I cry easily.

No, not the whingeing and the whining, victim-type of crying. And certainly not when things don’t go my way. More often than not I would rather tackle that ‘with a blow in the teeth of a wrong’ than cry.

I cry when I hear the National Anthem being played in the cinema hall before the movie begins and I am glad for the darkness that hides the surreptitious tear that slides down my cheek.

I cry (in a nice way) when I read a Mitch Albom. (It’s truly an emotional hazard to read Albom’s books in public).

I cry when I read soul-touching poetry written by my favourite poets.

Hachiko and Happy feet had me bawling (silently) while Taare Zameen Par had me bawling (continuously and loudly) for many days after.

And I am sure if I were to eat Bhut Jolokia, gallons of drinking water would not be able to stop the teary deluge.

And then one day, I cried while writing.

Having reached a dead-end in my nano novel, 3 years ago, I did what all wrimos do when the word count is at stake, I started rambling. Suddenly I found my Second lead male character at the doctor’s.

Rohit (my SLMC) was a 30-year old dynamic go-getter who had been stationed abroad to set up his company’s office. His young wife, wanting to pursue her career, had decided to stay back. They had been brave about this separation but in a few months they realised they hated living apart. One of them would compromise (a toss of the coin would decide that).

Rohit had come down for a visit to tie up loose ends. The young couple was on top of the world and had stars in their eyes and love in their hearts as they discussed things all lovers and newly-weds do, about their love, their lives and starting their family.

A nagging dull ache in his left arm and his young wife’s persistence had forced Rohit to visit the doctor. A routine check-up really, Rohit and I thought. “This portion has to go when editing” was the thought even as I continued writing.

There were many patients that day and it was almost two hours later that the receptionist ushered them into the doctor’s consulting room. Rohit had been feeling a bit queasy even as he waited for his turn and as he now sat down in the chair he started coughing. In the middle of the coughing bout, Rohit collapsed, hit his head on the edge of the table and then he was still. His wife screamed and the doctor, caught unawares, tried to resuscitate him and finally called for the ambulance to take him to the hospital.

“Stop, stop, this can’t be happening to them, such a sweet couple with such a bright future.”  Silently I screamed but my fingers refused to stop writing.

“Sorry, we have to declare him DOA- Dead on Arrival,” Nilima, his young wife fainted on hearing these words, such hateful words. As the writer I wanted to delete these words, this couple deserved to see their bright future, the way they had been envisioning for days and months.

The words on the screen were blurred, my cheeks were wet but my fingers refused to stop writing. (No wonder writers prefer to write in solitude). Yes, I did continue writing till I had placed Nilima in the loving hands of the Female Main Lead.

And it took an extra hour at the gym to shake off the dismal mood and get the endorphins flowing.

Have you ever had such an experience while writing? Did you ever get overcome by emotion (sad, happy, jubilant…) while writing a scene?

So I asked my colleague - “hey, what’s up?”, and you know, I have spent quality time after Nanowrimo 2011 on everything other than writing.

“Your quiz was the best thing since sliced bread”, (it felt so good to be appreciated!).

And then, there it was, there’s always a flip side to every praise!!, “however, I participated in only one of your quizzes and nothing has come of it so far!!”

Now I remembered my folly – I have not produced the answers to my last two quizzes…

So here they are:

Judge a book by its cover quiz:

Judge a book by its cover – the undercover quiz

Only two takers for the quiz? Come on guys, you should try some more!

SR – took the cake and the cherry away from your only competitor for this quiz. Missed just two answers. 8/10

sh13151223 – attempted five and got 4. So thats 80% of the work done, right? Too many numbers in my mind right now But thank you and well played!!

Culture Vulture quiz:

Culture Vulture – the popular topics quiz

Again only two people attempted it, I am stuck with pairs

Raksha Mehra – amazing attitude, awesome answers, he got five answers correct!!

BVR Murthy – got four correct and gave all of us an awesome link to check out

Thanks once again for all your esteemed support. Hope to see you soon in other nanowrimo activities coming up…

The recital of the Bhagavad Gita was going on in the television channels.Krishna is on the dias, addressing his elite crowd –America and the rest of the world (Where on earth is that?)

The Pandavas (read American citizens) were constantly irked and hassled by their evil cousins the Kauravas (read terrorist, in American terms, Asia and the Middle East).

Slowly but surely the Pandavas rose with the help of that great “avatar”/ reincarnation of the Saviour, Lord Krishna (George Bush).

The Kauravas tried to blast the towers of the Pandavas. The Pandavas slowly bid for time and planned their action plan.

The Pandavas started making allies – they went to various countries with weak administration and fear in their minds (read India for one example). Naturally,Krishna was always the smart cookie – he gave ruthlessly sadistic ideas to make sure the enemies were killed.

With so many terrorist attacks on them, finally the Pandavas decided to seek revenge. On the battlefield however, they were a bit worried that they were killing their own human race. However, that great lord of Lords,Krishnasoothed their minds.

He set forth the “WMD Gita” before them and showed them all his great powers. He would remove injustice and evil from the face of the world. He saw the foreboding omens as he was the see all.

It was the time for the biggest battles. Having vanquished terrorists like Jarasandha (Osama Bin Laden), it was time forKrishnato face the demon who had been tormenting them for a long time – Duryodhana (Saddam Hussein).

People like Manmohan Singh, Tony Blair were petrified. They come to the Great Lord to seek his blessings and advice.

Krishna (Bush) said, “The grief is for those who should not be grieved over. The wise sorrow not for the living, nor for the dead”

“Selfish action is inferior by far to the wisdom of Yoga, therefore seek the shelter of wisdom. How wretched are those whose motive is reward.” (Measure my wretchedness now? But how will u do it when I have still things to do. Wait till I am done)

“Anger and passion are the root of delusion, from delusion comes loss of memory, from there the loss of intelligence to discriminate, and thus he perishes.” (Now you know where all my memory went off to and how I became this way, I have both anger and passion to kill humans)

Krishna continues: “To protect the good, to destroy the evil, to firmly establish Dharma/ righteousness, I come into being from age to age.”

“My birth and activities are divine. He who truly knows and recognizes this is freed from the shackles of rebirth and comes in the End to me.” (No prizes for guessing what Blair and Manmohan Singh are doing)

“For it is my path that many follow.” (yeah right)

“Greater than any material sacrifices is the sacrifice born of Knowledge” (I sacrificed it totally to become a bungling idiot).

“Behold me! In the hundreds and thousands of my forearms and forms, in different manifestations of various colors and shapes.” (Cant you see the American army behind me? I am king of the world, yahoo)

“You would need special eyes to see me in my divine form.” (I will give you divine sight – a sight into the future totally destroyed by my actions. Mankind struggling for food and water and the world blissfully in peace with mass destruction)

“I seek to find and destroy WMD. In order to do that the only counter attack is WMD – wicked means of destruction.”

“Go seek thy enemies and rout them, for its your karma in this world. That is your right to fight for justice.”

THUS ENDS THE FIRST PART OF THE BUSH PARVATA OF THE BUSHAWAT GITA. FOR MORE, TUNE IN TO THE NEXT EPISODE, WHERE BUSH GIVES HIS GYAN AFTER THE VANQUISHING SADDAM, THE BADDIE.

And this is what I have discovered: ‘NaNoWriMo is a head fake’.

It is a well-known fact that the ‘funda’ behind NaNoWriMo is to complete writing a novel of at least 50K words in the 30 days of November. Lakhs of people all over the world attempt it and almost tens of thousands of people complete the challenge and are declared winners. Many Nano-novelists are born and many of them are published (one or two of them have even gained prominence in recent times).

NaNoWriMo, while encouraging us to write a novel in 30 days, also teaches us a lot of other things some of which I have enumerated below:

1)      A novelist or a writer must maintain a regular schedule of writing everyday (not only in November and not only 1667 words- even though that itself is a good start too). Many of us might attempt it even haphazardly; write a lot on one day and then slack off for a few. While this might work, well-known published writers have had a simple credo: Write everyday; because that is what a writer does!

2)      Everyone has a novel within them and the Nano novel is that one. Once that is done, the writer has to start exploring other sources of ideas and genres of fiction to write in.

3)      50K words are sufficient to be declared a Nano winner but in reality a novel could be anything from 60K to even 1,20,000K depending on the genre your novel belongs to. A writer has to write till his story is told and the number of words might not fall in the standard bracket. Word count matters to a newbie author as publishers would not be willing to experiment with new – author novels.

4)      Even if you have read truckloads of novels and continue to do so you will still need to learn the craft of novel writing to ensure your final product is of the highest quality. It would thus, not be a very good idea to send your Nano Novel, in its first draft avatar (pantsed or planned but not revised or edited) to the publisher.

5)      You might have completed any number of writing courses but unless you have actually attempted writing a novel (and even better, become a Nano winner) you will not really get the feel of what novel writing entails.

6)      Many writers of yore wrote by hand and they wrote delightfully too. But the first time I started writing a novel, I actually got bored of writing by hand, the hand moved much slower than the mind. Many months later when I read over the first few pages of the hand-written draft I almost puked at the heaviness and dullness of the prose. Nanowrimo helps us to avoid this lethargy in our script by giving us a deadline which can only be completed if typed on a device though it can be attempted by hand too, but is it fair to put your hand to use for one month only and then leave it to recuperate for the rest of the year?

What new and unexpected things have you learnt while attempting the NaNoWriMo?

I have completed the sketches of various cricketers over the last two decades (1990-2010), now I am starting the endeavour of editing it and finalizing the cover.

This will be the third book of my life after “Pass the Ketchup, dude” and the untitled version from last year.

Wish me luck!!

Mixed Bag Wrimo India

Another MAGNUM OPUS QUIZ to be hosted by yours truly is INDIA UNPLUGGED, South India’s FIRST AND ONLY continuous Quiz on India. It’s again happening in Chennai on Jan 26, 2012 at Tattvaloka Auditorium, Alwarpet, Chennai – 18. I am one of the Quizmasters for that event.

More details again on http://iquiz.wordpress.com

…. In the good olden days (which ARE still the good olden days), waiting for your favourite song to play on tv/ radio?

…. in that elusive level on the video game When you actually cross a level that you were struggling all along? Or when you yet again failed it….

…. the first thump of the morning is when the newspaper lands on the porch. Not on yours, not yet?

…. You composed a beautiful message and sent it to the wrong address… then begin to apologize for a silly mistake? Laugh over it after its all done?

…. When you first meet a person who was all the while your online friend and you’ve said it all, you don’t know how to say it and all that comes out from that rusty throat that mouths a “hi”, your lips dry out all of a sudden!!

…. Doesn’t it feel good being in India when you have politicians to blame every thing on? YES IT DOES!! I do that all the time and I am grateful for it

…. When you receive the book you wrote during Nanowrimo and you receive it and the cover’s all torn, you curse the postman for it and you open the remaining bit of it and there it is, your own name in shiny bright letters?

…. When you get to send out the first Nanomail to around 3000 guys at one go and on TV, Spiderman reminds me what Uncle Ben told him: “with great power comes great responsibility”.

…. When you’ve been away from your loved one for a while and when finally you get the chance to talk, the first awkward moment when you both mish-mash words at each other?

… when you atually propose to a girl and wait for her response and you’re holding your breath eager to know, suspense killing you. Oh hit me with it, already… (She said YES!!)

I am sure you have millions of such moments… Please take the time to share some of those with us. It can be silly, that’s what makes it even better to remember.

I thank you personally in advance and wish you all a great new year ahead!!