Choice Story

There was a boy who lived in a village in a forest deep in a mountain valley. he spent his days caring for his parents' farm, sowing the seed and reaping the harvest. One day when he was sixteen a demon came to him in a dream with a piece of wood in one hand and a glowing coal in the other. The demon said, 'Choose'. The boy chose the coal. Some months later the black carriages rolled into the village square, and the black-clad men laid out their tables on the cobbles and made all the young men line up. He had come to sell his family's fleeces, but the rough men caught him and made him stand in line. He was put in a railway carriage with lots of strangers and taken to a faraway place, where they shaved his head and gave him new clothes and taught him how to be a soldier.

He saw many wars. He saw death and destruction and horrible lingering pain. But he learned to survive and keep his head down and not to believe all the fine words that were said on the eve of battle. Even so, in spite of his care, one day he was wounded and laid up in the field hospital with a piece of metal in his leg. And then in fevered dreams the demon came again, This time it had a bunch of grass in one hand, and a clod of earth in the other. 'Choose,' it said. But the boy rose up from his bed and clasped the demon's neck and said, 'No, last time you offered me a choice and look where it brought me. You have to tell me what these things mean. The demon smiled and said, 'You're learning. You know what the coal meant, you've lived it. Would you like to know what the wood meant?'
'Yes,' said the boy.
'Had you chosen the wood, you would have gone down to the bay some day to celebrate your uncle's buying a new plot. Your father and uncle would drink all night in the tavern, and in the morning when the press gangs came they would be passed out under the table. But you would be there, and they'd drag you off to be a grease monkey, climbing the tarry ropes. You'd see many battles, chain shot flying through the air, men burning and jumping into the sea, dead men's eyeballs when the sea spits them out again. Then one day a bullet would catch your leg, and you'd be laid up in the ship's brig, and I'd come to you with grass and a clod of earth.'
'You're a talkative demon,' says the boy. 'Now tell me what these mean.'
'No. Only hindsight sees everything.'
'All right,' said the boy, and grabbed the grass because it was fresh and green.

In time, he healed his wound and was discharged, and limped back home along streets desolated by conflict. He found his farm burned and deserted, and in the centre of the blackened flagstones of the kitchen floor there was a bunch of green grass growing. So he sat by the old well and drank its water, which was sweet, and went into town with his severance pay and bought a plough and a horse. And in time he built the farm back, and married, and had many children and the house was full of laughter and plenty. And then one night the demon came again, and this time he had a white stone in one hand, and in the other a black.
'Oh,' said the boy, who was now a man, 'It's you. Well then, tell me what the clod of earth would have given me.'
'You would have died of your wound.'

The demon extended his gnarled palms, each with a stone on it and said, 'Choose.'
'No,' said the man. 'I've had enough of this game. Suppose I don't choose?'
'Then I will come back night after night and ask you the same question.'
The man's eyes filled with tears. 'Does this mean it's time for me to die.'
'You won't know unless you choose.'
The man took a deep breath. 'I choose the black.'

The demon smiled. 'Then I have to tell you the truth of darkness. had you chose the white, I would have had to tell you the truth of light, but no matter. You only get to hear this once.'

The demon sat comfortably on the edge of the bed and began, 'Everything you see around you is spirit wrapped up tight. This stone, your bed, this earth, it is all the blood of gods who exist far away in the heavens. These gods are so hungry they eat light, they chomp it up for breakfast lunch and dinner, these dark suns. And in their bellies, light is crushed so small it has to craft itself into matter. That is the ultimate darkness of the pit, a darkness so dark there isn't even space for light to shine between the things within it. But that darkness is within you. It's what prevents you from flying apart. It's the still centre of every grain of your body. Without it, spirit flies around like an impotent thing. When you grasp the earth, the dark in your hand is touching the dark of soil, of stone, of slime. Remember that, and maybe in your next life you will hear the truth of light.'
And the demon vanished.

Your exercise: to write a story in which three choices between a pair of symbolic things are offered to the protagonist at three crucial junctures of the story. In each case, the choice must produce wisdom, so that in effect the protagonist travels a path.

Friday the 13th

Exercise for Friday
1. Make a character. Three levels are needed for character formation. A. a census form. Name, age, occupation, gender, place of birth, parents, language, class, income etc. B. Timeline of important events till the present. c. Value map: temperament, propensities, tastes, values, dreams, quirks. Definitely do A, and if you are feeling adventurous try B and C.
OR
2. Create a five-sentence plot outline for a horror story.

You can do either one of these.

Welcome

You have all been sent invites to the blog. Please click on the link in the invite to join. For those who were not present on Friday, we did a story exercise. I asked people to write a story outline in five sentences. As follows:

1. Introduce your main character, ie the person whose point of view you will take.
2. Introduce your subsidiary character who will interact with the main one.
3. Describe the start state.
4. Describe the destabilising force.
5. Describe the resolution.

This is the simplest story-recipe you can have.

Amelie Bossan

Character Sketch

Name: Ámelie Bossan

Age: 20 years

Gender: Female

Sexual Orientation: Claims to be straight

Current Location: 16, Rue Saint- Benoȋt, L’Auberge de Jeunesse, Paris- 75006, France. She is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s Degree in French and Comparative Literature from Sorbonne University.

Place of Birth: Resolute, Queen Elizabeth Islands, Canada.

Languages Known: English and French.

Religion: Christian Catholic

Family

Father: Late Jacques Bossan. Scientist/Alchemist.

Mother: Hélène Bossan. 48 years old. Teaches History at University of Bordeaux.

Uncle: Christophe Trévisan. 51 years old. Occupation- unknown.

Socio-economic Status: Apart from her mother’s lavish salary, she has a substantial portion of her ancestral property in Bordeaux to her name.

Physical Attributes

Ámelie is 5’7” tall. Her complexion is somewhere between cream and white matching the shade of the pages of the Penguin Classics. She is neither thin, nor bulky. Rather she has a fuller figure like the woman in Paul Delvaux’s painting Pygmalion 1939. Her chestnut coloured, ear-length hair often appears dishevelled. Her eyes twinkle like emeralds but are often obscured by her hair, still their innate gleam draws the onlooker’s attention. The sharp nose stands like a mountain-top in the middle of her oval face. Her thin lips were once red, but time has worn out the colour and has lent it a faded hue.

Timeline

1991. September. Ámelie is born to the delight of M and Mme. Bossan in St. Patrick’s Hospital, Queen Elizabeth Islands, Canada.

1998. February. Jacques Bossan dies at the age of 31 due to an accident at his lab in Queen Elizabeth Islands, Canada.

1998. April. Mme. Bossan and Ámelie move to Bordeaux in their ancestral mansion to live with Mme. Bossan’s brother Christophe.

1998. May. Ámelie is enrolled in Lycée Privé Le Mirail. She starts going to a proper school for the first time.

2006. October 16. Morning. Ámelie is ‘bitten’ by a Hyrophil (a kind of monster) in the garden of her home.

2006. October 16. Afternoon. Mme. Bossan reveals to Ámelie that M. Bossan was not a ‘conventional’ scientist but an alchemist. He was working on a secret project under the International Union of Alchemists (IUA), an undercover organisation, to annihilate the Hyrophils. M. Bossan had chosen Queen Elizabeth Islands as the cite of his research because he had thought that the he would be able to protect his findings from the Hyrophils in this largely unpopulated island. But the Hyrophils were not ready to be executed this easily. They did eventually find out about M. Bossan’s objectives and barged into his lab one fateful day and killed him and destroyed his lab. So, what Ámelie had known to be an accident all along, was actually a murder. There is something that Hyrophils did not know either. Although the IUA had commanded M. Bossan to create a killing machine for the Hyrophils, but he was actually working on the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone to restore the Hyrophils to their original human form. A secret confided only in his wife. Unfortunately, all his notes and findings were lost in the rampage of the Hyrophils. The death of her husband induced a sense of disillusionment in Mme. Bossan and she severed all ties (whatever she had left after her husband) with IUA and moved to Bordeaux with her daughter to live with her brother, who was genuinely pleased to have them over.

2009. September. Ámelie joins Sorbonne University, Paris, to study French and Comparative Literature.

2009. October. Ámelie visits the IUA headquarter in Paris and is found to have developed a psychic ability due to the Hyrophil bite to be able to tell if there is any Hyrophil around within a 1Km radius.

2009. November. Ámelie is invited to join the IUA Hyrophil Annihilation Squad (IUAHAS) for having special psychic powers. She accepts the invitation. She is currently under training and has not been to any actual combat.

2011. January. Ámelie accidentally discovers from a book in the IUA library that her maternal grandfather was a descendant of Bernard Trévisan. The fifteenth century French count Bernard Trévisan was believed to have procured the Philosopher’s Stone and even wrote a short treatise on the bounty that the stone had brought him. Something tells Ámelie that there is some truth to this legend of Bernard Trévisan. Although her mother and uncle, the only two living descendants of the Count, have heavily denied any authenticity to the matter.

2011. February- present. Apart from performing her IUAHAS duties Ámelie is secretly looking for Bernard Trévisan’s Philosopher’s Stone.

Hyrophils

The IUA believes that alchemic experiments should be strictly confined to metals and alloys as outlined by Roger Bacon. But when the extensive searches of the IUA for the Philosopher’s Stone proved to be futile, a rebellious faction of alchemists violated the rules in 1995 and added organic matters with alloys and created a strange liquid substance called étern el printemps. It had the power of bringing back a mortally ill person to life. But it was not able to entirely cure the disease rather enabled the person to extract energy from living organisms and live until that energy lasted. Once that energy was exhausted, the person would have to find a new host. It made the person a parasite. The IUA coined the term Hyrophils for these human parasites. The alchemists who had created étern el printemps (endless spring) were thrown out of IUA for breaching the rules, which enraged them even more and they went on creating Hyrophils because they believed that they are serving mankind by curing the sick without realising that their act might turn out to be fatal for humanity. The Hyrophils can extract energy from any living organism (trees, birds, animals, insects, human beings and others) by clasping them for a few minutes. This is called the ‘bite’ of a Hyrophil. The appearance and lifestyle of a Hyrophil is just like any other human being. It is not possible to tell by looking at a person whether or not he/she is a Hyrophil. They generally domesticate cats or dogs or some such animal to act as the host. A full-grown golden retriever can withstand approximately six Hyrophil bites before it dies. A Hyrophil bite is not fatal or does not cause any injury for a human being and they generally do not thrive upon humans unless they need energy urgently. However, five or six Hyrophil bites in a row without given the chance of recuperation may prove to be fatal for a man.

The IUA has set out to annihilate the Hyrophils because they consider them to be upsetting the ecological balance.

At the age of 15 Ámelie was bitten by such a Hyrophil.

The one thing that can put a stop to the creation of Hyrophils is the Philosopher’s Stone. It will be able to cure any fatal disease and étern el printemps will not be needed any more and therefore futher Hyrophils will not be created. This is why Ámelie is looking for the stone.

Internal Map

Ámelie’s experiences in school

For the first few years she was rather pitied by her teachers and classmates for not having her father. The special attention made her uncomfortable. As a result she gradually became an introvert person. A sense of determination to prove her potential grew strong in her.

Ámelie’s thoughts on Alchemy.

Ámelie is not much interested in the intricate alchemical reactions. She is more drawn towards the mystical side of it. Growing up with the magical enchantment of Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, Bilal and Profondeurs she was rather pleased to know that alchemy was not confined to ancient scriptures only. She regards alchemy as almost something supernatural and is glad to be a part of this unconventional universe. She is devoted to IUAHAS and wishes to make a mark in the world of alchemy as a warrior. The thought of a ‘normal’ life is boring to her. She somewhat pities the mass for not having the least bit of magic in their lives. She enjoys living her dual lives, one as a University student and the other as a secret IUAHAS warrior.

Ámelie and her Mother

Ámelie shares a close bond with her mother. Throughout her teenage her mother was her best friend and confidant while her friends complained of regular fights with their parents. Although Mme. Bossan’s over-protectiveness sometimes drives her crazy, but she understands the reason behind her anxiety. Her daughter is the only one she can hold on to (Christophe does not really count). In Paris, Ámelie misses her mother a lot.

Ámelie and her Father

Ámelie has become prouder about her father since the day she came to know that M. Bossan was not just another scientist but a high-profile alchemic researcher. She remembers her father mostly through the photographs. She can envision the face of a young man with a benign smile. Although she doubts whether it is an actual memory. She holds a deadly grudge against the Hyrophils for snatching her father away from her.

Pride: After joining IUAHAS Ámelie has become a bit too proud. Although she is not aware of her having an excess of pride. Also she feels that she is burdened with all the responsibilities of saving the world and without her contribution the world might stop rotating. It is her idea that she and she only will be able to find the Philosopher’s Stone.

Fears: Ámelie fears that she will not get the recognition she deserves for her contribution in alchemy. She does not want to suffer the fate of her father who is remembered as an unfortunate victim of the Hyrophils but his alchemical findings are blissfully forgotten by IUA.

At the back of her mind Ámelie feels that without the associations of alchemy she is just another brick in the wall.

Needs: Ámelie is subconsciously always seeking attention. When she is with her friends from her university she always wants their conversations to be on topics she is interested in. If they talk about anything else she feels left-out and tries her best to change the topic.

Strengths: Growing up with a single and working mother made Ámelie self-sufficient earlier than usual. She has grown to be a strong and brave person. She can keep her calm in troubled times. She is not scared of Hyrophils. However, she is no wonder woman. She runs the possibility of snapping midway if tried to the ultimate limit.

Secrets: At twenty Ámelie is still a virgin and has never been physical intimate with anyone. She is very embarrassed of this fact and claims to have made out with nameless people.

Shinjini Chattopadhyay

Story by Unknown Genius

I suspect the Deeptesh

Prufrock

Thin shards of glass flew into her skin. At the moment of impact, she fell nothing. Everything seemed to have coalesced into a void. And then, as the sensation began to sink in, she felt pain. Terrible, unthinkable pain. Pain was beautiful.

~

AS LEENA STOOD on the bridge, she felt beautiful. The sky in the far horizon was melting into the Ganges. The sun had set leaving a crimson afterglow. She could almost taste the soft tobacco sky as it flowed inside her mouth. In the distance, a small dinghy was sailing in the crimson waters. Quietly it sailed towards the vanishing point of light and vision.

And you must vanish like smoke in the sky

Which no one holds back

Leena watched the boat vanish moment by moment and felt a great sadness. Now the boat was almost gone, beyond human vision and her eyes strained to catch the ghostly shape melting away. She could feel the boat sail along the curve of the river at Liluah. Further still, the boat will come to a narrow stretch where the river bed had dried up on both sides and the water was green with algae. The banks will still be hot from the golden sunbeams; on the ghat there will be women wrapped in saris taking a dip. Then children will come running in when they see the boat; their faces pink and white with fatigue.

Evening will descend on the bridge as in other places. Silver moonlight on the estuary. Leela standing on the bridge, a childish figure. Her hair is tied up and she is wearing a deep blue dress. She is fair complexioned and of short stature. Faces go past her. Memories. Men smelling of hot coffee and cigarettes. Porters in khakee dresses. Gunpowder lips. Time rolling down like liquid rust. Slender legs. Laughter thrown like a universe wrapped into a paper ball of time. Papermoneylust. Pink seahorses with dark, green vagina. A ghost-woman with a pendulum in her womb. Infundibulous time. Skytimewomen. A sentence ending with comma and full-stop,,…,

~

When she re-gained consciousness, she was not sure about where she was. There were dim lights in the room. She could see a woman in white uniform coming towards her. Death can’t be ugly, she thought.

~

In her dreams, she always rode on paper-horses. She always knew time was a strange paperboat. And her friends called her a paper-girl. She had always loved magic. She had written a poem about a paper girl in the rain. Her friends had liked the poem and called her paper-girl. Paper-girl. Paper woman. Gosh! What a name. She never believed life being real. Life for her was a huge joke and totally unreal. Emotion for her was placid as paper and real like rain. In those important junctures of life, where there is a possibility for a hundred decisions and indecisions, she would always tend to follow the dictates of her conscience ahead of anything else. Science and religion was for her pure magic. How time was elastic and even space could bend fascinated her. Time and space was like paper, she thought. When she would grow up, she thought, she would have a paper baby one day.

And then it happened two summers earlier. She was nineteen at that time. She had just entered college and was studying for a degree in English. Life for her was just a humdrum affair. And then things changed one day. Almost like magic.

~

On the bridge, time stood with Leena. Time convoluted into a coughball of consciousness. Time moved like a bitch, it always does. Time eats, sleeps and menstruates. For time is time, nothing else. She could feel time. Liquid hands tugging at her dress. Away bitch, she cried. Separation anxiety. A man was sliding in through the doorway. Time. He slid off his pajamas, his breathe warm and moist on her cheek. Time. He had only hands, big large hands with which he painted. Squashed the universe into a ball and pinned it onto his neck-tie. What is your name, man with hands? I am Prufrock, people call me Alfred. Thank you. I love food and dolls. She was trying to resist. Time. Bergson’s huge eyes. Sleep on the walls, bells ringing. Loyola was a good man, with claws. Time bites.

~

He dined at cheap restaurants. He had killed his father for killing the old queen. Yet he was timid, with weasel eyes. No, I’m not Prufrock, you imagine. Lips trembling to ask the over-whelming question. Do I exist? Are you real? We’re in love, yes, no, who knows? Tooraloom Tooraloom tay, famous words now. Yes, I remember. Doctor stares into her eyes, what do you see? I’m on a bridge on the Ganges. I’m in the water. I’m with Prufrock under lovely skies. Schizopreneria. Border-line, line, border. The mermaids are thinking, singing, lust for the fleshy curves of time. Who is Rakesh? Rakesh Prufrock, no Prufrock, mon amour.

Remember. White light. Great hand of time. Remember the name. Rakesh Malhotra, CEO, LNT Cement. To be husband. Remember. Another bright light. Lips on omphalos. Engagement. No? Grew up in Lousiana. Not religious, but a good man. Good looking, same scar behind the left ear, see? Prufrock, Prufrock. No. Your childhood pen-friend. Chat-friend. Believes you are the only truth in life.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

Then the accident. Hemorrhage. No, I’ll explain the character. My Prince Hamlet, I’m not dreaming. Believes in art, not a public servant. Grew up under sunny skies and lamp-lit rooms. Fifty almost, but how he turns me on. Met him along blurry lines. Courted women and went to bed with most of them. But loved me the most. We were seated on the wrong side of the room. You could stare through him like glass and see the streets and women flow like arguments. He had the breath of chalk and soul of the yellow fog that rubs its tail in the sunlit breeze. You could feel him wound up like the soul of a bird in the yellow fog and slither out of smokeless chimneys into the city. He was at motion and rest as he filled the room like music...women with braceleted arms and bare breasts in lamplight, had golden hair and spoke like dust. The music flowed through trees, through empty streets and teaspoons of vanishing breath. The universe panted...the universe rubbed her breasts and arms on the naked body of time, the universe spat out a symphony with golden hair and panting lips, across the slender, white fingers of the sea. Infinite, my love, infinite my lust for silence, as flesh penetrates flesh and metal penetrates the soft belly of light, on that baked afternoon in Algiers.

~

You are a bridge, on the Ganges. You’re the quiet centre of harmony. Useless images. Rakesh Malhotra, CEO, with neck-tie and collar walked out. I have had enough, he thought. No more shit. On a cold November morning when he was ten years old, his mother had beaten him for telling a lie. He had cheated on a Maths test and his assignment was cancelled. He had not confessed the truth to his mother. What followed was ten days of silence; he refused to talk or touch food. This was the same obstinate desire to achieve his ends which would later take him to the top. He was already flourishing in his work when he met Leela. Or re-met let’s say. He and Leela were classmates once and more than that- their spending time together on...

Anikesh stared at the paper. Those were the good days. He almost strained to remember. How difficult it is to create her again as he remembered her! The smiles, the strokes, the beliefs, the years. His novel will sell. Sunlight fell across Ashima’s face and he had an overwhelming sense of pity for her. Her limbs lay inert as she stared with lacklustre eyes from her wheelchair, mumbling indiscreetly. Her words have a sense of their own. It was tough to understand her as she was now or she was back in school...let alone trying to give a voice to her inert consciousness. Wild, restless consciousness. Yet words weren’t false; she had lovely eyes, wanted a good job and stable career and...and she believed he was Prufrock. Yet she was unreal, he thought, more so on paper. His publisher had already phoned him twice that day. Puffs of dust went up into the sunbeam in the dark room as he turned the pages of his manuscript. Prufrock he thought. Ashima was right. Her mumbling getting worse. Sound of tap dripping.

Do I dare disturb the universe?

Her lines always. Will be always. Damn that tap that disturbs the silence. Every single word is...enough. Time is water and silence. Red, blue, green. What do you do all day sitting there, said Ashima. Dream. He fancies strange things. Like I’m mad and all that. Ever since his unemployment...Ashima on the wheelchair mumbling. Who is lying? You or I or both? What is the game darling? My novel will sell.

Character Sketch by Unknown Genius

As usual, you guys are displaying an allergy to writing your names on things. Who created this one?

CHARACTER CONSTRUCTION

1.

Institutional layer

NAME: Bhikhucharan Yadav

AGE: 37 years

PLACE of BIRTH: Baheri village in Samastipur, Bihar

LANGUAGE: Magadhi, broken Bengali

GENDER: Male

ORIENTATION: Heterosexual

FAMILY

· FATHER: landless worker, illiterate, dead for 8 years at the time of the story

· MOTHER: house-wife. Studied in village school till 10^th standard. Married off when tried to elope with the boy-next-door. Died in 1985.

· 2 older sisters, 3 younger brothers, 1 younger sister

· Wife – dead

· Son – 19 years old whom he had not seen for more than 10 years

RELIGION: Hinduism

ETHNICITY: Indian

CASTE: Vaishya

CLASS: lower; earlier landless worker, now porter

SCHOOLING: primary school in village till the age of 11(Class 4)

Time-line

13^th May, 1974 – born to Sita Devi and Ramcharan Yadav; 3^rd of 7 children, 1^st son

11years old – mother dies(smallpox)

17 years old – marries a girl in the next village

18years old – son born

28 years old – father dies. Bhikhu moves to Kolkata. Leaves behind wife and young son(10years old) in search of better jobs. Luggage stolen at railway station. Works as porter.

37 years – news of wife’s death.

Internal Maps

Bhikhu, being the first male child of his parents, had a lot of expectations riding on him. But while his father wanted him to work in the fields and earn enough money to recover the lands lost to the local money-lender, his mother wanted him to study and become a ‘bada aadmi’. Due to her insistence, Bhikhu was enrolled into the local primary school. Bhikhu, however, did not share her dreams and was soon bunking classes to go to the nautankis that came to the village.

When 11 years old, Bhikhu had a bad bout of small pox, from which he recovered under his mother’s nursing. She, in turn, was infected fatally, and died. This incident left a deep impact on Bhikhu’s mind as he blamed himself for his mother’s death. This, coupled with his realisation of his earlier disregard of his mother’s dream, filled him with a deep sense of guilt which was to play an important part in building up his personality. Bhikhu’s resolution to fulfil his mother’s dream was, however, thwarted when his father put him to work in the fields with his younger brothers. Gradually, Bhikhu’s sub-conscious tried to suppress these feelings of over-whelming guilt. As a defence mechanism, he developed a rowdy, misogynistic character. His father, in an attempt to ‘tame’ him, married him off to a docile girl of 15. After the initial charm had faded away, he became indifferent to his wife, occasionally beating her when he was too frustrated with life. His son’s birth, less than a year after Bhikhu’s marriage, failed to shake up his emotions in anyway.

Neither did his father’s death. In fact, within a year of his father’s death, Bhikhu left his village for Kolkata. He left behind his wife and 10 years old son. He told everyone that Kolkata provided better employments for him. While this was partly true, he also wanted desperately to get away from the village which always affected him with a sense of claustrophobia and despair. He knew his promise to his tearful wife, that he would return to take them to Kolkata, was a lie, as he wanted to cut himself off from his past life completely and start afresh. He was so guilt-ridden that he promised himself to send regular money to his family once he got a job at Kolkata.

Bhikhu lost his luggage when he arrived at the Howrah station. Rather, it was stolen. Distrustful of everyone, he roamed about in the platform for a couple of days, afraid to set foot in the alien city. A kind coolie offered him a job as a porter after he saw him eyeing his food greedily.

Initially sceptical, Bhikhu soon made friends with his co-workers. In fact, he became some kind of a leader of the men due to his robust personality.

Used to living in a three-roomed hut in his village with his extended family, the vast expanse of the station gave him a taste of freedom which, he realised, he had longed for all his life. Free from his mother’s dream, free from his father’s expectations, free from the responsibility of his wife and son. The multitude of people pouring in and out of the station made him feel invisible – a feeling which both thrilled and terrified him. He, very diligently, sent money to his family every month. But he took great care never to reveal his address to them. Neither did he ever write to them. He loathed the idea to be saddled with their responsibility again.

But there are times when he is filled with a surge of overpowering sadness, emptiness and guilt. But he has learnt to anticipate such depressions, and whenever he feels the onslaught of such a sadness, he indulges in his hedonistic urges of food and flesh to offset.

At the time of the story, Bhikhu meets an acquaintance of his village at the station by chance, who tells him that his wife had died 6 years back. He comes to know that his son has passed his school-leaving exams with distinction. Bhikhu feels oddly proud of the achievements of his son, whom he has not seen for almost 10 years. He cannot decide whether to go back to Baheri to reconnect with his son or not.

2.

INSTITUTIONAL LAYER

NAME: AKHYAYIKA SENGUPTA

AGE: 21 YEARS

PLACE OF BIRTH: BALLYGUNJ, SOUTH KOLKATA

LANGUAGE: BENGALI

GENDER: FEMALE

ORIENTATION: HOMOSEXUAL

FAMILY

· MOTHER: SNIGDHA SENGUPTA, A SOCIALITE, ONCE ACTRESS IN SOME MOVIES

· FATHER: RANJAN SENGUPTA, CEO IN AN MNC

· GRANDMOTHER: CHHAYA SENGUPTA, HOME-MAKER, DEAD (2005)

RELIGION: NON-PRACTISING HINDU

CLASS: UPPER, HEREDITARILY RICH

SCHOOLING: IN A REPUTED SOUTH KOLKATA SCHOOL, DOING MASTERS IN HISTORY UNDER RABINDRA BHARATI UNIVERSITY

TIME-LINE

8^TH SEPTEMBER, 1989 – BORN, ONLY CHILD

9 YEARS OLD – FATHER’S ADULTERY DISCLOSED

18 YEARS OLD – GRANDMOTHER DIES

19 YEARS OLD – FALLS IN LOVE WITH ZAREEN, A GIRL IN HER COLLEGE

20 YEARS OLD – MEETS WITH AN ACCIDENT WHICH LEAVES HER CRIPPLE FROM WAIST DOWN-WARDS

INTERNAL MAP

Akhyayika’s name was chosen by her mother who wanted her to be as distinct as her name. Akhyayika herself, however, liked her nickname, Rai, given by her thamma. Till the age of nine, Ahyayika was brought up mostly by her paternal grandma, or thamma, as her father was mostly on trips while her mother was busy shooting for films. Though sometimes craving for motherly tenderness, Akhyayika had a more or less happy childhood, cared for by her thamma who was a strict but loving guardian. Like her thamma, she held pity and contempt for her mother’s attempts to land leading roles in films. When Snigdha finally gives up on her dream to become the frequent organiser of kitty-parties, that disdain remained, and Akhyayika could never imagine her as someone more than a resident of her house. She considered herself as her grandma’s child, often calling her ‘maa’ in jest sometimes.

At the age of nine, Akhyayika, while fiddling with her father’s cell-phone, comes across a lewd text sent to her father by one of his female colleagues. Not knowing what to do, but having a strong sense of foreboding, she shows it to her grandmother. To her immense surprise, her grandmother, who had always sided with the truth often to the displeasure of others, asked her to keep mum about the whole affair. This incident, more than her father’s adultery, shocked her to the core. Instinctively she gravitated towards her mother, though not revealing the truth about Ranjan to her. Snigdha, however, was too pre-occupied with her life to pay much attention to her daughter’s fragile mental state, and besides taking her to a few movies every month, did little else.

Akhyayika found herself without a friend in her own house. She had always been a quiet girl in school, with few friends. But she now made effort to be popular in school. She invented new and newer excuses to stay away from home, especially from her grandmother. It was at this time that her grandmother was diagnosed with the early signs of dementia. Akhyayika was filled with a deep sense of justice being done. Oddly enough, she had no anger towards her father. All her acts of rebellion had at their root the conviction that it would hurt her thamma, who was, by then, has lost almost all her grip on reality. Her realisation of her sexual orientation was not to much of a shock to her as she knew that thamma would not approve.

When her thamma died finally, incidentally on her 18^th birthday, Akhyayika was assailed by very different emotions at once. There was a sense of freedom, but also an utter emptiness. All her actions had been in accordance or defiance of thamma’s presumed wishes. Without her, everything seemed meaningless. It also made Akhyayika question her sexuality.

Such concerns were put to rest once she met Zareen. She was a docile girl from an orthodox Pathan family at her college, one year her junior. Akhyayika fell head over heels in love with her. And she reciprocated. But within a year Akhyayika met with a car accident which paralysed the lower part of her body. Her parents, who were gradually drifting apart through the years, started taking her to different doctors and therapists all over the country, in hope of ‘curing’ her. Zareen was a pillar of strength to her through out, though neither of her parents knew about their relation. Akhyayika did not tell them of this, less from the fear that they would not approve than the conviction that they did not care either way.

At the beginning of the story, Akhyayika is returning from Hyderabad with her parents after a futile appointment with another ‘baba’. The night before Zareen has called her saying that her parents has fixed her marriage and she is going to comply to their wishes. She asked Akhyayika not to contact her anymore.

STORY

Bhikhu has decided not to go meet his son. He is too ashamed of how he abandoned his family 10 years back. Akyhyayika has decided to commit suicide as she feels Zareen was the only string attaching her to life.

Bhikhu carries Akhyayika’s luggage from the train to her car. That is how they meet.

Character Exercise

Okay, a lot of people have been having trouble with the character exercise, particularly with the exact meaning of 'thwarter'. The 'thwarter' thwarts the STORY, not the character: he or she deflects, shocks or bends the storyline. Let me clarify with an analogy from Newtonian physics.

Our protagonistic will, given the shape of their life and personality, either remain at rest or continue in motion with uniform acceleration in a straight line, right? Let's call this person A. The straight line is where the story is headed if nothing intervenes (usually a very boring direction)

Now let us introduce another person into this universe. Let's call them B. B can do the following:
1. B can attract A. A will curve towards B, and will then either attain B, or be thwarted by circumstances and remain frustrated.
So a new love interest, or a long lost parent, or a rich man to rob, or a new baby, or an escaping spy that A has to catch, or a gay man he's secretly attracted to, could be this kind of B. Actually all objects of love will be in this category.
2. B can repel A. A will move away from B and from his old line of movement, and either escape or be prevented from escaping by circumstances. A could also attack B in an effort to get back on track, or simply avoid B and solve the problem on his own.
Examples will include an overbearing mother, a jealous boss, a spy hunting him down, a wronged lover, an unwanted child, an enemy soldier, a besotted but unattractive lover, a rapist, or a terrorist who hijacks B's plane, or a man who steals his woman, or anything that does him harm and needs to be neutralised. B need not be doing this specifically to target A; it might be a by product of something else, but A will experience it as a personal effect. A could either rise above it an attack the root or take out a personal (deserved or undeserved) vendetta on B.
The reason why I want you to do the characters in pairs is that it makes it easier to work them into a story. A character in isolation isn't story material; two characters have to be.