years into the past. It is to be noted that the station has a beautiful lake on the north while there's a whole suburban neighbourhood to the south.          Silly me decided to go through the suburbs instead of taking the high road. Back home in our town, we have these houses built right next to each other with little to no gap between them, and no front yard. Some houses even share the same wall and would have these small trapdoor kind of windows for communication. Although new modern housing is replacing them, here it is. 

  Dear reader,     When I say the word villain, who comes to your mind? Brutus? Iago? Moriarty? Queen of Hearts? Voldemort? Blofeld? Thanos? Joker? The list is quite endless. As much as we despise their very existence, there is always a little evil fairy within us that makes us celebrate their will and dedication. In this episode I aim to revere our beloved villains.     Not so recently I watched the Tamil film Jailer , I was not having too much expectations but it was just depressing to get through the whole film. The hero, Rajini, seemed more of a bully who constantly outwits the desperate petulant villain, who had zero control over the plot. This gave me a question; what makes a true villain? With my experiences with literature and films, let’s go through them.     There is a spectrum of villains who play their own roles within the plot. Take for example ‘Severus Snape’ from the Harry Potter series. When we are introduced to him for the first time, we would recognize him a

        Ah George Orwell! You just cannot escape the shiver down your spine when you hear the name. He has given us the darkest realities of our worlds, slamming with us the true nature of governments, political propaganda and even the gullible nature of the rest of us while we take up our roles in the system. If you are yet to know him, well congrats, ignorance is bliss dear reader!       After reading his novel  Animal Farm for my undergraduate, I thought it was a one-off experience which I didn’t wish to return, but here I am after getting the next blow from his novel, 1984. Would I recommend the novel? No. Will you read it either way. Yes.       For those confused, Eric Arthur Blair popularly known by his pen name George Orwell is famous for his dystopian novels, Animal Farm and 1984. Although he has several great works, today I would like to write about his pinnacle of work, 1984. The book was published a year before he died, in 1949, narrating the follies and not so pop

  Hope you are having a great day dear reader!      What’s your weapon of choice when it comes to writing? It is a ballpoint pen? A gel pen? A pencil? Or like me, a fountain pen? Yes, it may seem old fashioned but for some reason I have this lovely relationship with fountain pens. The other day I spotted a classmate using a Parker fountain pen.   It was a great conversation starter since not many use them, at least not as much as ballpoint pens. STORY TIME!      Now since seventh grade our school made cursive compulsory, along with fountain pens, be it hero pens or the classic fountain pens. My dad gave me my first fountain pen. A bright blue plastic bodied Parker pen. It felt amazing in my hand, although I found it hard in the beginning trying to find the right balance. My clumsiness led to a sad death of my first pen and several others. On the bright side I had developed this unique kind of cursive handwriting that is complimented only by the few with exquisite taste. Lol.

Dear reader,    Yesterday on my "Internet Sobriety" challenge, I spotted a little pigeon who sought refuge at my window. For some reason I felt something magical surrounding this bird, so I kept watching.....         "A pigeon rested upon my window sill. Such a majestic bird! It looked at me with its blood red eyes making sure I do not pose any threat to her majesty. Although it's feathers were of an uninteresting grey, it is its neck that fascinates me. The neck has got a vibrant yet composed stroke of reflective purple and grey feathers which looked like it was stolen from a fish. She fixed her feathers, braiding her coat top to bottom. It seemed as though no feather was free from her extravagant fancy routine.         Oh wait, it looks at me now, I'm not a bad person dear pigeon, I promise. I'm just baffled by your beauty. Everyone thinks you look perfect in white. Well, no, you are complete when you wear black. I wouldn't be surprised if y

(Finally, the weekend!) Good day dear reader,   9:00 AM             Instead of talking about literature, in todays’ episode I conjured up a challenge for myself. It’s pretty simple, be productive, I mean I am not setting the bar too high. Just do not use the phone. I have made up some ground rules. Here it goes. 1.    No socials 2.    No YouTube and other streaming media 3.    No video games (ouch)   On with the challenge! As Jeremy Clarkson would say;       10:00 AM So far so good, I have cleaned my room. Yes, it is not that big, but a step is a step. Done laundry too, so most of my Saturday work is finished ahead of schedule. Onwards!   11:30 AM I read a bit of George Orwell’s 1984. Pretty dark book, that. To be honest with you, dear reader, things do look a bit of gloomy at the moment. I am caught between the tempting aspect of falling asleep, and going back to the phone. Things are not looking too well. I should find more rewarding al

September 1, 2023 Afternoon I found this really charming park in the middle of Egmore. It's just about the size of three basketball courts but has a lot of shady trees and was more welcoming than it had any right to be.  Yesterday we had this talk in class regarding Kyd's Spanish Tragedy. I haven't read the work myself but I was told that it set the tone for revenge plays, the bloody poetic justice, an eye for an eye idea, you get it. It's weird when you think about it, what's stopping 8 billion souls on a claustrophobic ball from doing what they actually want. Why do we enjoy watching the most brutal gore on TV while we fetter ourselves from doing a miniscule of that ourselves? We celebrate tales of murderers, arsonists, crime lords and empathise with them as their wings engulf in flames and collapse to a fiery death.  Jus look at any character of Shakespeare for that matter. He has managed to 'humanise' the evilest of characters. Take Macbeth,

  Dear reader,          Imagine a snake creeps up right into your front yard, trying to find refuge from the heat, what are you going to do? You know the snake is venomous. Do you kill the snake? Would you bolt your doors and windows all summer? Or most weirdly, are you going to sit back and enjoy its beauty?          This is exactly what D. H. Lawrence did in his poem ‘Snake’. I would like to share my thoughts on this poem. The link to the poem:  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/148471/snake-5bec57d7bfa17        The snake even looked as innocent as cattle to the poet. O’ what an imagination, such a vile animal despised by centuries of mankind, associated only with evil, sorcery and sin, the form taken by Satan for that matter, who stole our paradise from us.          It is quite the problem, isn’t it? I once saw this comic strip from the ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ series which I find relatable in our situation. Are we designed to subdue everything around us? The snake her

  Dear Reader, In this episode I would like to take a look at Edvard Munch’s painting ‘The Scream’. It is a simple yet disturbing painting created in 1893, considered to be the artists’ masterpiece. I am by no means well versed as an art critic, however with my limited knowledge I shall give my thoughts and appreciation in this episode. Now, the painting…     Better resolution image here:  https://www.edvardmunch.org/the-scream.jsp       Browsing through few pages of the internet, I found the story behind the painting interesting. Here’s notes from the diary of the artist dated 22 January 1892. “The sun was setting and the clouds turned as red as blood. I sensed a scream passing through nature. I felt as though I could actually hear the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds like real blood. The colors shrieked.”       Several theories suggest the inspiration behind the painting, from the orange tainted sky owing to the volcanic eruption of Kraka

  Bond, James Bond.       Ah the epitome of the swaggering, mysterious, dangerous and civilized man, I can barely hold my emotions as I speak about this character and everything that he represents. Created by British writer Ian Fleming, he is a byproduct of the cold war, brutal yet sleek who means absolute business followed by being a ladies’ man. Although I had read the classic books, in my opinion, the films have done a greater deal for the rise of the popularity of our beloved spy. Spanning over twenty-five films and played by six prominent actors of their own eras, it has created a great dent in the history of pop culture.           Who hasn’t worn their first coat and looked at themselves in the mirror, without clicking their tongue saying, “the name's Bond, James Bond”? The British gentleman who would consider his job a mere leisure while living his life in all its arrogance is surely a life we would dream of. Also do not forget to learn enough puns to levitate tricky s