People
intrigue and fascinate me. My conviction is that everybody is
essentially trying hard to live a life as best as they can, and
therefore along the way, they acquire traits and habits, some that are
viewed as positive/good and some that are viewed as negative/bad. But
there are always reasons for those “good” and “bad” traits. And I’m
drawn to those reasons and the ways in which people mutate or evolve
because of them. For a while now, my mind has been jostling with
caricatures of interesting personality types, because I can now begin to
see overarching commonalities and patterns across categories of people
who go through similar experiences. As a creative writing exercise, I'm attempting to write descriptions and stories of these characters. These
characters are a mixture of fact and fiction, not representing any one
particular individual, but a persona of characters. Any direct allusion
to any living individual is purely coincidental, but since the stories
are born from reality, they will probably remind us of someone in our
lives. This exercise is to mainly to let out some of my thoughts and to
truly understand what it takes to write a story and develop a fictional
character rooting from reality.
More
than a year ago, I started this exercise/experiment and have been
slowly writing once every few months, whenever inspiration strikes. And then I forgot about
it until I was clearing out a folder today, and saw this untitled
document. One of my kind and generous friends keeps insisting that I
write a book someday. I tell him that I have a long, long way to go and
I’m nowhere close. But he is consistently encouraging and reminds me
that I have to start somewhere, and be ready to make mistakes. So, I am
sharing this little tidbit, bravely. Thanks to you, Karthik!
My
exercise is to focus and write on just one character’s journey through
life. It’s not a story, just a character sketch, that is seemingly long
and endless, now that I have begun writing. Yes, there is redundancy and need for editing, so please feel free to give me feedback for improvement!
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The Story of Krishna
(Inspired from Flowers for Algernon,
a deeply touching book that makes me cry just thinking about it. And
inspired from parent-child relationships I have seen over the years)
Krishna
was born on a sweltering summer’s day. At his moment of arrival, his
grandmother had received him with more relief than any other emotion
akin to joy, because she had been panicking if her daughter could make
it through much more of her labor. When the old woman's thoughts were
wrung with anxiety on whether to call the
neighbors for help, and if her daughter could endure a ride on a
bullock cart to the only hospital situated at the outskirts of their
village, Krishna had miraculously made an entrance. The old woman first
checked on her gasping, but alive daughter, and then fixed her gaze on
the small infant in her hands. It was a boy, and for this the old woman
fervently thanked Lord Krishna. Her daughter had delivered her first
born child, that too a son! Oh how much more relief could she bear. It
was only when the old woman hobbled to her feet to show the child to her
daughter did she realize how quiet the child was. Her panic came
rushing back, coursing through her body and pounding on her feeble
heart. She swayed in a black haze of dizzying shock. She careened
unsteadily with the child and cried, “Why is he not crying?!” Although
she had given birth to 7 children in this very room, and had been the
midwife to countless women in her village, her emotions as a grandmother
holding her divinely still grandson took over and erased every last
thought of hers on how to revive the child or do anything. As Krishna’s
mom began to wail in alarm, his terrified grandmother shouted her
anguish to the maid, hoping she remembered how to help the beautiful
child lying in her hands. Just as the maid rushed in to take the child,
Krishna let out his first cry. It wasn’t a piercing scream of a child
announcing that he was alive and well, but a mellow coo, a gentle whine
like that of a little bird. All the women blinked and listened closely,
bringing the child close to their ears, and cried with relief and
happiness when Krishna continued to breathe and cry softly. And so, the
child was named Krishna, for his miraculous survival.
Krishna
was a beautiful child. He always wore a beatific smile on his face that
made him look even more beautiful and endearing. Although he was a
really small child, his features were sharp and alert. While nobody
called the child active, his eyes were bright and glowing. They closely
followed people and objects, betraying an infectious vivacity and pure
goodness of spirit. Krishna’s birth was often talked about in his
family. He was good-naturedly called a slow-crawler, because his birth
was slow and arduous, his first cry was slow and feeble, and even all
his milestones were slow in arriving. He sat up late, crawled late,
walked late, and uttered his first word only when he was 3. “Slow”
became an adjective that was constantly attached to Krishna.
His
father, a stern and domineering man with his own wounds and
insecurities, couldn’t stand his son being called “slow”. He treated it
as a personal affront. He fumed and raged from within and resolved that
he would mold and raise Krishna to be a successful and smart man who was
anything but “slow”. He assuaged himself by imagining the pride he
would feel when Krishna proves everyone wrong. With this fierce
resolution in place, he built a strict and ambitious regimen for
Krishna. Everything was planned for the child - from the time he wakes
up in the morning to the time he goes to bed - every hour was
meticulously and carefully planned so that Krishna didn’t have to waste
any minute doing something that would detract him from his goals. And
his goal, which was decided for him, was to become an engineer, no less.
So, at 5:00 AM every morning, 4 year old Krishna was dragged out of bed
despite his mother’s protests, to start his day. His face was splashed
with cold water to jolt him from his sleep, a toothbrush was thrust into
his mouth, and the child’s morning rituals thus began. He would then
sit next to his father and practice his writing and reading. Every time
he slumped on his little desk because his weary eyes closed, he would
feel the cool slap of the metal ruler on his leg, and he would snap up
awake, fearing his father’s anger. Though the fierce discipline in his
father’s heart thawed every so often, he reigned in his emotions and
tied them up tight. Rationality before emotion, he told himself. Krishna
needs to do all this to be successful and happy! He will thank me one
day, I am sure. And so, the father, a man of steel, consoled himself every time he faltered, and relied on rationalized justifications
whenever Krishna’s mom pleaded with him to relent.
Krishna
didn’t mind waking up early, didn’t mind staying indoors and peeping through the the metal grills of his
window to watch other children play in the yard, as long as he could get his father to crack a smile at him. The boy longed for his
father’s love and tried really hard to win his affection and approval.
Every day that passed, his father had nothing more to offer than rattle
off a list of attributes that Krishna lacked. It seemed to Krishna that
he was just a boy with an endless list of things that were wrong with
him. As an innocent 6 year old, Krishna repeated the list over and over in his
mind, and thought of going to one of those factories that his father
keeps talking about, and asking one of the smart engineers there to
replace his brain so that he could be as smart as the engineer himself.
That’s what engineers do - his father had told him. They build things
and make them move! They fix things that are not working, and they
replace parts of a machine to make it work better! Don’t you want to do
all those things?! Krishna couldn’t find it within him to nod, because
he was completely awestruck with what engineers could do! It’s like
being God! And how could he ever become a God?! Maybe the engineers
knew, he thought to himself. So, the first step was to meet one and
place a request to replace his brain or fix it, because he knew it
wasn’t working properly, and it was upsetting his father.
But
he needed money to fix his brain. Krishna knew that much. His father
reminded him of the value of money every day, especially on those days
when he playfully squirted a little too much toothpaste or accidentally
spilled some of his milk.
But where could he get the money?
To be Continued…
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I don't know when I will finish part 2, but hopefully sometime within the end of this year!
