Parallel Stories and Singhadwar

Real stories don’t have a beginning or an end. That’s because in real life, we are part of many events that are occurring simultaneously. In some, we are playing the part of a hero, in other stories, we are villains. In still others, the same people are insignificant bystanders. These lacunae in the linear narrative might be the reason for the genesis of the so-called parallel narrative, where this multidimensional aspect of individuals is taken care of. If I have to answer the question what is parelel stories to a laymen I would like to give example of Bollywood film ‘Life in a Metro’ or ‘Dus Kahaniyan’ where individual stories has intermingled in the narration just like life. Though not cent percent same this is the easiest and closest answer to the question asked..  Parallel narrative is an established style in Western literature as well as in cinema, but rare in Assamese language.

A Story named Sathor appeared in Prantik, the popular Assamese fortnightly in the year 2001 and over the years that piece had crafted it into a series of independent parallel stories. They have appeared in almost all the eminent Assamese magazines (mainly Satsori) as independent stories till the year 2012. If we closely observe the narrative structure of the stories together, we come to know that they are actually parallel stories. I have worked over the past fifteen years to join the divergent strands into a plot for what seems to be unique of its kind in Assamese literature - A chronicle of parallel stories, knitted together into a novel.  The Book has been named as Singhadwar (সিংহদ্বাৰ) or Heavens Gate and published by Bhabani Books.

The book deals with the depths of human psychology and tries to answer existential questions that have troubled the human race since eternity. It deftly entices the discerning reader with a highly experimental narrative, such as a journey through fictionalized art history, extensive graphics and some parts in graphic narrative

Essence of Singhadwar

After my maiden venture in creative fiction in book form, Jatra - যাত্রা   in 2009

Here comes another project

Singhadwar(সিংদ্বাৰ):

A collection of parallel stories knitted into a novel

Though it’s just another book, one among hundreds and thousands out there,

So many of them far better than this,

Singhadwar has been labor of my love

It has been quite a journey, considering the fact that

It took me thirteen years to write the book (2000-12)

One year to design it (2012-13)

And another year for publisher’s approval (2013-14)

Then it’s been took two years and yet to be printed  December 15

The process of creating, crafting, feeling the character,

Bearing the curse of the characters for the harm my word had caused,

The dealing with the agony, anguish, reproach and pain,

Walking the thin red line between fact and fiction

Have all taken their toll on me….

In the end, the process cleansed part of my Soul

I cannot complain anymore, neither can I demand Nirvana as a sanctuary

But, I daresay I was able to reach somewhere near the elusive door…….

The journey continues

The Journey of me and the human race

Searching exactitude, or may be the meaning of life

But now I think I know the road the caravan took

To the door that leads to salvation

Hence, I call it Singhadwar: The Gates of Heaven

Publisher :Bhabani Books,Panbazar

ISBN: 9789381139547

Singhadwar Synopsis

It was raining cats and dogs
A photographer wanted to capture the raindrop before it kissed mother earth

A painter wanted to portray a face beyond the rain drop

A writer wanted to create a love story,

But words (and their meanings) baffled him

At some point, their lives intertwined

Fact and fiction,
Reality and hallucinations,
Creator and creation,
Mingled together.

The psychiatrist with the camera lapsed into a dark psychological whirlwind

The gyenacologist with the paint brush was haunted by a nightmare
Birina found that something was missing…..

Raghaban, Asengla,Miya Rustam and Piyush had similar experiences

Piyush searched for it in intoxication
What followed was pain…..

Life went on
Through the dark alleys of
Self pity, agony, suffering, incompleteness, reproach

Or through complex maze created in the history of contemporary art

Pain out of genesis
Where was the end to all these entities?
They continued the search for exactitude

and found SANCTA The six new truth of  human  evolution

The search for elusive 'Heaven’s gate'

The bookish business

Like it or not, we have to acknowledge we live in a consumerist world and book is also a commercial product. But we often fail foresee that because so many spiritual and moral values are associated with book. Hence when Time of India carried a full front page advertisement of the book ‘Half Girlfriend’ by Chetan Bhagat few months back murmurs were heard all over the reading community.

Many accused Flipkart and Chetan Bhagat of selling book like you sell cola or chocolate.  That’s outrageous?

They are right.

Mr. Bhagat defended “Come on, I am not fighting against any book or writer; I am fighting against apps, I am fighting against video game. If books are discussed, advertised in an innovative way and if that helps a book to develop readership against all odds what wrong with it?

 I believe Mr.Bhagat is also right.

Then a writer of moderate popularity appeared before the TV screen and commented with a mischievous smile “I don’t want to go into merits of Chetan’s writing but even after intense involvement and many awards I fail to grab attention like Chetan do, but in morning I was twitting a series satire on the TOI advertisement by evening I am in a elite panel disusing serious business J

So that’s the dilemma of promoting a book.

One have to aggressively promote a book or after two months of release will be nowhere in picture even if it deserve to. But if you overstretch, people accuse you of overdoing.

I also belong to the generation to whom books belong to the sacred element. But when we look at the worldwide trends we observe books have suffered heavily after the advent of so called modern fast live (with Smart phones ,apps, multiplex ,mall ,20x7 TV etc etc) ,but books are still in business and we have observed some unexpected phenomenal success in the publishing industry also, which might not have been possible had the  business of book opted to the old way of marketing .

Yes ethical aspect is a big issue and that have to be maintained.

Old timers are still amused at the money and fame these new writers are generating. Even conventional old time writer are seeing some light after lifelong misery they have lived in.

But that is happening only with English language publishing, as English publishing house are adjusting to the wind of change.

In most places of India vernacular book business is being operated in the same way as it has been doing in last fifty years. But like life and society the business of book is also changing to a great extent.

Last year I met one book seller who used to run the profitable business of running a book shop in a popular bus stop in the national highway that connects Delhi to Dehradun. He was running the business that his father had established way back in forties. Now he has call it a day and closed his shop. But the business of book was inherited to his son in some other way. The son works with flipkart and does something that has to do with book. We can call it degradation as the son stopped being his own master, but we can also call it need of the day in order to survive.

Book shops are closing everywhere, and that is an ominous sign. Thankfully this epidemic has not spread to my home state Assam yet but when I observe the business of book in Assam I have an apprehension that it is bubble that can burst anytime soon.

Movies that helped shaping my thought process 2 The Three Colors Blue

After ‘Gandhi’, I have to mention the film named  Blue from the famous The Three Colors series. or its creator Krzysztof Kieślowski. His art of storytelling has influenced my thought process to a great extent.

I had been writing a series of parallel stories since the year 2000; I had no idea at the time that these are called parallel stories.  Most of the stories dealt with the dark aspect of the human mind and had an undiluted structure. I didn’t compromise by altering even a single sentence of this chronicle just for the sake of so-called linearity of structure. The result was that for those who couldn’t devote enough time to a paragraph and reflect on the human feelings behind those words, this series remained indecipherable or worse, an exercise in futility. I experienced great creative satisfaction while writing them and was eager to see the reaction of my readers. This was where I faced a problem; you see, most of my friends are not into literature and hence, I couldn’t depend on them to give me a proper feedback. Moreover, I was residing away from my home state, Assam, so I could not understand first-hand how the readers were responding to my creative effort by any sort of interaction with them.

I concluded that the stories into which I had put so much time and effort, turned out to be some incoherent gibberish. I went into a kind of depression, repeatedly asking myself whether I should compromise on my writing style. Should I start writing in a simple linear style (which is not my way of storytelling)? Should I write about populist clichés that do not excite my creativity at all? (Assam has its own trends of bestselling plots). On a more megalomaniac note, I was beginning to think that there was no one in this world, who thinks like me, that there were no takers for original thinking, that I was a lone man amongst an indifferent swarm of people.

Then I happened to come across this much heard series – directed by Kieślowski . Three colours Blue was my first Kieslowski movie, which I watched in 2007. As the film progressed, I realised that the thought process of the protagonist or the scriptwriter behind the scenes reverberated with mine.  Many of the frames of ‘Blue’ inspired me. What I found most inspiring about this series is that the auteur didn’t compromise on anything while presenting his creative vision, yet he was able to connect with his audience, to convey his version to the world. This fact encouraged me and eventually I decided NOT TO CHANGE MY STYLE.

In this movie, there is a scene in which the female protagonist was having coffee in a restaurant and a street musician was playing some music. The tune was the same as the one her husband was composing, but he died before being able to complete it. How could an unfinished musical score have reached the street musician? Later, during an interview, Kieślowski had this to say about it, “Music never dies, it vibrates, swirls in the atmosphere, you just have to pick it up from nature.”

I watched Three colors Blue in 2007, but this message from the scene was the seed of a Play –ঐক্যতান Akoikyatan (The Beethoven of someone’s love), I had written, directed and staged in 1997.

At that time, the whole unit of the play had the same doubt that I had been having – “Does anyone think like us?” The discovery of Kieślowski through Blue was a positive propelling force for me, it reinforced my intention to continue writing in my own unadulterated style by being true to myself.