Comment Away!!

While I do appreciate most of you readers, I hope you will not take any offense to what am going to write. I hope that you would take it in the right sense… 

The reason behind a blog could be a personal feeling or well, an impersonal discussion. If it’s going to be public, then I am inviting comments on the same.

Comments should be given, thoughts expressed. And I mean from you, dear reader (I hope, who will stay) … So bring them on, your Comments, your Curses and well, bring on the love :)

 

And not on FB or Twitter, or whatever else the sites used to publicise the blog. A blog has a comments section wherein you must comment… So, I hope you do… because I’d hate to lose most of you and would love to see the comments whether you like what you read or not…

A Little 'Snore'mpathy!!

This is for all those people who do not snore. I am convinced that snoring is very similar to passive smoking. The passive snorer is worse off than the active one. While the smoker smokes, he knows he’s going to die anyway, gives a damn and continues to billow wisps of smoke like a chimney, blissfully unaware of the person who breathes in passively. It’s in your face, nose, everywhere. Same with snorers. They snore on blissfully unaware of the fact that they make enough noise to keep up everyone in the house. They never realize how loud they actually are and never understand how they are not as rhythmic as they think.

Snorers are of different types. There are the soft snorers, who aren’t so bad, they just breathe louder than normal people, and I can live with that. Then there are the loud snorers and then the ones who choose between soft and loud, depending on ‘your’ level of sleep, mind you. Then there are the snorers who snore at different levels, loud, soft, long, short, abrupt, and expectant. Most importantly, there are the snorers in denial. They will not accept that they snore. NO NO NO!! They believe that they sleep so lightly that they will wake up if they snore themselves. It’s a good excuse…

I believe after many years of listening to snoring, that snorers are great sleep conversationalists. They are conversing, while they sleep. When it’s a short snore, it’s like asking a question. This snore can be equalled to a ‘huh?’ When it’s an abrupt snore, it shows surprise like ‘ha!!’ Then there is happiness in the form a loud long, long snore, then the settling snore, where the sleeper is at peace, with his ceaseless, rhythmic snoring.

Coming from a family of snorers, I did not realize how bad everyone was until; I travelled with them, all together in an AC compartment of a train. Now, you feel cosy and nice, wrapped in your blanket looking forward to a blissful sleep ahead. Alas, this thought is short-lived despite these compartments being so quiet, till all the uncles settle in for the night. Then the loud one, the abrupt one, they all seem to have a unique style. Forget the sleep, get a book. Can you read? Really? Fat chance!! It’s so distracting you have to put the book down to listen.

Our train was late and we expected to reach much later in the day, but surprisingly it reached early. The secret being that was because the train driver never slept, because he has to listen to the snoring! So, all the passengers should have given credit to my family but alas, none can understand the effort it takes to snore.

I stayed up too, to observe the various tones, rhymes and the poetry in motion, though I think many wives would find it a tad boring since they are entertained in this fashion every night. Maybe the family could put together a music album. Anyway, now I know why all my aunts have dark circles, it’s not because they are worrying about how we cousins turned out, but their husbands’ effective snoring.

So cheers to you all, my uncles who dare their wives’ glares and everybody else’s for a fitful night of sleep. A talent yet unrecognized, may you be popular!! In another continent, I hope.

Might get killed... so well...ahem...

The 'Foot in the Cycle' Syndrome??

When I was a kid, I remember all the time I would let my imagination get the better of me. Oh boy, what a time it was! It takes one away. It does have the habit. It would wrap me up and pull me into my dreams. I had heard of the foot in the mouth syndrome, but I had problems with the foot in the cycle syndrome.

Once, I was headed for school. I was barely 5, and I had insisted that I sit at the back of the bicycle. In spite of the fact that a classy red seat was put in the front for me... 

The poor chap, who used to ride and put me down at school each day, was not too keen. But I insisted, and he let me ride at the back. 

And then imagination took over. I was gone. There I sat enjoying the bike ride, as we rode past my dad’s office, and I had slipped into my dream… And then, just outta the blue, I felt something poking at the back of my foot.

I looked down at it, and was just about to forget all about it, since my excellent imagination was taking me away, when I noticed that my foot had gone into the spokes of the bicycle tyre.

I burst out crying and then the guy who was riding the bike decided to stop it. I cried and cried enough to have everybody on the road surround the bike. The whole incident took about 2 minutes.

I thought that the confusion I created was enough to take me back home. But no, that was not the biker’s plan of action. He took me to my school. I was planning to read comics and probably even play a game… but no, that wasn’t the biker’s plan now, was it??

He had to take me to school, and I watched the teachers crowd around me and quickly bandage my foot. Rather well, I must say... So, there I was back in the crummy school, when I had planned an afternoon off. 

Anyway, there ends my story of my imagination, which did take me away… and kept doing it for many years to come. 

I cannot tell you the number of times I had planned my imagination, what I would think of, how it would take place, and what would be the end of it. All planned and ready, during all the boring times in class, at functions and during lectures. Imagination was my first love.

 

And that was how Nap Time Adventures came about. It is called Nap Time because that is exactly the time I had used for them… the time between 1pm and 3 pm. But I had never known that it would end up as a book. All those years of imagination... It’s hard work too, because this book definitely isn’t the end of my imagination...

Write soon but Edit sooner!!

Writing a children’s book turned out to be one of the most interesting things that I have ever done. But the editing, the never-ending editing is taking forever. Firstly, it never lets you have a nap in peace. That’s funny because that’s what my book is called. ‘The Nap Time Adventures’.

You are always thinking of how the story must end, can end or could end. If you notice my confusion, it could give you an idea, of how my story editing went. I loved the writing process. An idea came and I sat with it and the story flowed. Words and grammar etched in my mind, they were. It seemed so simple.

But then, my story writing was not the end. The editing seemed to take longer. It took forever. I noticed enough errors, to make me want to stop writing. Structural and grammatical were they!! A story built on certain ideas, especially when it is a child’s imagination that one has to write about. It is amazing the things I thought of, my imagination seemed to have no bounds, whatsoever then…

It seemed to make sense then, why was it not making the same sense now? As a child, I would walk across the paths barefoot, but now I cannot seem to take a step, afraid I am of the rough rocks and thorns.

As a child, I did not mind the wounds I came home with. But now, I seem to… I had no sense of time, or feeling or mood! I was liberated every single day. I would not feel cold or hot, then. Now, the summer heat never seems to stop and the air conditioner gets too chilly. 

But right now, I feel the need to have the same sense of feeling I did, then… Non-Feeling… Because I feel that kind of a non-feeling is necessary when I edit. No attachment, no fondness. Nothing but plain, cold non – feeling. 

Writing and editing are inseparable. If you write, perhaps it would make more sense if you could edit it within a day or two. Or you might just get stuck, thinking … some more… and more.

And sometimes that will not make any sense. Do I make any sense now?? :)

Next Time: Why Nap Time Adventures??