On how I ended up writing a collection of 9 INTERLINKED stories!
about how I came up with the ideas…ever wondered how or what makes a person think about writing something?
WARNING! MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!
Seed:
The title refers both to the fact that the seed of bad thought being sowed in Rajan’s mind and the fact that this “Seed” becomes a base for the coming stories in one way or another.
The story was initially written as my entry to a small competition at a writing workshop which altered my writing plans. Then, I didn’t even think of writing a book. The story in its original form was crude and with lots of readability issue. Though the original story received lukewarm feedback, there was something about this story which I couldn’t part with. The concept of the story kept haunting me and suddenly one day an idea struck me “What about writing a collection of stories…”.
The mutation of thoughts didn’t stop there, infact it had just begun. “Why would anyone read a collection of short stories? How do I make it interesting?” I asked myself a question.
“What if they are interlinked?” I asked again.
“Need more than that!” I demanded.
“Ok, follow some theme…” came the answer.
“How many stories can I write?” I challenged my will.
“Maybe 9 to 10” I wondered.
“9 seem to be an interesting number….Navarasas” rang a bell.
“What about Dashaavathar?” rang another.
“People would think am writing a religious book and moreover it’s the name of a Kamal Hasan’s movie…” I tried to justify.
“What makes you think “Navarasa” doesn’t sound retro or contemporary?” I ridiculed.
“Ok, “Navarasa by lotus” it shall be.” I fought back.
“Is that my pen name?” I asked at first.
“No! It’s the title!!”
“Not bad, so what next?”
“Plot 9 story lines for each of the rasas…”
“How can I?”
To be contd...Navarasa by Lotus
WARNING! MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!
Seed:
The title refers both to the fact that the seed of bad thought being sowed in Rajan’s mind and the fact that this “Seed” becomes a base for the coming stories in one way or another.
The story was initially written as my entry to a small competition at a writing workshop which altered my writing plans. Then, I didn’t even think of writing a book. The story in its original form was crude and with lots of readability issue. Though the original story received lukewarm feedback, there was something about this story which I couldn’t part with. The concept of the story kept haunting me and suddenly one day an idea struck me “What about writing a collection of stories…”.
The mutation of thoughts didn’t stop there, infact it had just begun. “Why would anyone read a collection of short stories? How do I make it interesting?” I asked myself a question.
“What if they are interlinked?” I asked again.
“Need more than that!” I demanded.
“Ok, follow some theme…” came the answer.
“How many stories can I write?” I challenged my will.
“Maybe 9 to 10” I wondered.
“9 seem to be an interesting number….Navarasas” rang a bell.
“What about Dashaavathar?” rang another.
“People would think am writing a religious book and moreover it’s the name of a Kamal Hasan’s movie…” I tried to justify.
“What makes you think “Navarasa” doesn’t sound retro or contemporary?” I ridiculed.
“Ok, “Navarasa by lotus” it shall be.” I fought back.
“Is that my pen name?” I asked at first.
“No! It’s the title!!”
“Not bad, so what next?”
“Plot 9 story lines for each of the rasas…”
“How can I?”
To be contd...Navarasa by Lotus
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Well, I would say that in the book its just a tribute to the 9 rasas as an emotion rather than the expressions referred in Bharatnatyam...Even am pretty eager to recieve your reviews, fingers crossed...
"RAT"I assume you have read the teaser of the story "Rat" or the story itself from the book. (Or never mind you can always come back to this post after you read the story or the teaser :))
"Rat" is the second story in the book "Navarasa by Lotus". The first one being "Seed"!
After “Seed” comes “Rat”? You may ask,
“Hmm...Rats feed on Seeds? This is turning into one farmer’s problem!” I thought so.
Heroism is one of the nine-rasas. When I thought hard about Heroes I felt comic book heroes were less boring. Writing a story about heroism wasn’t difficult for a self confessed Nolan's Batman fan like me. However, making it sound realistic and DESI was the challenge I had to face. We all know that a hero is only as good as the villain allows him to be.
In reality villains are not crazy geek scientists with gizmos and blowing up things in and around the metros. They are worse than that. While I thought hard about the antagonist came a phase of daily life where prices of food products shot up like mercury levels in hot summers. There! I found an inspiration even at difficult times. I made the antagonist a believable food grain hoarder. Ain't it sounding realistic?
So,we have our antagonist ready!
Now, (drum roll) here comes the hero!
Who in the world other than Bruce Wayne would throw himself out as a vigilante? In India to be precise. I always thought the Monkey-Man incident in areas surrounding Delhi was a wannabe masked vigilante’s plan gone wrong. Just imagine, a freak dressed up as a bat jumped around the buildings in Gotham city and he was called Bat-Man. Clearly somebody was inspired by the idea and tried something during the late 90s and it clearly went wrong.
Hold on! I too hate copying. I got inspired here (Ok, I agree with you. A very thin line separates Copy and Inspiration.)yet I wanted this story of a vigilante to be different. The vigilante in my story is not someone who is motivated to fight against the villains just because he had suffered personally or because he is a noble man.
“How about a person who becomes a vigilante accidentally?!!” I wondered.
“PERFECT!!!” I screamed.
“Now, the difficult part, what do you mean by accidentally?” I asked myself.
There are times where you become something which was never your instinct, but you become that only because somebody told you so...
Imagine, when somebody tells me “Rajiv, you are such a handsome man!” I would tell myself “I didn’t know that! Am I?”
If two more say the same thing to me then I tell to myself “Well...Ok. I am handsome,alright!” Many would disagree with me and many more would agree with me. I meant the analogy! Also, come on it makes a story unique, doesn't it? (this part of the story is not covered in the teaser, so it might sound off-topic for readers not familiar with rest of the story)
Finally,
Any inspirations, spoofs etc?
Hmm, inspiration? Maybe slightly influenced by Bruce Wayne, for he is not a super human but does a neat job in cleaning up the city, pretty believable (at least in Nolan’s version so far).
Oh! I remember one thing now, yes I was greatly inspired by the first chapter of the movie “Inglorius Basterds”. A lengthy scene where the character Hans Landa (Nazi Officer) gets into a tense yet calm talk with La Padite (housing Jews). So, I wanted to start of the story slowly with a conversation between the antagonist and the protagonist which ends with a bang! However, I agree with you that the opening (part mentioned in the teaser) of “Rat” is nowhere close to the first chapter of “Inglorius Basterds”. As I said earlier I was just inspired!
==============end of post # 2============
do let me know your comments as always!
Cheers,
rajiv
So, I guess each story is based on the nine Rasas enuciated by Bharat Muni.
pretty eager to get hold of the book.. :)