Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Wish i could weave the words

I just finished reading "The inheritance of loss"... a bit overwhelmed; the heart and mind are abuzz with thoughts and visuals from the book . I have often envied this gift in people; the gift of weaving words so effortlessly... something that i so want to possess and which evades me. You know words which have a life of their own, they breathe, conjure images in your mind so vivid, you would feel you are in the midst of all that is unfolding between your eyes, in your mind.

Its as if good writers are good psychiatrists as well... how they would effortlessly read the human mind and its sea of thoughts, emotions and contradictions and then they would pick and choose the right ones and string them up together to create such beautiful and compelling stories. With words that are so damn powerful; unashamed, violent, ugly, brutally truthful, ripping the ugly face of nature and humankind open with all its innards out, shorn of all skin and cover, weak, decieving.... creating images of immense beauty, nature, sensitivity, kindness, love, hate and passion that can build and destroy lives and countries... i could almost hear the frogs croaking, the gurgle of the Teesta and maybe the flutter of the butterfly wings patched yellow and orange for a fleeting second.... or maybe i am just a very visual person... I even think in images most of the time while normally one would think in a particular language.

I have been part of the mountain life, but it was so long back that there are no immediate and vivid memories left... except for some. Everytime i go back home, i revisit the tiny black and white pictures from my childhood to keep the memories from fading away... yet some of the words mentioned in the book sound familiar and i felt a connection; teesta, kalimpong, baku, lepcha... I think my ma-in-law and my parents will have a stronger connect with the book since a significant part of their lives were spent in Darjeeling, tea-gardens and the northeast...

Anyway, tomorrow is another day and i am glad i am back to my reading rituals :)) a short break and then the faint fragrance of the bookshop that i so love awaits me...

g'nite!

And i screwed up the comments thing for the nth time... finally abandoned haloscan and came back home to blogger comments and in the bargain lost all my previous comments :(