Saturday, October 30, 2010
Samit Basu Coming to JU
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
End of Term Storytelling
WRITING IN PRACTICE
END OF TERM STORYTELLING
The following people will present their final stories
from 3pm in the PG2 classroom on these days
Monday 8 November 2010
Pramita Ray
Soumi Sarkar
Nibedita Sen
Rajdeep Pal
Malini Chakravorty
Debjanee Chakravorty
Arijit Sett
Samim Akhtar Molla
Tuesday 9 November 2010
Shreya Sanghani
Aparna Chaudhuri
Arnab Chakraborty
Ananya Adhikary
Amrita Kar
Ishan Dasgupta
Roopkatha Banerjee
Ahona Panda
Wednesday 10 November 2010
Zeeshan Islam
Diya Sinha
Antoreep Sengupta
Debalina Chowdhury
Anurima Sen
Debopama Das Gupta
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Updated Marks
You need to give two stories for internals.
For end sem you write and present a story at the end of term, and you also give an exam in the usual way. get 10 for the story, 10 for presentation and 10 for the final exam, making a total of 30. The final story should not be longer than 2000 words.
| UG3 | ||||
| 3 | Aparna Chaudhuri | 8 | 9 | |
| 11 | Nibedita Sen | 8 | ||
| 14 | Shreya Sanghani | 8 | .5 | |
| 17 | Arnab Chakraborty | 5 | ||
| 18 | Soumi Sarkar | 6 | ||
| 20 | Pramita Ray | 4 | ||
| 24 | Ananya Adhikari | 5 | ||
| 42 | Malini Chakraborty | 5 | ||
| 43 | Diya Sinha | 7 | ||
| 45 | Zeeshan Islam | 9 | 9 | |
| 52 | Amrita Kar | 7 | ||
| 54 | Rajdeep Pal | 6 | 7 | |
| Arijit Sett | 7 | |||
| Debjanee Chakrabarti | 5 | 7 | 6 | |
| PG2 | ||||
| 2 | Debalina Chowdhury | 4.5 | ||
| 6 | Shamim Akhtar Molla | 8 | 5 | |
| 26 | Anurima Sen | 8 | ||
| 33 | Ahona Panda | 8.5 | 9 | 9 |
| 33 | Roopkatha Banerjee | 4.5 | 4 | |
| 49 | Debopama Das Gupta | 6.5 | 7 | |
| 61 | Antoreep Sengupta | |||
| Ishan Dasgupta | 8 | 8 |
Puzzle 2: Identify Mystery Author
Another piece I can't place, unhelpfully left unsigned by author. Why can't you people type your names? The is called "Sweet Dreams are Made of These, but as you can see the author hasn't bothered to put the title in the piece. The file properties are deliciously blank. I'm suspecting Rajdeep Pal. Good people, if you find it embarrassing to have your pieces put up, then you should be considerate and sign them.
His bedroom is always where it begins. He is scared to turn the lights off at night because he has always been ridiculously afraid of the dark. So a bright red bulb was fitted last night in his room because his parents are pretty sick of his complaints of insomnia. If there is anything more terrifying than darkness, it is red lights. The waves in which the frequencies wash over him. It reminds him of the slaughter houses that he so carefully tries to avoid each time he has to go out on the roads. It sends him into a trance and he feels disgusted with himself when he wonders what goes on inside an abattoir. It is always red. The colour never wears off, because it cannot. He always ends up peeping out of the auto, to look at the faces of random butchers, who are now familiar to him because, well, he cannot forget their faces. Their blank, rigid faces. At times, he has even seen them laugh. He has been told they are not monsters. They are only doing there job. They have families to feed. But the puzzle he can never solve, is how they sleep at night. He is reminded of Lady Macbeth and Pontius Pilate and their subtle sensibilities which wreaked havock with their conscience at the murder of one individual. He is reminded of how man is created in god's image, of his sublime aesthetic attributes, his higher capabilities, and he again returns to his unsolved puzzle about how these people lead a stable, normal existence. How they sleep at night. They surely sleep at night. He is sure they somehow drown out the horrible, horrible, cries that they so carelessly ignore, and sleep. He is sure they do not ever look into the terrified eyes of those who helplessly struggle and make feeble attempts at survival. He guesses they do not think twice about it. They can only sit hunched outside the meat shops. Sharpening the blades. Sharpening them relentlessly. Concentrating only on the blade. The severed heads. The dull dead eyes in the severed heads. The blade on the head. The carcasses hanging. The blood that drips down on the pavement. The people who pass by the pavements without even noticing it. The children who wait patiently outside the meat shops with their mothers or fathers on busy weekend mornings. The goats that remain tied, one after the other outside the meat shops, awaiting their fate patiently, much like the queue that lines up beside them. And he screams because he can hear their scream. And he is wide awake. He is wide awake and he wishes it was a dream, but it's not. The dull red waves that come crashing down on him feel real when he feels the sweat that drenches him on most nights. He knows that they do not have nightmares. But neither does he.
Puzzle: Identify Mystery Author
Please tell me who wrote this story, titled informatively "The Desk", unsigned either in the text or in the file properties, and, if the file properties are to be believed, created by the University of Buffalo. If you continue to be coy about your identity, you will not get marks.
The Desk.
“That is so cliched,” said Noori. “That's your idea of a mystery story?”
“You have anything better to offer?” asked Javed. He was clearly irritated. She was so presumptuous sometimes. Like her ideas were all path-breaking. And like his were all crap. If that was so, why wasn't she the one writing to pay their bills?
“I can't blame you. Our life is such a cliché. Everything we say is a cliché. There's nothing new about any of it. So typical we are.”
There she goes again, he thought. Launching forth on her sea of complaints. Boring life, typical life. Nya nya.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Why don't you do something about it? Why don't you write down your lines beforehand, improvise, think of clever new things to say and do, and then rehearse them, before spilling in front of me or anyone else?”
“That wouldn't stop my thoughts from being typical, would it?”
“Do the same with them.”
“But I can't control all my thoughts. Some may be, but not all. At least the initial ones would automatically be conventional. And the ones that come after, the 'refined' ones… well see, the entire process of trying to perfect my thoughts and words and preserve them from conventionality itself is so conventional.”
“Honey, you're mental, you know that?”
“You're the one who's suggesting I do twisted things with my thoughts.”
“I did it to stop you from complaining about silly things.”
“You don't understand my need to break away from conformity. And you're supposed to be a writer!”
Javed decided not to argue and went to get himself a cup of coffee. She's so confused. Her thoughts flit backwards and forwards without following any discernible pattern. And she thinks in such ridiculous illogical ways.
Javed and Noori Azim had been married for four years, and led an ordinary sort of life in an ordinary flat in Mumbai. Javed was a freelance journalist and occasional writer of short stories, which got published in various selections for a small price. They survived off this, because Noori did nothing of any assistance to their finances. Like any other ordinary couple, they had their ups and downs, but mostly downs as time and their relationship progressed.
Javed and Noori began dating as college students, and married soon after they had earned their respective masters degrees. Post-graduation, Noori worked for a year as an air hostess, but gave it up in favour of a more sedentary life after marriage. She had dreamed of being a commercial pilot with a big name in the aviation industry, but her parents didn't have the sort of money needed to put a child through flying school. Nevertheless, her millionaire uncle, who could fly his own little helicopter, had given her a few basic lessons in flying the craft. In the end, though, she settled for the other job. In spite of quitting “apropos of nothing”, as Javed put it, she still dreamt of airplanes. Sitting at home, she had developed certain unhealthy obsessions and psychoses, one of the most important being that her life - their life - was a cliché. She feared that she would die a clichéd death.
Their relationship was as typical as the rest of it. They had started out deeply in love, infinitely compatible, and completely understanding of each other. With the years, their understanding was gradually unwinding, and god knows where their compatibility had gone, or if they had ever had it at all. The strangers in them were growing fast. Javed was irritated by her new mental issues, and wondered where their relationship was heading. No more the days of listening on the phone for hours on end to the miseries besetting her life. The fact that she did nothing to make ends meet did not help matters. He could feel their communication breaking down bit by bit.
“Don't!”
“Why? For god's sake, Anne! I know your name's not Anne, but I just felt like saying it. Anne, why?”
“Move! You stink of booze! Filth,” and she pushed him aside, her hand covering his mouth.
Javed fell back on his pillow with a sigh. He could feel the high begin to recede. This was just not working. “Why are you doing this?”
Oh god, Noori groaned internally. He's so typical, I could write a self-help book for ten million other women.
She must be obsessing about something again, thought Javed. “Will it be okay if I gargle with Listerine?”
“I don't want a minty lover.”
“Then what the f*** do you want?”
Silence.
“I need a holiday.”
“From what? From being on holiday?”
Noori's nostrils flared. “Why do you always have to pack an insult into everything you say?”
“You know what? I think I'll go out for a walk. I can't take this shit.”
“By all means, go!”
Javed pulled on his shirt and picked up his wallet and phone. As the door closed behind him, Noori began to cry.
Their bedroom consisted of a simple wrought-iron bedstead, gifted by Noori's mother to the couple on the occasion of their wedding, a stand-alone wooden almirah that contained Javed's clothes and the couple's important documents and possessions, a wardrobe built into the wall containing Noori's clothes, a small dressing table, a single standing lamp on her side of the bed, a TV and an old desk with a folding chair in front of it. There was a door leading into the living room, and another leading to a balcony that resembled a cage, overlooking a by-lane leading away from Chowpatty Beach. Too bad they couldn't afford an apartment overlooking the beach itself, said Javed. He was mad about the sea. Even the filth on the beach couldn't deter him from running across it and wading in when other men would be watching sport at home or taking their wives and girlfriends out to lunch.
The most interesting piece of furniture in the room, and indeed, in the flat, was undoubtedly the desk. It was an antique made of solid oak, and had been handed down from generation to generation in the Azim family, beginning with Javed's great grandfather, who had been in the service of the Peshwa. After migrating to Maharashtra from Gujarat, he had earned the Peshwa's trust through his dedication and unwavering loyalty, and the desk had been a gift from the great man himself. It had been the Azims' most important piece of movable property for a century, excepting a narrow gold ring with a great Belgian diamond set in it that the Peshwa had gifted to the Begum. This ring had been gifted to Noori on her wedding day by her mother-in-law. She rarely wore it – only on special occasions. It stayed in the locker in Javed's almirah most of the year. But she had no other wedding ring.
Alone in the flat, Noori could hear the thudding from the living room of the flat above. That fat Verma woman must be flopping around again in her old nightdress. She would come down sometimes for a cup of tea with Mrs. Azim. The discussion would always come round to the question of working. And Mrs. Verma would make her usual unsubtle dig at Noori. “Ye bewakoofi thi. Touch wood, agar unhone kabhi kuch kar diya, toh...?” Then she would go back upstairs to be shouted at and occasionally beaten by her ugly, cynical husband. She couldn't help but harbour the strong conviction that if she had had a job, she would have had the guts to walk out. And that Mrs. Azim, having had one and..!
The truth was, Noori herself did not quite know why she had quit her job. May be it was the vague notion that the jetting back and forth from city to city constantly would hamper her marriage, that made her do it. In reality, Javed had no such complexes, but Noori did, and she knew she did. Then there had been the idea that being married to Javed would mean everything would be alright, that he would magically take care of everything, himself and her. I've killed my career deliberately, she would think to herself sometimes, I can't blame him for it. And yet, as the days passed, she couldn't help blaming him more and more, not just for her situation, but for everything else as well. Is this what our marriage is coming to, she would think at other times. What they call a blame game? One day he would beat her like Mr. Verma beat his wife, and then what would she do? She had parents left to go back to, but she wouldn't go back to them – she was too proud. She could look for another job, but all the stress was ageing her fast. They would be on the lookout for fresh faces, just out of one or the other of the airhostess academies. And how would she explain the break in her career? And all of this was... no, she checked herself. I will not use that word again. I must have developed OCD. I need to see a shrink.
They were having another fight. Their fights were getting more frequent and bitter. These were interspersed by periods of calm and love, with nothing worse than a few caustic words and subtle allegations thrown in here and there. Still, tolerable for the most part. Noori was sinking in her own personal pit of psychosis, boredom and blame, bit by bit.
“What do you want from me???”
“I want a normal wife!”
“Oh and you think you're the ideal husband, do you? Who are you to go calling me a…a....” her full lips were trembling.
“What did I say wrong?? Huh?? HUH??” Javed's eyes were starting out of their sockets, and spit was flying with every word. The last was a scream.
“You f*****g have gone frigid! You shouldn't be saying anything!! You're always going on about utter bullshit, and you're telling me, you b****!!”
“Stop calling me filthy names, you jerk!!”
“Oh yeah?? Stop me if you can!!”
“You're such a bully!! You're screaming like a f******g kid!!”
Javed made a grab at her across the bed, but she ducked in time. She reached for the ashtray on the desk and threw it at him. It missed his head by an inch, and shattered against the empty wall space between the wardrobe and the dressing table. Howling by now, she ran around the edge of the bed and out of the bedroom. She shot into the bathroom and locked herself in.
Javed sat down on the bed. He was breathing heavily, panting, almost. Calm yourself, he thought. She's pulling you into her melodrama. Her clichéd melodrama. Oh crap! What am I doing using that word?? She's making me as crazy as herself!
Noori bent over the sink in the bathroom, gasping for breath through her sobs. She needed to do something. It was time to do something. She knew. Turning on the tap, she splashed water all over her pretty swollen face. Then she unlocked the door.
“I'm leaving, Javed.”
Lying across the bed, he grunted in reply.
She stood still looking at him for a second, then rushed to her wardrobe and began to throw some clothes higgledy-piggledy into a large bag. After about fifteen minutes, Javed appeared to register this fact.
“Where are you going to go, may I ask?” he said with a sneer that he didn't feel.
She didn't reply, but continued.
“Going to carry on this drama, are you?”
She said nothing.
“You know how typical this is, then? Every third woman does this. Every third couple end like this. You going to live a cliché, baby?”
He was jabbing where it hurt most. She ceased for a split-second, then continued.
“I can see someone writing our story down. Another story like a hundred others.”
He was sitting up now, watching her with hawk-like eyes. She could feel his keen gaze noting every little movement about her person. She had felt it before, innumerable times, but then it had been a look of love. If a solitary hair had been moved out of place on her head by the gust from the ceiling fan, he would have noticed. Now, it made her feel intensely uncomfortable.
She turned on her heel, and walked out of the room, hoisting the bag on her shoulder as she went.
*****************
Javed was sitting in the living room, working at a story on his laptop. Eighteen weeks had passed since Noori’s dramatic exit. Over those weeks, he had missed her immensely; he had wanted her back. And she was back.
It had been a tough decision for Noori – returning to Javed. During the months of her absence, she had not spoken to him on the phone even a single time. After the first few weeks of shock and intense feelings of betrayal were over, they had been in touch over email. Noori had not told him where she was. It was a grand act of self-control on her part: she had never refrained from telling him anything. But she had known this was something she had to do.
For her, the days had been long and the nights, longer. Her cousin had sub-let a little flat in Chembur to her, and she had found work as a primary school teacher nearby. The money had been small, but enough for a frugal life. Thank heavens for those old degrees, what would she have done without them? In the evenings, she would read alone, or take an auto down to Juhu beach. She would sit there by herself, eating chaat, or walk in the sea with her feet submerged till the ankles. It was a lonely life, but she thought she rather liked it.
But something was festering in her head, and when Javed finally started pleading with her to come back, he didn’t know it. She, who had always been short of self-control, didn’t take long to be convinced. Besides, she missed him intensely. So one fine day, four and a half months after her departure from their apartment, she returned to it.
Noori came in with a slice of cake on a plate and handed it to Javed.
“Did you make this?”
“If I had made a cake, wouldn’t you have been aware of it? It’s not that big a flat.”
“Oh.”
“What’s that you’re writing?” She peered over his shoulder at the laptop screen.
“Oh, nothing, just a story on this old Anglo couple who committed suicide in Bandra last week.” Javed snapped his laptop shut and proceeded to eat his cake. “You know, this thing’s got me intrigued, I think I’ll write a little something on those lines… I need to research their lives.”
“Hmm.”
“Anyway, what’s up baby?”
“Nothing, was just thinking a bit.”
“About?”
“About us.”
Javed gave her a steady look. “And?”
“No, nothing too serious, don’t look so worried.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Are you planning to leave again, Noori?”
“No… oh no… it’s just… oh f***.” Noori held her head in her hands as if it were a football, and gave the floor a look full of angst.
“What is it, love?” Javed put his plate down and put his arm around her shoulder.
“It’s just that I’ve created this void in my head, and I can’t fill it up.”
Javed looked puzzled.
“You know, what I’ve told you a hundred times. Our lives, they’re so bloody clichéd.”
“Oh no, not again, Noori.”
“No I mean it... ”
“No, not that old line again, please, love.”
“But I can’t… it’s killing me…”
“Now you’re being a teenager or less.”
“No…”
“Okay listen. I have a plan. We’ll do away with this forever.”
“How?” Noori, who was gradually working herself into a fit, looked sceptical.
“We’ll have someone write a story on us. May be not on paper, but in their heads. In fact, with what I’ve got in mind, several people will be writing stories on us in their heads. May be they’ll do it together, discuss it, work in collaboration. By any means, they will try to reconstruct our lives, because our lives, to them, will be a great mystery.”
“What are you going on about?”
“We’ll do something that’ll make people think. Think about what happened, think about who did it, and why.”
“But…”
“And the stories people come up with cannot be quite as clichéd as the lives we live, can they? There. We’ll have interesting lives, unusual lives, if only in the heads of strangers. But you used to say yourself, back in college, that the lives we live in the imaginations of others are more real than our actual ones, remember?”
Noori was silent.
“So here’s my plan. We’ll take our memories – our closest, most precious memories, and put them in.. say…” – he looked around the room – “that old desk. I know it’s Abba’s precious old desk, but it’ll have to go to serve our purpose. We’ll put them in it, lock it up, and send it off to an auction house. We won’t leave a return address; they won’t be able to trace it back to us. And then they can find our memories for themselves and wonder where they came from and what they mean. Nice, no?” Javed glowed.
“But that’s stupid. Why Abba jaan’s good old desk?”
“Because it’s precious. And it’s a life memory. It’ll carry more weight in their minds. And it’s a goddamn auction house. You need something substantial to send. What else can we send?”
“It’ll be a big loss, that desk will.”
“Can’t help it. We need to fix our lives first, love.”
“Okay.”
He knew she was pleased that it was the desk that was going. She had nothing against it, or his Abba, but in her mind, the desk was a treasure. A treasure for him, a treasure for his family. And the fact that he was sacrificing it for her would heal her troubled mind somewhat. It would reassure her of his love. Javed felt pleased with himself. He could see the end of their problems in sight. The desk as a carrier of their troubles, taking them away from Noori and himself… Good gracious! I’m a real genius, he thought.
He got to work as Noori sat and watched.
“Where’s the ring? The Belgian one.”
“It’s in the locker, of course.”
“Give it to me.”
Noori gasped. “You’re sending off the ring? Are you crazy? That thing costs lakhs! And it’s my only wedding ring!”
“Our memories, hon. Our dearest memories go.” This was another stroke of pure genius on his part, he thought to himself. Taking what he knew was precious to her, not just what she knew was precious to him. Simplifying their lives. Javed gloated in the rationality of his idea. They needed to do something drastic to bring about a drastic change in their lives. In her head.
“Here. What next?”
“Umm…something from our holidays. What about the feather?”
“The one from Jaipur?”
“Yes.”
They had gone to Rajasthan on their honeymoon, and that was when he had given her a lovely long gleaming feather from a peacock’s tail. She found it for him, and it joined the ring in the old desk’s stiff drawer. This was followed by a seashell Javed had found on Chowpatty Beach, and had had made into a key-ring, with the key to the first flat they had ever rented together attached to it.
“Now, darling, a lock of your lovely hair.”
Noori obliged. She was feeling decidedly flattered by now. She got out a pair of scissors and snipped. A long gleaming black curl fell into the drawer as she bent over it.
To top it all off, Javed threw in a little wad of Singaporean money, coming to roughly fifty dollars, which had been left over from a trip they had made after a particularly lucrative month. It had been a fine two weeks in the island nation for them, something they had known they would cherish for years to come. They hated to admit it, but it had been the last time they’d been truly happy together.
Under the name of Harish Manjrekar, Javed called an auction house he had located at the other end of town, and told them that he was shifting from his old bungalow on Malabar Hill to a new flat in Bandra, and wanted to clear away some old ancestral furniture before the move. He wanted to send an ornate old oak desk, which had been in his family for over a hundred years, to them. The man at the other end did not ask too many questions, and readily agreed. He could do with a solid old oak desk. Javed sighed with quiet relief. The conversation was short and quick.
The next day, Javed paid the owner of a matador who lived in the vicinity as handsomely as he could, and packed off the Peshwa’s desk to the auction house he had called. When the matador was out of sight, Javed went upstairs and told Noori triumphantly that the thing was done.
********************
They were on holiday. Javed had decided - as he had begun deciding things of late – that time away together from life in the city would be good for Noori and their ailing relationship. So they had chosen a little town in the Western Himalayas, with a nice little valley on one side of it and a couple of decent hotels overlooking the valley. It wasn’t much, but it would do. And it was all they could afford that month.
Noori looked out the window of their room. A gold-laced, iced range of mountain peaks met her gaze.
“I must say, the view’s damn good at this place.”
“Yeah, we’ve got our money’s worth alright.”
“Uff, it always comes down to the money for you.”
Javed smiled. He was the more monetary-minded of the two. But could he help it? She was never one for looking after their finances. He earned, he kept track. It was alright. That’s how things worked out between people anyway. Javed felt benevolent as he joined her at the window.
“So what are we going to do today, hmm?”
“What about a helicopter ride?”
“A helicopter ride?”
“Yeah, there’s a little helicopter pad somewhere on one of the nearby hills... I was thinking, we could take a jeep there and take a short ride. It’s a grand and a half per hour. What about it, huh?”
“An hour should do it.”
“Great.” Javed rubbed his hands together.
What an organizer he was! Noori thought. He saw to everything.
After breakfast, they hired a jeep down to the pad, and engaged a helicopter. The pilot was a robust young man glowing with health and happiness, and the lilting mountain accent with which he spoke English was charming to hear. He made polite conversation, and Javed and Noori felt themselves a part of his contentment – the general contentment that seemed to pervade the mountain people and their lives. It was all good, Javed thought to himself.
The blades began to whirr, and the helicopter took off. The buzzing was loud, so Noori covered her ears with her hands as she had been wont to do even in the days of her uncle’s ‘copter. The air itself seemed to pulsate with the craft’s vibrations. For the first few minutes, Javed felt a little disconcerted. But as they rose steadily upwards and then soared over the valley towards the mountains, a strange feeling of what could only be described as glee overcame him. This was worth living for. Life had its dirty ways, but what of it?
“Look down, look down, Javed!” Noori cried excitedly.
Javed gasped. They were high up, and the valley lay directly below them. A long deep gash in the side of the mountain range, which truly seemed one body now. Shades of green and brown merged in shadow below. It was like a strange clay model that you would find at the office of the geological survey. Far down, thousands of feet beneath them, a slate river wound snake-like along the bottom of the valley.
“Sir, madam, look ahead,” said the pilot in his pleasant voice.
Directly ahead was the first, and lowest, of the mountain peaks. As the crow flies, it must have been no more than a dozen kilometres from where they hovered.
It was breathtaking. “Can’t we go any further?” Javed asked.
“Just a little further ahead, sir.”
“Okay.”
They flew for another ten minutes, swerving this way and that, but generally moving ahead. The closer the icy peaks got, the faster Javed’s heart beat.
“This is as far as we can go. Now we must turn back,” the pilot told them.
Javed sighed. It was beginning to be over already.
The helicopter swerved right, and began to make a wide u-turn over the valley. Javed leaned against the window, looking out.
Suddenly, he saw something out of the corner of his eye that made him turn sharply towards his right. What he saw amazed him.
Noori was leaning over the back of the pilot’s seat towards the cockpit area, and appeared to be trying to wrest the controls from the pilot. “Madamji, what are you doing!” the man cried. “Sir, control her!”
In the brief blur of seconds that followed, Javed flung himself on Noori and tried to hoist her off the man. She put up a violent struggle, and the pilot, in his attempt to free himself of the crazy woman, let go of the controls.
“What are you doing, Noori?” Javed screamed in the middle of the chaos.
“Making sure the desk can’t be traced back. Let’s just live in their heads now.”
In the tumult, none of them noticed as the helicopter slowly began to catapult downwards.
***The End***
Monday, October 04, 2010
Some Admin: Marks So Far
Also: big reminder. You will have to present an ADDITIONAL FINAL STORY at the end of term. This is not part of internals, but of the end sem. It should be at least a thousand words, and at the most two thousand. I've just found out that classes end on the 5th of November, and we reopen on the 24th, so we have just ten days to finish up and present. Today we'll discuss the final stories.
Amrita Kar 7
Arijit Sett 7
Arnab Chakraborty 5
Debjanee Chakrabarti 5 + 7
Pramita Ray 4
Aparna Chaudhuri 8 + 9
Nibedita Sen 8
Zeeshan Islam 9
Rajdeep Pal 6 + 7
Soumi Sarkar 6
Ananya Adhikari 5
Debalina Chowdhury 4.5
Anurima Sen 8
Debopama Das Gupta 6.5 + 7
Diya Sinha 7
Ahona Panda 8.5 + 9
Shamim Akhtar Molla 8 + 5
Antoreep Sengupta
Malini Chakraborty
Ishan Dasgupta 8 + 8
Roopkatha Banerjee 4.5 + 4
Sorry about the weird formatting, but I can't remember the html code for tables.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Prisoner
There’s no way of sounding less like a dumb Harlem rapper. Except by going slower and slower and slower. And still the words fall out of him, looser, less insistent, but still there. He sinks lower. In his bed, the mattress stings with sweat. The air. The air. He can still smell yesterday’s breath on it, and tomorrow’s. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. The only Shakespeare he ever learnt, except sing sorrow sorrow. But good win out in the end – no, that was Greek. Some thousand years have passed since then. This week, the counselor talked of parole. That’s all they talk about in this strange hole. How small the chance of getting out is if you break a warder’s arm, an inmate’s nose, a rule. You’re never leaving then – so play it cool. No fags. No speed. No sex. No talking! Eat the words. Gag on them. Retch. Keep walking, keep walking, just look straight and keep walking. That’s enough out of you, Hickin. Maloney quit. And keep your dick in. You, keep walking.
Every day the walls but then the walls draw closer every day. I can remember they were three feet apart last year, the year before that five. Unless this year it falls – the ceiling – it’ll have to be the walls. The wall, the walls will have me by September. This is the worst, the silence. Clots of sound burst in my head and bleed into the brain. There are no thoughts, and far too little time to separate sound, echo, syllable, rhyme -- all you feel is thought, think only pain. The walls will have it all, crush, flatten, grind the blind and groping fingers of the mind – right now, they’ve made a box around my head. This cell is used to fitting round the dead. My brain will be preserved in peeling plaster. Enduring fossil. Let the rest die faster.
Aparna Chaudhuri
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Sorry, Have to Postpone Again
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Offsite Exercise to be on Thursday
The Prisoner
The metal felt different. The narrow bars, as I wrapped my hands around them, emanated an unknown quantity. This once, I was scared to hold on. The bright bulb before me never erred.
The steady, strong light hit my eyes again and again. My vision wavered; quite unlike ever before. My grip tightened; the rough iron flaked lightly. The index finger reached out involuntarily. This once, there was nothing to pull.
--
The river washed my feet. The dark waters swirled under the dim moonlight. The wet corpse turned around slowly, finally pulled under by the tide. Her death brought back life to me after these many years of living in shame.
Every time those men - who she had touched untowardly - walked by, I drifted back to my youth. Those years of foreboding and pain, which I lived through to merely have her as my own, inevitably returned with forceful agony. I couldn’t flinch anymore. But she wouldn’t listen. She had to go.
--
The light went off. Slow scraping noises, maybe of mice rummaging for scraps of that meager supper, inundated the narrow corridor. Voracious snores began their nightly crescendo. The regular rhythm began.
But I held on. The touch of cold metal reverberated through my body. My knees weakened, even as my spine stood straight. I had been through his before, but never in a confined space. The walls, it seemed, drew closer. The myriad stains left by numerous inmates taunted me. I had become a criminal.
--
I hadn’t thought of it when the night began. After an entire day of ensuring the minister got from a point to another, I was on the edge. It had been a particularly bad day. The minister was irked, and the traffic erratic. As a bodyguard, I had the job to do. My ward had reached home safe.
She had strutted in late, as usual. This time, though, with a paramour at her arms. I wasn’t supposed to be back this soon, but governmental plans tend to be fluid. He ran out at first sight. She had to remain. I had barely removed my holster.
--
The darkness begun to engulf me; I had to turn. The narrow window above my bed led out that sliver of light. I staggered ahead, hoping to draw my mind out of the vortex of memories, on to the bed. Sleep evaded me. I was alone.
The linen was sparse, with no mattress. The coir rope of the bed dug into my back. I had welts already; the interrogators had refused to be kind. My better half had been much more popular than I had ever thought.
--
She had smiled, almost without remorse. I had sat very, very still as she drew closer. That chiffon blew gently off her shoulder. She held my face; her hands grasping my rough cheek. Deliberately, her spine curved, till her mouth reached my ears. “I am sorry,” she whispered.
--
I looked down at my palm. My destiny had been written, I suppose. But I will die without remorse. Unlike her.
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Through a Glass, Darkly
Word Prompt: Prisoner
Word Count: Greatly in excess of the prescribed limit.
---
Monidipa Mondal
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Trapped
My flat oval body has gotten flatter and my lustrous brown coat has lost its shine. He keeps shoving paper from under the glass. I am not a cow. And just because our kind has survived through the dinosaur age, does not mean that we do not have certain standards. You are possibly wondering what in luscious-pineapple’s name was I doing there. Ante likes her cheese puffs. And I like Ante’s behind. While we were really on our way next door I noticed, on the way, this man had the puffs and I, like a fool in love, thought I could get a bit of it for her. Sigh, I miss Ante and I miss the late night parties behind the gas cylinders. Someone would always get high on the gas.
None of my mates visit, not because I want vengeance (we really are the cool sort). If only the man would treat me with some respect and not keep abusing his computer and snoring in front of the TV, I think we’d really get along. My whole being aches, I keep trying to stretch my wings but I’m afraid I might bang into the glass. I might as well start seeing the silver lining through the muck and the filth (it’s not even the kind I like in the dark wet alleys).
I wonder if I’ll be immortalised in stories, the one that bore it all with his antennae held high, like Villey who married a rat. Yeah, it’s not so bad after all. I may even have my favourite rotten cabbage named after me. I guess we are both trapped in a way. Difference is he can’t help it.
-Amrita Kar, UG III
Bloody Hell
I feel blind. I haven’t seen sunlight in a very long time. How long, I can’t tell. I can’t tell one day from the other. According to my sense of time, I must be about 500 years old by now. Every passing minute feels nothing less than an hour. It feels like I am on a bad trip of DMT. My lungs feel contracted and my heart feels like it has stopped beating. I have lost all sense of touch. Being strapped and tied to a place for so long has rendered me immobile. My speech is fast losing coherency. All I can utter are half-formed words and unfinished sentences when he visits me.
I don’t remember how I got here. All I remember was waking up in this wet, damp room, bound to the iron pipes that run along a side of the wall, with him breathing so unimaginably close to my face that I could hardly distinguish mine from his. Then, there were his hands, rough and coarse, and him, climbing onto me like children on mango trees during the summer. I remember crying out for help, shrieking and shouting until my voice cracked, knowing, however, that there was no one who could hear me. No one, other than that man whose face I shall never know. All that my memory shall ever hold of him will be his hands, groping and scratching at my naked body, and his cold, mirthless laughter that drowned the sound of my useless protests.
I hardly protest anymore. He feeds me in what seems like a few hours before his visit. He probably wants to make sure I have the strength to scream and shout and make him feel powerful. It would hardly be pleasurable to torture the lifeless woman that I otherwise am. Nonetheless, the food hardly gives me the power to protest. All I can maintain is that steady stream of tears every time he violates me. I fear that they are fast drying up.
I think there is another cell near mine. I can hear his thundering footsteps and the cries of a woman who must be as old, or as young, as I am. I can hear them---that mirthless, maniacal laughter interspersed with cries of help that once used to be mine. I can hear them as I fall in and out of consciousness. I am tired. I just want to sleep.
Soumi Sarkar
UG III
The Flight
If one took a look at the Ray mansion from outside while passing by, one would no more be able to make out that it was still home to someone alive and breathing. What once used to be home to almost the entire Ray family tree, and used to buzz all day long with glimmering lights and dangling conversations, had now gone eerily quiet. The days of opulence had passed, and those members of the family who were still alive had branched out in diverse directions.The youngest son of the Rays, Sunirmal, the legal owner of the household, was now a citizen of Delhi, and it did not look like he was ever going to come back. Deenobondhu, the aged housekeeper of the Ray mansion, wondered why Chhotobabu(Sunirmal) still had not sold the house off. Of course, now that there was hardly anyone whom Deenobondhu had to be at the beck and call off, there was not much work to complain about. But dusting the mansion on a regular basis with his eyesight failing him gradually, was still a tough ask. There was not much to do otherwise. And it was precisely this loneliness that had now started to play on Deenobondhu’s mind. What particularly bothered him was that there was no one to talk to. No one other than Jack, the pet Moluccan Cockatoo of Chhotobabu , who had managed to outlive all the other pets of the Ray household.
Jack had joined the Rays about fifty years back along with Jill, his partner, as a gift for Dadababu and Boudidimoni(Sunirmal’s parents) from someone, on the occasion of their tenth marriage anniversary. Jill had fallen prey to Chhotobabu’s air-rifle shooting practice about ten years down the line, when it was forced to take flight, only to be shot down when the blue haze seemed to be embracing it with open arms. Jack had managed to live on somehow, having defeated bouts of herpes attacks during the course of time, and of course, loneliness. Or so it had seemed for a while, till Jack started becoming quieter gradually to the point that he had stopped screaming and screeching for almost the past ten years. With its peachy glow almost having worn out and half its plumage lost, Jack now sat quietly with its head lodged between its wings in a corner of the cage. He left most of the food untouched these days, but drank occasionally from the sliced coconut shell which has been the makeshift water holder for many years now.
Deenobondhu felt bad. Jack had not only witnessed his wife’s murder which was not an accountable crime anyhow, but had also been a victim of gross neglect, much like Deenobondhu himself. In a way, he felt tied to the bird through some kind of an invisible bond, which was far stronger than those that he had shared with the members of the Ray family, if at all. It would not only feel great to be able to set the bird free, but it would also mean freedom for himself in a way. One fine morning, Deenobondhu thus decided to do the needful.
The cage door was mossy and rusty, and it took a while before Deenobondhu could make any headway with the door lock. Surprised, Jack put its head out from under its wings, and waited for the blurry vision to settle down before he could make out that it was Deenobondhu waiting for him with the cage door open, egging him on to take flight and get lost in the blue. Deenobondhu waited anxiously for the moment when Jack would ruffle his own feathers, squawk and then start walking after the initial stutter. He had dreamed of this moment for a long time, but had never dared to do what was necessary even after people of the household had left the house forever, with no one bothering to take Jack’s responsibility. And now the time had come.
Jack cocked its head around, lifted the right leg and then hopped down from the stand.
One could see two kites flying high up in the sky, each trying to snap at the other. Their respective strings had gotten themselves entangled, and were now engaged in a battle of supremacy, which ultimately resulted in one of the strings being cut. Screams of “Bhokatta!” filled the air.
Jack dipped its beaks in the sliced coconut shell beside the cage door, silently walked back towards the stand, hopped up on it again, sheltered his head under the wings and closed its eyes.
Antoreep SenGupta
PG II
A More Conventional Prisoner
(45) A Day in the Life
…shopping, sex, kids, more work…and falling, falling, dying useless…
Woke up. Yawned and stretched, like they do on T.V. Took a minute to collect myself. Got out of bed and ran into the bathroom, enjoying a brief flash of early morning clarity. Got spaced out again while brushing, but habit kept my hand going.
I don’t dream anymore. Or I do, and don’t remember.
I smile, really wide, and check myself out in the mirror. There’s foam all over my mouth and a red toothbrush sticking out at an odd angle from a frothy white mountain of it. The stupid look on my face amuses me, and that’s my laugh for the day.
I spit, gargle, rinse, shave and shower, not thinking a thing.
I see one hand moving constantly – this is the honest one. It makes no bones about its intentions, moving smoothly and rhythmically from number to number. The others pretend – they trick you with their stillness, then turn when you’re not looking. That’s your life slipping away in slow motion, or at least what looks like slow motion.
How long is one second? Time passes faster or slower depending on what I’m doing, so, really, how long IS one second? If you add up enough, does that mean you’ve lived a long life? What if it all went by really, really fast? Or…
I look up at the clock, realizing I am late. I dry myself, hastily throw on my uniform (the tie gives me trouble), and grabbing a slice of bread, rush out onto the street.
I light up - the first, and last, for a long time - and wait for the bus. It hits me – the faint, pleasant dizziness strangely clearing my head.
…too long…too long…why do I wait?
The 45 rolls into view, and already I see people hanging out at weird angles to the ground. Office-time, we call it. I grab onto the support bar and pull myself alongside and onto the bus in one swift movement, the driver not deeming it necessary to stop or even slow down enough for me to get on without having to perform these acrobatics. The city. It happens. I don’t even think about it anymore.
We’re all acrobats. Performing monkeys. Population Trash-Compacted Public Transport Zombies.
I find myself some space to stand, only half-drowning in the crushing sea of humanity. It’s cramped. It’s dirty. It smells. But I withdraw, go into my quiet place. I’ve learnt to ignore these things.
You’d be surprised what you can learn to ignore.
I am not real. And this bus is not real to me.
I have gone away chasing dreams and rainbows.
Once I was a child, was free. And I wanted to grow up.
Once I was an addict, was lost to the world. And I wanted to quit.
Once I ran away, had the sky for my roof, the whole world to play in. And I wanted to go home.
Once, I used to dream.
I still dream. I still remember what it’s like to want to be free.
I do not remember dreams, because it hurts to. It hurts to live, just live, knowing there’s so much else you could be doing. The truth is I’m afraid. Scared enough of dying that just living seems like a good idea.
You cannot stop dreaming. So I choose to forget.
There are no rainbows left to chase. I wake up to work, money, worry…
My stop. I jump off the bus, and, landing almost perfectly, rush to work.
Arijit Sett, UG III
A Few Tips
Now there're a few things I need to mention. I've already said this in class but I guess I should make a record of it.
Sorry to introduce a note of the prosaic into the proceedings, but sigh.
1. People sending by email, please give your file a sensible name. Include your name and the name of the exercise. Currently I have about twenty files on my computer all called "wip story" "short story" or "story". Very often opening file properties yields the interesting information that the file has been created by "user". I fully understand if you want to remain anonymous, but in that case you will have to forgo the needless luxury of marks.
2. Do not put space or hard enters between paragraphs. This is only pardonable in a business letter. When did you last read a novel that had space between the paragraphs? Indent paragraphs and put dialogue on a new line. You know how this is done, you've been looking at it since you learned to read.
3. No word art, graphics or jumping jelly beans. Just the text please. Unless its a graphic story.
4. Times new roman 12 point if possible, or possibly Arial or Tahoma if you don't like Times. Do not send, for eg, in some freeware font called Gothick Grrrls or Slubberdegullion.
The Prisoner
The Amazon was the last to go. We were already creating an Official Documentary about how the Coral Reef was still intact, and that the Down Underners were actually being lied to by some renegade scientists in the area. The scientists are always the first to be blamed, which is what they did to me after the Amazon was lost. That was my last hope, and I fought with all my might. Of course, the Central Commission does not tolerate fights. But I was too valuable to lose, so they seduced me with promises of Borneo and the thick jungles of India. I knew they were lying, but I wanted so desperately to believe them that I went along for a while.
Even the Central Commission lost patience with me when I started pushing for population control, and sent report after report against the slaughtering of the last of the animals. They made another Official Documentary, and then the Public condemned me. I was stripped of my title, but by then I didn't want to be one of their Doctors anyway.
This cell has thin walls. They know I won't try to escape even in my wildest dreams, because they call me insane, but this building is the only piece of sanity left on the whole planet. We talk to each other at breakfast, and through the walls, and at night. The guards laugh at us. They're all leaving soon. It's finished, and now they're following my plan. Gaia is dangerous and unknown, but reports of lush and gorgeous vegetation have been tantalizing the minds of everyone who owns a TV – as everyone must.
The last of them must be leaving now. The whole operation took less than a week. They're abandoning us, the Unwanteds, on the planet. We would only be a burden and a nuisance on the spaceship.
I look up at the humongous metal cage in the sky. The man who designed it lives in the cell next door. I can hear him walking in now, slowly, with the others. We all smile broadly at the little green tendrils in one corner of my cell only we, out of the millions, could have had the skill to grow and nurture.
Shreya
UG III
Monday, August 30, 2010
Untitled
I was a washed-up film-maker on a comeback trail, with loneliness by my side. I had tried my hand at many odd jobs, but nothing really worked. Every girl I loved would leave me within a month: film-making was my only hope, everything else seemed so meaningless. I made forty films within a couple of years, all in my head. And now I wanted to direct a movie in real life. Real life. It had lost all it's significance: there was nothing called 'reality' in my life. The indifference of producers, the snobbery of reputed directors and the ignominions mockery of aspiring colleagues were dreams which would soon disappear. But nothing changed: I was trapped in my dreams by my reality.
It's a funny thing about life: no matter how desperate you are, there's always a right or wrong to choose: conscience is the most paradoxical realm in the human mind. I used to walk in the rain, but still returned with blood-stains on my shirt. My semi-automatic had the power to change my reality, and made me feel like a king in the lonely city-streets where beggars and criminals shared equal space during the night. The rich folks were the only victims. We were responsilble for our lives for a few hours in the dark; we always slept during the day, and committed crime during the most silent hours of night. It was a compulsion initially, but slowly became an addiction. Violence is the greatest addiction in life; we ruled the streets of violence for almost a year before getting caught. Everything that followed was merely an epilogue to a violent film.
This prison cell has protected me from alienation, but the violent impulses still remain: the mortifications on my body testify the fact. Anger billows up, and gushes out from the veins: sometimes I feel the urge of slashing them. But I have a long life to live.
Rajdeep Pal
The Prisoner
28 Longfield Road
Basildon
Essex CM22 7DY
Tel 0165 345272
E-mail Swiftangela567@yahoo.co.uk
Driving licence Full, clean
Education:
2002 - 2005 BA Geography, Degree awarded 2.1, University of Exeter
Subjects studied: Countryside planning, Sustainable Agriculture; Gender issues; Tourism.
Skills developed: excellent written and oral communication; research, interpretation and presentation; statistical analysis.
Worked well on my own and as part of a team for tutorial work; set my own deadlines and managed my time effectively under pressure, successfully completed a 10,000 word dissertation.
1994 - 2001 Basildon High School
A level: Geography (A), Business Studies (A), Biology (C),
9 GCSEs grade A* to C, including Maths and English
Employment History:
Summer 2001 Retail assistant, Debenhams, Basildon
• Worked in Children’s merchandise section, responsible for assisting customers and placing orders to replenish stock
• Developed relevant subject knowledge in order to deal with customer enquiries in person and by telephone.
September 2001 to April 2005 Waitress, Cuthbert’s Restaurant
• Worked under pressure in a fast moving and often stressful environment.
• Developed excellent interpersonal skills dealing with customers and other members of staff.
• Have successfully held the job down during University Holidays balancing a heavy workload and ensuring a reliable income.
Summer 2002 Receptionist, Whittakers Solicitors, Basildon
• Developed excellent switchboard and communication skills
• Dealt with client enquiries.
• Worked as part of a team in this hectic practise
September 2005 to March 2006 Junior Assistant Manager,The Fortune Inn, Basildon
• Successfully assisted the management in a busy, popular English pub
• Developed excellent people skills and acquired new skills including end of day cash up, cellar management and closing of the premises at night
• The position also involved organization of staff rota and stock management.
Positions of responsibility:
• Manger of inter-mural rounders team at university, this position involved insuring a full team every week, registering results, creating a kit and organizing social events.
• Key member of the Bracton Law Society hockey team
• Volunteer for Community Action; this involved visiting an elderly couple on a weekly basis.
• Head Girl, 2000 to 2001.
• Captain of school hockey and netball teams between 1998-2001
Other skills:
• Proficient in Microsoft Office, including Word, Excel and Access.
• Confident with various statistical packages including, Arc map and G
• Familiar with the basics of HTML.
• Succeed in completing graphics modules outside Geography, utilizing Corel 8
• Basic understanding of French
Interests:
• Enjoy team sports such as Netball and hockey, also a frequent visitor to the gym and aerobics classes.
References:
Dr S. Williams
School of Geography
University of Exeter
Exeter EX4 4QJ
S.D.Williams@exeter.ac.uk
Maria Fortescue
The Fortune Inn
Basildon
Essex CM21 5YH
01245 56578
The Witness
At night I dreamt of a patch of dry land, some sunshine, and maybe a pair of warm shoes. Working in the mines was unbearable during the winters; the chill seeped into our skin and rattled our bones. A few of us looked about for opportunities to wound ourselves- not dangerously, but enough to guarantee us some rest. As you know, every regime has its loopholes. It was then that I had severed my thumb; a blow that had been a trifle too hard.
One day, J. sought me out and offered to share a cigarette. I knew that he had sacrificed his share of bread for this singularly rare luxury. Good old J. with his sparkling teeth, spotless hands, and his weakness for the better things in life. He told me that the human spirit was far too resilient to die and then he added, but here there are only enemies or rivals, and you can die if you don’t become a witness. A witness was necessarily a survivor and I survived because I believed in miracles. Yet, there was the task of remembering, and it became my sole concern, my only vocation. Even though one day started to resemble the other, I adamantly resolved to remember. None but the prisoners felt the pain and the immediacy of the war; those outside had been served anesthetics it seemed. The kingdom was gently erasing public memory and recollection became the prisoner’s legacy.
I returned home once the war was over; yet returning is never the same as recovering. Other survivors talked about guilt and responsibility, but I never felt anything other than the need to confess and be absolved. The miracle I was waiting for had happened, but I became more confined than ever before.
I am reminded of a certain poem whenever I look at the moon. No, not the one that talks about shivering stars in a fractured sky. In this poem, a man stands near his window looking at the city, at the moon, unable to escape the prison of his apartment, his body, and his mind.
There’s the moon
in my room’s window.
I balance it on my thumb
and try to flip it over.
It does not turn
but still, my thumb
is not broken.
Perhaps the night bothers him, and the moon is but a coin. I, too, am trapped- but my thumb is broken.
(The lines quoted are from a poem by Leonard Cohen, published in The Spice-Box of Earth).