It has been a few months short of two years that I met this men who hails from my father's extended family. That meeting had been long due but like long dues usually jinx - the meet wasn't fruitful. I couldn't get him to talk about his life except for a few stares he threw into nothingness when I broached topics privy to him.
Nonetheless, I chose him as the material for my first attempt at long fiction. I have been able to empty a few drops of ink but things got stuck beyond those few drops. I have known it by my heart that unless I closely examine his life for a stretched period of time, I cannot bring the earnestness to the story. Neither have I been able to afford the time to travel to that village, stay there for a while and spend time around him (blame the corporate half of my life).
They say traveling is remedial. I have always been skeptical about the remedy traveling offers to ailments of human mind. My traveling found its ignition key a few months ago & the engine hasn't been turned off as yet.
There's this drive I took to Bangalore recently. The trip was all about gala and friendly yapping with old pals. However, the drive back home was remedial to the disease I had been suffering - called "Inadequacy of Material".
A series of thoughts cast some light on my own life, which has been under sheets of inadvertent obscurity for long now. My life has gathered enough incidents, which smudged & smothered with paintbrush called Fiction, can be retold. This occurrence of material from the most unexpected vertex got me thinking.
Conviction - that's all it boils down for me. My story. I have been in the front seat of the ride that chiseled, with twists and turns, through a spaghetti of incidents. That leaves me with the utmost conviction to tell my tale. I know why the characters behave the way they do and precisely the way they emote.
That man from my father's family has taken the backseat ever since but only for now. Surely one day the world will read about him. But for now, let me whistle that quote by Oscar Wilde - "Given the man a mask, he'll tell the truth."
Material Discovered.
